The Prince Edward Viaduct, usually called the Bloor Viaduct, carries Bloor Street East across the Don River valley and joins it to Danforth Avenue. Its Don section was officially opened on October 18, 1918, the Bloor section followed on August 23, 1919, and the City of Toronto Archives records that the name Prince Edward Viaduct was made official on October 6, 1919. It was built with a lower deck for subway trains decades before any subway ran on it.
The viaduct is about 494 meters (1,621 feet) long and rises nearly 40 meters (131 feet) above the Don River, according to the Lost Rivers project. The valley it crosses is described in the article on Toronto’s elevation and topography.
Why the viaduct was proposed
The City of Toronto Archives traces the idea to September 16, 1901, when an alderman moved that the City Engineer report on joining Bloor Street East to Danforth Avenue. It came up again in 1906 and 1907, and after the annexation of East Toronto in 1909 it was taken seriously. Voters were asked each year to approve the money. They said no on January 1 of 1910, 1911, and 1912, and yes on January 1, 1913, approving an expenditure of $2.5 million CAD. The Lost Rivers project says voters rejected the bridge twice; the Archives lists three rejections.
The project drew criticism. The Lost Rivers project reports that many citizens thought the cost excessive, that critics called it a bridge to nowhere because the Danforth was sparsely settled, and that residents of Rosedale opposed running Bloor Street through their district. A bend was added in Bloor Street to meet some of that opposition.
Design and construction
Edmund Burke (1850 to 1919) served as consulting architect, and Thomas Taylor was the designing and construction engineer, according to the City of Toronto Archives. According to the Toronto Public Library blog, Roland C. Harris, then a 34-year-old city official, supervised the project. Early tests in 1912 found that the Don Valley soil could not carry heavy loads to a considerable depth. The final design combined steel and concrete. Quinlan and Robertson were the general contractor for the Don section, and Hamilton Bridge Steel Works handled the steelwork. Dominion Bridge Company assembled the Rosedale arches on the ground and hoisted them into place.
The bridge has three parts. The Don section crosses the river valley. The Rosedale section crosses Rosedale Ravine, with one main span of 190 feet (58 meters) at a height of 90 feet (27 meters). The Bloor section sits on an embankment of fill between Parliament and Sherbourne streets. The finished deck is 86 feet (26 meters) wide.
The Archives holds more than 800 photographs of the construction by Arthur Goss, who worked for the city’s Department of Public Works from 1911 to 1940. Its pages give two start dates: a sod-turning ceremony on January 16, 1915, presided over by Mayor T. L. Church, and June 16, 1915 in its introductory timeline. The sod-turning date is the one repeated by the Toronto Public Library.
The subway deck
The lower deck was meant for trains. In August 1910 the American traffic consultants Jacobs and Davies recommended a Yonge Street subway and a double-decked viaduct with lower decks for subway trains. City engineer Charles Henry Rust opposed the subway deck, while Harris, who supported it, was backed for the combined posts of Works Commissioner and City Engineer in 1912, according to the Archives. The deck was built, but the east-west subway did not open until 1966. When it did, a separate covered subway bridge over the Rosedale Ravine was installed, designed by John B. Parkin and Associates with De Leuw Cather Canada. For the wider story of the subway, see the article on public transit in Toronto.
The first streetcar crossed the viaduct on December 14, 1918, according to the Archives.
Opening and the name
The Don and Rosedale sections were complete by October 18, 1918. The Rosedale bridge had been carrying traffic since October 29, 1917, connected by temporary roads, and the Bloor section needed time for its fill to settle before opening on August 23, 1919. The Archives cites a historian who says the opening ceremony passed almost unnoticed, and that Mayor Tommy Church ended the speeches early because of influenza gathering regulations.
The City petitioned Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, the heir to the throne, for permission to use his name. He arrived for a three-day visit on August 23, 1919, and the name became official on October 6, 1919. The Lost Rivers project identifies him as the Prince of Wales who later became King Edward VIII.
The Luminous Veil
Before the barrier, the viaduct was one of the most frequently used suicide sites in the world, second only to the Golden Gate Bridge, according to researchers writing in BMJ Open in 2017. A suicide barrier called the Luminous Veil was completed in 2003. Its designer, Dereck Revington, says on his firm’s page that the project began with a two-stage national competition in 1998, that the main structure was finished in 2003 with support from a private donor, and that the lighting was installed as a City of Toronto legacy art project and switched on at the opening of the Pan American Games on July 4, 2015. The designer’s page counts 16,438 stainless steel rods in the screen.
The effect of the barrier has been studied. An earlier study by the same research group (Sinyor and Levitt, BMJ, 2010) had reported that deaths at other bridges rose after 2003 so that citywide jumping deaths did not fall, and the 2017 paper revisits that result. It compared the 11 years before the barrier (1993 to 2003) with the 11 years after (2004 to 2014). After correcting for population, it found deaths at the viaduct fell from 9.0 a year to 0.1 a year and deaths at all Toronto bridges fell from 18.8 to 10.0 a year (the uncorrected counts were 9.5 and 0.1, and 19.6 and 11.1), and the authors concluded that jumping deaths declined over the long term without a matching rise in other methods. They also found that media coverage of the viaduct was linked with more bridge deaths the following year, a small effect.
Anyone in Canada who is struggling can call or text 9-8-8, the Suicide Crisis Helpline, at any hour.
Key dates
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 1, 1913 | Voters approve $2.5 million CAD for the viaduct |
| January 16, 1915 | Sod-turning ceremony |
| October 29, 1917 | Rosedale section opens to traffic |
| October 18, 1918 | Official opening of the Don section |
| December 14, 1918 | First streetcar crosses |
| August 23, 1919 | Bloor section opens |
| October 6, 1919 | Name Prince Edward Viaduct made official |
| 1966 | Subway opens; covered subway bridge installed at Rosedale Ravine |
| 2003 | Luminous Veil barrier completed |
| July 4, 2015 | Veil lighting switched on |
Frequently asked questions
When did the Prince Edward Viaduct open?
The City of Toronto Archives gives October 18, 1918 as the official opening of the Don section and August 23, 1919 for the Bloor section. Some accounts give 1919 as the completion year.
Who designed the Bloor Viaduct?
The Archives credits Edmund Burke as consulting architect and Thomas Taylor as designing and construction engineer, with Roland C. Harris supervising, according to the Toronto Public Library.
Does the subway run on the viaduct?
Yes. The lower deck was built for subway trains, and the Bloor-Danforth subway opened in 1966, according to the Lost Rivers project and the Archives. The Rosedale Ravine crossing uses a separate covered bridge.
Why is it called the Prince Edward Viaduct?
The City asked permission to name it for Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, who visited Toronto in August 1919. The name was made official on October 6, 1919.
Related reading
- From streetcars to the subway
- Cabbagetown, beside the Don Valley
- Toronto’s buried creeks and ravines
- The valleys and ridges of Toronto
- An overview of Toronto’s history
Last verified: October 2026
Sources
- City of Toronto Archives, “Bridging the Don: The Prince Edward Viaduct” (introduction), online exhibit
- City of Toronto Archives, “Bridging the Don: Construction”
- City of Toronto Archives, “Bridging the Don: The Viaduct Opens”
- Lost Rivers project (Toronto Green Community and Toronto Field Naturalists), “Prince Edward Viaduct”
- Toronto Public Library, Local History and Genealogy blog, “100th Anniversary of the Bloor Viaduct,” December 12, 2018
- Mark Sinyor et al., “Did the suicide barrier work after all? Revisiting the Bloor Viaduct natural experiment and its impact on suicide rates in Toronto,” BMJ Open 7(5), 2017, e015299
- Dereck Revington Studio / RVTR, “The Luminous Veil”
- 9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline (Canada)
Cite this page
APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 23). Prince Edward Viaduct: History of the Bloor Viaduct. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/prince-edward-viaduct-history
MLA: “Prince Edward Viaduct: History of the Bloor Viaduct.” History of Toronto, 23 Oct. 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/prince-edward-viaduct-history. Accessed .
Chicago: History of Toronto. “Prince Edward Viaduct: History of the Bloor Viaduct.” Last modified October 23, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/prince-edward-viaduct-history.
The pages have no named author, so the site is given as the author. Add the date you read the page if your style asks for it.