Dufferin Street

Dufferin Street
York Regional Road 53
Dufferin within Toronto
The Dufferin Gates at Exhibition Place at the foot of Dufferin Street.
Route information
Maintained by City of Toronto Vaughan Township of King
Major junctions
South end	Exhibition Place (Continues as British Columbia Road through the Exhibition grounds)
	King Street Queen Street Dundas Street Bloor Street St. Clair Avenue Eglinton Avenue Lawrence Avenue Highway 401 Wilson Avenue ------Road Breaks------ Allen Road (continuation of) Finch Avenue Steeles Avenue Highway 407 Highway 7 Major Mackenzie Drive King Road Davis Drive Graham Sideroad
North end	Holland Marsh
Location
Major cities	Toronto Vaughan

Dufferin Street is a major north-south street in Toronto, Vaughan and King Ontario, Canada. It is a concession road, two concessions (4 km) west of Yonge Street. The street starts at the foot of Lake Ontario, continues north to Toronto's northern boundary at Steeles Avenue with some discontinuities and continues into Vaughan, where it becomes York Regional Road 53. The street is named for Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, who served as Governor General of Canada from 1872 to 1878. In 2003 and 2007, it was voted as one of "Ontario's Worst 20 Roads" in the Ontario's Worst Roads poll organized by the Canadian Automobile Association.^[1][2]

Route description

Queen Street to Eglinton Avenue

North of Queen Street West, Dufferin is primarily residential on both sides, with the large Dufferin Mall on the west side of Dufferin, south of Bloor Street. This was the former site of the Dufferin Park Racetrack. Across the street from the mall is the Dufferin Grove city park. From Queen Street north to College Street, the neighbourhood is known as Little Portugal. North of College, and west of Dufferin is the former village of Brockton and on the east is the Dufferin Grove neighbourhood, named after the park on the east side of Dufferin. Dufferin station is located at Dufferin and Bloor Street on Line 2 Bloor–Danforth of the Toronto subway system.

From Bloor Street to Davenport, Dufferin is lined with homes built from the 1920s to post-World War II. The Galleria Shopping Centre is located on the west side of Dufferin and on the south side of Dupont Street. The neighbourhood west of Dufferin in this area is known as Wallace Emerson, while on the east it is known as Dovercourt Park. North of Davenport, Dufferin ascends the former Lake Iroquois shoreline escarpment. North of the escarpment, the street continues to be residential on both sides north to Eglinton Avenue West. Between Rogers Road and Eglinton Avenue West, Dufferin crosses two steep ravines.

Dufferin Street is eight lanes wide in the vicinity of Highway 401.

North of Steeles Avenue

Dufferin Street continues north of Steeles Avenue into the city of Vaughan. The section north to Highway 7 and Langstaff Road is a six-lane arterial road, designated as York Regional Road 53. North of that, it narrows to four lanes, then narrows again two blocks north of Major Mackenzie Drive to two lanes. North of Lloydtown/Aurora Road (York Road 16) / 18th Sideroad (York Road 26), it is maintained by King Township and terminates just north of Graham Sideroad in the Holland Marsh, after jogging at Davis Drive (York Road 31), the former Highway 9.

The Dufferin Jog was recently removed at Queen Street, providing drivers with a direct continuation of Dufferin Street

Dufferin jog

The Dufferin Street underpass at Queen was flooded on July 8, 2013

The intersection of Dufferin Street and Queen Street West also intersects with the main railway line from downtown to the northwest. The location was the site of the Parkdale Train Station and it was originally a level crossing. In the 1890s, an underpass (initially called "the subway") was built for Queen Street to accommodate growing east-west traffic; however, one was not built for Dufferin Street to connect it a block north of Queen. At the time, the area north of the railway line was heavily industrial and factories backed onto the tracks. North-south traffic was not expected or planned for and the two sections of Dufferin were not connected.^[5] As automobiles arrived in Toronto around 1903, and for the next 107 years, vehicles looking to travel along Dufferin detoured around the closed section to Peel (east-west) and Gladstone (north-south), which became de facto sections of Dufferin. The detour was known locally as the Dufferin Jog.

The jog was eliminated in 2010 with the construction of a four-lane underpass beneath the railroad track, including public art and an amphitheatre-styled park with tiered gardens at the southwest corner of the underpass. This project was approved by city council in 2007, and work on extending the roadway began on July 2009.^[6] The underpass was opened on November 18, 2010.^[7] A further widening of the north side of the bridge was completed in 2016-2017 to support expanded GO Transit train service.^[8]

The section of the east side of the bridge along Queen Street was built in 1897 as the Queen Street Subway.

Italian community

Dufferin Street has long been an important thoroughfare for Toronto's Italian community. An Italian neighbourhood developed around Dufferin and Davenport in the 1890s and soon became known as "little Little Italy". In the 1950s, Italian-Canadians from the main Little Italy around College Street and Grace Street headed northwest up Dufferin past St. Clair Avenue and were joined by a new wave of immigrants from Italy. By the 1960s, the Dufferin-St. Clair area (known as Corso Italia) had supplanted College-Grace Little Italy as the largest centre of Toronto's Italian community. There is also a large Italian-Canadian presence along much of the suburban sections of the street as well, in both Toronto and Vaughan.

Public transit

The 29 Dufferin and 929 Dufferin Express bus routes runs from the lake shore along the full length of Dufferin to the Wilson Station. When the CNE is not operating, the Dufferin bus continues south within Exhibition Place to the Bathurst streetcar loop. The bus connects with the Toronto Bloor-Danforth Subway at Dufferin Station and the Yonge-University-Spadina line at Wilson Station.

The 29 Dufferin bus was the busiest bus route in the TTC in 2007 and 2008, with an average 43,600 riders each weekday.^[9] As of 2010 it was the fifth busiest route, with an average of 39,700 riders per weekday.^[10] Buses run every two to ten minutes on the route, depending on the time of day.

The 105 Dufferin North bus route runs north from Sheppard West Station along Allen Road and Dufferin Street to Steeles Avenue.

North of Steeles Avenue operates the York Region Transit 105 Dufferin along Dufferin Street, running from Sheppard West Station to Major Mackenzie Drive in Vaughan.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dufferin Street, Toronto.

External links

Google Maps of Dufferin Street

• North of Sheppard Avenue
• South of Wilson Avenue