Dan416
Senior Member
White? Maybe in Thornhill, not in Mississauga lol
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Thornhill
- Thread starter jaycola
- Start date
White? Maybe in Thornhill, not in Mississauga lol
Epi
Active Member
While it's easy to say it's all because of the wealth (the Thornhill riding IS the richest riding in Canada after all), you have to remember that many Thornhillers already take transit. These are the people who live south of the railway line and can easily walk to the TTC bus. Fact is, Thornhill is screwed by the fact that YRT really sucks. YRT sucks because the consessions are too far apart, making it a long walk for most people to get to any stops, and because the arterials are discontinuous so that bus routes are all really weird.
I'm not actually sure how this can even be fixed, unless some roads were re-aligned. This may be possible with Centre/John if some plazas were demolished, but it's almost hopeless for Hilda/Atkinson, or the void that is cut off by Pamona Valley/Golf courses.
The one thing that would really unify transit in Thornhill would be if the Yonge subway extension were built so that transit could be oriented around Steeles/Clark/Centre-John/Royal Orchard stations. Then you'd need a unified fare system, so you could get off the YRT bus and take the subway to downtown. Only then could you really have an effective transit system that didn't all just stream to Finch and duplicate a lot of TTC routes but costing an extra fare. Unfortunately with the new cuts in transit funding in our new Ontario budget, looks like the Yonge extension isn't happening any time soon.
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jaycola
Active Member
I think this part of Thornhill has become quite walkable. I did a walk score for a client (yes he cared) and came up with a very decent walk score of 77.
Here is the view from his unit.
http://www.walkscore.com/
Here is the view from his unit.
http://www.walkscore.com/
Disparishun
Active Member
Looking at median income per household - all private households (variable 35) and median income - persons 15 years and over (variable 115), the Thornhill riding isn't even the richest riding in Vaughan. How did you get to that conclusion?
The Hilda-Steeles thou-shalt-not-pass rules are idiotic, by the way. It wouldn't make a huge dent, but as long as even that can't get fixed, it's hard to think anything ever will.
Mind you, Russel Peters isn't a bitter twentysomething anxious to sell mommy's ricer car and rewrite his roots as the foil for a new identity. Heck, he maintains a house in Brampton. Still, Tim Hortons? What happened to your Country Style?
kettal
Banned
Selling the car was easy, what am I to do with all these bottles of hair gel?
urbandreamer
recession proof
^That sounds like the 519 as well. Or anywhere small town Ontario for that matter. Even horse-and-buggy Amish/Mennonite youth in Waterloo and Perth Counties ride over to the local coffee shop on weekends. Millbank's Anna Mae's Donuts is my reference point. (They show off their "souped-up" buggies, muscular horses etc. The guy with the shiniest cleanest buggy and the latest whip wins the ...bondage prize?)
I'd rather eat these than Kosher Country Style donuts.
(These donuts are actually from the country!)
I'd rather eat these than Kosher Country Style donuts.
(These donuts are actually from the country!)
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ElCentro
New Member
I also grew up in Thornhill (I remember the Country Style parking lot), and am also now a 20 something living in the city bitter about the burbs (although I miss the road hockey). With that said I think Thornhill has some potential (I'm still back frequently visiting the parents). The area of Thornhill West of Yonge especially between Yonge and Bathurst has become very walkable, and when I'm back home I find a lot of pedestrians every time I venture out. There are more destinations now on Yonge , Clark, and surrounding the Promenade that are worth walking to if the weather is decent. Also,it seems that a lot of the empty nesters in the area (parents, and parents' friends are who I've talked to), are becoming very nostalgic for the city (many grew up in the city before moving to the burbs). They seem to be driving a lot of the sales in the condos around the Promenade, and their age group make up many of the pedestrians I often see out walking .
I agree the lack of a continuous street wall and huge breaks between pedestrian destinations is the big difference between Thornhill and the city. I've read official plans, and they seemed to have wanted to create a street wall all along Centre from Bathurst to Dufferin, but the back lot housing is a big obstacle (same could be said on Clark, New Westminister, Atkinson).I've been thinking my last few times home though, maybe there's a creative way more urban mixed use avenues could be created (buying up backlots? Using Strip Mall parking lots? Apartment/condo greenspaces? I agree with the other poster on the Promenade Parking lot!) I've also been thinking maybe the residents would be open to urban avenues if the idea is sold right (Could the empty nesters be political allies? Hell even if there isn't consensus, no one wanted the Walmart, which was sprung on Thornhilllers by the city council right after an election but it's there). These are all personal observations and could be completely off base for everyone outside my circles. Any thoughts on Urbanizing Thornhill and building in more mixed use streets? Think the population would go for it?
I agree the lack of a continuous street wall and huge breaks between pedestrian destinations is the big difference between Thornhill and the city. I've read official plans, and they seemed to have wanted to create a street wall all along Centre from Bathurst to Dufferin, but the back lot housing is a big obstacle (same could be said on Clark, New Westminister, Atkinson).I've been thinking my last few times home though, maybe there's a creative way more urban mixed use avenues could be created (buying up backlots? Using Strip Mall parking lots? Apartment/condo greenspaces? I agree with the other poster on the Promenade Parking lot!) I've also been thinking maybe the residents would be open to urban avenues if the idea is sold right (Could the empty nesters be political allies? Hell even if there isn't consensus, no one wanted the Walmart, which was sprung on Thornhilllers by the city council right after an election but it's there). These are all personal observations and could be completely off base for everyone outside my circles. Any thoughts on Urbanizing Thornhill and building in more mixed use streets? Think the population would go for it?
Disparishun
Active Member
I'd rather eat these than Kosher Country Style donuts.
Why "kosher"? I don't think you can buy Country Style donuts that are kosher anywhere except on Wilmington and at York U, both in the 416. Not relevant to this discussion, surely?
urbandreamer
recession proof
^It just sounded better.
Although I've had donuts at the Wilmington location....and they were okay, but it's still a chain vs. the real thing.
Although I've had donuts at the Wilmington location....and they were okay, but it's still a chain vs. the real thing.
Disparishun
Active Member
Well, my family would. Many of those I talk to would. Heck, lots of us tried to move to more walkable 416-y areas first but just couldn't afford to raise a family there. If you were to ask how many young families in that area first looked somewhere much further south, especially in the Bathurst St-Clair area, I think you'd be surprised.
That said, there may be a bit of a disconnect between the above two quotes. The empty nesters are largely replaced by an immigrant population -- Israelis, Jewish immigrants from Russia and South Africa and France/North Africa, and the non-Jewish immigrant groups typical of this part of the city (Persians, Koreans, Chinese). They will in many cases be less likely to share the refined tastes of sneering kettals and more likely share the aspirations of his parents' generation. Which doesn't bode well for constituencies.
Still, I don't want to overstate it. The disconnect isn't that great. I've found agreement among many that, hey, walkability is a good idea, once you get them thinking about it. Our parents' generation who built these suburbs really is a different generation, and whereas many of our parents yearned for the suburbs after growing up in inner cities, even those of the current home-buying generation who did grow up in inner cities in other countries abroad seem to be into walkability today. Which is why I think something as simple as having "New Urbanism" columnists in some of the local rolled-up-ad rags, which actually do get read -- Thornhill Post, the Liberal, etc. -- would make a huge difference.
And, yeah, being controlled from Markham and from Vaugham does not help at all. Hence the Walmart.
There are so many opportunities, but it seems to me that the problem is they are all held by enormous developers. Take the strip on Clark that includes the Conservatory, York Hill PS (just off Clark), the Sobeys plaza, and the Garnet plaza. For the most part, the Conservatory buildings themselves excepted (and even then, no streetwall), this is all low sprawl on high-value land. I could seriously see creating a downtown kind of public square and walkable retail there, incorporating a new and more vertical rec centre and whole new public school and all of the current retail, with lots of residential, in a way that would likely pay for itself, if all agreed. But to say that it would be challenging to do this and, especially, to get the major commercial developers (and, obviously, Vaughan and YRSB) onboard is the biggest understatement ever. It's frustrating.
Tiny idea: cafe kiosques in parks?
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kettal
Banned
sneering kettal is in fact an immigrant from one of the aforementioned countries.
Epi
Active Member
I remember reading the table in the Toronto Star last election. Who knows, The Star is often wrong.
All I can find is this article which says Thornhill is 3rd:
http://www.acs-aec.ca/oldsite/Polls/18-06-2004.pdf
Disparishun
Active Member
Yes, exactly. Or, more accurately, your parents brought you along for the ride, unless you were on about ricers, mommies, and donuts in Jo'burg. And your parents moved to ... where? You're sort of proving my point. They're still coming. If only you could better educate them not to!
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Disparishun
Active Member
I thought it was 1st? In any case, the numbers appear to have evolved. Income on a per-riding basis, of course, a product of the riding's line-drawing and how self-similar they've made it. Thornhill has subsidized housing, high-rises, and other features, but it's still predominantly residential, predominantly families, and generally a lot more homogeneous economically than, say, the riding that combines Rosedale and St. Jamestown.
Epi
Active Member
Wow you're kind of a dick. I already admitted I was wrong. Going to ignore anything you say from now on.