Toronto Sherbourne Common, Canada's Sugar Beach, and the Water's Edge Promenade | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto | Teeple Architects

Even though what we see at the foot of Jarvis is temporary, the Martin Goodman Trail appears to be asphalt in every single rendering. That it's beige in one rendering may just be artistic licence. A beige tone to the asphalt is a fairly trivial difference. WT is generous with the granite pavers for pedestrian surfaces. As much as I advocate for interlocking, brick, and granite paving in prominent urban spaces for roadways and sidewalks, when it comes to a cycling and inline skating trail, asphalt is ideal for its smoothness.
 
The trees along the lake are really coming into their own. The waterfront today was crowded and fun and made me very optimistic for the future. God bless Waterfront Toronto!

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From WT July Newsletter:

"Repairs to Sherbourne Common water feature
The water has been turned off in the Sherbourne Common channel to allow crews to undertake general maintenance and lighting repairs due to vandalism. Crews will remove the river stones from the channel and must retrofit it to ensure the depth of the water meets safety requirements. Water to the channel cannot be restored until the retrofit is complete later this summer. Waterfront Toronto apologizes for the inconvenience. The splash pad at Sherbourne Common is not impacted and remains open between 9:00am and 8:30pm every day."
 
I'm curious what general maintenance would necessitate the water feature to be off for practically all of this season (save 3 weeks in May and a day or two around the Tall Ships festival). I understand there was vandalism, but part of me thinks we may have inherited a white elephant with maintenance issues. Already they keep it off during winter (even though renderings showed it in operation with snow). I hope this doesn't become one of those grand gestures that stops working, like the light art installation at Yorkdale TTC station... although even that lasted years, from what I understand.

Also, the splash pad on the Sugar Beach side was off until only recently when I logged a complaint through SeeClickFix.
 
The great thing about weeping willow trees is that they can grow about 12 feet a year. Unfortunately, their branches are really susceptible to snapping in storms, though.
 
So the water feature never got fixed I assume since it was never turned on and now summer has come and gone. Sad, design flaws?, poor construction? Or both? Should this not have some sort of warranty- like we guarantee it will work for at least 3 years with relatively low maintance?
 

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