The Town Setting

Collingwood enjoys a magnificent natural setting, lying under the loom of the Niagara Escarpment, a United Nations designated World Biosphere Reserve, and reaching along the southern shore of Georgian Bay, which may be the most beautifully coloured body of water on the planet. The attractions offered by this setting are exemplified by the presence of two renowned trails, the Bruce Trail, on the Escarpment, and the Georgian Trail, beginning at the foot of Hurontario Street, and running along the Bay. As noted in the History section, the Bay and the Mountain figured largely in the origin of the Town, and continue as a valuable natural heritage in both scenic and economic terms. Ontario’s largest ski resort, at Blue Mountain, and the world’s longest fresh-water beach, at Wasaga Beach, both lie within Collingwood’s economic catchment. The coming expansion of the Blue Mountain ski resort, and the ongoing development of the waterfront in the Town and beyond provides a firm basis for economic growth, with all the benefits and deficits that large-scale development portends.

Highway 26 provides a cautionary example of the squandering of scenic heritage with uncoordinated and unlovely commercial chaos. The highway forms the main eastern and western entrances to the Study Area, and these gateways are not inspiring, as has been noted in the 1992 Parker Transportation Study, the more recent Stenton update, and the Blueprint Collingwood report. The other principal entrance, on Highway 24 from the South, is less degraded, having fewer and smaller properties developed on the model of the suburban highway strip.

It is interesting that to the west, where Highway 26 remains undeveloped, an effort is being undertaken by the Town of The Blue Mountains and its CAUSE Committee to designate the road as a scenic highway, with appropriate controls to preserve its qualities.

Patterns Of Development

Movement Pattern: Streets, Lanes and Paths

Collingwood’s street plan was laid out almost immediately, and changed little in a century. The plan essentially consists of two standard grids, one aligned on what was then the waterfront, the other aligned on the railway, the angle between the grids being about 23 degrees. The two grids join, with a few roads at intermediate angles, roughly along Ste. Marie Street, where their intersection creates a “gore” at the Anglican Church, providing visual emphasis to a property of historical interest. The standard Ontario road allowance of 1 surveyor’s chain (66’ or 20.12m) is used for all but two streets. The exceptions are Hurontario which has 1.5 times that width (30.18m), and First Street, west of Hurontario, with a similar width. The topography that the grid was applied to has a gentle and even rise from the waterfront, so the east-west streets are quite flat, and the north-south streets are slightly loped. The average grade of Hurontario Street is about one-half of 1%. A very minor swale at the railroad line scarcely interrupts this even topography.

The blocks are laid out with the long dimension in the north-south direction. The distances between north-streets are about 222 metres, and between the east-west streets about 125 metres. There are minor variations in the spacing, particularly where the grids join. A single exception occurs on the residential block bounded by Ste. Marie, Ontario, and St. Paul Streets, and Market Lane. This block is long in its angled east-west direction, and severs what would have been a north-south connection between Elgin and Market Streets. It is also very narrow, with only one row of lots which fact Ontario Street. The north side of Market Lane serves as a rear laneway for those lots.

There are two mid-block north-south public laneways, both on the east side of the main street. One lies directly behind the Hurontario Street shops, and extends from Huron Street to about halfway between Ontario and Fourth Streets, interrupted only by the Arena behind the Town Hall. The other is a one-block lane lying between Elgin and St. Paul Streets, and running from Simcoe to Ontario Streets. To the west of Hurontario, public lanes through the blocks are absent, though an ad-hoc vehicular path between Second and Third Streets is maintained by the good will of the property owners on the block. There are few laneways in the residential areas.

Complementary to the north-south laneway system are a number of east-west pedestrian paths between Hurontario Street and the areas and streets behind it. The most obvious of these is the “Schoolhouse Lane” axis, lying mid-block between Simcoe/Second and Ontario/Third Streets and extending all the way from Pine to Ste. Marie Streets, linking parking at each end with shopping and the Town Hall in a single line. Other less apparent paths connect across both blocks, by using driveways, lanes, and parking lots: One uses a covered passage through 47 Hurontario Street, one runs north of 186 and 191 Hurontario, and one runs south of 210 and 205 Hurontario. In addition, interior spaces in some buildings provide connections. These paths provide valuable linkages, shortening walking distances and connecting the main shopping street to the parking areas behind.

Land-Use Pattern

Hurontario Street developed as a grand linear commercial district, behind which construction was largely residential, except for a rail-oriented uses adjacent to the tracks. The essentially linear nature of the original business district is still evident today: most of buildings on Pine and Ste. Marie Streets were originally built as houses, and are now convered to small-scale commercial uses, although quite a few remain as residences. The necessary expansion of commercial area has had less effect on the Downtown Core than the arrival of the automobile, which allowed attraction of customers from a wider area and generated the requirement for parking. As a result, the blocks fronting on Hurontario Street devote a substantial portion of their back-street land to parking, and it is anticipated that more parking will be required. This has a strong effect on the character of those streets.

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