James Brown and Kim Storey, who are partners at Brown + Storey Architects Inc., recently put forward this intensification proposal for Toronto's non-Avenue-designated arterial roads. (The term Avenue is an important designation in Toronto planning.) They call these streets Un-Avenues and here's what they are getting at with this definition:

The “Un-Avenues” are the city’s north-south arteries, where the standard residential street was widened in the mid-20th century to allow for more lanes for more cars and vehicular intensification. They are not generally lined with retail, but rather with the original houses that have been devalued because of their location on the arterial roads.

These roads often serve as busy bus routes that connect directly to subways. The widening of the roads has meant there are no trees, narrow sidewalks, and negligible front. Four lanes of rush hour traffic are provided, with rare provisions for bike lanes.

The Un-Avenues run silently through the single-family residential zones of Toronto. As countless articles have pointed out, the “yellow belt,” where the single-family house reigns, occupies a substantial swath of Toronto real estate on any zoning map.

It is hard not to drive or move through Toronto's "Un-Avenues" without thinking that they belong in a different era. They speak to a Toronto that was much smaller and that was not yet a global city. There's little urbanity. And no grandeur. They feel a bit like forgotten streets in a city that has otherwise decided to grow up.

Here's what Brown + Storey are proposing as a solution (images via Spacing):

Today is my 32nd birthday. It felt like a beautiful summer day here in Toronto and so I mostly took the day off from anything too serious.

At 1:00pm though, I did participate in a Jane’s Walk taking place right around the corner from me. As part of that, I spoke briefly about why I think Toronto should remove the eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway and replace it with a surface boulevard.

Given what the other speakers had to say and given some of what I heard at the event, this is definitely not a universal position. In fact, one person commended me on taking a “courageous stance.”

A number of people seemed to support Quadrangle Architect’s Green Ribbon proposal and/or the notion that, whatever is done, the Gardiner Expressway must remain in operation.

At the same time, quite a few of the people I spoke to seemed unsure of any position and instead came to the walk simply to learn more about the options. Hopefully by the end of it they were closer to one.