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The Toronto waterfront is the lakeshore of Lake Ontario in the City of Toronto, Ontario in Canada. It spans 46 kilometres between the mouth of Etobicoke Creek in the west, and the Rouge River in the East. The entire lakeshore has been significantly altered from its natural glaciated state prior to European settlement. ==History== Lake Ontario is a recent lake.〔 (mirror ) 〕 As the last glaciation, the Laurentian glaciation receded, a number of proglacial lakes filled in basins adjacent to the glacier. One of those proglacial lakes was Lake Iroquois. Lake Iroquois was considerably deeper than Lake Ontario, as a lobe of the Laurentian glacier still filled the valley of what is now the St. Lawrence River. The southern boundary of Lake Iroquois was the Niagara escarpment. The lake flowed over the Niagara Escarpment east of Rochester, and flowed to the Atlantic Ocean down what is now the Mohawk River, to the Hudson River. The shoreline of Lake Iroquois can be observed in steep hills, such as that on the north side of Davenport Road. Casa Loma has a good view of the harbour, four kilometres away, as it is on the height of the old shoreline. When the glacier retreated from the St Lawrence Valley the shoreline receded to a much shallower level than today's lake, as it takes time for land that had been under a heavy glacier to rebound. This lake was call Admiralty Lake.〔〔 〕 Some sources suggest the drainage of the lake triggered the Upper Dryas climatic change. Some sources suggest the lake drained all the way to sea level and the lake became brackish. Since the last ice age, silt deposits, borne mostly from the erosion of the Scarborough Bluffs and the eluvial rivers to the east were swept by strong, natural Lake Ontario currents creating prominent fingers of land away from the lakeshore in the current central waterfront area, including the Toronto Islands. The shore of Lake Ontario (at least within present-day Toronto Harbour) is mostly landfill, extending a kilometre or more from the natural shoreline. Adding to the existing silt deposits, Ashbridges Bay was filled in and the Port Lands area (Cherry Street to Leslie Street) was created in the early 1900s. The bay was filled in partly due to concerns about public health – locals had disposed of sewage, farm animal carcasses and household waste in the bay for years. During this period the Don River, which used to flow into the bay to the south-west, was diverted (straightened) toward the harbour, first directly southward and later westward through the current configuration of the Keating Channel. Currently there are proposals to restore the original natural watercourse of the Don, which would bring it closer to the downtown core. The modern harbour area was mostly formed through landfill in the years around the First World War, to allow for deeper container vessel wharf access. The central waterfront functioned as an important industrial area for many years, providing shipping access to communities from Port Union in the east to Mimico in the west. To the east and west, Toronto expanded along the waterfront with new residential suburbs. West of the Humber River, outside the city limits, the waterfront has been mainly private lands fronting on the lake. East of the Humber River, within the city limits, the waterfront has been under the control of the government. The Sunnyside lakefront from the Humber east to Jameson was filled in, creating new lands for recreational and park land uses. To the east of Sunnyside the lands were originally military grounds, centred on Fort York. The Garrison lands became the Exhibition grounds and have been public ever since. To the east of the harbour area, parklands were built along the waterfront from Ashbridges Bay east to the eastern city border at Victoria Park. Further east, the Scarborough lands have been dominated by the Scarborough Bluffs and development could not proceed to the waterfront. In the 1950s, the Gardiner Expressway project, connecting suburbs to the west, substantially changed the western waterfront. As the Toronto area prospered and the downtown lands became more developed, industry began to move out of the central area seeking cheaper land in the suburbs. This left behind many heavily polluted sites (some of the main uses of the waterfront were oil and coal storage, waste disposal and incineration, and heavy manufacturing especially in Toronto harbour). The railway lands just to the north of the waterfront now became too valuable to keep industrial and have been converted to other uses, starting with the CN Tower in the 1970s. The railway lands became the site of the SkyDome (now Rogers Centre), the Toronto Convention Center, office buildings and numerous condominium residential buildings. The 1972 Canadian election saw a further step in the conversion of the central waterfront away from industrial uses. The Federal Liberals promised to improve Toronto's waterfront, expropriating the area from Bathurst Street to York Street along the waterfront for the "Harbourfront" project. Some buildings, such as Queen's Quay Terminal and Harbourfront Centre were remodelled, and others demolished and replaced by new structures. The areas south of Queen's Quay have been changed mainly to cultural and recreational uses and the area north of Queen's Quay has been redeveloped into condominium residential towers. West of Bathurst Street, the lands have been converted into a new residential area. The area between York Street and Jarvis Street along the water has remained in private ownership except for the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal. Residential condominiums and the large Harbour Castle hotel were built along the water and the Toronto Star built a new headquarters office building at Yonge Street. To the east of Yonge Street, land usage has changed, but not dramatically. The Redpath Sugar Factory remains, and several industrial buildings have been converted into other uses. The area along the water has been primarily owned by the Toronto Harbour Commission, and eventually transferred to the City's Economic Commission. Tonnage to the Toronto Port has declined over the past 50 years, replaced by increases in other modes of transportation. The Toronto Harbour Commission was eventually dissolved, its lands transferred to the City except for those specifically to be controlled by the successor Toronto Port Authority, which retained authority over transportation uses in the Port, including the Island Airport. The federal government created the authority along with others around Canada to manage ports in a more business-like fashion. Following its mandate, the Port Authority has made attempts to increase usage of the Port, initiating a Ship Terminal and Ferry Service to Rochester, a container facility in the Port lands and plans to expand the usage of the Island Airport, although expanded use of the Island Airport is opposed by local residents and organizations, and puts it at odds with the current City of Toronto council. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Toronto waterfront」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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