Cherry Street is a north-south arterial roadway in the eastern downtown of

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. It is situated in a former industrial area, that is now the site of redevelopment. It connects Eastern Avenue south to Lake Shore Boulevard (where a short section was subsumed into Lake Shore when it was extended east) then to the Toronto Port Lands district, and terminates at

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The Canada–United Sta ...

at Cherry Beach.

Description

Its northern terminus is at Eastern Avenue. A co-linear street, named Sumach St., continues north. It crosses Front St. and Mill St. proceeding south to the railway viaduct and Lake Shore Boulevard. The road has a dedicated right-of-way for streetcars beginning at King Street East and Sumach, which continues south on Cherry, to its terminus known as Distillery Loop beside the railway viaduct. The loop is opposite the Distillery District on the west side of Cherry. On the eastern side of the street is the redevelopment site, first built for the

2015 Pan American Games The 2015 Pan American Games (), officially the XVII Pan American Games () and commonly known as the Toronto 2015 Pan-Am Games (Toronto 2015), were a major international multi-sport event celebrated in the tradition of the Pan American Games, ...

athletes' village, now being turned into a residential apartments district known as the Canary District. The road proceeds south of Lake Shore Boulevard into the Port Lands district where it intersects with Commissioners Street and Unwin Ave. After crossing Unwin, it continues another south to Cherry Beach, where it ends in a

roundabout A roundabout, a rotary and a traffic circle are types of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junct ...

. Cherry Street is carried over the waterways of the Port Lands by Toronto's only two lift bridges: a smaller one where it crosses the Keating Channel and a larger one where it crosses the channel to the

turning basin A turning basin, winding basin or swinging basin is a wider body of water, either located at the end of a ship canal or in a port to allow cargo ships to turn and reverse their direction of travel, or to enable long narrow barges in a canal to tur ...

. According to ''

The Canadian Entomologist ''The Canadian Entomologist'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of entomology. It is published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Entomological Society of Canada and was established in 1868. Volumes ...

'' Cherry Street, between Unwin Ave. and the Keating Channel was the first recorded site of

termite Termites are a group of detritivore, detritophagous Eusociality, eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of Detritus, decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, Plant litter, leaf litter, and Humus, soil humus. They are dist ...

infestation in

2015 Pan American Games

During the 2015 Pan American Games and Parapan American Games thousands of athletes were housed in a temporary athlete's village just east of the intersection of Cherry and Front streets. Temporary pavilions were built on a large vacant lot on the southwest corner of Cherry and Front which served as the athletes' dining area, as well as a temporary bus marshalling yard for the fleet of rented buses which carried athletes to their venues. The apartments that housed the athletes were made available only partially complete. Since the athletes dined at central cafeterias, completing the apartments' kitchens was postponed. That way the rooms intended to serve as kitchens could be used as an additional bedroom. Other fittings, like hardwood floors that could be damaged by the spikes on sports shoes, were installed after the games were over. The intersection of Cherry and Front streets, the gateway to the athletes' village, is being described as the future gateway to the

Canary District The Canary District is a planned neighbourhood in Toronto's West Don Lands mixed-use development. The area was formerly industrial land, cut off from the city by an elevated roadway and two rail corridors, sitting in a floodplain. Six initial b ...

, 200 acres of former light industrial land being redeveloped into a residential area.

Streetcar route

In 2012, the

Toronto Transit Commission The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the primary public transport agency in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, operating the majority of the city's transit bus, bus and rail services. It is the oldest and largest of the urban transit service providers ...

started to construct the first segment of a new streetcar line beside Cherry Street, from King Street south to just north of Lake Shore Boulevard. This initial segment was projected to cost million. Original plans called for the line to extend further south into redeveloped portlands. That extension pushed the budget for the line to million. In early plans, athletes would have ridden a streetcar to Union Station to make connections to the games' scattered venues. However, the streetcar's opening was delayed until after the games were over. The TTC began service on Cherry Street in 2016. The route, named the 514 Cherry, ran from the Cherry Loop, along King, to the

Dufferin Gate Loop Dufferin Gate Loop, also known as Dufferin Loop, is a Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) bus station and turning loop for streetcars near the southern end of Dufferin Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. During the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) ...

, adjacent to

Exhibition Place Exhibition Place is a publicly owned mixed-use district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located by the shoreline of Lake Ontario, just west of downtown. The site includes exhibit, trade, and banquet centres, theatre and music buildings, monuments, ...

. This route was discontinued in 2018, replaced by a re-routing of the

504 King 504 King (304 King during overnight periods) is an east–west Toronto streetcar route in Ontario, Canada. It serves King Street in Downtown Toronto as well as Broadview Avenue on the east end and Roncesvalles Avenue on the west end of the l ...

streetcar. The route of the 504A begins in the west at Dundas West Station, travels south along Dundas Street, Roncesvalles Avenue, then east on King Street to Cherry Street. In the east, the 504B begins at Broadview Station, travels south along Broadview, west on Queen Street and King Street and terminates at the Dufferin loop by

Future development

Lower Cherry Street, south of Lake Shore Boulevard, will be re-aligned west, as part of the development of the

Villiers Island Ookwemin Minising (), meaning 'place of Prunus serotina, black cherry trees', is a area in Toronto's Port Lands that has been converted to an island as part of Port Lands Flood Protection Project by Waterfront Toronto. To prevent flooding from ...

. Developers plan a dense knot of high-rise and mid-rise development on lower Cherry, as part of the development. It will pass under the Gardiner Expressway and cross the Keating Channel over two new bridges, one for vehicles, and the other for streetcars.

References

{{Coord, 43.6446, N, 79.3518, W, type:landmark_region:CA-ON, display=title Roads in Toronto