Big change for a lousy intersection in Toronto this weekend!

"Manwich - now Keto-Friendly" (manwich)
03/08/2019 at 12:31 • Filed to: None

This crappy intersection:

... is an intersection I have had to use on a semi-regular basis for years.

Well that’s gonna change this weekend when they blow up the bridges and reconfigure things so they become closer to this:

This is Great News!

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DISCUSSION (9)

Svend > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
03/08/2019 at 13:04

Wow. That’s going to be months of chaos.

someassemblyrequired > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
03/08/2019 at 13:06

Ha they were talking about that 20 years ago, guess they finally got their you know what together. It is pretty impressive that it has no (or almost no) traffic lights, but all the merges mean it gets borked pretty easily.

Gonna screw up Kipling through there bad though when the traffic lights go in.

facw > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
03/08/2019 at 13:25

That really doesn’t look better to me? Maybe safer, but seems mostly like a whole lot more waiting a lights and traffic backups?

Seems like condemning the red building at the bottom right would have left a lot of room for a less broken interchange.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > someassemblyrequired
03/08/2019 at 14:26

“guess they finally got their you know what together”

No I don’t know what. I have absolutely no idea. Please tell me.

LOL

One key part in making all this doable and more affordable was the closure of the Westwood theater... which you can see in the bottom right part of the top picture. Still an expensive project though.

But I think it will totally be worth it.

T he biggest benefit will be for Bloor St.

Right now when you go east on Bloor, you hit Kipling and it ends. And then you have to go on this roundabout route to get onto Dundas and remember to stay left to get back onto Bloor.

And going west today on Bloor, as you go over the junction, whoops, now you’re on Dundas and have to take a side street to get back on Bloor.

From a driving perspective, the only thing that *might* have been made better would be having Dundas St go over or under the new Bloor-Kipling intersection.

But I’m guessing it would have been expensive and looked like shit from a street-level point of view.

I see it having very little impact on Kipling... though it is adding one additional intersection with traffic lights.

But it will reduce the amount of traffic that goes south on Kipling from Bloor that is looking to get back on Bloor.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > facw
03/08/2019 at 14:32

The red building on the bottom right is an old crappy theater that closed in the 1990s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westwood_Theatre

And if you’re a cyclist or a pedestrian, trust me, it will be HUGELY better.

Also look at Bloor street in the before and after... Right now when you hit Kipling, the road ends. You have to go through a convoluted number of turns to get back onto Bloor.

As someone who drives through there semi-regularly , I believe it will be a wash or slightly better for cars.

This will also free up real estate for housing... which is in huge demand because a subway station/transit terminal is within walking distance to the bottom left.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Svend
03/08/2019 at 14:35

It already has been months of chaos and construction.

This weekend is where they close the area and make a ‘big switch’ where they demolish the old bridges and open traffic to the new alignment for Dundas and Bloor.

The new roads are already in place.

Milky > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
03/08/2019 at 14:40

Having been to park dale many times I was super confused by Kipling Ave. Didn't realize Dundas snaked around like that, looks like something that happened before city planners existed.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Milky
03/08/2019 at 15:00

Yeah... it was the ‘car is king’ approach to an area where 3 main roads converged.

And there is a reason why Dundas snakes the way it does... it’s a very old road that is made up of 15 or more former smaller roads :

http://spacing.ca/toronto/2011/10/15/the-many-streets-of-dundas/

someassemblyrequired > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
03/08/2019 at 15:54

Funding, land and designs? :D

Yeah it was ok for Dundas and Kipling, not so good for Bloor. Yeah I can see the new design improving that aspect quite a bit even with the new light .

It will also be a lot better for pedestrians and open up a ton of space.