Toronto Bloor Street Revitalization | ?m | ?s | Bloor-Yorkville BIA | architectsAlliance

isaidso said:
Is it due to the presence of strong interest groups on that stretch, like the Weston family (who own Holts)? If I remember correctly, they aggressively pushed for valet parking in front of their store.
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The Bloor-Yorkville BIA really, really sucks -- they vociferously fought the City on its plan for the ActiveTO bike lanes between Avenue and Yonge, parroting all of the old, mid-20th-century anti-public realm, pro-car BS. A particularly hilarious and pathetic offshoot was the head of the BIA literally emailing me personally with their counsel on CC, threatening to sue me, after I tweeted about the inappropriateness of their intransigence. Just garbage stuff from a garbage organization.

I know a number of business owners and residents in the area covered by the BIA who are extremely fed up with the BIA's Luddite mentality -- they've gone to great lengths to point out to the Councillor that they don't feel like they are well represented by the BIA.
 
As a resident my interactions with them have also been...not good. They couldn't care less about day-to-day issues in the neighbourhood (litter clean-up, vandalism, etc.) and seem more concerned with their social media and whiz-bang shiny-objects distractions like ice sculptures and car shows. I've long wondered if de Lange or Rice even *live* in the neighbourhood.
 
ADRM said:
The Bloor-Yorkville BIA really, really sucks -- they vociferously fought the City on its plan for the ActiveTO bike lanes between Avenue and Yonge, parroting all of the old, mid-20th-century anti-public realm, pro-car BS. A particularly hilarious and pathetic offshoot was the head of the BIA literally emailing me personally with their counsel on CC, threatening to sue me, after I tweeted about the inappropriateness of their intransigence. Just garbage stuff from a garbage organization.

I know a number of business owners and residents in the area covered by the BIA who are extremely fed up with the BIA's Luddite mentality -- they've gone to great lengths to point out to the Councillor that they don't feel like they are well represented by the BIA.
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Well, they can attend BIA meetings and vote for the BIA Board - why don't they?
 
For a rich BIA, those lights are pretty sad - they're just wavey sticks strapped onto the trees.

Here's the Burnaby Heights shopping district (Hastings St) in Burnaby, BC (which outdoes even Robson St. in Vancouver).

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Northern Light said:
Bloor Street - Yorkville in Winter..........with recent changes:

Photos taken November 28th, 2021:

View attachment 365866

View attachment 365867

Here you see the change to the 'uplighting' of the trees.........the result isn't very visible with the added Christmas lighting.......but where the lights were previously buried in the soil, and often covered by vegetation...
They are now encased in granite and set above the soil/ground cover level.

View attachment 365868
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officedweller said:
For a rich BIA, those lights are pretty sad - they're just wavey sticks strapped onto the trees.

Here's the Burnaby Heights shopping district (Hastings St) in Burnaby, BC (which outdoes even Robson St. in Vancouver).

EJsRwpHWwAUxIYq
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To be fair, Burnaby has a different species of tree that happen, on average to be much more mature than the specimens on Bloor as well.

Toronto (the City) frowns on stringing lights on immature trees as it often does damage to the trees.

It can be done carefully, w/o doing damage, especially in the era of mini-LED lights that are lighter weight and don't throw off heat.

But the trees on Bloor may need to mature a bit for that.

But I do agree the Burnaby display is superior.

I'm just saying it's not quite so easy to replicate as money alone.

Also I do think the Yorkville display looks attractive.
 
JasonParis said:
I still think they have the distinction of being Canada's most monied B.I.A. too so they can hire the 'big guns' when needed, even if it's just a legal distraction.
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I think they have a distinction of clueless privilege that only wants its way, regardless whether it helps local business or not. And certainly don't want pesky things such as environmental considerations to get in its way, regardless whether it's in their best interests or not.
 
Khaloody said:
Toronto is sadly in general the least festive city Ive lived in or visited during Christmas. Even Dubai, a city in a muslim majority country puts on a better show for Christmas than we do. 🤦‍♂️
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I agree! I keep wondering why on earth there are no hanging lights displays on major streets like University Ave or Queen West. Why is Little Italy not decked out in lights? Why is there no festive installations outside the financial district and city hall? Other Canadian cities (Montreal for example) put Toronto to shame here and it's so depressing. Do we know what city department is responsible for this? I would really like to try and do something constructive about it...
 
urbanexplorer said:
I agree! I keep wondering why on earth there are no hanging lights displays on major streets like University Ave or Queen West. Why is Little Italy not decked out in lights? Why is there no festive installations outside the financial district and city hall? Other Canadian cities (Montreal for example) put Toronto to shame here and it's so depressing. Do we know what city department is responsible for this? I would really like to try and do something constructive about it...
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I think decorative lights are the responsibility of individual BIAs, not city driven. Toronto has always been pretty bad with these things - just look at the amount of time it took to get certain historical landmarks lit up.

AoD
 
urbanexplorer said:
I agree! I keep wondering why on earth there are no hanging lights displays on major streets like University Ave or Queen West. Why is Little Italy not decked out in lights? Why is there no festive installations outside the financial district and city hall? Other Canadian cities (Montreal for example) put Toronto to shame here and it's so depressing. Do we know what city department is responsible for this? I would really like to try and do something constructive about it...
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It is super depressing actually, you're absolutely right.
 
JasonParis said:
I still think they have the distinction of being Canada's most monied B.I.A. too so they can hire the 'big guns' when needed, even if it's just a legal distraction.
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They could, but all elected positions are volunteer, and most competent business owners have more valuable things to do with their time.

That has lead to the Chair being a local lawyer; when the BIA has no legal authority to assist the business in the problem area (which it rarely does) their private practice can help for a fee.
 
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