Admiral Beez
Superstar
I am. Those corner depressions lead to wheelchairs, strollers, etc. entering the roadspace, and thus becoming a hazard for cars.I'm not counting the corner depressions,.
I am. Those corner depressions lead to wheelchairs, strollers, etc. entering the roadspace, and thus becoming a hazard for cars.I'm not counting the corner depressions,.
I'm not counting the corner depressions, those are useful. I'm talking about the depressions in the sidewalks for driveways, NOT at the corners or intersections.
It's ironic that we complain about cars being king and that we have no streets exclusively for pedestrians in one thread but overlook the Distillery District's streets and those of the Toronto Islands. The latter is the largest car-free community in North America. The former is a thriving area with its streets filled with people. Know your city before you start complaining about it.
Why are we limiting this to actual roads made for cars that have been repurposed for only people to walk on. There is an abundance of pathways, walkways and corridors all over the city designated for pedestrians only. What about The PATH, or other underground connections, like Yonge to Bay subway stations? What about the connected parks above the Yonge subway downtown? What about all our ravine trails covering long distances across the city. What about all the spaces between buildings that are open to the public like between King and Front where The Rainbow cinemas are, or Simcoe Street?
This is what happens when you try to define concepts like Livability with checklists based on hard-coded criteria. You close a road to traffic and you suddenly become a "livable" city that caters to pedestrians? Really?
You don't have to go even that far away, just look at Calgary's Stephen Ave..........4 blocks of pedestrian only street in supposedly car-loving Calgary. This is made even more impressive in that they closed another street thru the entire downtown areas to transit only.
The street doesn't neccessarily have to be closed to all traffic but reduced to one lane per direction to allow for transit and deliveries but enables a far wider sidewalk and pedestrian friendly street. As I stated before, it is very sad that along Toronto's main drag from Bloor to Union, there is not even one restaurant or cafe where you can sit outside.
Despite Yonge's heavy pedestrian traffic, ouside of Dundas Square, Yonge is one of Toronto's most pedestrrian un-friendly streets.
I guess those buses I've taken past there are a figment of my imagination.the distillery district is too tiny. and to be fair, it is not even served by transit.
At the end of the day, I'd prefer to see no more new pedestrian malls. They tend to feel contrived, turning something that was a street for hundreds of years into a park-like space. Keep the street, but redesign it so that the sidewalks are on the same level as the road and close it to non-local and delivery vehicles either all the time or some of the time. Keep it as a street that could be used by vehicles but with better streetscaping than the average street (paving and greenery, for instance). Flexibility is key to functionality and the ultimate success of the space. If a store needs a delivery, the delivery truck can drive a block down the street at 5 km/h giving the right of way to pedestrians, who will get out of the way for the rare vehicle that needs to be there.