People are walking in Six Points.

While the ambitious redevelopment of what should always have been a key part of Etobicoke is far from over, there are signs the plan is working.

“I’m ecstatic to see people out there on the new sidewalks. Good for the neighbourhood. Good for business,” said Lola Macanowicz, chairperson of the Islington Village Business Improvement Centre.

If the fact that people are walking in Six Points does not seem to be earth shattering news that’s because you have never been to that area of the city. Six Points is named for the spidery mishmash of roads that converge in the area of Kipling Rd., Dundas and Bloor Sts. A now demolished series of awkward overpasses and loops made it about as walkable as the Gardiner Expressway.

Now, everything is at grade, sidewalks have gone in, there are trees planted, final bulldozing about to take place and by early next year it will all be done. As for drivers, hockey fans (as one example) who have ever tried to get to one of the most popular stores in the area — Duke’s Source for Sports — will no longer have to go on a hunting expedition that typically involves either cutting through a residential neighbourhood or slipping through the Six Points Plaza. That’s because the part of Bloor St. where Duke’s is located (west of Kipling) will now connect more logically to Bloor east of Kipling.

How did it get that way, many have wondered since the network of roads were built in the early 1960s when Dundas St. was a major arterial network going west to the suburbs (before the Gardiner Expressway and QEW took over that role).

“I don’t know how they came up with the road design they did,” said Richard Beck, transportation planning program manager at the City of Toronto’s Etobicoke York District.

The terrain was partly to blame, along with the railway corridor that Dundas follows west from the Junction part of Toronto. It still does under the new plan but it is streamlined and at grade. Locals call the old road system “spaghetti junction.”

In designing the new road system they looked at 33 different variations, including roundabout, which was ultimately deemed to be unsafe to pedestrians and cyclists because it would have to be too large.

The genesis of this $73 million city project dates back 30 years when planners decided to make the Six Points area the civic “heart” of Etobicoke, said Emilia Floro, program manager of urban design with the City of Toronto. There is a lot of land in the area either not being used or being used poorly.

For now, the roads, sidewalks and bike paths are still bordered by the vacant land and some less than stellar strip malls. But there are plans for that as well. Like so many big city developments it’s a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of connecting parts.

“We want to create a sense of community, a sense of place that is walkable for everybody and also accommodates vehicles,” Beck said.

One plan is to relocate the Etobicoke’s civic centre from Burnamthorpe Rd. west of Highway 427 to the parcel that is known as the Westwood Theatre Lands, located on the southeast corner of Bloor St. and Kipling Ave. Westwood Theatre was a popular local movie house that closed in 1998. The city has been entertaining plans for the site for years, including at one point planning a YMCA/YWCA in the area immediately southeast of the Bloor/Kipling intersection. But there is a plan now to have the Etobicoke city centre there, using the rest of the 13.9-acre site for a civic square, plus a new library and childcare centre.

There are several urban parks being designed for the area and some of the decisions on what goes where will happen as early as this fall at Toronto city council. If it is approved, planners hope the new civic centre would open in 2024.

Also in the mix are plans for affordable housing in the Six Points area.

“The city has a housing crisis, obviously, and there are additional land parcels being created through the new (road) configuration that will be part of the Housing Now initiative,” Floro said. There are roughly 11,000 new residential and commercial units either under construction, approved or proposed in the area.

As to the tired-looking Six Points Plaza, a privately owned business with a Starbucks, Shoppers Drug Mart and other stores, the owners have not come forward with any plans to spruce up or redevelop. City planners are hoping that businesses in the area will make improvements going forward, in the same way that when one room of a house is painted, others get a fresh look too.

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City officials say the interchange redevelopment will be done by early 2020.

“On time, on budget,” Floro said.

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