How we’re transforming Toronto’s neglected laneways into vibrant public places

Many of us have developed a newfound appreciation for our public spaces over the past year as indoor spaces have closed and public life has shifted almost completely outdoors. For those of us who don’t have access to much private outdoor space, our parks, sidewalks, streets and laneways became spaces to spend distanced time with friends and family.

At The Laneway Project, we’re focused on transforming Toronto’s most overlooked and neglected public spaces into complete, living places. In neighbourhoods all across the city, Torontonians are increasingly recognizing the potential of this vast network of over 2400 public laneways to add to the vibrancy and livability of their neighbourhoods. But how do these unique placemaking projects come to life?

We start off with a months-long community engagement process to understand what the people who live, work, and play in the area know about and envision for the space. We take the time to learn about the challenges that can be addressed, and the existing strengths that can be built on. Everything we learn from the people who know the laneway best feeds into a master plan that hones in on several big-picture community goals.

The master plan for Laneway Park-ing in Leslieville. Construction was completed June 2021.

Once we have a master plan, we move on to the detailed design phase by taking the community’s goals and planning out how they can be achieved through tangible improvements to the built environment. This process is led by us, but requires the knowledge and expertise of a host of stakeholders, specialists and contractors — from municipal staff to artists, fabricators to plant nurseries — to source and procure the right materials and components with the right qualities to meet the specific needs of a particular space.

Power-washing and stain removal to prepare for the application of Toronto’s first full-coverage right-of-way mural  as part of Laneway Park-ing in Leslieville, May 2021. 

A lot of what we do pushes the boundaries of what is possible in Toronto’s public realm. Laneways are unique spaces, and transforming them successfully requires an understanding of what works well in them and what doesn’t. When we’re really pushing the envelope, we look into best practices globally and seek to understand how they can be implemented locally. Toronto has a particular climate and a complex regulatory framework, and part of our job is to take what has worked well elsewhere — whether in other cities or in other types of space — and translate it into something that works well in Toronto’s laneways. 

Laneways themselves are public spaces, but the bulk of a transformation project actually takes place on the laneway frontages of neighbouring private and public properties — those spaces on either side of the public right-of-way that contribute to the feel, character and functionality of the laneway “whole”. We make improvements to this “whole” public space by adding greening, lighting, public art, waste enclosures, safety fencing, benches, windbreaks and other improvements to the laneway edges of neighbouring properties, at the request of property owners and in collaboration with community members. These elements all come together to create a sense of place, but also serve a number of really practical functions such as traffic calming, increased walkability, promoting biodiversity, and stormwater mitigation.

Installation of custom-made steel planters in Nicholson Lane in the St. Lawrence Market area, September 2019.

This June we’ll see the culmination of all of this work in two communities, with the unveiling of two Laneway Park-ing transformations that will enhance their local public realms while demonstrating some Toronto laneway “firsts”. In Leslieville, the laneway running from Logan Ave to Morse St, to the south of Queen St E, will be made safer and more accessible with the addition of a new road mural that uses a highway-grade surface coating never before used in a Toronto right-of-way to calm traffic and protect the paving surface from degradation for the next 15 years. In Moss Park-Cabbagetown, Central Hospital Lane will gain the city’s first healing corridor, which will provide a series of healing gardens planted with native medicinal species, alongside a storytelling mural co-created by Monica Wickeler and Anishinaabe artist Nyle Miigizi Johnston, and a suite of youth murals created by emerging Indigenous artists under the guidance of Nicole Ineese-Nash of Finding Our Power Together.

Installation of a traffic calming road mural using highway-grade surface coating as part of Laneway Park-ing in Leslieville, May 2021.

The success of this type of ground-breaking intervention rests on three key ingredients: close coordination throughout the project process with City of Toronto staff, policy and procedures, partnership with the private sector and owners of adjacent properties, and collaboration with the community members who know the laneways on an intimate, day-to-day level. This ensures that laneway innovations are rooted in and respond to the spatial and social reality of their neighbourhoods, and that they are replicable beyond those neighbourhoods because they not only meet, but strengthen, the environmental, safety, and maintenance standards that govern laneways and other public spaces throughout the city.

When our work is done, the project is really only getting started. Deeply involving community members throughout the process builds a sense of ownership, and community members tend to become dedicated stewards of their laneways long after we’ve transformed the space. A laneway project comes to life when people engage with the space in brand new ways, and that part can only come from the community itself.