Approval of Spadina Expressway was the beginning of the highway to nowhere
Fifty years ago, during the transportation boom in the city, The Spadina Expressway was approved on Oct. 21, 1966.

thestar.com
By Evelyn Kwong
Oct. 21, 2016

Fifty years ago, during the transportation boom in the city, The Spadina Expressway was approved on Oct. 21, 1966 with the grand vision of connecting downtown Toronto to the burgeoning suburbs in North York.

Planned to trail through Forest Hill, Casa Loma and to divide the Annex in two, the expressway proposed in Metro Toronto’s 1966 transportation report, was created promising the best of both worlds - of downtown attractions connected to residential areas on one road.

But downtown residents disagreed. As construction began in 1967, the people rallied hard and brought their “Stop Spadina” protest to the streets. Eventually the movement gained traction with media thinker Marshall McLuhan who became a part of the movement.

“This road is going to destroy thousands of homes,” said politician John Sewell during the protest. Sewell went on to serve as mayor of Toronto for two years.

After years of persistence, a democratic spirit derailed the Spadina Expressway when construction was halted on June 3, 1971 south of Sheppard Ave. W., just five years after it was approved.

“If we are building a transportation system to serve the people, the Spadina Expressway would be a good place to stop,” Premier William Davis said.

Despite the failure of The Spadina Expressway, the 1966 Metro transportation plan became a blueprint of urban regeneration in Toronto which led to the creation of the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway.

“This was just the beginning of a bigger plan,” Toronto councillor Adam Vaughan told the Star in an interview in 2009. He is now the MP for Spadina-Fort York. Vaughan’s father, Colin, was a leader in the Stop Spadina movement.

“Here were these communities that had been around forever, that all of the sudden were being destroyed,” said Vaughan.

Metro Council was forced to return to the planning board to revise the 1966 transportation plan, which would eventually eliminate the idea of expressways in the city’s core.

“Citizens rose up and said you can’t have a conversation about the future of Toronto, if we aren’t at the table,” said Vaughan.