By Hedy Korbee
Kingston Road and Warden Avenue
The long-awaited reconstruction of Kingston Road is scheduled to begin next week and will turn the neighbourhood into a construction zone for the next 18 months.
The City of Toronto is tearing up Kingston Road between Birchmount and Victoria Park in order to replace the watermain, build new sanitary and storm sewers, rebuild the road, replace the sidewalks and add streetscaping features.
It’s a major step forward in the City of Toronto’s plan to revitalize Kingston Road, according to Ward 36 Councillor Gary Crawford.
“This is a long-term project that, when complete, will make Kingston Road more accessible to everyone and offer improvements to water delivery from Victoria Park Ave to Birchmount Rd.,” said Crawford. “This project also brings much-needed streetscaping at ground level and will add to beautification and revitalization efforts along Kingston Rd.”
Construction starts Tuesday
City workers doing a site check on Kington Road this week said construction on the new watermain is scheduled to begin next Tuesday at two points – Birchmount and Kingston Road as well as Kingston and Audrey Avenue, just west of Warden.
The crews will work towards each other until they meet in the middle.
The official construction notice from the City indicates that all of the underground work should be completed by November 2013.
The aboveground work between Birchmount and Warden is also supposed to be completed by November 2013.
The aboveground work between Warden and Victoria Park will not be finished until November 2014.
A typical view of the sorry condition of Kingston Road in Birch Cliff
Short term pain for long term gain
The construction will be an inconvenience and the City is asking for residents’ cooperation and patience.
Traffic on Kingston Road will be restricted to one lane in each direction, which will have a major impact on commuters, especially at rush hour. Bus service will not be interrupted, but there will be delays.
The construction notice indicates there will be no parking allowed on Kingston Road during the project. Furthermore, some private driveways will be temporarily blocked.
Nearby residents will have to put up with noise from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm, Monday to Friday, with some work after hours and on weekends as well.
Toronto Water says new main installations require periodic water shut-offs but says it will try to minimize the impact as much as possible through advance notice.
Boarded up houses on Kingston Rd
Streetscaping improvements
The construction project includes several streetscaping improvements designed to help revitalize the neighbourhood, many of them requested by Birch Cliff residents through a community consultation process.
“It’s not a huge amount in terms of what you’ll see, but compared to what’s there, it’s going to be a vast improvement,” said Lara Tarlo, an Urban Designer with Toronto City Planning.
Landscape features are going to be constructed at the major intersections of Birchmount, Warden and Victoria Park, according to Tarlo, including a small seatwall with gateway signage that reads “Birchcliff Village”.
Those areas will have additional plantings as well as decorative pavers along the street edge.
Tarlo said the City plans to remove dead trees, add some new trees, and preserve as many existing trees as possible as well as enhancing their growing environment.
Eastwood Avenue at Kingston Road, looking south
Asbestos at Eastwood and Haig
Tests conducted by the City on the pavement in Birch Cliff have indicated that there is asbestos in the asphalt on Haig Avenue, just south of Kingston Road and on Eastwood Avenue, just north of Kingston Road.
Asbestos was commonly used in asphalt mixes in the 1970s and early 1980s because it makes pavement more durable and less likely to crack.
The City will be replacing the asbestos-laced asphalt but the construction notice says there is no reason for people to fear for their safety.
“Recent testing and air quality monitoring have confirmed that asbestos used in asphalt mix is bonded very tight, does not become separated during the asphalt removal operation, or become airborne to pose any harm to the health of those who are exposed.”
As a precaution, the City’s construction notice states that the road surface will be wetted down during the cutting, grinding and removal of the asbestos-laced asphalt.
To prevent the dust from becoming airborne the notice says workers will be attaching dust collecting devices with HEPA filters to their equipment.
Retail converted to residential on Kingston Rd.
Eight years in the making
The decline of Kingston Road has been a serious concern for residents of Birch Cliff for a very long time.
Not only is the road itself a mess, but there are buildings in need of repair, commercial vacancies and stores that have been converted to apartments.
Efforts to revitalize the street began in 2005 when Toronto City Council launched a revitalization study.
After extensive community consultation, the City adopted the Kingston Road Revitalization Study in 2010, which included the following vision for the Kingston Road corridor:
“… a vibrant, animated, and pedestrian oriented main street, with new mid-rise, mixed use buildings, and parks, squares and open spaces that reflect the arts, cultural and heritage attributes of the Birch Cliff community.
It’s taken a few years to coordinate the various departments involved and get the money together, but the implementation of the study is upon us.
Councillor Crawford said he hopes the makeover will help turn around the “seedier aspects” of the street and attract investors interested in building quality projects similar to the residential development at Fallingbrook and the new condos being built at Queensbury.
“There has been a lot of interest in development along that stretch and adding the revitalization component will really change that section of Kingston Road over the next couple of years,” said Crawford.
Zoning changes
Part of the problem with Kingston Road in the past was the zoning.
Most of the stretch from Victoria Park to Glen Everest was zoned Highway Commercial and Neighbourhood Commercial which encouraged automotive shops and prohibited residential uses.
In January, 2010, it was zoned Commercial Residential (CR) – which allows for a mix of residential and retail uses and reflects the vision of Kingston Road as a vibrant main street.
Under the new zoning, if one of the automotive shops closes, a new one can not take its place.
Stay tuned
Brace yourselves Birch Cliff – it’s going to be a long haul. But in the end it should be worth it.
Birch Cliff News will try to keep everyone up to date on what’s happening with the reconstruction of Kingston Road.
Please help us out by letting us know how it’s going from your perspective. Feel free to scroll down and leave a comment.
Woohoo !! Couldn’t come soon enough ! Such a great community and such a horrible main street. Any improvement is welcome.
Well said Cindy. A neighbourhood as lovely as Birch Cliff deserves more, and it looks like things are coming together.
Hedy,
It is going to be a long haul. Lets hope that there are no snags that will cause any delays.
I agree about the long haul Adrian. It’s going to be tough and, frankly, I’m almost counting on delays. The great thing about it though is that so many people in the neighbourhood participated in this process and the City seems to be doing what we asked. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
There will certainly be some very surprised east end commuters on the day Kingston Rd. is suddenly one lane each way. And, some spill-over into local, alternate routes. Hopefully TPS will be on hand in the days ahead. Long-term, the re-build will be great for the neighbourhood and is long over-due.
Ha! I’m not sure who will be more traumatized. The good folks of Birch Cliff or everyone from Pickering, Ajax and Whitby who use our neighbourhood as a short cut to downtown? Maybe 18 months will break them of the habit?
This is very exciting! However, they can make the street as pretty as they want but without new businesses moving in, condos being built etc. I am afraid that not a whole lot will change. Fingers crossed.
Does anyone know what is going on with the closed mechanic shop pictured in the article (last picture). I thought it used to be for sale but its been empty for ages. I’m also wondering about the building where the convenient store used to be at Kingston and Eastwood. It was for sale and I don’t think it sold. But they’ve been doing something inside it lately.
Hi Lisa – you’ve raised some interesting questions here. I’ve been trying to find out what’s happening with that mechanic shop. In the winter, I spoke with some guys on the site who were working on “remediation” – ie an expensive process to get rid of the underground gas tanks and get environmental approvals to turn it into something else. Thanks to the zoning changes, we know it can’t be another automotive business, and that’s a good thing. As for the corner lot, I live on Eastwood and am very interested in what’s happening there too. Thanks for pointing out that something is going on inside because I didn’t know that. I am a big believer in the idea that the more we share…the stronger we are as a community. So I’ll throw it back it to anyone out there who’s following along. Does anyone else know the answer?
Hi Hedy
Just wanted to correct one para “8 years in the making” “Efforts to revitalize the street began in 2005”. Not in my recollection! A small group of us hounded the City to do a revitalization study and project like the one that had just been completed for Cliffside. Starting about 4 yrs ago we met regularly for around a year and half with our Councillor at the time, Brian Ashton, and people from the Planning Dept. to help us draft out ideas for re-zoning, beautification, road and utility repairs and revitalising each block through Birch Cliff, which we figured would take about 20 to 25 years to absolute completion but could be well under way in four years. You are now seeing that first major step in the process.
I cannot believe it is going to take 20 months to do this project. As of today it appears all the work east of Warden to Birchmount is finished with a nice new road surface. What worries me now is the stretch from Warden to Victoria Park. The road surface between these intersections has been AWFUL for over a decade now. I was expecting the surface to be redone next but noticed last week they have redone the marking in the centre of the road and lanes. Does this mean they have finished? I always wondered whether the finishing date was actually Nov 2013 rather than 2014 becasue I just could not believe even Toronto could find work crews could be this slow.
feeling nostalgic