One of the exciting things about the Green Line is how it can connect multiple communities from Davenport Village in the west to the Annex in the east. The Green Line runs through three City wards, nearby three others, and passes within or near approximately 11 resident association areas.
But if you zoom out from the Green Line you begin to see a number of other connections that thread out to other areas of the city.
In the west, there is the West Toronto Railpath, an off-road cycling and walking trail that ends just north of Dupont Street and travels down to College Street. While the Green Line doesn’t immediately connect with the rail path now, its a future possibility with the bike lanes on Davenport acting as the go-between. Currently, the City is working on plans for the second phase of the railpath, which will extend it down to King West. Once there, it will connect in with the planned Fort York Pedestrian Bridgeover the rail corridor, allowing people to travel down to the waterfront and access the great parks around Fort York.
There are also potential opportunities for public space improvements and connections to the Green Line with the recently announced Metrolinx project in theDavenport Diamond Overpass. This will elevate the GO tracks between Bloor and Dupont Street just west of Lansdowne, opening up space underneath for improvements. Right now a citizen’s committee is working with Metrolinx on what those could be.
Another connection is found in green space. The Green line starts at the bottom of Earlscourt Park at Davenport and Lansdowne, with the park acting as a green connection up to St. Clair Avenue West. From there, the Prospect Cemetery stretches all the way up to Eglinton, offering a large green northern connection to the Green Line.
In the east, the Green Line connects to the Shaw Street Bikeway, which travels south to King West, passing by a number of great parks along the way like Christie Pits, Fred Hamilton, Trinity Bellwoods and Stanley Park. It also acts as one connection to the Davenport Road bike lanes which roughly follow the route of the Green Line in the north.
When you put all these together, the Green Line acts as a needed off-street east-west connection to several already established or planned north-south routes that connect to both the downtown core, waterfront, and neighbourhoods to the north. Can you think of any others?