The City of Toronto is preparing to build new accessible bi-directional bike lanes and pathways for the Esplanade and Mill St. areas in the downtown core. The plan is to build a wider network of connections across the city for walkers and cyclists. The hope is to keep roads for mostly public transit.

The plan is help alleviate the congestion of the roads from personal vehicles and provide safer walkways in these busy areas. 

The community includes popular pedestrian areas including the St.Lawrence Market and the Distillery District, which attracts almost one million visitors for the annual Christmas market alone. Further, the portion of Yonge St. leads to Union Station, another high density area for pedestrians.  

Construction has begun on the Esplanade for the proposed cycle lanes. At the moment cyclists continue to mix with traffic, but the city says it is at greater risk as more individuals have personal cars which exceeds the city’s threshold. 

With the spillover of traffic finding alternate routes, access to the TTC and other public transit becomes delayed. Another problem this project hopes to solve this year. 

Construction begun on May 15 on the Esplanade and was completed on May 31. Expansions for the connection will be on Mill St. and the David Crombie park pathway in the coming weeks. 

More details to come. 

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