A New Year’s toast to Toronto

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Toronto ends 2022 in a sour mood.

The city is rebounding from its pandemic trials, but slowly. Downtown streets are still much quieter than they once were. A series of violent crimes has shaken the city’s sense of security. Transit riders complain about slow, interrupted service, park users about busted water fountains and shuttered washrooms. The cost of rent has soared and buying a place is still a distant dream for many, despite the recent slump in housing prices.

So it’s a good time to take note of some good things that are happening in Toronto. There are quite a few, when you think about it. Let’s consider just four.

We are finally building some transit

For decades Toronto failed to expand its network of mass public transportation. While cities from Madrid to Shanghai built subway line after subway line, Toronto’s route map barely changed. The six-stop extension of the Spadina line that opened to much fanfare in 2017 was the first in years.

Now, at long last, Toronto is making some progress. Though the construction delays and cost overruns are a scandal, the Eglinton Crosstown light-rail transit project will give Toronto 25 new mass-transit stations.

Work is beginning on an even bigger project, the Ontario Line, a 15-stop subway that will go from the Ontario Science Centre in the east to the Exhibition grounds in the west. It will pass right through the heart of downtown and take pressure off the overburdened Yonge and Bloor lines.

Work is already well-advanced on a third important new line, the Finch West LRT, reaching into the city’s underserved northwest.

We are opening our minds to urban density

Much of Toronto is effectively off-limits to housing development, reserved for single-family housing. That would change under a bold new plan tabled at city council this month. It would legalize rooming houses, allow multifamily homes in areas zoned for detached ones and make way for bigger buildings along main streets. Over the next 10 years city hall aims to have more than a quarter million new homes.

The city’s housing crisis is so deep that NIMBYs are on the defensive. A frenzy of building is under way. New housing is going up all over, from mall parking lots to old industrial spaces. Archaic zoning rules that suppressed development are crumbling. The result should be a denser, livelier and ultimately more affordable city.

The waterfront is taking shape

Since shipping and industry abandoned the docks and warehouses on the harbour decades ago, Torontonians have dreamed of a more walkable, approachable waterfront. It’s finally happening.

To the east of the harbour, earth movers are carving a new mouth for the Don River, the biggest step in a gargantuan effort to remake the city’s Port Lands. The eventual result will be a whole new neighbourhood of parks and housing. It’s the most exciting project in the city right now.

To the west, builders are refurbishing a set of hulking old concrete silos, part of a plan to expand a new waterfront park at Bathurst Quay. It is just one of the creative new public spaces taking form near the harbour, bringing thousands of people to the long-neglected water’s edge.

Immigration is booming

The federal government is opening up the gates to newcomers, increasing the country’s intake to half a million a year. Many of them will settle in the Toronto region, a tremendous boon to this city of immigrants. While building housing for all of them will be a challenge, that is a problem many cities only dream of having. Instead of stagnating, Toronto is growing by leaps. What was once a dull and provincial city is becoming a megalopolis with connections to every part of the globe and a steady stream of ambitious new residents to keep it humming.

For all its troubles, Toronto remains a dynamic, diverse, livable and relatively safe city, a magnet for people all over the world. As the New Year dawns, it’s worth remembering how lucky we are.