Toronto's Eglinton Line 5 opened last weekend — finally. I have yet to ride it, but I'm really looking forward to doing so the next time my day brings me north of St. Clair or I find the time for a joyride. Notwithstanding the fact that it took a really long time, it's a crucial piece of transit infrastructure for the city.

It's a need that we arguably recognized in the 80s with a proposed busway, and then started and stopped construction on in the 90s with the Eglinton West line. Some four decades later, we now have a 25-station, 19-kilometre rapid transit line that runs across the middle of the city.

Transit consultant Jarrett Walker is calling it the first major transit investment that shows Toronto is moving away from its downtown-oriented network. Historically, Toronto's transit network has emphasized bringing commuters from the suburbs and other lower-density parts of the city to downtown for work. Then, at the end of the day, these people would return home. Simple.

But this kind of network no longer reflects the reality of today's city, which has become and is continuing to become far more polycentric.

Walker's argument is that Toronto needs a transit network to match its grid geography, so that "people can go from anywhere to anywhere in a simple L-shaped trip, usually with a single transfer." Line 5 is an example of this approach and, of course, we need much more of it.

But the other thing that is needed alongside a "grid transit network" is the right land-use approach. One of the fundamental principles that we espouse on this blog is that land-use and transportation planning are interdependent.

In this regard, Toronto is undertaking some important planning work. It has been proposing new Avenues (a defined term that you can read about here) and encouraging more housing along all of its Major Streets (also a defined term).

These efforts remain a work in progress, but at their core, they serve to broadly increase the average density across the city (which is a prerequisite for transit ridership) and to, what I'm going to call, "strengthen the urban grid." It helps move Toronto further away from being a monocentric, downtown-oriented city toward something more akin to a Paris.

What we have is a really interesting moment in time where transportation efforts and land-use policies are starting to coalesce around a new kind of Toronto. One that is decidedly more urban and less car-oriented. This is good. Now, let's do it faster.

Transit map via the TTC

Some of you might remember that I grew up going to a French school here in Toronto. My mom had rightly decided that I should be able to speak both of Canada's official languages. But truthfully, I never really loved it as a kid. I started midway through elementary school and so I always felt a little insecure about my French abilities. Which is partially why in the fall of 2023, I decided to enroll in night classes at Alliance Française. I've been doing it ever since and I can feel my French getting markedly better. There's also something deeply nostalgic about being in a French class.

Generally speaking, the classes are pretty relaxed (sometimes we learn grammar and sometimes we just talk about delicious cheeses), but at the end of last year I decided to register for the DELF exam. DELF stands for Diplôme d'études en langue française and it's a diploma for non-native speakers of French offered by France's Ministry of Education. It's offered at various proficiency levels and I registered for level B2, which France describes in the following way:

One of the reasons why I registered for this particular level is that it will soon become the minimum level of language proficiency required to become a French citizen. Currently you need the equivalent of B1, but starting January 1, 2026, I understand it will jump up to B2. I, of course, don't know if I will ever need this, move to France, and/or seek to become a citizen, but it became a goal. I told myself that I wanted the diploma that proves one's French is good enough to be an actual citizen. I guess it was a way to conquer my childhood insecurities.

So I'm happy to report that I ended up taking the exam in early March and that last week I received my passing grade. I scored just under 90%. (My weakest section was the handwritten essay.) After I got the news, I came home to the below book sitting on the kitchen counter with a bow and thoughtful handwritten note from Bianca — in French I would add — congratulating me on achieving this goal. One of the first things I said was, "wait, when did you buy this? How did you get it so quickly?" And she responded with, "I ordered it a long time ago, because I knew you'd pass."

The book is called Paris Haussmann and it's a comprehensive look at Haussmann's 19th century plans for the city. It covers every scale, from the city's boulevards (morphological scale) down to individual floor plans for each building type (typological scale). It's a truly extraordinary book and it's also highly relevant to one of the things that Globizen is focused on right now, which is the building of infill housing on Toronto's major streets. The urban context isn't exactly the same, of course, but there's a lot to be learned from this human-scaled building type. So even if you aren't trying to overcome some childhood insecurity related to the French, I highly recommend you check out this book.

Cover photo via Pavillon de l'arsenal

This is Map 2 from Toronto's Official Plan, dated January 2024. It shows the city's "urban structure", and one of the main things it tells us is where the city is anticipating growth. You have the downtown and central waterfront, urban "Centres", and then "Avenues." All three of these colored areas are where growth and intensification are encouraged. The problem, however, is that it still resembles a mono-centric city, with a dominant core and then mostly low-rise housing surrounding it. The Centres in the inner suburbs are relatively small and many of the Avenues are broken up without a lot of connectivity back to the rest of the city's grid. It sets us up for a divided city -- core versus the rest -- because different built forms naturally create different political priorities.

Now let's look at what Toronto has just proposed in terms of new Avenues (shown above in purple). This is the kind of thing that immediately gets me excited because, as proposed, it implies a significant upzoning for a large portion of the city and it creates a much more uniform urban structure. Here, we have a blanket of intersecting Avenues, which will open up a ton of new housing opportunities and make it far more feasible to build efficient transit and other mobility solutions across the city. In fact, I'd argue that this is one of the most important land use discussions taking place in Toronto today. It's foundational to moving us away from the anachronistic model of the car-oriented North American city.

Now we just need to make it happen, and then empower developers and builders of all scales to build housing and a mix of uses all along these purple lines. For more on this, check out the City of Toronto's Housing Action Plan.

Cover photo by Adam Vradenburg on Unsplash

Toronto's Eglinton Line 5 opened last weekend — finally. I have yet to ride it, but I'm really looking forward to doing so the next time my day brings me north of St. Clair or I find the time for a joyride. Notwithstanding the fact that it took a really long time, it's a crucial piece of transit infrastructure for the city.

It's a need that we arguably recognized in the 80s with a proposed busway, and then started and stopped construction on in the 90s with the Eglinton West line. Some four decades later, we now have a 25-station, 19-kilometre rapid transit line that runs across the middle of the city.

Transit consultant Jarrett Walker is calling it the first major transit investment that shows Toronto is moving away from its downtown-oriented network. Historically, Toronto's transit network has emphasized bringing commuters from the suburbs and other lower-density parts of the city to downtown for work. Then, at the end of the day, these people would return home. Simple.

But this kind of network no longer reflects the reality of today's city, which has become and is continuing to become far more polycentric.

Walker's argument is that Toronto needs a transit network to match its grid geography, so that "people can go from anywhere to anywhere in a simple L-shaped trip, usually with a single transfer." Line 5 is an example of this approach and, of course, we need much more of it.

But the other thing that is needed alongside a "grid transit network" is the right land-use approach. One of the fundamental principles that we espouse on this blog is that land-use and transportation planning are interdependent.

In this regard, Toronto is undertaking some important planning work. It has been proposing new Avenues (a defined term that you can read about here) and encouraging more housing along all of its Major Streets (also a defined term).

These efforts remain a work in progress, but at their core, they serve to broadly increase the average density across the city (which is a prerequisite for transit ridership) and to, what I'm going to call, "strengthen the urban grid." It helps move Toronto further away from being a monocentric, downtown-oriented city toward something more akin to a Paris.

What we have is a really interesting moment in time where transportation efforts and land-use policies are starting to coalesce around a new kind of Toronto. One that is decidedly more urban and less car-oriented. This is good. Now, let's do it faster.

Transit map via the TTC

Some of you might remember that I grew up going to a French school here in Toronto. My mom had rightly decided that I should be able to speak both of Canada's official languages. But truthfully, I never really loved it as a kid. I started midway through elementary school and so I always felt a little insecure about my French abilities. Which is partially why in the fall of 2023, I decided to enroll in night classes at Alliance Française. I've been doing it ever since and I can feel my French getting markedly better. There's also something deeply nostalgic about being in a French class.

Generally speaking, the classes are pretty relaxed (sometimes we learn grammar and sometimes we just talk about delicious cheeses), but at the end of last year I decided to register for the DELF exam. DELF stands for Diplôme d'études en langue française and it's a diploma for non-native speakers of French offered by France's Ministry of Education. It's offered at various proficiency levels and I registered for level B2, which France describes in the following way:

One of the reasons why I registered for this particular level is that it will soon become the minimum level of language proficiency required to become a French citizen. Currently you need the equivalent of B1, but starting January 1, 2026, I understand it will jump up to B2. I, of course, don't know if I will ever need this, move to France, and/or seek to become a citizen, but it became a goal. I told myself that I wanted the diploma that proves one's French is good enough to be an actual citizen. I guess it was a way to conquer my childhood insecurities.

So I'm happy to report that I ended up taking the exam in early March and that last week I received my passing grade. I scored just under 90%. (My weakest section was the handwritten essay.) After I got the news, I came home to the below book sitting on the kitchen counter with a bow and thoughtful handwritten note from Bianca — in French I would add — congratulating me on achieving this goal. One of the first things I said was, "wait, when did you buy this? How did you get it so quickly?" And she responded with, "I ordered it a long time ago, because I knew you'd pass."

The book is called Paris Haussmann and it's a comprehensive look at Haussmann's 19th century plans for the city. It covers every scale, from the city's boulevards (morphological scale) down to individual floor plans for each building type (typological scale). It's a truly extraordinary book and it's also highly relevant to one of the things that Globizen is focused on right now, which is the building of infill housing on Toronto's major streets. The urban context isn't exactly the same, of course, but there's a lot to be learned from this human-scaled building type. So even if you aren't trying to overcome some childhood insecurity related to the French, I highly recommend you check out this book.

Cover photo via Pavillon de l'arsenal

This is Map 2 from Toronto's Official Plan, dated January 2024. It shows the city's "urban structure", and one of the main things it tells us is where the city is anticipating growth. You have the downtown and central waterfront, urban "Centres", and then "Avenues." All three of these colored areas are where growth and intensification are encouraged. The problem, however, is that it still resembles a mono-centric city, with a dominant core and then mostly low-rise housing surrounding it. The Centres in the inner suburbs are relatively small and many of the Avenues are broken up without a lot of connectivity back to the rest of the city's grid. It sets us up for a divided city -- core versus the rest -- because different built forms naturally create different political priorities.

Now let's look at what Toronto has just proposed in terms of new Avenues (shown above in purple). This is the kind of thing that immediately gets me excited because, as proposed, it implies a significant upzoning for a large portion of the city and it creates a much more uniform urban structure. Here, we have a blanket of intersecting Avenues, which will open up a ton of new housing opportunities and make it far more feasible to build efficient transit and other mobility solutions across the city. In fact, I'd argue that this is one of the most important land use discussions taking place in Toronto today. It's foundational to moving us away from the anachronistic model of the car-oriented North American city.

Now we just need to make it happen, and then empower developers and builders of all scales to build housing and a mix of uses all along these purple lines. For more on this, check out the City of Toronto's Housing Action Plan.

Cover photo by Adam Vradenburg on Unsplash