Malvern, Toronto

Malvern
Neighbourhood
Looking across Markham Road
Malvern Location of Malvern within Toronto
Coordinates: 43°48′42″N 79°13′52″W / 43.81167°N 79.23111°W / 43.81167; -79.23111Coordinates: 43°48′42″N 79°13′52″W / 43.81167°N 79.23111°W / 43.81167; -79.23111[1]
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
City	Toronto
Community	Scarborough
Established	1856 (Postal village)
Changed Municipality	1998 Toronto from Scarborough
Government
• MP	Gary Anandasangaree (L) Shaun Chen (L)
• MPP	Raymond Cho (C)
• Councillor	Neethan Shan

Malvern Town Centre

Malvern is a neighbourhood in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with a population of 44,315.^[2] It is located in the northeast corner of the city.

There are over 60 different cultures represented in Malvern, with the most dominant ethnic groups being Caribbean Canadians (mostly Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Guyanese) and South Asian Canadians (mostly Sri Lankan Tamil, Indian and Pakistani). The neighbourhood has the highest concentration of young people in Canada.^[3]

The Malvern community has attempted to improve following Project Impact, in which hundreds of police officers from the Greater Toronto Area cracked down on known associates of the "Malvern Crew" street gang, in early morning raids across the city on May 12, 2004. During the raids, 71 warrants were executed resulting in the arrest of 65 people.^[4] Further raids, and the implementation of Project Pathfinder would result in arrests of the Malvern Crew's rival gang, the "Galloway Boys", in West Hill.

Other important factors have contributed to the improvement of living conditions in the community, including a major renovation of the Malvern Branch of the Toronto Public Library, the construction of new housing developments, the opening of a new park in 2004, and the opening of the Nike Malvern Sports Complex in 2006. The Toronto Zoo, the Rouge River, and the Rouge Valley Park are also located in the vicinity of Malvern, as was Mammoth Hall, a wooden structure that was once a municipal office, meeting hall and curling rink. Also, the Malvern Community Coalition serves as an active incorporated, non-profit, grassroots community organization which exists to promote and enhance the Malvern Community by engaging, empowering, and connecting community, organizations and institutions.^[5]

History

A map of Malvern in 1870

The history of Malvern began in 1856, when the Malvern Post Office was opened in David Brown's general store, which stood at the south-east corner of Finch Avenue and Markham Road. This post office was named after a resort town in England. A year after the post office was opened, Senator David Reesor — formerly of Markham Village — began selling "Village Lots" in Malvern. Reesor trumpeted Malvern as the future "Capital of Scarborough," anticipating that the Grand Trunk Railway would extend a branch line through here. Unfortunately, when the Grand Trunk Railway began service to this area in 1871, it bypassed Malvern in favour of the neighbouring village of Agincourt. The village centre and post office had by that time moved south to the corner of today's Sheppard Avenue and Markham Road.^[6] The Malvern Primitive Methodist Church on the east side of Markham Road north of Sheppard disappeared in the 1970s, but the graves remain today in the care of the Toronto United Church Council.

While Malvern never did become a prosperous railway centre, it flourished as a farming community for over one hundred years. In the late 1950s, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation expropriated Malvern's farms to build a "model community" of affordable homes. The first residents of this modern day Malvern community moved into their homes in 1972.

Schools

The former S.S. #3 Schoolhouse, serving the Malvern area, built in 1872 stood on 1-acre (4,000 m²) of land purchased from George Pearson,^[6] is still standing today at 5810 Finch Avenue East, and is now a private school named Whitefield Christian Academy. Modern community hubs include: the Malvern Town Centre shopping mall, built in the late 1980s, the local public secular high school - Lester B. Pearson Collegiate Institute, the local public separate high school - St. Mother Teresa Catholic Academy, and the Malvern Recreation Centre. Confusingly, the Toronto secular high school known as Malvern Collegiate Institute has no connection to the Malvern neighbourhood, being located many miles to the southwest in the Beaches neighbourhood.

Public transit

Malvern is served by several Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) bus routes (131 Nugget, 132 Milner, 133 Neilson, 134 Progress, 39 Finch East, 199C Finch Rocket, 116 Morningside, 85 Sheppard East, and 102 Markham). In the 1980s, there was a plan to bring rapid transit to Malvern by extending the TTC's Scarborough Rapid Transit line, but lack of government funding prevented any extension of the line. In August 2006, city councillors representing Scarborough rallied for the expansion of the Scarborough RT, or its possible light rail replacement, to the Malvern community.

Scarborough RT extension to Malvern

The TTC is currently carrying assessing extending the RT from McCowan to Malvern Town Centre.^[7] They have also made a motion that the current study should include the addition of a station where the existing line crosses Brimley Road.^[8]

In 2006, a study was completed on the prospects of this line.^[9] It recommended upgrading the line to handle larger ART Mark II vehicles, at a cost of $360 million (2006 dollars). Extending the Bloor–Danforth line (either along the current Scarborough RT route, or along a different alignment directly to Scarborough Centre) was not considered cost-effective or justifiable.

On June 15, 2007, the Ontario government had released MoveOntario 2020, a plan that would fund 52 different transit projects throughout Toronto and Hamilton for the cost of $17.5 billion, including the Scarborough RT extension to Sheppard Avenue, which would meet the proposed Sheppard East LRT line, also to be funded by MoveOntario 2020. Unfortunately, in a 2010 budget release, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty had chosen to postpone necessary funding for the project.

Scarborough Malvern LRT

The Scarborough Malvern LRT line, part of the TTC's Transit City plan, would run for 15 km, estimated to account for 14 million trips in 2021. The southern terminus of the line would be built at Kennedy Station at Kennedy Road and Eglinton Avenue, with a connection to the Bloor-Danforth subway, the Scarborough RT, and the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line. The whole line would be built within Scarborough. The line would run along Eglinton Avenue East until it reaches Kingston Road, then continues northeast until Morningside Avenue is reached, then continues north until Sheppard Avenue East, where it turns west, sharing the same tracks and stops as in the Sheppard East LRT line. Finally, the line turns north at Neilson Road, terminating at Malvern Town Centre.

Newly elected Rob Ford cancelled the Malvern LRT shortly after he came to office in 2010.^{[10] [11]}

The Malvern LRT would cross the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus.^[11] According to The Varsity, the paper for students at the University of Toronto, when students at the Scarborough campus were asked to contribute $30 million towards the construction of an Olympic class pool on their campus, which would first be used for competitions during the 2015 Pan American Games, they were promised two LRT lines would be brought to campus. The Varsity reported that the students had held up their part of the bargain and resented that the city dropped plans to build the LRT lines.

Climate

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Malvern, Toronto.

• City of Toronto - Malvern Neighbourhood Profile
• Toronto Neighbourhoods - Malvern
• Malvern Community Coalition