Downtown baby boom sparks new kind of traffic jam
A new analysis of recently released 2016 census data shows the number of young kids in downtown Toronto is soaring.
thestar.com
By LAURIE MONSEBRAATEN
June 29, 2017
Motorists have come to expect gridlock in Toronto’s rapidly growing downtown core.
But congestion of another kind is on the rise in the city’s condo canyons as young urban singles become couples with kids, according to a new analysis of 2016 census data.
“Who knew that the waterfront condo area was going to be the site of the city’s first stroller traffic jam,” says Sean Meagher of Social Planning Toronto, which crunched recently released age and sex data from the census for the city’s 140 neighbourhoods.
“When you’re bringing up a child in a small condo, your local park, library, and community centres become your living room or backyard, and we have to invest more to respond to this changing landscape,” he says.
Although Toronto’s overall population of preschoolers has barely increased since 2006 - from 134,980 to 136,000 - the city’s downtown core is experiencing a baby boom and is now home to thousands of children under age 5, according to the non-profit research and advocacy agency.
In the census neighbourhood known as Waterfront Communities-The Island, an area that runs across the bottom of the city from Bathurst St. to the Don River, the number of kids under 5 has almost tripled to 2,120 in the last 10 years.
Next door in Niagara neighbourhood, an area that includes condo towers around Fort York and part of Liberty Village, the number of young kids has more than doubled along with the overall population.
Along the Bay St. corridor south of Bloor to Front St., the number of preschoolers has jumped by 88 per cent, outstripping the overall population which increased by 70 per cent.
And it accounts for the push for more parks, recreation and open space downtown.
“When we opened this centre 25 years ago, no one envisioned that people from north of the Gardiner Expressway would come here,” says Leona Rodall, executive director of the Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre on Queens Quay at the foot of Bathurst St.
“Well, they are coming. They are coming all the way from City Place and the Niagara neighbourhood,” she says, marveling at how parents with strollers travelling south on Bathurst cross six lanes of traffic rutted with streetcar tracks on Lake Shore Blvd. to participate in programs.
The baby drop-in program at the Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre often attracts as many as 120 babies a session. Staff has had to split the program into two shorter periods to accomodate everyone.
In 1991, the community-run centre was planned to serve about 7,000 residents. Now it serves as many as 40,000, she notes.
About 120 tots and their caregivers regularly show up for the centre’s baby drop-in program that runs two afternoons a week from 1-3 p.m., a crush that has forced staff to split the program into two one-hour time slots to accommodate everyone, Rodall notes.
“It was getting to the point where I was worried about fire code regulations,” she says.
Bidisha De Sarkar, 37, and Pras Chatterjee, 41, moved to the Entertainment District after they were married 11 years ago to be close to work and the downtown lifestyle.
When De Sarkar was pregnant six years ago, they moved to a larger condo in the St. Lawrence Market and are now raising two children in a 1,250 sq ft. two-bedroom unit they rent on The Esplanade.
“The number of families has been growing over the last decade,” De Sarkar says. “But in the last five years there has really been an up-tick. And they are staying. They are not just having a baby and then moving to the suburbs.”
Soaring housing costs are one reason, she acknowledges. “But life is pretty good downtown. Everything is so accessible. And it’s become a real community.”
Parents in their building connect through a Facebook group and on Wednesday evenings families gather on the large 6th floor patio where there is a sandbox, a small play structure and a communal shed with toys for children to play with.
“We call it ‘bikes, barbeques and balls,’ ” De Sarkar says.
Child care is a concern for many area families. And for those without a car, it’s difficult to travel outside the neighbourhood for recreation programs when local spots are full.
Chatterjee says they “lucked out” when they got a spot in the St. Lawrence Co-Operative Day Care for Raina after she was born five years ago. But there was no room for baby Sabine when De Sarkar went back to work last December. However, they are very happy with a licensed home daycare they found for Sabine in a nearby condo building.
The couple has talked about buying a house, especially now that De Sarkar is working in Mississauga.
“But I can’t imagine leaving just yet,” she says. “We have met so many families who have made a conscious decision to stay for a few more years. And some are having their third child and even fourth child in units our size.”
Meagher at Social Planning Toronto says the data shows more infrastructure for families is needed downtown.
“A lot of this housing has already been created, so we need to be thinking about how we play catch-up,” he says.
Some of that work is already happening, says Ann-Marie Nasr, manager of strategic initiatives for the city’s planning department.
City parks and recreation staff will be releasing a new master plan in the fall that will set the stage for everything from new parks, aquatic facilities and recreation centres.
Planning staff are conducting a feasibility study for Rail Deck Park, a proposed a 3-hectare park over the downtown rail corridor between Bathurst and Blue Jays Way.
And Toronto Children’s Services has just released a 10-year child care growth strategy.
“This report shows the success of our downtown,” Nasr says. “When families feel they can bring children up in different neighbourhoods across the city, including our downtown, it just shows the livability and the success of those places.
“It’s a good news story,” she adds. “There are a lot of downtowns that don’t even have people let alone children. It’s a good challenge to have.”
