Dufferin is finally straight. After months of work to align
the jog in the road that occurred around Queen, the newly orthogonal street will have it's official unveiling tomorrow at 3pm at the north end of the underpass between Queen and Peel.
"It's been a project the city has wanted to do for decades, almost a century in fact," says Councillor
Gord Perks, in whose ward Dufferin once jogged. He lists one of the major benefits of the change a quicker running time of the Dufferin bus, which will, he says, allow fewer buses to transport more people in less time, which translates into financial savings.
He also foresees new development in response to the friendlier streetscape, which includes an amphitheatre on former scrubland and a bike path that leads from Dufferin to the future site of a railway bike path.
"Already the
2 Gladstone project is going in, and there will be opportunities for development along Dufferin north of the bridge that had been abandoned, empty warehouses," he says, adding that one such proposal, for a public health centre, has already been approved.
There will also be a major piece of
public art, a mosaic, by Toronto artist Luis Jacob inside the underpass, a $300,000 installation whose cost is equivalent to 1 per cent of the project's total $30-million expense.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gord Perks
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