.DON MILLS CROSSING TRANSPORTATION STUDY

Don Mills Crossing Transportation Study: Phase 1
1. Executive Summary
Don Mills Crossing is an integrated planning study being undertaken by the City of Toronto.
Building on the work of Eglinton Connects, the Study will look to shape and manage the
anticipated growth as a result of the LRT construction, representing a key city building moment
for Don Mills and Eglinton. In support of Phase 1 of Don Mills Crossing, an examination of
existing transportation conditions in the Don Mills and Eglinton area was completed to inform
future phases. Future phases of Don Mills Crossing will advance a planning framework to
improve connections to the surrounding areas, shape growth and investment, and facilitate
broader community improvements.
The Don Mills-Eglinton area is identified by Metrolinx's Mobility Hub Guidelines as a “Gateway
Hub”, an interchange of two rapid transit lines where transit-oriented activities and intensification
takes place. One of these lines is the Crosstown LRT, currently under construction, that will connect
along Eglinton Avenue from Kennedy Road to Mount Dennis station. Don Mills Road has been
identified as rapid transit corridor in Toronto's Official Plan, and its intersection with the
Crosstown includes a bus terminal connected to the LRT stop. These local and regional
connections are expected to draw new transportation demand and offer more convenient transit
alternatives potentially encouraging a modal shift from private automobile usage.
The Don Mills Crossing Study identifies a core study area radiating roughly 800 metres from the
intersection of Don Mills Road and Eglinton Avenue East. For the purposes of transportation
analysis, a larger area of influence was selected to investigate major travel behaviours and
trends. To correspond with available data sets and to appropriately capture the above noted
issues, the transportation influence area is bound by Lawrence Avenue East to the north, Leslie
Street and CNR Rail corridor to the west, and the Don Valley Parkway to the south and east.
In examining the existing conditions and determining potential opportunities for future
improvements, a number of innovative approaches were used for this transportation review. To
more accurately reflect the transportation nature of a mix of uses (such as density, compactness
of design, destinations through connectivity and walkability, development scale, distance to
transit, demographics), the transportation demand focused on people instead standard traffic
engineering practice primarily focused on the automobile. Smart data sources (i.e. aggregated
mobile device, GPS and conventional data) were utilized to better capture nature of travel behavior
pattern which is difficult to portray using existing databases. Finally, data visualization techniques
including state-of-the-art GIS (Geographic Information Systems) were utilized to display key
travel behavior and identify existing issues for all modes of transportation.
1.1 Key Findings
The existing conditions review and data analysis yielded a number of key findings:
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