Trinity Bellwoods Park Access & Circulation Study

[TwoWheelPoli]

Given the popularity of Trinity Bellwoods Park, I created a separate post to discuss the access and circulation study. The Phase 2 survey will be open until Thursday, March 5 and can be accessed here.

Trinity Bellwoods Park Access & Circulation Study

Trinity Bellwoods Park is a popular destination for relaxing, exercising and socializing, as well as a central route for walkers and cyclists. The City is conducting a study to assess the park’s pathways and entrances and consider how to improve functionality, connectivity, accessibility and the...

www.toronto.ca

Here is a snip of the proposed path system, while accessibility and entrances also get looked into in greater detail.

 

[AlexBozikovic]

This is not good.

I had thought the consultation was overkill for a redesign of some paths. Turns out it will be a significant rebuild - paths, benches, plazas, wayfinding. But only of certain pieces of the park, without any reconsideration of the overall spatial arrangement or uses.

There should be a coherent plan for this park by a top-tier landscape architecture firm that sets out all the capital work for the next generation, accounting for how it is now being used. Seating? A cafe? Bathrooms? New plantings? Some tree care? Thoughtful landscape architecture?

Instead, parks is going to just do some stuff, lock in all of the half-baked interventions that have already been inflicted on Bellwoods, and add a bunch of paving for trucks to drive on.

 

[Northern Light]

@AlexBozikovic if its any consolation.........the Parks capital budget only shows $200,000 marked for this, in the current year and nothing on a go-forward basis, so any major choices here will not likely be implemented in the near term.

I am, broadly in agreement that certain major decisions here ought to wait for a larger Park Masterplan/Design Competition with the asterisk that this is no money in the Parks Capital budget for delivering such a project unless you raid the very large and poorly used Parklands Acquisition Reserve. (worth asking here is how much of the ~900M in that stock pile is currently allocated to specific projects in the 10-year capital plan)

There are some paths that are sufficiently deteriorated/dangerous that they require at least some work in the near term (behind John Gibson House as example) and its worth considering minor changes at the same time.

Portable washrooms as discussed in this study are a lousy solution to washroom needs, if one or more new permanent washroom locations are required/desirable, this should be addressed before or in conjunction with any new/re-aligned paths.

***

A revisit of the Problematic Park Design thread may be worthwhile for some.

My tour of the Park starts here:

Problematic Park Design - Why Some Parks Don't Work

@mjl08 and @evandyk Personally, I'm fine w/the Muskoka chairs. My issue in this particular park is their somewhat haphazard placement. They aren't a solution to everything, but they do offer a different type of seating, and some bright bursts of colour, and if the desire is to make those a...

skyrisecities.com

These were my recommendations at the time:

Problematic Park Design - Why Some Parks Don't Work

We continue south now before sweeping across the park to look at its southern 1/3........ Just south of the Community Centre is this 'green house'...... Do I have to tell you what I think? No.....I don't............. You know....the Green House was actually built by a TV show, at no cost...

skyrisecities.com

 

[TwoWheelPoli]

This is not good.

I had thought the consultation was overkill for a redesign of some paths. Turns out it will be a significant rebuild - paths, benches, plazas, wayfinding. But only of certain pieces of the park, without any reconsideration of the overall spatial arrangement or uses.

There should be a coherent plan for this park by a top-tier landscape architecture firm that sets out all the capital work for the next generation, accounting for how it is now being used. Seating? A cafe? Bathrooms? New plantings? Some tree care? Thoughtful landscape architecture?

Instead, parks is going to just do some stuff, lock in all of the half-baked interventions that have already been inflicted on Bellwoods, and add a bunch of paving for trucks to drive on.

Sounds like you got some material for a future Globe column! In all seriousness, these are legit issues to bring up.

As a cyclist, my main concern is improving the Shaw-Strachan and Lobb-Strachan cycling connections along with wayfinding. Those routes get heavily congested which lead to frequent cyclist-pedestrian conflicts.

 

[AlexBozikovic]

I am, broadly in agreement that certain major decisions here ought to wait for a larger Park Masterplan/Design Competition with the asterisk that this is no money in the Parks Capital budget for delivering such a project unless you raid the very large and poorly used Parklands Acquisition Reserve. (worth asking here is how much of the ~900M in that stock pile is currently allocated to specific projects in the 10-year capital plan)

The Parks capital budget this year is over $400-million. There absolutely is money to do a proactive design and capital plan for one of the most important parks in the city.

They don't do this kind of thing, but they could and should.

 

[Northern Light]

The Parks capital budget this year is over $400-million. There absolutely is money to do a proactive design and capital plan for one of the most important parks in the city.

They don't do this kind of thing, but they could and should.

Well, you and I would agree that some monies could be more wisely spent; and that there are under utilized funding sources such as the aforementioned parks reserve..........that said.

Parks would tell you it can't find money to do all of the below:

On top of which we could both find lots o places where VE'ing has left projects less than ideally realized, so its not like there aren't many competing demands.

There's also many more items you don't see above....for example the big push for Vale of Avoca to be comprehensively restored, and University Park, among other items.

***

Below are some of things Parks chose to highlight as being funded in this budget:

We could really pick on that 27M.........on the top line..... most of the rest is fairly justifiable.

The Vale of Avoca which I mentioned above will cost way, way more 9M.

I think you might be particularly interested in the Love Park investments and the Civic Precinct Park.

 

[innsertnamehere]

If we can get another major parks donor a la Queen's Park - Trinity Bellwoods would be a great spot to spend. It's a badly deteriorated park with extremely high levels of use and badly needs major investment.