The Toronto Waterfront is set to undergo big changes along Queen Quay to open up the Waterfront to more shops and restaurants and bring nature back to the harbour front area.

 

This will definitely make the Toronto Waterfront Condos an even more desirable downtown location to live and enjoy.

 

From The Toronto Sun:

 

"We are dealing here with a traffic sewer."

 

That's just one of the bon mots delivered in the course of an hour-long walk along Toronto's Queens Quay with Dutch landscape architect Adriaan Geuze, the visionary of the planned new face of Toronto's shoreline.

 

That "sewer" is life on Queens Quay, generally between Spadina and York Sts., as trucks, cars and streetcars noisily whiz by the pedestrians, laundromats, nail salons and fast food restaurants on a sunny Wednesday morning.

 

"There's no reason for any property to be open to the street," he said, responding to a question about why Toronto doesn't have any cafes, fine restaurants or patios along what should be one of Toronto's great boulevards.

 

But Geuze, who is clearly an optimist, believes change is imminent. Toronto's central waterfront is already seeing a revitalization as those detested skyscraping condos bring a critical mass of people south of the Gardiner Expressway, filling up the few decent restaurants with customers, and making a local grocery store viable.

 

If Toronto's future is down at the waterfront, getting the central waterfront section right is step one of our rebirth.

 

Last week, the plan to remake Queens Quay, including changing the two lanes of traffic south of the TTC streetcar tracks to a pedestrian place with bikes, walkers and mature trees, unanimously passed executive committee at City Hall. Construction should start next fall. By 2013, Queens Quay will be a different world -- and Geuze believes it will be one of the 10 great streets in the world.

 

But action is happening right now. This Thursday, Geuze will join the mayor to open Toronto's second of five wave decks at the foot of Simcoe St. This rolling deck is something to see. In July the Rees St. wave deck debuts.

 

The design Geuze and his Netherlands-based West 8 firm brought to Toronto is all about bringing the cottage to the city. "In Toronto and Canada, when you talk about the waterfront you think trees, nature, decks," he said. "That's not what's here."

 

When Geuze's firm won the contest to design the look of the central waterfront in 2006, he entered a territory with 30 different types of benches and about a dozen different styles of lamps. To say it's a mishmash and a mess would be the positive spin. Sidewalks narrowed to less than a metre between the water and the street.

 

POINTS OF BEAUTY

Still, Geuze can look at certain points of the city's front door and proclaim: "This is more beautiful than Venice."

 

For Geuze, it's all about delivering a beautiful waterfront. Not even planes taking off over his shoulder phase him

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A key element is creating a continuous path along the water's edge, rather than forcing walkers to go back up to the street, as is now the case. It's an $87-million facelift. Bridging the gap alongside the Toronto Police marine unit, just east of Rees St., will be a bridge that's as close to iconic as Toronto will likely see on this stretch.

 

"We'll design a bridge so unique you'll want to kiss each other on top of it," Geuze said.

 

It's all bon mots with Geuze

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But what about the traffic? You take out two lanes on Queens Quay and it will be a disaster, right?

 

Well, not exactly

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At the moment, tour buses park illegally on the south lane of the boulevard, dominating one-quarter of the roadway. And the intersections are designed so badly, with horribly long waits -- all things that can be improved -- that Waterfront Toronto vice-president Christopher Glasik thinks traffic could actually improve under the new design.

 

All the intersections will be redesigned and the buses will not be allowed to stop. Instead, planners are looking at options such as holding pens for the buses, when tourists disembark to see the sights.

 

There are still some fights about issues like taxi stands, but after a test of the project last year, most people in the area support refreshing this stretch of waterfront.

 

WILL IT BE EMBRACED?

 

The bigger question is will people who live north of the Gardiner ever embrace Toronto's fresh shoreline? It's a major hump to overcome

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As we walk along Queens Quay, Geuze's eyes fall to a two-year-old boy dangerously walking inches away from the big wheel of a tour bus. Geuze goes over to try and establish some room between the tire and the child on the sidewalk, making himself the separation between the vehicles and pavement

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That's the current mess along the traffic sewer that is Queens Quay today.

 

But in a few years, that problem won't even be possible

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ROB.GRANATSTEIN@SUNMEDIA.CA