Yonge Street might get a pedestrian mall again

As part of a plan to revitalize Toronto's main drag, Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam would like to see Yonge Street become a pedestrian mall between Gerrard and Dundas. Although nothing's official, according to the Eyeopener, this was one of the main proposals to come out of a meeting at Ryerson last week in which the councillor and university staff discussed improvement strategies for the area.

Along with proposals for a new Dundas Subway Station entrance at Yonge and Gould (in the spot where the Empress Hotel once stood) and the introduction of "destination" retail outlets, Wong-Tam indicated that she'd like to see the Yonge pedestrian mall implemented as a pilot project in the summer months. This would follow the pilots implemented on Wilcocks and Gould Streets last year.

The Yonge Street idea was also put forward by Joe Pantalone (remember him?) during his mayoral campaign. In fact, it's been proposed numerous times since the 1970s when it was actually tried out for a couple years. But, given what it did for Nuit Blanche this year and the fact that the local councillor is behind it, maybe it'll have legs.

We hope to have some more info in the coming days. But, for now, what do you think of the idea? Is there anywhere else that you'd like to see a pedestrian mall tried out?

Photo of Yonge Street during the 2009 Pride Parade by Chris Bandera in the blogTO Flickr pool.