Leaside Spur Trail

Leaside Spur Trail

Bond Avenue entrance to the trail
Length 3 km (2 mi)
Location east of Leslie Street from Bond Park to just north of Eglinton Avenue East
Trailheads To York Mills Road[1] and 1 km south of Overland Drive
Use cycling and walking
Hiking details
Season Year-round
Website Don Mills Trail

The Leaside Spur Trail (currently known as the Don Mills Trail) is a 3 km cycling and walking trail in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The trail runs south from York Mills Road, east of and roughly parallel to Leslie Street. The City built the trail on the roadbed of a former railway line.

Description

The trail starts at the intersection of York Mills Road and Scarsdale Road and ends in a dead-end about 1.1 kilometres (0.68 mi) south of Overland Drive.[2] Most of the trail runs between residential areas and southern portion through industrial and commercial properties, following the roadbed of a former railway line.[3][4]At the north end, just south of the bridge at York Mills Road, the trail runs parallel to the still active tracks of the CN Bala Division. At the south end, the trail stops a short distance from the tracks of the Canadian Pacific Railway Belleville Subdivison, which are fenced off from the trail.[2][3]

There are 4 ornamental circles in the pavement where the trail intersects a street or cross-trails. They are at Talwood Park, Lawrence Avenue East (north and south side) and Overland Drive. Each circle contains two embedded parallel rails as a reminder of the trail's railway legacy, and also feature park benches and ornamental bike parking stands. The circles at Talwood Park and Overland Drive each have a pair of cyclist barriers to force cross bicycle traffic to ride around the circle.[5] The circles at the Lawrence Avenue crossing have decorative walls around parts of each circle's circumference. There are traffic signals where the trail crosses Lawrence Avenue.[6]

History

Rail

Warehouse siding once served by the Oriole Spur (2017 photo)

The trail uses the 100 ft (30 m) wide roadbed of the Leaside Cutoff (also known as the Oriole Spur), a former railway line that connected Oriole on the Canadian National Railway's Bala Subdivision with Donlands on the Canadian Pacific Railway Belleville Subdivison. (Oriole is at York Mills Road, and Donlands is about 450 metres north of Eglinton Avenue East.) The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) built the line originally to access the CPR North Toronto Station. The Leaside Cutoff opened on February 1, 1918; it was 2.18 mi (3.51 km) long. The CNR purchased the spur in 1918 after the CNoR became financially insolvent.[7]

The CNR used the Oriole spur to interchange freight with the CPR[7] and to serve local industries at Leaside using a small yard there. The spur also provided access from the north to the CNoR's shop complex,[8] until it closed in 1930.[9] There used to be a few sidings serving industries along the spur itself including one with much of its track still in place as of 2017.[3] See photo.

The CNR abandoned the spur in 1999.[7]

In April 2009, the Province of Ontario purchased the Don Branch (running between downtown Toronto and Leaside). Go Transit was considering rerouting its Richmond Hill trains over the Don Branch and the Oriole Spur in order to avoid the Bala division south of Oriole which is vulnerable to Don River flooding. The idea was dropped because a costly tunnel would be required to cross the CPR mainline, and because residents near the Oriole Spur would object to the increased rail traffic.[10]

There was one bridge on the Oriole Spur over Bond Avenue; it took 6 years to construct between 1912 and 1918. The abutments are concrete slabs 9.5 ft (2.9 m) high. Six 2 ft (0.61 m) high beams span the 15 ft (4.6 m) wide opening, spaced to handle the weight of locomotives and heavily loaded railcars. Sitting on the steel beams were 21 8x8inch railway ties, spaced 4 in (100 mm) apart for drainage.[7]

Trail

The City of Toronto purchased the right-of-way of the Oriole Spur in late 2001.[7]

By 2010, the City of Toronto was holding public sessions for the design of the trail.[5]

Because of its deteriorating condition, the bridge over Bond Avenue was threatened with demolition in 2011. Local residents pushed to give it a heritage designation in order to preserve it.[7][11]

By October 2011, the paving of the trail and the installation of park features and the installation of traffic lights where the trail crosses Lawrence Avenue East were nearing completion[12] except for the the trail north of Bond Avenue. Thus, Scarsdale Road, running roughly parallel to the incomplete portion of the trail, was designated as Toronto Bike Trail 41A, for cyclists.[5]

The northern part of trail between Bond Avenue and York Mills Road was paved between July and October 2016.[13]

As of 2017, the southern end of the trail ends at a dead-end about 60 metres north of the CPR line. Providing an exit at the southern end to Leslie Street depends on an commercial/industrial landowner agreeing to provide access over private land. As of October 2016, there was no deal to grant such access, after a landowner backed out of a tentative agreement.[14][13]

Other Toronto railpaths

References

  1. ↑ "Way: 435267559".
  2. 1 2 "Don Mills Trail at Northern end of the trail". Google Maps. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 "Ghosts of Raillines Past - Leaside Spur". The Railfanning Runner. July 24, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Leaside Spur I: Orphan Trail Needs Linkages". Don Watcher. September 15, 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 "Leaside CN Rail Spur - Public Information Session No. 2" (PDF). City of Toronto. August 31, 2010. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Don Mills Trail at Lawrence Ave E". Google Street View. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Bond Park Bridge nomination form" (PDF). City of Toronto. 2012. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  8. ↑ Parker, Beth (March 1, 2013). "Longo’s site is older than Town of Leaside". Leaside Life News. Retrieved August 9, 2017. By 1919 ... the CNoR was absorbed into the new Canadian National Railway. When the Leaside yards and repair shops were completed in 1920 they were almost redundant (especially after the Spadina yards were opened seven years later). They were closed in the 1930s...
  9. ↑ R.L.Kennedy for Old Time Trains. "Canadian Pacific Railway - Toronto Division - Agincourt, Scarborough, Leaside, Don". TrainWeb. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
  10. ↑ Mosleh, Omar (November 14, 2011). "Is Bond Park bridge falling down?". The Town Crier. Archived from the original on December 2, 2013.
  11. ↑ "Don Mills Trail at Lawrence Ave E - Oct 2011". Google Street View. October 2011.
  12. 1 2 "Councillor Robinson's Fall 2016 Update". Jaye Robinson, Ward 25 Councillor. October 13, 2016. Don Mills Trail --- Asphalt was laid on the northern extension of the Don Mills Trail in early July. Crews were unable to complete some of the "hard" elements of the trail - including signage, riverstone, and a concrete pad - as doing so in the summer heat would have damaged the new asphalt. This work is now scheduled to be completed next month with "soft" elements, such as plantings, to be completed soon after. --- Securing a connection on the southern extension has proven to be difficult. I've been working non-stop on finding a solution to this problem since the beginning of my first term as Councillor and, as you may know, had come to a deal with one of the industrial landowners that would have established access to Leslie. Unfortunately, at the 11th hour, that deal fell through.
  13. ↑ Kuitenbrouwer, Peter (May 9, 2011). "Connected Don River bike path still a challenge". National Post. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Don Mills Trail.

Coordinates: 43°44′06″N 79°21′16″W / 43.73500°N 79.35444°W / 43.73500; -79.35444

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.