Public Realm in Canadian Cities - Developments

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

re: yellow belt

Imo, It's design is not ideal for mass intensification. For me, the question is why do we desire all these new people every year or to see the 416 with double or triple the population. We concentrate on housing here on SSP but everything is cracking with these record growth numbers. Replacing half the 416's single family housing with 4 plex shoeboxes will buy Toronto how many years of reprieve from overbuilding the downtown ?

It's why we need redevelopment to happen to get at least some of these yellow-belt areas redesigned, especially the areas and major arterials within walking distance to rapid public transit. They're not sustainable and drain too much tax dollars to support.

Completely agree that it's unhealthy to keep juicing up the population growth in Toronto. The city's current infrastructure is completely overwhelmed and can't keep up, and any notable relief from infrastructure expansion like the Ontario Line isn't coming online for many years. JT's Liberals are subjecting the city to a cruel stress test, basically piling on more and more bodies to see if the city will suffer from a cataclysmic breakdown.

Montreal is growing, but at a much more sustainable rate, and the new neighbourhoods they're building are just so much more livable and thoughtful, way less shadow impacts, with adequate amenities and parks.

[niwell]

The only way to absorb the necessary amounts of housing in the yellowbelt while ensuring anything approaching a pleasant urban environment would involve some massive blockbusting style developments. There are obviously lots of issues with this. Some of the gridded areas of North York / and Western Scarborough could accommodate smaller-scale development easily but in the case of the former at least land values makes this an interesting proposition. Otherwise we are gonna get a bunch of cul de sacs in poorer areas turned into plexes (jokes on them - lots of these houses are already illegal apartments!) and rich homes next to skyscrapers.

Literally saw a post on YIMBY twitter the other day lauding a 50+ storey proposal in the site of a few semis in what was previously considered yellowbelt (it was close enough to transit). I can’t see how this is really helping much in the long run.

IMO it’s telling that some of the best new large-scale developments in Toronto and wider GTA are those that involve a pretty long build-out for various reasons. Thinking both stuff like Alexandra Park and Downtown Markham.

[Innsertnamehere]

Downtown Markham’s long buildout is because the developer moves super slow, and that’s it.

Markham had some prohibitive parkland dedication fees for years which made it really tough to make condo buildings pencil too. They were actually thinking of lowering them before the Ford Government slashed them for them.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The yellow belt is so massive in Toronto that I actually think opening it up completely would substantially absorb downtown demand. And increasing that density would also mean more service and retail closer to these streets and would provide enough demand for higher frequency transit services throughout the city. Imagine a world where there's more corner stores and the regular neighborhood bus runs every 8-10 mins off-peak and integrates into GO running every 15 mins or less for downtown trips.

The yellow belt in no more in Toronto as as multiplexes can be built anywhere in the city now and the city has changed bylaws to allow more commercial uses in residential areas now.
This thread in Urban Toronto is documenting the replacement of single family housing with multiplexes. https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...s.35914/page-4
The next battle is for allowing small apartments into all neighbourhoods.

[Nite]

Road design is getting better in Toronto every year as engineers start to focus less on car driver and on safety for everyone else. here is a recent change.
I wish the city would move faster on things like this, but the consistent improvement in road/pedestrian safety ever year will yield a much better city in about 10 years.
Amsterdam started like this as well in the 70's and improvement every year gets you an entire city with safe street eventually.
Also as people see the benefits of the redesign they want more of it in their neighbourhoods.

• Video Link

[Nite]

All the road redesign as shown above and removing of traffic lanes is starting to yield results for road safety. We are still at the beginning a lot more streets need to be redesign to eliminate road fatalities in the city.
The most deadly streets in Toronto are the wide suburban arterial roads. Redesigning them to make them slower with narrow lanes and few lanes and protected intersections would significantly reduce fatalities int he city.

[someone123]

Cogswell redevelopment work in Halifax is progressing. I am surprised by how quickly the landscaping is happening.

This used to basically be onramps to the interchange:


Source

A wider view (the circles are vehicles parked in the bike lanes):


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You can't see it in those photos above but here's Granville Street leading up to this area. It ran into a dead end at the interchange but soon it'll front onto a park with more blocks of development farther north:


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Some buildings demolished in that area:


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On the waterfront there is an old looking clock mounted onto a 90's looking pomo base. That's the 1772 Hauser Stores clock, supposedly the oldest working public clock in Canada. Originally the Hauser Stores were located on the Cogswell lands. I wonder if some of this history will ever be restored, at least with interpretive materials.

[Zeej]

^ That's a big improvement over what was there. Now that the interchange is gone, maybe getting rid of the elevated ped-way can be considered.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Zeej

^ That's a big improvement over what was there. Now that the interchange is gone, maybe getting rid of the elevated ped-way can be considered.

The Cogswell redevelopment plan itself is pretty underwhelming as a city building project. It does not call for any major public infrastructure and doesn't try to tackle elements like the pedway. It's not clear how the public spaces will turn out, or what kind of character this area will have (the discussions revolved disproportionately around height limits, as usual, and this whole area is under a pointless height limit of around 80-90 m).

But with the interchange gone this area can evolve normally like any part of the city. The pedway could be torn down one day. It would have been better to consider putting some infrastructure underground around here though. There is a bus terminal a couple blocks up (really just a bus parking area) and then the ferry terminal. There's no multi-modal downtown terminal.

One thing that happened is this project took so long that it ended up looking small and unambitious compared to what ended up happening in other parts of town. There is a plan to build a large underground bus terminal in the West End which may connect to commuter rail and will have dozens of towers around it, but that kind of scale wasn't contemplated here. The Cogswell planning sort of dates back to the 90's, and I suspect the municipality held off on this project until they had no choice because the interchange required maintenance. One of the selling features of this project was the idea that the land sales will recoup the other costs. I'd guess that concept was from the 2000's land values have gone far beyond that now.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by someone123

One thing that happened is this project took so long that it ended up looking small and unambitious compared to what ended up happening in other parts of town. There is a plan to build a large underground bus terminal in the West End which may connect to commuter rail and will have dozens of towers around it, but that kind of scale wasn't contemplated here. The Cogswell planning sort of dates back to the 90's, and I suspect the municipality held off on this project until they had no choice because the interchange required maintenance. One of the selling features of this project was the idea that the land sales will recoup the other costs. I'd guess that concept was from the 2000's land values have gone far beyond that now.

Some years ago I was involved in the preliminary design of the West End bus terminal and surrounding masterplan! It's been in the works for quite some time, but seems to be moving forward. 20Vic (now Cushman Wakefield) owned the Halifax Shopping Centre and lots around it. It might disappoint some to learn most of this work was being done out of Toronto.

[MonkeyRonin]

The revamped Market St. (done a couple years ago) and new St. Lawrence Market North building in Toronto are looking good:


https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2023/08...t-street.53549

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Some years ago I was involved in the preliminary design of the West End bus terminal and surrounding masterplan! It's been in the works for quite some time, but seems to be moving forward. 20Vic (now Cushman Wakefield) owned the Halifax Shopping Centre and lots around it. It might disappoint some to learn most of this work was being done out of Toronto.

It's one of those projects that takes things up a notch, with the nicest existing terminal in Halifax being Bridge Terminal. Mumford was rebuilt in the 2000's and it was underbuilt back then, with a bad layout.

It is a bit sad that Cushman Wakefield can plan something for a mall bus terminal that seems beyond the scope that was considered for Cogswell. Adding underground infrastructure will be more expensive now that roads and utilities are being rebuilt.

[shappy]

And Market Lane park which should be a nice addition (across Front St. with all the trees). Scheduled to reopen Fall next year.

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The revamped Market St. (done a couple years ago) and new St. Lawrence Market North building in Toronto are looking good:


https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2023/08...t-street.53549

[Nite]

^^^
Remove car traffic always makes a city look and function better and is much safer for everyone.
The more we do it the better or cities will be to live in.
It seems that a critical mass of citizens and local politicians have realized this.

[samne]

The St. Lawrence area is really turning into something different for Toronto with Market St and Berczy Park. The North building has taken what seems like forever to build ties in the intersection so well with old market and the St. Lawrence Hall north.

Well done

[davidivivid]

• Video Link

[SpongeG]

The Hub in Surrey has turned out well, always a lot of people, people now come here to eat from other parts of Surrey. Lots of seating, some art, some animal statues and such, a grocery store, a drug store and restaurants and services.

2023-08-25_12-44-38 by snub_you, on Flickr

2023-08-23_10-39-00 by snub_you, on Flickr

2023-08-23_10-38-56 by snub_you, on Flickr

2023-08-23_10-38-52 by snub_you, on Flickr

2023-08-23_10-38-47 by snub_you, on Flickr

2023-08-23_10-38-42 by snub_you, on Flickr

2023-08-23_10-38-37 by snub_you, on Flickr

2023-09-10_08-19-39 by snub_you, on Flickr

2023-09-10_08-19-43 by snub_you, on Flickr

the next phase is under construction.
2023-09-10_08-19-59 by snub_you, on Flickr

[kool maudit]

It seems as though the Halifax city council has voted against the idea of allocating part of the Halifax Common, one of Canada's oldest public parks (it dates from 1749), for use as a designated tent city.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...camp-1.6963230

The result is obviously as welcome as the premise is demented. You read the quotes of these councilors and it is as though they are completely unaware that most of the world's major cities unequivocally forbid the construction of shantytowns in their public squares and gardens, as did Canada's cities until very recently.

[someone123]

Halifax politics are pretty underwhelming. It's a large municipality that includes parochial suburban councillors and the urban politics are strange without much sense of direction. There's a pretty big disconnect between what the private sector and province do and the municipality (the municipal annual budget is in the $1B+ range).

A lot of these councillors would have wanted a moratorium on trailer parks ("tiny homes"?) a few years ago which I think passed. They will often fight against housing projects in their own districts. There would be more living space ritually cut from a few recently completed projects than in all of the tents.

[someone123]

The culture there and how it relates to politics has been a bit off for a while too although I'm not sure how it has changed lately. For as long as I've known it there's been a heavy mix of utilitarianism and passivity or indifference. Relatively few people seemed to care about what happens to the main public spaces. An example is that councillors used to just drive up to the old redone City Beautiful era Grand Parade in front of City Hall on council nights, and the province at one point was going to tear down a 7-storey building partly dating back to the 1840's fronting onto Province House (part of the legislature grounds were also converted to parking). There's a meme in the local media about buildings being at the end of their service life, whether we're talking about tilt-up big box stores or Georgian office blocks. Most cities don't look at their historical monuments in terms of price per square foot alone.

The idea of tents going wherever sort of fits in with all of that. Plus you've got a left-wing political impulse that welcomes it for different reasons (look how late stage our capitalism is now! if it gets bad enough we will finally get to utopia).

It's tricky because Halifax is not London or Paris but it's also not Red Deer. I think it was improving but I'm not sure where the bar is and it seems below where it should be. It looks like they're putting office park style landscaping in around Cogswell.