Roads
Toronto has 9500 roads or 5200 kilometres across the city.
Toronto is largely built on a grid-based road system with a few notable exceptions. These include streets such as Davenport Road and Vaughan Road, which follow an old native trail, while others, such as Kingston Road, were originally constructed to link Toronto with other settlements in Ontario. The downtown core is built to a fine grain, human scale, mostly consisting of four-lane arterial and collector roads. Outside the downtown core, most arterial roads have two or three lanes of traffic in each direction. Toronto's road system was mainly designed for vehicular traffic, and is quite easy to navigate. There are some anomalies; for example, Lawrence Avenue and St. Clair Avenue are both split into two sections by the Don Valley, and, in the case of St. Clair Avenue, the drive between the two sections is almost 15 minutes. Roads sometimes change names, and the 1998 Amalgamation has caused some doubling in road names, although this is usually confined to smaller, more residential, roads.
The main north-south arteries, from west to east, are Kipling Avenue, Islington Avenue, Royal York Road, Jane Street, Keele Street/Weston Road, Dufferin Street, Bathurst Street, Avenue Road/University Avenue, Yonge Street, Bayview Avenue, Leslie Street, Don Mills Road, Victoria Park Avenue, Warden Avenue, Kennedy Road, McCowan Road, Markham Road, and Morningside Avenue. The main east-west arteries, from north to south, are Steeles Avenue, Finch Avenue, Sheppard Avenue, Wilson Avenue/York Mills Road/Ellesmere Road (the latter two connected by Parkwoods Village Drive), Lawrence Avenue, Eglinton Avenue, St. Clair Avenue, Bloor Street/Danforth Avenue, Dundas Street, Queen Street West and East, and Lake Shore Boulevard/Kingston Road.
Roads in Toronto are often potted with potholes due to freezing and thawing in the winter-spring seasons. On average, there are 100 major potholes reported with a high of 1000. Potholes are repaired by city crews. Full paving is done by contractors when the need arises.
Read more about this topic: Transportation In Toronto
Famous quotes containing the word roads:
“There are three roads to ruin; women, gambling and technicians. The most pleasant is with women, the quickest is with gambling, but the surest is with technicians.”
—Georges Pompidou (1911–1974)
“A novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews [sic] the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“Lift your eyes
Where the roads dip and where the roads rise
Seek only there
Where the grey light meets the green air
The hermit’s chapel, the pilgrim’s prayer.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)