Image Courtesy of the SvN

Among Toronto residents, the Six Points interchange earned a familiar moniker: Spaghetti Junction.

Its tangle of ramps and flyovers offered motorists (and only motorists) access to three major arterials. When the junction was designed more than 50 years ago, the Etobicoke area in western Toronto occupied a sparsely populated fringe of urban life. It was generally a pass-through location between destinations.

Over time, however, urban development spread and surrounded the interchange. Transit and active transportation grew into staples of Toronto mobility, and the spaghetti junction no longer fit the fabric of the community surrounding it.

In 2003 and after decades of difficulty in finding an acceptable solution, the City of Toronto (The City) engaged with HDR to complete the Environmental Assessment and establish a plan for the future reconfiguration of the Six Points interchange that would completely transform the area to become a new downtown in the west part of Toronto. After an intensive public engagement program, the Ministry of the Environment approved the EA in 2007. The City subsequently approved the Etobicoke Centre Public Space and Streetscape Plan in 2012, and in 2013 selected HDR to complete final design and a construction tender package to reconfigure the interchange. We applied a complete street solution to transform the car-centric, six-legged arterial interchange into a transit-oriented, mixed-use, pedestrian and cycling-friendly network. Since 2016, we have been providing engineering support during construction.

The Reconfiguration of the Six Points Interchange is a recipient of the many awards including the Consulting Engineers of Ontario Award, Toronto Urban Design Award, and the National Urban Design Award.

This $60 million development project aims to improve mobility for all while supporting the creation of a regional hub in Etobicoke — a “destination” where the community can connect, live, work and play.