Tewder
Senior Member
LOL, I hear ya! The sad thing is it doesn't have to be.
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Shabby Public Realm
- Thread starter junctionist
- Start date
LOL, I hear ya! The sad thing is it doesn't have to be.
Adjei
Senior Member
Thanks for keeping it real!
Bogtrotter
Senior Member
Yes a lot of the downtown streets have a podunk feel to them- shoddy streetscapes with pedestrian architecture. Bloor has improved considerably though, hopefully this spreads to some of the other commercial streets.
jozl
Active Member
Yonge Street has got to get fixed! It looks especially bad now that the PanAm Games are happening. It's an embarrassment! Narrow broken sidewalks, cracked and potholed road surface, inconsistent and ugly lighting, lack of street furniture and amenities. It's ridiculous! I remember the first "experiments" that temporarily closed off the street in the summer. That was back in 1971 or 72. Over forty years ago!! Plans already exist that would see Yonge reduced to 2 lanes, the sidewalks widened and paved with paving stones, improved lighting and light standards, street furniture and the occasional "urban park" or square. This all could have been done for a fraction of the cost of the PanAm Games! It's like we asked the world to come to our city but we didn't bother to put on our clothes. It's insulting. I will start writing letters to City Hall (again) urging them to FINALLY FIX this mess of a street. Another letter to The Star wouldn't hurt either. BTW, I'm not advocating that Yonge Street needs to be totally gentrified. It's funkiness is part of it's (waning) charm. But… the street scape needs major cosmetic and structural surgery. Let's get on with it. Yeeesh!
pman
Senior Member
In yet another example of this city's total cluelessness, I give you Roxborough between Yonge and Avenue Road. It was repaved this summer and already has multiple utility cuts near Yonge. There was a crew out this morning patching up another one. Given our freeze-thaw cycle, the street will be a potholed mess within a decade.
Armour
Senior Member
Seems like money well spent. People often say that Toronto is not a leader, but a follower. I'd say to them that we are a leader in how not to build and maintain sidewalks. We're literally blazing trails -- of asphalt -- across the city. We're in a league of our own, in this respect, with the rest of the world lagging far behind.
yin_yang
Active Member
i would like to thank the conservatives and city council for starting to update our parks and parkettes. they look great and it seems like every third or fourth one has been redone or is getting redone in the last year. thanks stephen!
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
What does it have to do with the Federal Conservatives?
AoD
AoD
yin_yang
Active Member
they're the ones in control of canada's tax money, i think. i guess all the MPs combined are, so thanks to all of them!
salsa
Senior Member
Well there's a certain gazebo in Tony Clement's riding that we can thank them for.
SunriseChampion
Senior Member
Well then! You can thank Stephen for C-51....not local parks. Well, not most of them, most places.
You can thank Stephen for a lot of things. Like ignoring scientists, sociologists, economists, and various other experts in their respective fields. Not local parks.
You can thank Stephen for talking absolute rubbish about democracy when he holds absolute power with less than a third of eligible electoral support. Not local parks.
In fact, I would like to thank him if he decides to vanish. Not local parks.
You can thank Stephen for a lot of things. Like ignoring scientists, sociologists, economists, and various other experts in their respective fields. Not local parks.
You can thank Stephen for talking absolute rubbish about democracy when he holds absolute power with less than a third of eligible electoral support. Not local parks.
In fact, I would like to thank him if he decides to vanish. Not local parks.
pman
Senior Member
I'm in Sydney at the moment and damn! What a gorgeous, non-shabby city! Ok they've got the climate and the unbelievably beautiful setting, which we'll never have. But they also build their public realm as if they have a fucking clue. Makes Toronto look pathetic.
TrickyRicky
Senior Member
Has anyone here actually contacted their local councillor or BIA etc.? I mean contacted them without ranting, just regarding a specific targeted subject? You can't build Rome in a day but if you picked a targeted, manageable issue that is bothering you they actually acknowledge your concern. An example could be a missing aspect to the public realm on a street, the state of repair of something in the public realm on a street etc.
Ranting that the city is ugly and that the system and government are clueless and impotent is not complaining, it's moaning. In a way moaning is a kind of apathy. An apathy that validates the absence of investment in the public realm and worse, minimizes and criticizes the work of those few people in the public and private realms who actually do push forward this issue. Sure, people need a forum to vent but let's not forget that more change will happen if you validate, give credit and praise to those projects and those individuals who do make a difference. That is a better focus of our attention than a dialogue focusing on how far we have fallen from some fictional example of aesthetic nirvana.
Ranting that the city is ugly and that the system and government are clueless and impotent is not complaining, it's moaning. In a way moaning is a kind of apathy. An apathy that validates the absence of investment in the public realm and worse, minimizes and criticizes the work of those few people in the public and private realms who actually do push forward this issue. Sure, people need a forum to vent but let's not forget that more change will happen if you validate, give credit and praise to those projects and those individuals who do make a difference. That is a better focus of our attention than a dialogue focusing on how far we have fallen from some fictional example of aesthetic nirvana.
junctionist
Senior Member
Some cities implement public realm improvements throughout neighbourhoods like adding pavers, landscaping and ornamental street lights. Here in Toronto, improvements at the neighbourhood level are almost always limited to the main street only.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
I think the amount of kudos WT has received over their work is pretty clear there is an appetite for change (and I expect the same if the city revitalization projects such as Berczy are executed to a high quality). The issue isn't that - but how seriously public realm is taken by our myriad of decisionmakers. I take this again as an example:
Corner of Yonge and Dundas - that tilting, rusted pole predates Yonge-Dundas Square (nevermind the issues around how that project was executed), which is arguably one of the most high profile public realm improvement of the early 2000s. Is there a lack of awareness regarding the importance of the area? As one of the more widely used intersections by residents and tourists and yet this? After all the money that was spent to improve the attractiveness of the district? Like no one from Tourism Toronto noticed it? The BIA? The 3 successive mayor's offices?
AoD
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