WDL report: Cherry St. charette points to transit mall

By Julie Beddoes –

The third and final meeting of the community urban planning charette on the future of Cherry St. was held on March 17 at 70 Mill St.

Five plans had been drafted and presented to community members in February. Local groups, residents, and business owners had time to study the possible configurations for the street—from Eastern Ave. to the railway bridge—that had been proposed at the full-scale design charette on Feb. 17. Each plan explored different possibilities for the new transit line, which would most likely be a southward spur from the King streetcar. The new line is already the subject of an environmental assessment (EA).

Two of the five proposals were refinements of the familiar patterns of streetcars in dedicated right of way with traffic lanes on either side (as on Spadina Ave.) and in mixed traffic (as on King and Queen streets). The other two were more radical: one proposed streetcars along either curb lane, to eliminate the need for loading platforms to make them wheelchair accessible; the other suggested streetcar lanes side-by-side along the east side of the street. The final option presented streetcars in a transit mall with no other traffic except for bikes and pedestrians.

When the time came to make a choice, meeting attendees selected the transit mall as the most preferred option, with the side-by-side streetcars in second place. The least-favoured plan was the Spadina Ave. solution.

At a public forum the following week as part of the transit EA, some participants who had not attended the charette put it on record that they do not like the mall option and one voice was heard advocating for a hydrogen bus instead of a streetcar.

The charette results as well as the comments received at the EA meeting will be used by the EA team as they consider the design options for the street. The community will have a chance to discuss the recommendations at another public meeting during the summer before the EA report is completed and sent to council and the minister of the environment.

The work done by numerous city officials, the EA team and its consultants, councilor Pam McConnell, the Waterfront Revitalization Corporation, and Joe Lobko and his colleagues at duToit Architects Limited, is gratefully acknowledged by community members, who hope now to see a final design for this short three blocks of the street that responds to the aspirations expressed during the charette.