The Lower Simcoe underpass (under the railyards) is pretty well complete:
- The $44-million tunnel has created a new link between the core and the waterfront for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers.
It offers two lanes of vehicle traffic in each direction, plus bike lanes going both north and south...
‘‘We’ve now created a pedestrian scale, normally routed access that’s obvious to the person walking or riding or driving. They now know how to get to the waterfront,” said Mr. Vaughan. “It’s a great north-south connection from the inner city to the waterfront, but it also takes a lot of pressure off all the other north-south streets, which make them better places for people to drive, decent places to walk, better places to cycle. The waterfront is often designed as an east-west project, but it’s all about north-south connections. Those are really an important addition to the downtown.”
To further ease the flow of people to the waterfront, on the other side of busy Lake Shore Blvd. and the elevated Gardiner Expressway, the city has put in ultra-wide crosswalks and pedestrian signals at Lower Simcoe Street under the highway.
