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Bridging the Western Gap

So there I was reading one of Toronto’s newspapers when I came across another of those articles concerning the building of a bridge from the foot of Bathurst Street over the Western Gap to Toronto Island. This one had some interesting comments that I thought the reader would find of interest.

While on a recent tour around the harbour, the chairman of the Toronto Harbour Commission stated that the work of constructing a bridge connecting the city and the Island at the foot of Bathurst Street should be started at once.

“How would you finance it?” he was asked.

“I believe that the Dominion and Provincial governments, the city and the Harbour Commission should contribute to its construction,” he replied.

“And what about the objections raised by the Island residents that it would mean cars over there?”

“I have only this to say, that the Island is for all the citizens, and not for a few.”

With the Island bridge very much in the news these days, one might conclude that this article appeared in a recent edition of the newspaper. However, eagle-eyed readers will no doubt have noticed references to the “Toronto Harbour Commission” and the use of the expression “Dominion government” in the article. The former vanished in 1999 with the creation of the new Toronto Port Authority, and the infrequent use of the word Dominion these days provides clues that the news item as quoted is an old one. But how old you may ask?

It actually appeared in the Telegram on April 1, 1924! And mercy me, they’re still haggling over the project.

Actually the idea of connecting the Island to the mainland is much older than that. In fact, we find that building such a bridge was one of the conditions attached to allowing streetcars to operate on Sundays in Toronto.

In this day of wide-open Sundays it’s difficult to believe that at one time in Toronto’s past the operation of public transit vehicles of any kind on Sunday was illegal, and those who tried to do so could and would be fined and/or put in jail. And with the adoption of the Lord’s Day Act in the early 1900s other things that we now take for granted (buying bread, participating in sports, going to the movies) were also defined as being against the law.

This streetcar is typical of the kind that would have been used on the proposed Toronto Island route over the Western Gap. The sides were removed during the warmer months, resulting in these vehicles being known as “convertible cars.” This particular vehicle, seen here at the Dovercourt and Van Horne (now Dupont) intersection in 1904, was built 10 years earlier and scrapped in 1925.

In the case of Sunday streetcars, arguments were made both pro and con for their operation with a series of referendum votes being called to settle the question. The votes in 1892 and again in 1893 saw the use of the cars on the Sabbath defeated, while that of 1897 resulted in the operation of Sunday streetcars approved by a margin of slightly more than 200 out of a total of 32,324 cast. It was close, but Torontonians were now able to go to church on a streetcar.

Part of the scheme put forward by the privately owned streetcar company to influence the approval of the lucrative Sunday streetcar operations was its agreement to establish a new streetcar route to the Island. This line, which would be part of the city system accessible from any other city route using a transfer, would permit the less-affluent Toronto population a day on the Island without the necessity of paying the extra 10-cent fare to cross the bay on a privately owned ferry boat.

The street railway company, while appearing to be on the side of the general public, knew that there was little likelihood of ever having to build this line since the cost of erecting a bridge over the Western Gap on which the tracks would be laid as well as the access road from Bathurst and King streets were the sole responsibilities of the city. It was a well-known fact that the cash-strapped young city didn’t have an extra $104,720 lying around for something as frivolous as a bridge to the Island.

By the way, today’s estimated cost of building an Island bridge, now referred to as a “fixed link,” has increased somewhat and is now estimated at many millions of dollars.

January 12, 2003