When MacNab finished building Dundurn Castle and the Battery Lodge, the road through his property, that went from Hamilton towards Guelph, was located between the two buildings. MacNab had this road, which would eventually become York Blvd., moved to the other side of the Battery. This decision would eventually create a blind corner for drivers on York Blvd., and become the cause of 50 years of traffic accidents and arguing among politicians. During the first years of Dundurn Park, cars could drive right through the park, past the Castle, the Zoo and other buildings. However, as the Castle gained more historic importance in the community, cars were banned from the park. The idea to return the road to its original place through the park was impossible, as no one wanted to decrease the size of the popular Dundurn green space.
The first suggestion to pull down the Ornamental Gate came in April 1922 from Alderman Jack Sherring and the City Council. However, Thomas Baker McQuesten and the Parks Board saw the Gate as an important historic monument. Together, both groups offered six solutions to solve the problem:
1. 18 feet could be removed from the Gate for a better view.
2. The Gate could be moved back to the house, the street widened to the Battery, and the sidewalk put through the arch.
3. The street could be widened on the other side of the Gate and Lodge, and the streetcar rails moved to make a wider turn.
4. A one way road could be run on the north side of the Battery, leaving the building and Gate in the middle of a boulevard.
5. Traffic officers could be stationed at the curve during rush hour.
6. A sign could be put in the middle of the road that just read: "Danger, Be Careful!".
Debate on this question continued in June-July 1924, and from 1925 to 1927. Only on April 4, 1927, was a decision reached, when a part of the Gate was taken down. The same year Sherring tried to get the rest of the Gate removed, but he was not successful.
25 years later, on June 1952, the debate began again, but this time continued regularly for the next 25 years. The first groups to return to this old argument were the City Council and Works Committee, who were ready to tear down the now cracked and crumbling Gate, and the Parks Board and United Empire Loyalists Association, who were trying to protect it. Three new solutions were suggested and added to the six original solutions:
1. To build a tunnel through the Gate.
2. To install traffic lights with turning arrows on the dangerous corner.
3. To tear down the Gate, but to rebuild it somewhere else in the park.
This time, more people were willing to see the historic importance of the Gate, and, therefore, were not so ready to pull it down. At the same time, by 1969 the increased traffic at the corner of Dundurn St. and York Blvd. had become really dangerous. Accidents were happening there often enough, that Mr. C.R. Smith, a home owner near the corner at 583 York St., installed a 10-ton boulder on the front lawn of his property to give cars something else to smash into other than his house. Mr. Smith had apparently already lost four sets of front steps to car accidents in the last five years.
The 50-year debate finally ended peacefully in 1976, when work began to move the Battery Lodge, and to remove and rebuild the Ornamental Gate, both in other places within Dundurn Park.