# Inside the plan for Toronto's longest car-free street

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2026-05-02

toronto, waterfront-toronto, sla, waterfront, masterplan, car-free, pedestrian-only, urbanism, cities, development, planning

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Toronto, by and large, does not like car-free urban streets. I mean, we have very few of them. Let's try and name them. The most notable would be the Distillery District. Next to this would perhaps be the intersection of Gould Street & Victoria Street on TMU's campus. Then there's Willcocks Commons at the University of Toronto, though it's not the prettiest.

After this, I can only think of small, unremarkable or temporary ones. I'm not counting seasonal closures. Technically, the Toronto Islands are the largest car-free community in North America, but I wouldn't call this urban. So I'm now at a loss. If I've missed any noteworthy ones, I would be happy to be corrected.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/b87e5fbe2114e43251f0d506ca8542685fd3696eb4b66fcda11cd6060fb158ec.jpg)

This concise list makes the recently revealed masterplan for the island formerly known as Villiers — now called Ookwemin Minising (or OM) — all the more exciting. The 16-block plan now includes a 760-metre-long, fully pedestrianized public space called _Centre Commons_. It runs east-west in the site plan below, and is intersected by a north-south street called _The Sandbar Trail_.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/0aba424e0cec520646695f3b4940d594a2a366403e7d4b0739fcdde8b65f6aec.jpg)

As designed, Centre Commons is expected to be the longest car-free street in the city and look something like this:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/a5858f4f38b5be51a22f4c4b4ec3840a3466be7a47c4fe6ff9c259aeec2c06f0.jpg)

This is the space in between the buildings. Equally important is the fact that the new masterplan unlocks a 27% increase in finer-grained density, without compromising on the quality or quantity of public space on the island. This is a major improvement over the previous masterplan, which had all the hallmarks of bland pseudo-urbanism. Meaning, it was supposed to be urban, but it wasn't actually.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/68506fd8be3b9249e156ef171c931e52a33fb6a67090327f0753edc95b20cef6.jpg)

I love the above massing diagram because it feels like a real, organic city, as opposed to just a series of repeating towers on podiums. It has a variety of scales and a more fine-grained urban pattern. This, as we have talked about, is notoriously difficult to achieve in new master-planned communities. But it is possible: loop transit through the island, lower the parking requirements, and give developers the freedom to build.

The design team includes [SLA](https://www.sla.dk/cases/ookwemin-minising/) of Copenhagen (landscape architects), [Trophic](https://trophicdesign.ca) (Indigenous-owned landscape architects), [GHD](https://www.ghd.com/en-ca) (prime consultant and technical lead) and [Allies and Morrison](https://www.alliesandmorrison.com) of London (architectural lead). And when built out, OM is expected to support approximately 12,000 new homes (including 3,000 affordable homes) and 2,900 new jobs.

I say we build it.

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_Cover photo by_ [_Allies and Morrison_](https://www.alliesandmorrison.com)

_Aerial image from_ [_Waterfront Toronto_](https://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/our-projects/ookwemin-minising)

_Centre Commons rendering by Norm Li via_ [_SLA_](https://www.sla.dk/cases/ookwemin-minising/)

_Area plan and massing diagram by_ [_SLA_](https://www.sla.dk/cases/ookwemin-minising/)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/inside-the-plan-for-torontos-longest-car-free-street)*