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@t_dot_issues

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Issues about the T-DOT that make me want to cry. Here to foster critical thinking and debate about the future of our City.

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A tree as a metaphor for the City. Along Wellington St East, between Yonge and Church, a number of trees were planted inside metal decorative guards. To most, the trees are a welcomed improvement to the streetscape, and they could care little beyond the fact that they exist. To the more careful observer, many of the trees were planted without care: they are off centre, too close to the metal guards; unlikely to thrive as they grow, either constrained by or forced to grow thru the metal cage in which they have been planted. To me, the trees are a metaphor for the future of the City. If all we care about is planting things quickly, regardless of where we plant them; ignorant of the soil into which we force them to grow; wilfully blind to the relationship they bear to their surroundings environments; unconcerned with how they will grow and evolve over generations - if this is how we plan and execute our growth, we will surely suffer in the long run, just as the tree, by virtue of poor planning and execution, will fail to see its true potential revealed. #toronto #urbandevelopment #urbanplanning by @t_dot_issues

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4 years ago

I live in Old Town. Years ago the city tore down the ramps of the Gardiner that connected with Lakeshore Blvd. At the time it was suggested that it would be a relatively small impact on traffic. 3 lanes of access to the Gardiner (2 from Lakeshore and 1 at Jarvis) turned into 1. The entire east end of downtown and everywhere east of the DVP that needs to get on the Gardiner is forced to enter via Jarvis. My neighbourhood has been a congested mess since. And yet the city does nothing. I wrote to my councillor about investigating temporary ramps to reconnect the Gardiner - no such plan exists and the cut off ramps just hang there, taunting drivers who sit stuck in traffic waiting to get on the highway seemingly forever as they inch along Lakeshore or Front St. I’m not stuck in this as a driver, but I have compassion for those that are. This is the type of nonsense that leads to bikelanes being ripped out: it’s congestion that could be eased if only anyone at City Hall cared about the experience of commuters that drive. Look, I’m not saying we need to expand highways, or that we should stop investing in transit or pushing for modes of urban development that make our city more walkable, more bikeable, more transitable (is that a word?)…but I am saying, we should be mindful of negligently leaving drivers hanging out to dry. The result fosters resentment, which leads to looking for scapegoats: like bikelanes. And we find oursleves where we are today.

I filed a 311 request and wrote to my local councillor multiple times starting probably 2-3 years ago suggesting we need an advance left hand turn light for drivers turning south onto Jarvis from Front. The south side of Front next to the St Lawrence Market is an incredibly busy intersection. Pedestrians run across until the countdown timer reaches zero (I have a whole other post on why we need to change the Highway Traffic Act to allow this so we can program pedestrian lights more effectively). There’s often only time for 1-2 cars to complete a left hand turn here (watch the video to see a pretty normal circumstance at this intersection). (Continued in comments) by @t_dot_issues

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a month ago

Today I took a walk thru the eastern waterfront to see the new public realm that seems to be garnering much attention around the Aqualuna condos. Since my page is mostly about complaining, there’s plenty to point out here. Maybe someone will read this and take these criticisms under consideration and avoid some of these mistakes.

Images 1-3: I’ve complained about this before: we put a 2 way 3 lane road on the waterfront with street parking. Why - I have no idea. ‘Retail for lease’, with big wide sidewalks and presumably some patio opportunity, but image 3 is the view of the water from the POV of a patron on a patio…sorry, I mean view of the parked cars.

4-5: The new community centre seems like a good use for the area, but IMHO, this is going to doom the area to a similar face that the Harbourfront Centre and Powerplant Gallery do in the central waterfront, and that George Brown College does in East Bayfront. As the video shows, the at grade portion of the west wall of the community centre creates a dead wall along. Animation doesn’t mean being able to watch people inside. It means giving people a reason to interact with the at grade portion of a building. Here, the only animated wall is the entry. Much like my suggestions for the cafeteria space at GBC, these uses should be located on the second level, above the public realm, with at grade spaces reserved for animating uses like retail. There are a couple of retail storefronts at the south end of the wall, but the largest portion will be a dead zone that doesn’t contribute ant animating effect that it wouldn’t otherwise achieve if it were on the second level.

6: The start of the road that wraps around the waterfront. Okay, it’s bad enough that it runs along the water, but then why did we need what is effectively a four lane road here, with enough room for bidirectional traffic and parking on both curb lanes? Why not just make this road a one way street with a single curb plane for parking? It would add an incremental 30 seconds of driving time for residents accessing the condo at the back half of the one way street, but would have reclaimed a large portion of public realm for people…(cont’d in comments) by @t_dot_issues

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a year ago

Is there anything tackier than advertising on your home? If every developer of every residential condo in Toronto did this, our skyline would be a monstrosity of logos. I really hope this is temporary or that the condo corp has the right to remove it. If this is permitted under the city of Toronto building signage regulations things should be changed. @menkeslife @gpaia @cityplanto by @t_dot_issues

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a year ago

Ok, I complain a lot here. It sometimes becomes a viscous cycle where you program yourself to see the flaws in everything. Unfortunately, there has been, and continues to be much that is wrong with our city’s development, from the broken incentives in our planning system, to our investor-reliant focus on high rises, to our push towards over densification in order to preserve Neighbourhoods that are ultimately not compatible with a dense, affordable, dynamic and desirable city.

But here’s something I like: the Waterworks on Richmond West by @moddevelopments and @woodcliffe . Now, I’ll preface this all by saying I have no idea what the interior quality (size, function and finish quality) is of the units. This might just be another shoebox investor-focused project our city needs less of. But I’ll suspend disbelief for a moment. The scale, design, material choice, programming, attention to detail…nearly everything about the building sets it apart from almost every other bland crappy condo recently developed in Toronto. As a developer, MOD does a great job of integrating historic buildings into their new builds. The contrast is always stark, but the quality of the new always stands on its own merits and often highlights and enhances the historic. There are many examples by other developers of sticking a bland poorly designed tower in behind a historic facade, and the result is almost always cheap, unattractive and a disservice to history, present and future.

The sleek and slick facade here gives the new build a presence and identity all its own. The incorporation of a creative and well executed ‘food hall’ into the historic building elevates and honours the historic use while giving it new life. The programming choice also suggests to me a consciousness of the need for new mixed use buildings to truly be additive to their neighbourhood contexts beyond just adding some new housing units and afterthought retail. I have not visited the food hall many times, so I don’t know how successful it is, but at least there was an attempt to do something of quality here. (Continued in comments…) by @t_dot_issues

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a year ago

Much has been made about the billions of taxpayer money Doug Ford is spending to subsidize Live Nation and Therme at Ontario Place. But the recently released renderings make it patently clear that Ford might be leaving another big bill on the shoulders of future taxpayers.

The gargantuan Therme facility is being specially designed for Therme to carry out their business. Yet the novelty and uniqueness of the facility that Ford is touting as making this a great deal for the Province may actually result in it being a massive liability for a future government, with taxpayers to foot another massive bill.

The risk that Therme’s Ontario Place facility fails at some point during the lease is non zero - in fact, it’s a near certainty, as very few businesses survive the duration of the proposed Ontario Place lease, never mind businesses in the fickle entertainment and leisure industries. If Therme can’t make a go of it at Ontario Place, we might get stuck with a choice between having a giant ‘white elephant’ on the waterfront or a massive demolition bill.

The Ontario Place lease provides that, in the event that Therme defaults on its obligations, it has two years to find another company to take over the lease obligations. If it fails to do so, the Province is obligated to pay Therme 50% of the ‘fair market value’ of the facility as determined by an independent valuator on termination of Therme under the lease.

If Therme can’t make a go of their spa business at Ontario Place, and if no one is prepared to take on their obligations under the lease, it’s quite clear that at that point, the Therme facility will almost certainly be a liability, not an asset. Yet the contract does not provide the Province with any liquid security to draw upon to cover the decommissioning and demolition cost of the building…meaning another likely bill for taxpayers. (Continued in comments below…) by @t_dot_issues

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a year ago

Many moons ago I worked as part of one of the bidding teams on one of the first phases of the CAMH redevelopment (we lost). It was ambitious and had admirable goals: to integrate CAMH into the community; to break down barriers between CAMH, its patients and the neighbourhood. At the time, I recall looking at the master plan developed by a firm that was not from Toronto, that had been developed maybe 5-7 years before the project actually came to procurement (which was a significant period of time in the context of the evolution of West Queen West), and thinking, ‘this doesn’t integrate CAMH into the community at all. It looks like a plan that was inspired by the condition of the neighbourhood almost a decade ago). I was not a planner. I was a lawyer and finance guy, so I didn’t speak up much aside from a few casual conversations with our team’s planners and architects. I thought, “how does building a series of buildings along a main street that create a continuous wall of development foster ‘integration’?” There was no invitation to wander off Queen St. No attempt to animate a complex network of streets, to create opportunities for eyes on the street, to create playful and unexpected areas to explore. There was a plan for a wall of modern mid rise buildings. I thought, at the foot of Ossington, a park and a bandshell could host public concerts and performances, with a street network lined by at grade retail in buildings; odd angles and openings - something to draw people off Queen and cause them to investigate the internal street network within the CAMH development - perhaps something like this might be exciting.

Well, the project and all its phases seem to be done, and I think the outcome is far off the original mark. We have a series of buildings lining Queen. Some mediocre retail. No playfulness. No invitation to wander off Queen. Surprisingly (maybe not, really) we have an internal street network that resembles that urban planning failure of East Bayfront. Squat boring buildings with little attention paid to how they integrate with the public realm, and with an internal street network that is primarily parking garages, loading docks and lobbies. by @t_dot_issues

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a year ago

A sobering read in the @torontostar. I have argued before that high rises are not, and should not be viewed as the solution to our housing crisis (which seems to have abated somewhat given the number of units currently sitting on the market). There are many reasons for this: (1) High rises are not necessary to animate transit or neighborhoods, or to justify investments and physical or social infrastructure - lower and mid rise multifamily can do this just fine. (2) High rises cost more on a PSF basis, than more modest scales of buildings and generally sell for higher prices per square foot. We are not going to bring the cost of housing down by focusing our efforts on the most expensive type of housing to supply. (3) To keep total purchase prices low, developers focus their efforts on building small units that are barely livable, not very attractive to families, or most long term residents. (4) Our tall building policies are ridiculous and lead to horrible built environments - their tower separations don’t scale with height, and so even if you like the architecture of high rises and super talls, they lose their impact when they are clustered 20m apart – you end up with areas like the Entertainment District, and what is becoming of Yorkville East: corridors of tall buildings that block the sky and make for dark, windy and inhospitable street level environments. (5) The cost and complexity of managing these very expensive assets increases considerably beyond the capabilities of inexperienced resident boards, and paper pushing property management firms. Leaving board members with no expertise in complex asset management to manage assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and administer contracts worth millions is not likely to end well. (6) The planning frameworks that have given rise to the high-rise boom (the Provincial Planning Statement and its predecessors) have created a speculative market environment or developers, have bid up land prices all across the city, making only very high density forms of development economic and driving up the cost to deliver housing, not brought it down. by @t_dot_issues

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2 years ago

My first pinned post is a comment on the importance of careful planning and attentive execution. Two years ago, a series of trees planted along Wellington Street between Yonge and Church demonstrated a complete lack of care. Their placement was haphazard. The trees were not straight, or were too close to their adjacent tree cages. Not only did they look ridiculous, but after only a short time they were already growing into the tree cages, and their futures were not bright.

I raised this issue with our local councillor’s office on multiple occasions (who was responsive); and with the BIA who was responsible for sponsoring the project (who ultimately got the job done). I was put in touch with the city’s PM on the job encouraging them to hold the contractor or individuals responsible to account, and even offered to assist in correcting the trees’ planting (with no response). After two winters passed, I was resigning myself to the inevitability that this would be another failure of public works; of a lack of care and accountability.

Well, this winter I was quite surprised to see that the trees had been realigned, and for the most part, are all pretty straight and properly planted, with enough care given to their positions relative to their adjacent cages. While there are some scars and bruises, and at least one tree that’s a bit wonky still, I understand that the Old Town BIA was responsible for making sure this work got rectified properly. Thank you @oldtowntoronto.

And so, while my account is often permeated by critical and pessimistic tones, pointing out some of the bits of evidence of a broken planning framework and severe shortcomings with the execution of our ongoing city building project, perhaps there’s a small glimmer of hope for me to hang on to.

Well…except that buildings are hardly trees, and once poorly planned and executed, are not so easy to move. So I guess for now, I’ll let the critical tone continue 😂. by @t_dot_issues

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2 years ago

Since the introduction of pedestrian countdown timers across cities seemingly everywhere, there have actually been increases documented in vehicle-pedestrian incidents. I’m not really sure why we needed these silly things in the first place, but they have completely changed how people cross the street - with negative results. In Ontario, section 144 of the Highway Traffic Act, subsection 27 states; “No pedestrian approaching pedestrian control signals and facing a solid or flashing “don’t walk” indication shall enter the roadway.“. Before pedestrian countdown timers, this rule used to generally be observed by pedestrians, but since their introduction, countdown timers have been interpreted to mean ‘you have X seconds to run across the street.’ It also signals to drivers ‘you have X seconds to make it thru the intersection before the lights change’, so many often speed up, increasing the risks of incidents further. As mentioned, the outcomes have been poor. City staffers have tried things like the advanced pedestrian walk symbol, giving pedestrians a few seconds of walking time before the vehicle lights change, but the issue ultimately comes down to the fact that the way pedestrian crossings are programmed there is basically zero time for cars to complete turns when there are no pedestrians in the crosswalk. Now, my point is not to make this a cars versus pedestrian debate. My point is to make a recommendation that improves safety and functioning of our streets for everyone. A sensible programming cycle for pedestrian signals would involve (1) a ‘walk’ cycle during which pedestrians can enter, (2) a reasonable time to get across once entered, and (3) a reasonable period where pedestrians are prohibited from being in the intersection so that cars can complete their turns. The issue is that the current laws conflict with how people actually interpret the signals. So instead of relying on the law as it is, government should modify it to reflect how people ACTUALLY interpret the signals. A simple change would allow municipal traffic signal staff to implement sensible changes that could improve safety and functioning of our intersections. by @t_dot_issues

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2 years ago

We all know Europe does urban planning and architecture better than the often drab and uninspired lazy modernism of our North American cities, including Toronto. Well, here, in the city of Tarragona, Spain, I found what appears to be the inspiration for much of Toronto’s recent architectural mastery. The use of colour. The stunning use of well defined mullions on the window wall system. The aluminum and glass meeting in striking harmony. Wow. Toronto took this inspired architecture, and our developers and architects said to themselves ‘What beauty and grace! The only thing it lacks is height! Surely such architectural mastery deserves a grander scale for its celebration! And oh, let’s change the blue for sea foam green to celebrate not the seas of the Med but the forests of southern Ontario!’ and then our visionary developers and architects proceeded to replicated this form into 40-50 storey versions that serve as beacons of creative inspiration across our skyline. #torontocondos #architecture #torontoarchitecture by @t_dot_issues

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2 years ago

Today’s brief note on the Canada Letter from @nytimes and @ianrausten highlights one of the many failings of high rise development as a tool for solving our housing crisis. I have been arguing for a while that high rises, and most of all, supertalls, are a symptom of, rather than a solution to our housing problems. Unfortunately, politicians and planners are failing to recognize the perversions in the market that exist and feed into this problem, meanwhile developers and speculators are all too happy to ride the wave to financial gains as long as it lasts.

Ian’s contention, that investor buying has led to a reduction in unit sizes is accurate, obvious from the data and apparent to anyone who understands the simple dynamic at play: (1) there are more buyers who can afford a $100,000 deposit on a $500,000 condo than there are who can afford a $150,000 deposit on a $750,000 condo, and (2) to maximize their target market, developers have sought to make units as cheap as possible…generally not via innovation in building practices, but by shrinking square footage.

Investors don’t care much because they have a view that the market is so tight that there will always be a renter market. Renters don’t care as much about the long term livability of their accommodations as in most cases they are viewed as transient. So units shrink. Most data that reports the rate of increase in condo prices reports the average unit value. What is not reported is that newly constructed units have shrank over time, and so the PSF prices of condos have generally risen far more than the average price increase data suggests. This is problematic because our housing stock is becoming a monotonous stock of small studio, 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom units. This is not good for our cities or region. by @t_dot_issues

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2 years ago