PATH (Toronto)
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| Location | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
|---|---|
| Opening date |
1900 - first pedestrian tunnel in Toronto 1960-70s - construction begins of underground shopping concourses and linkages 1987 - City becomes coordinating agency of network |
| Management |
City of Toronto (coordinating agency) |
| No. of stores and services | 1,200 |
| Total retail floor area | 371,600 m² (4 million sq. ft) |
| No. of floors | 1 |
| Parking | 20 parking garages |
| Website | www |
PATH is a network of underground pedestrian tunnels, elevated walkways, and at-grade walkways connecting the office towers of Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is more than 30-kilometre (19 mi) long. According to Guinness World Records, PATH is the largest underground shopping complex in the world with 371,600 square metres (4,000,000 sq ft) of retail space.
The PATH network's northerly point is the Toronto Coach Terminal at Dundas Street and Bay Street, while its southerly point is Waterpark Place on Queens Quay. Its main axes of walkways generally parallel Yonge Street and Bay Street.
In 1900, the Eaton's department store constructed a tunnel underneath James Street, allowing shoppers to walk between the Eaton's main store at Yonge and Queen streets and the Eaton's Annex located behind the (then) City Hall. It was the first underground pedestrian pathway in Toronto, and is often credited as a historic precursor to the current PATH network. The original Eaton's tunnel is still in use as part of the PATH system, although today it connects the Toronto Eaton Centre to the Bell Trinity Square office complex, on the site of the former Annex building.
Another original underground linkage, built in 1927 to connect Union Station and the Royal York Hotel, also remains an integral part of today's PATH network.
The network of underground walkways expanded under city planner Matthew Lawson in the 1960s. Toronto's downtown sidewalks were overcrowded, and new office towers were removing the much-needed small businesses from the streets. Lawson thus convinced several important developers to construct underground malls, pledging that they would eventually be linked. The designers of the Toronto-Dominion Centre, the first of Toronto's major urban developments in the 1960s (completed in 1967) were the first to include underground shopping in their complex, with the possibility of future expansion built in. The city originally helped fund the construction, but with the election of a reform city council this ended. The reformers disliked the underground system based on Jane Jacobs' notion that an active street life was important to keeping cities and neighbourhoods vital and that consumers should be encouraged to shop on street level stores rather than in malls (whether they be above ground or below); however, the system continued to grow, as developers bowed to their tenants' wishes and connected their buildings to the system. This also converted low-valued basements into some of the most valuable retail space in the country.
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Wikipedia