Park Under Toronto Freeway to Transform City

Known as "Underpass Park", the space is expected to complete construction by the end of the year.

"Though it remains a sea of mud, the land's enormous potential is easy to see. From a planning perspective, however, the problem is what to do with a series of shadowy overpasses that run through the site, separating one half from the other.

Elevated expressways are right up there on the list of most effective city-killers, but here at least the space beneath Toronto's infamous raised highways will be transformed into something open, accessible, usable, and even enjoyable.

That's a lot to ask, but Vancouver landscape architecture firm Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg has devised a program of sports courts, cafes and wooden strips that rise out of the ground to become benches. Not surprisingly, lighting will feature prominently in the new facility, part of an effort to make up for the lack of daylight."