The Humber Bay Arch Bridge

Before 1994, anyone cycling or walking the Martin Goodman Trail along Toronto's western waterfront hit a dead end at the mouth of the Humber River, forced onto a lengthy detour north to the nearest crossing at Bloor Street. The Humber River Pedestrian Bridge — known locally as the Humber Bay Arch Bridge — closed that gap when it opened in 1994, linking Humber Bay Park East to Humber Bay Park West and finally giving the waterfront trail a continuous route across the river's mouth.

A gateway and a sail

The bridge's signature feature is a pair of tiered steel arches rising over the deck, meant to read as both a gateway and a sail; the design team worked references to the river's deeper history into the railings, since the Humber was a key stretch of the Toronto Carrying Place Trail, the portage route Indigenous peoples used between Lake Ontario and the upper Great Lakes. The crossing sits on shoreline that is itself artificial — Humber Bay Park East and West are built on landfill added through the 1970s and 80s, reclaiming a stretch of shore once given over to shipping and coal handling.

Sources

• Wikipedia — Humber River Pedestrian Bridge
• Waterfront Toronto — Martin Goodman Trail