Toronto St Lawrence Market North | 25.3m | 5s | City of Toronto | Rogers Stirk Harbour

[AlvinofDiaspar]

From CP24 - seems to be going quite well:

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

Sorry for poo-pooing on this a little bit here with this comment, because I do think it's a very nice building in a great area of the city but, please, please put bollards all around these buildings before something really bad happens with a fast moving vehicle that would seriously hurt or kill lots of people, intentionally or not.

With this neighbourhood being such a high profile tourist attraction for the city how can there not be any physical vehicle blockers in place already?

Maybe there's a plan to add them later? If not then there should be. Even the adjacent parkette has lots of space for a driver to easily plough through it.

Obviously this could be said for many other places in the city that regularly attract large crowds. Why wait for something terrible to happen?

The sidewalk here is quite narrow, especially the corner and the Jarvis frontage. I'm not sure adding bollards is feasible. Bad things, accidental or criminal can happen anywhere. I don't think the answer is endless bollards.

We could look, and should look at narrowing Front here by at least one lane, and doing it over with interlock to promote traffic calming. But that's no guarantee, it just helps at the margins.

 

[tomatohat]

The sidewalk here is quite narrow, especially the corner and the Jarvis frontage. I'm not sure adding bollards is feasible. Bad things, accidental or criminal can happen anywhere. I don't think the answer is endless bollards.

We could look, and should look at narrowing Front here by at least one lane, and doing it over with interlock to promote traffic calming. But that's no guarantee, it just helps at the margins.

I'm not sure about the rules around these sorts of things in Toronto, but what about things like raised crossings or fencing to encourage people to cross closer to the desired areas. The fencing I'm thinking of is like the fencing used in Japan.

 

[Northern Light]

I'm not sure about the rules around these sorts of things in Toronto, but what about things like raised crossings

These are being implemented in Toronto right now, but typically where side streets intersect major roads. (ie. the crossing is of the side street, not the major road).

Could we do these on major streets? I think so.......

But @reaperexpress is someone who would be more familiar w/the guidelines on such things.

or fencing to encourage people to cross closer to the desired areas. The fencing I'm thinking of is like the fencing used in Japan.

You definitely can do this. However, on already narrow sidewalks it can be as much negative as positive. That is to say, if there is insufficient capacity for movement on the legal sidewalk and within the allocated crosswalks, then forcing everyone into a space into which they do not fit doesn't really work.

The City used this tool a number of years ago for the sidewalks on Avenue Road along the big hill south of St. Clair.

In general, I don't think people love this...........and there isn't huge demand to cross the street here between lights. It was sort of a 'better than nothing' solution to a near-highway beside a narrow sidewalk.

Inevitably; post-Ford, I imagine, This road will lose one lane each way for cycle tracks and wider sidewalks.........but this is the 2-decade long interim measure.

 

[xmyth_]

It’s funny I was looking at video I shot and was thinking the same thing about bollards or something to prevent a car from careening into that glass (purposeful or not). But it also made me think, did they incorporate or do something with the old horse hitches that used to be in the bunker building?

My hope is that it gets programmed like Wychwood Barns or evergreen brickworks. I hate seeing stuff like the Pin & Patch show perpetually in the west end because of cheap venues and want that in the new building here.

 

[DSCToronto]

There are raised crossings on The Esplanade between Jarvis and Yonge - they were installed about 15 years ago. I think that the streets east of Jarvis will be getting them when David Crombie Park is redone later this year but they just re-surfaced the street so I am not sure.

 

[interchange42]

I got a few from the opening as well, from between 10.30 and about 11.30 AM.

That's the media event in that last one that I didn't bother with. The Mayor's back is turned to us, in purple.

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[Towered]

Is there an underground connection between the north and south markets?

Also, that white unadorned drywall is a disgrace. Would it kill them to hang up some vibrant art pieces? My god, so Toronto...

 

[Natika33]

I was there around 1pm as things were beginning to taper off and promptly managed to get myself locked in a stairwell when trying to get up to the 2nd floor.

 

[Vanalla]

Sorry for poo-pooing on this a little bit here with this comment, because I do think it's a very nice building in a great area of the city but, please, please put bollards all around these buildings before something really bad happens with a fast moving vehicle that would seriously hurt or kill lots of people, intentionally or not.

With this neighbourhood being such a high profile tourist attraction for the city how can there not be any physical vehicle blockers in place already?

Maybe there's a plan to add them later? If not then there should be. Even the adjacent parkette has lots of space for a driver to easily plough through it.

Obviously this could be said for many other places in the city that regularly attract large crowds. Why wait for something terrible to happen?

Given both the length of time taken and the end product of the bollard installation at Union, I'm not going to tempt the Monkey Paw with bollards in front of this building.

Traffic engineers/SimCity nerds of UT, this intersection might have just become the hottest topic in a city full of hot topics. a few factors at play:

• You can't stop desire paths, especially in a neighbourhood where it's so accepted as a practice and on a street with an unofficial pedestrian refuge median already in place,
• Front St. serves as an essential part of the King Street Pilot in that it gives cars other options to rapidly get from one end of the core to the other (especially while Queen is torn up due to the Ontario Line construction),
• Jarvis street is also a huge feeder street to the Gardiner, where onramp traffic often backs up for blocks in every direction at rush hour, causing driver aggression.

This is a pretty perfect storm of factors to create chaos. How should we solve? A few hot takes:
1. Make front street traffic stop for the Jarvis intersection before the entrance to the market and create a scramble intersection
2. Create a formal pedestrian refuge island in the middle of Front Street so pedestrians only have to look one way when crossing
3. Put Front street on a lane diet in one/both directions

 

[C-mac]

and promptly managed to get myself locked in a stairwell when trying to get up to the 2nd floor.

lol!!! Something I would totally do.

 

[nightstreak]

Traffic engineers/SimCity nerds of UT, this intersection might have just become the hottest topic in a city full of hot topics. a few factors at play:

• You can't stop desire paths, especially in a neighbourhood where it's so accepted as a practice and on a street with an unofficial pedestrian refuge median already in place,
• Front St. serves as an essential part of the King Street Pilot in that it gives cars other options to rapidly get from one end of the core to the other (especially while Queen is torn up due to the Ontario Line construction),
• Jarvis street is also a huge feeder street to the Gardiner, where onramp traffic often backs up for blocks in every direction at rush hour, causing driver aggression.

This is a pretty perfect storm of factors to create chaos. How should we solve? A few hot takes:
1. Make front street traffic stop for the Jarvis intersection before the entrance to the market and create a scramble intersection
2. Create a formal pedestrian refuge island in the middle of Front Street so pedestrians only have to look one way when crossing
3. Put Front street on a lane diet in one/both directions

I think you're right, social media is a buzz over this. On one side, you have folks insisting that everyone just cross at the crosswalk with suggestions of fences to prevent people from crossing. On the other side, drivers upset that pedestrians exist. Stuck in the middle are people just crossing the street where it feels natural.

I like the idea of a scramble here. I have yet to visit the building but from all the videos I've seen online, people were already making it an unofficial scramble. Waiting to cross when the light turned green at the crosswalk up the street and then crossing mid block.

I have hopes for the Market Lane Park development including a street reconfiguration as @rdaner said, but keep in mind that's almost 2 years away from completion. Let's see how many market shoppers become hood ornaments before the city decides to fix this.

 

[nightstreak]

Oof, just realized they replaced the glass louvres and bridges with corrugate slate they purchased at RONA.

Planned:

Built:

Yikes this place is the poster child for value engineering. I see that RSHP is sufficiently embarrassed to hide it deep in their projects list. I only found it after searching from Google, not on their site where no results come up.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Is there an underground connection between the north and south markets?

Also, that white unadorned drywall is a disgrace. Would it kill them to hang up some vibrant art pieces? My god, so Toronto...

Nope, no connection.

Agreed regarding the drywall - the so called signature wall to the north and the way the mezzanine is now all hemmed in is a disgrace. Oddly enough I don't mind the steel underside of the walkways as much (the loss of the glass bridges is more unfortunate). VE certainly took a lot of joy from this building.

AoD

 

[interchange42]

I was there around 1pm as things were beginning to taper off and promptly managed to get myself locked in a stairwell when trying to get up to the 2nd floor.
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Are you posting from the stairwell now? Have you made contact with any of the rats and maybe named them? Do any spectral images appear when the bells toll at St James', a couple blocks away?

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