Читать книгу Toronto Sketches 12 - Mike Filey - Страница 6

May 20, 2012

For the longest time, the project that saw the upgrading of the TTC’s St. Clair streetcar route (which began service in its original form exactly ninety-nine years ago this coming August 15) was the brunt of all sorts of controversy. And while the provincial government’s environmental approval of the line was given in June 2005, the streetcars didn’t begin operating over the new dedicated right-of-way until the summer of 2010. Though some are still convinced that the project has not been a success, many others are beginning to appreciate what has been accomplished.

But there is still a shortcoming along the seven-kilometre-long route, and that’s the railway bridge between Old Weston Road and Keele Street, which continues to result in vehicular traffic congestion. Trains have crossed St. Clair Avenue at this location for more than one hundred years. Because street traffic in the form of horses and wagons was much less back then, a level crossing was sufficient. However, with the arrival of the motor car, combined with the westward expansion of the city, a bridge was the only answer to what was becoming a dangerous situation. Work on the present structure began in April 1931, and on May 14 of the following year the new “subway” (as such structures were known back then), built at a cost of $430,000, was officially opened, allowing the St. Clair streetcars to be extended to Keele Street.

An initial estimate to replace the structurally sound eighty-year-old bridge presents a figure close to $30 million! Now what?

On May 14, 1932, representatives of the TTC and the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways, along with various elected city officials (including Mayor William Stewart, who served from 1931 to 1934 and whose nephew Bill Stewart just retired as Toronto’s Fire Chief), join with members of the nearby community to celebrate the official opening of the new “subway” on St. Clair Avenue West. (Photo from the City of Toronto Archives.)