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Yonge Street Revitalization (Downtown Yonge BIA/City of Toronto)

This couldn't be more Mickey Mouse if it tried.

They should simply pedestrianize the entire College to King Street section with no bike lanes and no car lanes. Deliveries would be allowed on all sections before 10AM. This is a revamp of a car centric Yonge Street to a slightly less car centric Yonge Street, nothing more.
 
vatche said:
But things don’t need to take this long. Except for bloor st most of the streets in Toronto are looking shabby and run down. Queen, king etc. The sidewalks are. narrow, cracked….roads are all broken up. I feel like they’ve neglected the city for a while and will take time to do the upgrades.
Click to expand...
Northern Light said:
Hold it. I'm the first to critique the City on public realm and poor condition of parks. But I always object to hyperbole.

St. George Street looks great, Queen's Quay West looks excellent, there are lots of small sections of stellar streetscape in or near downtown. Yes, there's also lots of sub-par dreck, but lets not go on suggesting everything is falling to bits.

@evandyk correctly points out the link between upkeep and property tax rates.........

That said, we do need to note that multiple streetscape projects are either underway or on the books for the near-term.

John Street, King Street, Adelaide Street in addition to Yonge are all in the near-term offing.

Meanwhile, albeit it belatedly and at a snail's pace, work is underway on Wellington near Yonge, and also behind The Well; and on the sidewalk adjacent the St. Lawrence Market.

Its not enough; and much could or should have been done a decade ago...........but lets make sure to have proper perspective.
Click to expand...
Toronto's urban design is far better than it was a decade ago, and it's just getting started. We have a lot of urban design projects in the pipeline that will put anything we've built to date to shame. This city has a dizzying number of tiny initiatives that, in aggregate, amount to an urban transformation. Toronto's next decade will be its most exciting yet.
 
vatche said:
But things don’t need to take this long. Except for bloor st most of the streets in Toronto are looking shabby and run down. Queen, king etc. The sidewalks are. narrow, cracked….roads are all broken up. I feel like they’ve neglected the city for a while and will take time to do the upgrades.
Click to expand...

Northern Light said:
Hold it. I'm the first to critique the City on public realm and poor condition of parks. But I always object to hyperbole.

St. George Street looks great, Queen's Quay West looks excellent, there are lots of small sections of stellar streetscape in or near downtown. Yes, there's also lots of sub-par dreck, but lets not go on suggesting everything is falling to bits.

@evandyk correctly points out the link between upkeep and property tax rates.........

That said, we do need to note that multiple streetscape projects are either underway or on the books for the near-term.

John Street, King Street, Adelaide Street in addition to Yonge are all in the near-term offing.

Meanwhile, albeit it belatedly and at a snail's pace, work is underway on Wellington near Yonge, and also behind The Well; and on the sidewalk adjacent the St. Lawrence Market.

Its not enough; and much could or should have been done a decade ago...........but lets make sure to have proper perspective.
Click to expand...

TheTigerMaster said:
Toronto's urban design is far better than it was a decade ago, and it's just getting started. We have a lot of urban design projects in the pipeline that will put anything we've built to date to shame. This city has a dizzying number of tiny initiatives that, in aggregate, amount to an urban transformation. Toronto's next decade will be its most exciting yet.
Click to expand...

You know, a decade ago I used to be able to keep track of virtually everything related to urban design happening in Toronto (and I'm lumping transit it with this too). I would've been able to tell you minute details of every initiative happening, because there just weren't that many of them.

Nowadays I can't keep up with all that's happening with urbanism in Toronto. Every few weeks there's some major new project announced. Major things like new transit lines, or magnificent new buildings or districts. "Small" things like expanded e-bike coverage, street redesigns or new parks. Or even invisible things, like improving storm water management. I've given up on keeping track of it all; it's too much.

In a few decades, people are going to wonder how the heck we got so much built in such a short period of time.

I feel so fortunate I get to witness this transformation. We're witnessing the birth of a great new 21st century global metropolis.
 
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Northern Light said:
Hold it. I'm the first to critique the City on public realm and poor condition of parks. But I always object to hyperbole.

St. George Street looks great, Queen's Quay West looks excellent, there are lots of small sections of stellar streetscape in or near downtown. Yes, there's also lots of sub-par dreck, but lets not go on suggesting everything is falling to bits.

@evandyk correctly points out the link between upkeep and property tax rates.........

That said, we do need to note that multiple streetscape projects are either underway or on the books for the near-term.

John Street, King Street, Adelaide Street in addition to Yonge are all in the near-term offing.

Meanwhile, albeit it belatedly and at a snail's pace, work is underway on Wellington near Yonge, and also behind The Well; and on the sidewalk adjacent the St. Lawrence Market.

Its not enough; and much could or should have been done a decade ago...........but lets make sure to have proper perspective.
Click to expand...
what's infuriating is when streetscapes are redone and end up looking top notch we end up with things like this, some random wooden hydro pole (8 years and counting) or the "temporary barriers" (3 years and counting). They just don't seem to be on anyone's radar to resolve, or is the only answer to this a citizen calling 311? otherwise they stay like that for the next 30 years?

1664562596853.png


or on queen's quay, random fences that serve no purpose (6+ years and counting)

1664562717705.png
 
nstuch said:
what's infuriating is when streetscapes are redone and end up looking top notch we end up with things like this, some random wooden hydro pole (8 years and counting) or the "temporary barriers" (3 years and counting). They just don't seem to be on anyone's radar to resolve, or is the only answer to this a citizen calling 311? otherwise they stay like that for the next 30 years?

View attachment 429930

or on queen's quay, random fences that serve no purpose (6+ years and counting)

View attachment 429931
Click to expand...

Agreed. The above examples are unacceptable and without excuse.
 
ssiguy2 said:
This couldn't be more Mickey Mouse if it tried.

They should simply pedestrianize the entire College to King Street section with no bike lanes and no car lanes. Deliveries would be allowed on all sections before 10AM. This is a revamp of a car centric Yonge Street to a slightly less car centric Yonge Street, nothing more.
Click to expand...
What you're proposing helps too many people and makes too much sense to be implemented. It's only half-baked measures for this wonderful city.
 
This the problem with trying to build consensus thru bureaucrats.....................they try to appease every one and the end result is that they please no one.

Yonge is an embarrassingly ugly and pedestrian unfriendly street and this sad sorry excuse for a revitalization won't change that one little bit.
 
ssiguy2 said:
This the problem with trying to build consensus thru bureaucrats.....................they try to appease every one and the end result is that they please no one.

Yonge is an embarrassingly ugly and pedestrian unfriendly street and
Click to expand...

The part above is fine.

ssiguy2 said:
this sad sorry excuse for a revitalization won't change that one little bit.
Click to expand...

This bit above is preposterous. So far from the truth as to bear no resemblance to it at all.
 
jozl said:
The Revitalization of Yonge street south of College is scheduled to begin this Spring. Has anyone seen signs that this will actually happen?
Click to expand...

There are multiple overlapping players, but from what I can see, only Toronto Hydro is going in to do work this year.

I believe Transportation is the project lead for what you will see up top; and they have the bulk of the project coded for 2025-2028, right now.
 
jozl said:
So if we’re lucky the project will be completed in 5 or 6 years. Anyone feeling optimistic? I’m not.
Click to expand...

I'm cautiously optimistic. The City does do 'big things' now and again. Sometimes a bit more slowly than one might hope, and sometimes with less attention to detail too.

That said, we now have a (mostly) revitalized/expanded Union Station (notwithstanding some annoying incomplete bits and a new round of expansion to the south).

We will have Love Park this coming summer; we did get the all granite sidewalks on Bloor; and we did get the much enhanced pedestrian realm on Queen's Quay.

The City under Tory has dithered in many major capital projects. Some of that is bad operational management (see Wellington Street); and much more has been underfunding.

That said, we do have a lot of stakeholders, influential, powerful ones who are behind the new Yonge in downtown, and that should drag the project forward, all going well.
 
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