Problematic Park Design - Why Some Parks Don't Work

[Northern Light]

Ok, so what do w/this tiny space?

A few comments, an aerial w/brief labels, then some site details/costs.

First, I wouldn't add any new features to this park.

Its primary users seem to be dog owners who mostly like it as it is, based on my survey of the space, they seem to pick up after their pets, so lets let them enjoy the space. Secondary users should be area children, and anyone who just wants a brief sit down in the shade, outdoors or place to socialize outside.

Given the above, I would:

a) Keep the playground at the south end and mostly 'fix' it, by replacing the one swing set and painting the other one. The climber may need replacement just due to age. I would change out the sand for mulch, just a personal preference .

b) I would address the non-entrance, entrances with dubious sightlines and oddly placed seating, by removing any pretense of a path and instead incorporating a small, 50% hardscaped plaza with some softscape around the existing mature trees.
This would allow for new benches, some a bit closer to and facing the road, others adjacent to the playground. I would add some perennial flowers here to brighten the space up.

c) I would largely leave the open area as it is now, however, I would mostly naturalize the rail berm, and provide 4-season beauty by incorporating more conifers, oranmental grasses, Beech trees and some Chokecherry, and Purple-flowering Raspberry.
I would retain 25% as grass, to allow for those who want to sun themselves lying down.

d) I would add new clusters of Muskoka-style chairs, a pair at the north end of the field area, 4 in the middle and 2 towards the playground. These would be in bright, cheerful colours to give the space a lift.

e) I would narrow the adjacent 8M road to 7M, and re-align the current sidewalk by 1M to the east, this would create room for a 1.5M landscaped buffer for the sidewalk, which I would re-do with interlocking pavers, elegant, pedestrian-scaled lights, 2 new benches, along with 2 picnic tables, and the new path would be 0.5M wider than the current sidewalk.

I think that would create a more attractive and engaging space.

****

My synopsis of changes I would make, imposed on an aerial image of the park:

I think the playground piece is self-explanatory, but just to show what a bit of colour can do for small park:

source: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipOtRAho92W365009GMFS-5BCCoRIFbqna3YxXYU=s680-w680-h510

A small forecourt at the entry to a park:

(Ignore our former would-be mayor and still my councillor, I poached the pic from his newsletter)

Source: https://assets.nationbuilder.com/bradbradford/mailings/106/attachments/original/ivan.jpg?1670456434

This is a good example for my purposes as I like the brick here and could see using it in this park for the forecourt and replacement sidewalk.

The lighting here would work in this park too, you also get a hint of the value of some brightly coloured Muskoka chairs.

***

Costs:

Minor improvements:

Playground paint, woodchips: $10,000

Muskoka Chairs/misc. seating improvements: $10,000

Naturalize Rail Berm: $20,000

Major Improvements:

Partial Road reconstruction, new path/sidewalk in interlock, with pedestrian lights: $2,000,000

New Forecourt: $400,000

New play equipment: $125,000

Total: ~$2,600,000

 

[Towered]

I would add a drinking fountain too (which gets switched on in early May!).

Another confounding trend I've noticed is that newer playgrounds frequently include dark colours for varying surfaces, such as slides. How is it not obvious to the brilliant engineers who design these things that that renders them unusable on sunny days in summer? It's downright stupid, and I'm amazed that it keeps happening.

Just a few weeks ago I took my youngest son (he was 4 at the time) to a new playground at Cloverdale Park on a hot, sunny day. He showed reluctance to use it, and I said "Look at all the cool stuff you can do!", upon which he dejectedly threw his arms up and said, "Papa, the slide is too hot - I can't touch it."

 

[lenaitch]

I would add a drinking fountain too (which gets switched on in early May!).

Another confounding trend I've noticed is that newer playgrounds frequently include dark colours for varying surfaces, such as slides. How is it not obvious to the brilliant engineers who design these things that that renders them unusable on sunny days in summer? It's downright stupid, and I'm amazed that it keeps happening.

Just a few weeks ago I took my youngest son (he was 4 at the time) to a new playground at Cloverdale Park on a hot, sunny day. He showed reluctance to use it, and I said "Look at all the cool stuff you can do!", upon which he dejectedly threw his arms up and said, "Papa, the slide is too hot - I can't touch it."

As kids growing up, the only slide option was polished metal. Scads of fun on a hot summer day!

 

[Northern Light]

I would add a drinking fountain too (which gets switched on in early May!).

There is a drinking fountain, I just didn't use a picture of it the thread.

Another confounding trend I've noticed is that newer playgrounds frequently include dark colours for varying surfaces, such as slides. How is it not obvious to the brilliant engineers who design these things that that renders them unusable on sunny days in summer? It's downright stupid, and I'm amazed that it keeps happening.

A plastic slide, I assume? Do they actually get as warm as the old metal ones? Those could burn.

Just a few weeks ago I took my youngest son (he was 4 at the time) to a new playground at Cloverdale Park on a hot, sunny day. He showed reluctance to use it, and I said "Look at all the cool stuff you can do!", upon which he dejectedly threw his arms up and said, "Papa, the slide is too hot - I can't touch it."

Hmm

******

Ok, I've done a quick scan of the literature:

a) Metal slides are far more likely to inflict serious burn

b) Plastic slides can inflict burns as serious as 2nd degree on very sunny days if a slide is in full sun. There are records of 10 such incidents in the U.S. from 2001-2008.

https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/3200.pdf

c) While darker colours are suggested as being slightly more susceptible to this phenomenon, the research seems to suggest it is not a huge factor.

Equipment suppliers provide play equipment in virtually every colour.


***

Interesting, a U.S. news story on a child burnt on play equipment had the news crew out taking the temperature of different slides.

While yellow seemed to fare a bit better, even beige could reach a temperature that would burn, and warmer than green interestingly. Dark Blue seemed to fare the worst.

Blue slides' surfaces may reach 200 degrees, investigators say

When KSL Investigators learned a child had received a second-degree burn from a blue plastic slide at a popular city park, they began taking temperature readings. The city where it happened is considering a shade structure to keep children safe.

www.ksl.com

***

The suggestion there is that the only answer to zero-risk is to put canopys over playgrounds, at $20,000USD a pop.

Toronto has 848 playgrounds.

Allowing for the large size of some, and the exchange rate and such, I'd peg the cost at 35M or so to do all of them.

Its actually a manageable number. But I'm not sure I like the idea of playgrounds bereft of sun. Hmmm

 

[smably]

Thanks for the park review, @Northern Light! I appreciate your insights on park design as always.

Its primary users seem to be dog owners who mostly like it as it is, based on my survey of the space, they seem to pick up after their pets, so lets let them enjoy the space. Secondary users should be area children, and anyone who just wants a brief sit down in the shade, outdoors or place to socialize outside.

This makes sense. I have neither children nor dogs, but I do like to sit down in the shade or have a picnic with friends every so often. Despite this being the closest park to me, I'd much rather go up the street to Campbell Park or make the trek over to Dufferin Grove to do either of those things.

I think your suggestions about extra seating are spot on. Almost all the seating right now is facing the playground, so not somewhere I would want to sit as a single adult!

One suggestion I might add — I'd like an interpretive plaque explaining who Erwin Krickhahn is and why he has a park named after him. It took a fair bit of Googling for me to dig up the answer, as well as some other interesting park history:

Erwin Krickhahn Park, north of Bloor along Rankin Crescent, resulted from the efforts of a former East German railway engineer who immigrated to Canada in the 1960’s and got sick with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) in the 1980’s. For years, Krickhahn lobbied from his wheelchair for the transformation of a vacant lot into a park, but the issue was fiercely divisive from the beginning, with some neighbours absolutely rejecting any park because it might attract misbehaving youth. The park was put in anyway, along with more single-family housing. Krickhahn lived just long enough to see the park plantings get underway, but the place never quite lost its vacant-lot feeling. When Councillor Adam Giambrone arranged for a community garden to be put into the middle of the park ten years later, and got a garden fence installed, neighbourhood activist Jack Fava organized two large meetings that brought the underlying culture clash to the surface again – long-time Portuguese and Italian residents versus new homebuyers with young families and different ideas, all of them filmed by City TV news. The fence was removed, the garden soil recovered with sod, and the concrete-bunker garden shed was trucked off to Symington Park instead.

Giambrone next got the city to close a small stub of Paton Road abutting the north end of Krickhaan Park. The stub dead-ended at a high stone wall separating the railway tracks from the neighbourhood. Giambrone wanted the asphalt removed and the community garden located where the street had been. But again angry resistance flared up again and the garden was not put in.

For some years a break in the chain link fence between the park and the railway track has given access to a few tent encampments partly hidden in the scrub Manitoba maples on the railway side. This park could use some delicate Conservancy attention, because at times it gives the impression of a scrubby, neglected borderland.

(From 2012, via https://www.dufferinpark.ca/aboutus/wiki/wiki.php/DufferinGroveIsInTrouble2.Chapter29)

Krickhahn was also a prominent early advocate for MAID:

(via Globe and Mail archives, Feb 10, 1994)

 

[Northern Light]

Thanks for the park review, @Northern Light! I appreciate your insights on park design as always.

This makes sense. I have neither children nor dogs, but I do like to sit down in the shade or have a picnic with friends every so often. Despite this being the closest park to me, I'd much rather go up the street to Campbell Park or make the trek over to Dufferin Grove to do either of those things.

I think your suggestions about extra seating are spot on. Almost all the seating right now is facing the playground, so not somewhere I would want to sit as a single adult!

One suggestion I might add — I'd like an interpretive plaque explaining who Erwin Krickhahn is and why he has a park named after him. It took a fair bit of Googling for me to dig up the answer, as well as some other interesting park history:

(From 2012, via https://www.dufferinpark.ca/aboutus/wiki/wiki.php/DufferinGroveIsInTrouble2.Chapter29)

Krickhahn was also a prominent early advocate for MAID:
View attachment 491079

Good info and suggestion!

 

[afransen]

I think your suggestions about extra seating are spot on. Almost all the seating right now is facing the playground, so not somewhere I would want to sit as a single adult!

I often have this feeling in parks. If I ever want to pause on a bike ride and enjoy the outdoors along my usual route, often the only option is a bench facing a playground, which makes me feel uncomfortable as a adult male without a child in tow, as I know this raises suspicion among the parents at the playground.

 

[Northern Light]

I often have this feeling in parks. If I ever want to pause on a bike ride and enjoy the outdoors along my usual route, often the only option is a bench facing a playground, which makes me feel uncomfortable as a adult male without a child in tow, as I know this raises suspicion among the parents at the playground.

While I certainly think people ought to be less suspicious of one another, absent material cause....

I do understand the sentiment.

I would add, I simply don't like that all of the seating faces inward from a design point of view.

To make a space welcoming, you don't want everyone's back to you from the outside. It makes your presence seem intrusive.

 

[Towered]

There is a drinking fountain, I just didn't use a picture of it the thread.



A plastic slide, I assume? Do they actually get as warm as the old metal ones? Those could burn.



Hmm

View attachment 491021

******

Ok, I've done a quick scan of the literature:

a) Metal slides are far more likely to inflict serious burn

b) Plastic slides can inflict burns as serious as 2nd degree on very sunny days if a slide is in full sun. There are records of 10 such incidents in the U.S. from 2001-2008.

https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/3200.pdf

c) While darker colours are suggested as being slightly more susceptible to this phenomenon, the research seems to suggest it is not a huge factor.

Equipment suppliers provide play equipment in virtually every colour.


***

Interesting, a U.S. news story on a child burnt on play equipment had the news crew out taking the temperature of different slides.

While yellow seemed to fare a bit better, even beige could reach a temperature that would burn, and warmer than green interestingly. Dark Blue seemed to fare the worst.

Blue slides' surfaces may reach 200 degrees, investigators say

When KSL Investigators learned a child had received a second-degree burn from a blue plastic slide at a popular city park, they began taking temperature readings. The city where it happened is considering a shade structure to keep children safe.

www.ksl.com

***

The suggestion there is that the only answer to zero-risk is to put canopys over playgrounds, at $20,000USD a pop.

Toronto has 848 playgrounds.

Allowing for the large size of some, and the exchange rate and such, I'd peg the cost at 35M or so to do all of them.

Its actually a manageable number. But I'm not sure I like the idea of playgrounds bereft of sun. Hmmm

All the slides from my recent experiences have been plastic. A bizarrely high percentage of them seem to be dark blue or dark green, both of which get way too hot to use. It's just common sense that dark colours absorb heat noticeably more than light ones, so I really don't understand why this occurs. Another example of the opposite - I took my son to Grange park recently, also on a hot, sunny day. The epic slides on that playground are light grey, and there were no complaints from him or any of the other children enjoying them. Seems obvious...

 

[Towered]

I often have this feeling in parks. If I ever want to pause on a bike ride and enjoy the outdoors along my usual route, often the only option is a bench facing a playground, which makes me feel uncomfortable as a adult male without a child in tow, as I know this raises suspicion among the parents at the playground.

Ha! This is so true - I've experienced this from both perspectives. When I'm at a playground with the kid in tow, I'm in hawk mode, and I frequently scan all the adults present to see if there's anyone giving off questionable vibes. And other times when alone, like you, I've wanted to rest in the shade and benches happen to face a busy playground, which makes me feel self-conscious as parents might think I'm being creepy or something!

 

[vic]

Erwin Krickhahn Park! This was my closest park until moving a bit further north a couple of years ago. Still go through there occasionally.

Couple of things I wanted to touch on:

• Paton Rd. was filled in and added to the park after that whole Community Garden debacle (commentary on that for another day...). Unfortunately, that space pretty much stayed a disconnected add-on, barely used. The aerial views posted here are quite old since they still show the Paton Rd stump.
• The at-grade underpass under the Barrie Line at Paton Rd. will open soon-ish (no idea of actual timeline....). This will open up EK Park to the trail that's getting installed there, plus easy access to the other side of the rail corridor. Guessing this will bring many more people into / through the park. Heck, it can be the local park for the Tamil Coop on Wade Ave (they have no local park - need to cross major streets to get anywhere).
• When the Davenport Diamond / trail / underpass work gets completed, that would be a great opportunity to continue with upgrades to the park
• The field in the northern half of the park - It's always been a shit field (not just dog shit either). It's not flat, full of holes (have twisted my ankle there...), has a sewer grate in the middle of it.... Not always a great place for running around. This could use improvement.
• The embankment hill is kind of a cool spot in some ways. It's the "first time" toboggan hill for many kids. Used to be better for watching trains too. Landscaping improvements would be great, but I would hope they could leave some grassy spots open for sledding/tumbling down the hill.

 

[Northern Light]

Erwin Krickhahn Park! This was my closest park until moving a bit further north a couple of years ago. Still go through there occasionally.

Excellent contribution!

• The field in the northern half of the park - It's always been a shit field (not just dog shit either). It's not flat, full of holes (have twisted my ankle there...), has a sewer grate in the middle of it....

I didn't find it that bad, though didn't march all over it trying to find a problem spot either. The sewer drain I noticed, I was amused by that, but thought it was a bit inside baseball to explain to people that that was a thing for a while, for draining wet spots, mostly in the south-west end of the City for some reason, you see it far less in east end parks.

All other things being equal, I'd prefer to see a natural soak pit there with rain garden typology plants; but I don't think its the world's biggest priority, and to make it work, the drain needs to come out and be back-filled and that's probably a 100k job in the end (if the City still did this type of work in house, more like 35k, but I digress)

• Not always a great place for running around. This could use improvement.
• The embankment hill is kind of a cool spot in some ways. It's the "first time" toboggan hill for many kids. Used to be better for watching trains too. Landscaping improvements would be great, but I would hope they could leave some grassy spots open for sledding/tumbling down the hill.

I suggested 25% of the embankment remaining mowed in my piece, I think that's fair; I confess, I didn't think of it as a sledding spot, that's a 3-second sled ride, LOL; but if people use if for that, then sure.

Train watching is now better from a distance with the trains up high.

 

[christiesplits]

Hey @Northern Light, any plans for new reviews?

One request, which I believe is in your neck of the woods, is Dieppe Park in East York. It's sort of a poor man's Stan Wadlow Park, which is further down Cosburn. Dieppe is mostly used for sports teams, but the addition of a skating track (10-ish years ago) and a farmer's market (more recent) has given the park some new life.

Still, the park's features feel like it was built by committee. It's doing a lot of things, within not a lot of space, and isn't really hitting it out of the park on any of them (baseball diamond notwithstanding ). I'd also be interested in your opinion on the park's paths, or lack thereof.

Also, if you have additional free time, the Memorial Gardens Park at East York Civic Centre is another park that could make for a good review.

 

[Northern Light]

Hey @Northern Light, any plans for new reviews?

One request, which I believe is in your neck of the woods, is Dieppe Park in East York. It's sort of a poor man's Stan Wadlow Park, which is further down Cosburn. Dieppe is mostly used for sports teams, but the addition of a skating track (10-ish years ago) and a farmer's market (more recent) has given the park some new life.

Still, the park's features feel like it was built by committee. It's doing a lot of things, within not a lot of space, and isn't really hitting it out of the park on any of them (baseball diamond notwithstanding ). I'd also be interested in your opinion on the park's paths, or lack thereof.

Also, if you have additional free time, the Memorial Gardens Park at East York Civic Centre is another park that could make for a good review.

Lets see, when we started the season, this was my list:

I believe I still have the following existing requests to take a look at:

Dufferin Grove Park for @ Towered
June Rowlands Park for @ Johnny Au
Eglinton Park for @ Johnny Au
Walter Saunders Memorial Park for @ Johnny Au
Osler Playground for @ kmac12

Then Smably added Erwin Krickhahn Park

Kmac hasn't been around much so I don't know if he still wants his review.

But I otherwise knocked 3 off the list of six above.

****

I can add the above parks to my to-do list.

I'll try to get in at least a couple in August and a couple more this fall before the leaves fall.

 

[Johnny Au]

Lets see, when we started the season, this was my list:




Then Smably added Erwin Krickhahn Park

Kmac hasn't been around much so I don't know if he still wants his review.

But I otherwise knocked 3 off the list of six above.

****

I can add the above parks to my to-do list.

I'll try to get in at least a couple in August and a couple more this fall before the leaves fall.

You forgot to add Laughlin Park to the list.