Subways

By 1912, the City of Toronto’s engineering department came up with a solution for this issue: a subway system. The original plan was to create an underpass allowing pedestrians and vehicular traffic to pass underneath the train tracks. However, the Northern Ratepayers’ Association balked at the plan’s estimated cost of around $800,000. The two parties — the City’s engineering department and the Northern Ratepayers’ Association — were at odds. A recession and the First World War put the issue on hold until November 1921, and in the meantime the population of the area continued to grow.

The call for expansion

By the early 1920s, a decade of people flocking to the neighbourhood and a thriving commercial district at Bloor and Dundas had increased the need for public safety at train crossings. The concept of an underpass was once again considered. This time, new questions arose: why did the streetcar route end at Lansdowne Avenue, and could something be done to change it? This was what the “Half-Mile Gap” referred to. The streetcars that ran along Bloor Street only went as far west as Lansdowne Avenue, with the route ending east of Bloor Street’s busy train crossings. The decision to end the route at Lansdowne was partially a safety precaution: the chance for collision between the east-west streetcars and north-south trains was considered too great and coordinating schedules too logistically complicated. Accordingly, before the 1920s, no public transit service operated between the final Bloor streetcar stop at Lansdowne Avenue and the closest Dundas Street streetcar stop, a distance of roughly 750 meters or a little less than half a mile.

Closing the gap

After many discussions and delays, the Board of Railway Commissioners declared that “Toronto’s death-traps must go” in May 1924. Bloor Street would receive two underpasses for pedestrian and car traffic: one at Lansdowne Avenue and one at Dundas Street West. Residents were pleased. So was the Toronto Transit Commission: the TTC could extend the Bloor streetcar line without worrying about negotiating the hazardous rail crossings, and the Half-Mile Gap would finally be closed. Construction on the subways began in July 1924 and was completed by August 1925. To celebrate, the neighbourhood threw a 300-float parade along Bloor Street West. The crowds were so dense that a planned address by the mayor had to be cancelled. The number of car crashes, injuries, and fatalities along Bloor Street West was greatly reduced, and the west end of Toronto was finally connected to the rest of the city via Bloor Street.

Sources

Ald. H. M. Davy, “Advises elimination of grade crossings over half-mile gap,” The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Sept 23, 1922, p. 18.

“To lay down rules for trains at gap,” The Globe and Mail, April 8, 1924, p. 13.