Toronto/Harbourfront

Harbourfront Centre

The Harbourfront neighbourhood in Toronto encompasses the area from the lakeshore corridor railway line in the north down to Lake Ontario in the south and from Exhibition Place in the west to Parliament Street in the east. Nearly the entire neighbourhood is built on land reclaimed from Lake Ontario in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Prior to the 1980s, the area was largely industrial, especially the section south of the Gardiner expressway, which was built in the 1930s and acted as a barrier to development until the 1980s, when a lack of available space downtown led property developers to start building large condominium developments in the Harbourfront neighbourhood. Queen's Quay acts as the main street for the neighbourhood, containing an abundance of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. Most of the shopping is in Queen's Quay Terminal, a large shopping and condo development which acts as something of a central point for the neighbourhood. On the south side of Queen's Quay is a series of slips separating large piers containing a mixture of condo towers, repurposed warehouses and small parks. In the summer, the neighbourhood is a buzz of activity with small concerts and festivals occurring in the park. While the area west of Yonge Street is full of high rise condo developments and activity at all hours, the area east of Yonge Street remains nearly entirely undeveloped and consists of a series of small, largely abandoned warehouses and empty lots, as well as the enormous Redpath sugar refinery; despite this, there is a large Loblaws supermarket at the intersection of Queen's Quay and Jarvis Street.

There is a separate article for the Toronto Islands across the harbour from Harbourfront.

Get in

By streetcar

The 509 LRT streetcar line runs underneath Bay Street from the Union Station subway station to an underground station at the intersection with Queen's Quay West, at which point it leaves the tunnel and proceeds West along Queen's Quay in a separate right-of-way, making stops at the major intersections; its western terminus is Exhibition Place. The 510 LRT streetcar line follows the same route from Union Station to the intersection of Queen's Quay and Spadina Avenue, at which point it turns and heads north on Spadina, still in its own right-of-way, to Spadina subway station at the intersection of Spadina and Bloor Street. The 511 streetcar line runs with traffic along Bathurst Street from Bathurst subway station to the intersection of Bathurst and Fleet Street, where it turns and follows the same route as the 509 West to Exhibition Place.

By subway and train

The nearest subway station is Union Station. From there you can either take the 509 or 510 streetcar to Queen's Quay or you can walk south along Bay Street from Front Street, underneath the railway tracks and the Gardiner expressway to Queen's Quay. Union Station is also the main terminus for commuter and intercity trains.

For more information on the subway and streetcar lines, visit the Toronto Transit Commission website

By car

The Gardiner expressway runs the length of the harbourfront one block north of Queen's Quay and there are exits at Spadina, York, Bay, and Jarvis. There is a large parking garage underneath the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel and several commercial surface lots, including ones at Queen's Quay and York Street, Queen's Quay and Rees Street, on Bay Street across from the Air Canada Centre and on Queen's Quay next to the Redpath sugar refinery.

By plane

Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is on the Toronto Islands, across a narrow channel from Harbourfront. Located on the mainland just south of Queens Quay West is the   Bathurst Street Terminal for Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.  . From the Bathurst Street Terminal, there is a an pedestrian tunnel connecting to the airport. The airport supports only propeller airplanes; that is, no jets. Porter Airlines is the only operator out of the island airport, operating to many destinations including Montreal, New York City, Quebec City, Halifax and Chicago. Porter offers a free shuttle bus service (15 minute frequency) between the Bathurst Street Terminal and Union Station (boarding at the southwest corner of York and Front Streets). Also, the 509 streetcar connects Union Station to one block north of the Bathurst Street Terminal (streetcar stop: Bathurst St at Queens Quay West).

See

Redpath Sugar Museum and Sugar Refinery
Queens Quay West
Toronto Music Garden
Princes' Gate, Exhibition Place

Sites are listed from east to west.

Do

Buy

Queen's Quay Terminal

Eat

Also check the Drink section for pubs serving meals.

Drink

Sleep

Connect

Go next

Routes through Harbourfront

Hamilton ← Etobicoke ←  W  E  → Entertainment and Financial Districts → END


This article is issued from Wikivoyage - version of the Thursday, March 31, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.