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Underpassable

Waterfront Toronto is betting $5.3 million in development fork-overs that it can take a swath of unloved West Don Lands under a DVP ramp and give it an overwhelming makeover.

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But can the public agency really turn the land under the hideous Eastern/Richmond/Adelaide ramp on our busiest commuter route into fun city?

On March 10, Waterfront Toronto released plans calling for a 2.5 acre mixed-used space called Underpass Park, set in a 6,000-unit development zone and filled with pedestrian walkways, gardens, food stalls, art, and sports courts. Sounds terrific, but there will likely be voices asking if this is a clever use of space or a respiratory danger zone. Maybe it’s both.

“I don’t think this is going to be the kind of park you spend a day in,” admits Waterfront Toronto VP of planning and development Chris Glaisek, “but it could be one where you have a coffee or take your kids to play for a while, and hopefully it will become a kind of neighbourhood respite.”

Okay, maybe it’s a matter of the city making the most of the hand it’s been dealt. The overhead roads are firmly in place, so the park must sit under a high-traffic thoroughfare carrying 700 to 900 rush-hour cars per lane.

“But it’s a huge amount of space, and when you’re trying to develop public land you want to leverage those pieces to get value back for the public,” says Glaisek. “We have vast spaces that are orphaned, and as areas intensify, those become more valuable than just dirt.”

Underpass Park, he points out, could well become a model for other municipalities trying to cope with stretches that pose a physical and aesthetic barrier to neighbourhood-building. “This will create an environment that people will feel comfortable [spending time] in or moving through,” he says.

Comfortable with a caveat, though, cautions Matthew Blackett, publisher of Spacing Magazine. He gives Waterfront Toronto kudos for out-of-the-box thinking, but warns, “We shouldn’t go apeshit over this park like it’s going to do wonders. Renderings make lots of things looks awesome, but the only successful kinds of spaces I’ve seen underneath highways have been entirely recreational – not social in any kind of way.”

He’s referring to sports courts and skate parks that, by their nature host noisy activities unaffected by the ambient buzz of overhead SUVs.

Glaisek is aware of the limitations and challenges, and points out that only part of the park will be under the ramps. About half will enjoy fresh air and light and thus vegetation, “so that will be a draw,” he says.

Noise aside, visions for the park see the overhead concrete and steel easily transformed by creative lighting and a nice coat of paint. Tougher is removing the sense of invisible dirtiness – the kind we breathe in from all Toronto’s road traffic.

“Typically around a busy highway, there’s quite a bit of air pollution,” says Pavlos Kanaroglou, professor of geography and earth sciences at McMaster and lead on a series of reports related to heath impacts from vehicular traffic in Toronto and elsewhere.

“Several studies we’ve done show that if you’re within 50 metres of a highway, you are affected,” he says, adding that this information relates to chronic exposure – say, if you live next to a highway. “If you’re there occasionally, it’s not a big problem.”

We could ask, of course, what “occasionally” means and raise questions about the effects on locals who’ll be throwing their frisbees around regularly there. But Kanaroglou does modify his scenario. While it seems counterintuitive, the fact that the cars are overhead can actually help scatter the pollutants, making park users safer.

“[Air pollution] doesn’t go under. Typically, air pollutants and particles travel according to wind direction and the area’s meteorology,” he says.

Glaisek seeks to reassure us, too. Ramp traffic here, he says, is no different from that on Spadina or University. “We know we live in a city and there are airborne pollutants from cars there’s nothing about this site that’s exceptional.”

As for the land itself, which happens to be spongy peat, marshy lowland, there’s a good chance a lot of cleaning will be needed. Waterfront Toronto officials don’t even know what kinds of manufacturing or industrial processes went on there in the past.

“There’s all kinds of hydrostatic pressure that moves things below grade,” admits Glaisek. Translation: a lot of nastiness could lie in the dirt. Borehole testing will determine the damage once work on the park begins this summer. “Most likely we’ll end up cutting it out and replacing with clean soil,” he says.

If this sounds like a massive pile of work for a modest park, it is. But even if we end up with a noisy, dusty, dystopian stopover between West Don Lands ‘hoods, it’s better than, literally, nothing.

In fact, the opportunity to learn might be the best part of the $5 mil reimagining, because no matter how successful Underpass Park is, Toronto is guaranteed to get a 2.5 acre living lesson on the pitfalls of past planning that placed cars above people.

pault@nowtoronto.com

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