Liberty Village getting school, library, and pedestrian streets over next decade

Toronto is moving forward with long-overdue infrastructure for Liberty Village, though residents shouldn't expect quick results. City council greenlit an action plan called 'Liberty for All' in June that includes a school, Canada Post services, a public library, a community recreation center, and pedestrian-only streets.

Once an industrial area, Liberty Village has transformed since the early 2000s into a dense neighborhood of condos and office space. But the population growth has outpaced services. The only way to move east to west through the neighborhood is on Liberty Street, a single-lane, two-way road choked with rush-hour traffic managed by four-way stop signs and no traffic lights.

Coun. Ausma Malik, who put forward the motion, acknowledged the timeline stretches into the 2030s. "While the outlook is still several years away, it's having that fixed date and time frame for residents to be able to count on," she said. The community centre has no defined completion date and could take up to a decade.

Urban planning expert Shauna Brail noted that the neighborhood's infrastructure gaps extend beyond new construction. Some services, like postal upgrades, don't require new buildings — just accepting that dense Toronto neighborhoods are inherently congested and adapting accordingly.

Chris Plouffe, who worked in Liberty Village for 15 years, said he usually waits an hour after work to avoid the traffic crush. When told the traffic fixes might not arrive until 2036, he said: "I'm honestly shocked that it takes 10 years to do that. It's abysmal how slow Canada moves on our infrastructure."