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Front Street Extension This project is in the news again as committees of City Council debate whether to continue funding the planning of the project this next year before some issues are sorted out that are related to Waterfront Development. In the community at large, opposition to the project has been building around its cost, currently estimated at $255 million; how it reverses thirty years of transportation policy by encouraging more automobile traffic in the city centre; the uncertainty whether the FSE will solve commuter traffic problems so long as the Humber Bridge remains a pinch-point; and the road’s impact on downtown neighbourhoods, particularly Parkdale. Although the directors of the Friends of Fort York may have views as individuals on these issues, our collective position as a Board must focus on the interests of Fort York consistent with our objects and powers as a charitable organization. Accordingly, we have strongly opposed aspects of different designs for the FSE that have been put forward in the past, and have expressed our objections vigorously. We fought a proposal to have the FSE pass over the mainline railway tracks between Bathurst St. and Strachan on a high, elevated structure like the Gardiner Expressway; the latter has been a blot on the face of the fort for fortyfive years. In this, Council agreed with us and directed the planners to place the new roadway in an structure that passed beneath the tracks. We have warned against taking any lands along the north edge of the Fort York National Historic site to allow the railway corridor to be relocated southward. We suspect the relocation would be made necessary by the traffic planners’ desire to provide for three lanes of traffic in each direction on the FSE, rather than two as first proposed. We oppose a six-lane road that becomes eight lanes at Bathurst St. as likely to create intolerable traffic congestion in our neighbourhood. Supporters of the Front Street Extension have said that if it isn’t built, the Gardiner Expressway can never come down. While the Friends of Fort York want very much to see the elevated Expressway removed between the CNE and Bathurst, the Board is cautious in expressing any support for a Front Street Extension that meets all of our objections before City Council decides irrevocably to take down the Gardiner and enters into ironclad commitments to do so.
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