News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
 8.4K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 39K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 4.7K     0 

^ How is it going to work without traffic signals?
Multitudes of crossing guards?

P1010720-1024x683.jpg
 
A modest, but really nice project is happening at the corner of Danforth and Kelvin.

This is 2 blocks east of Dawes Road (between Main and Victoria Park).

Below, is from Becky Katz twitter account:

Site before construction:

1679505308371.png


1679505359419.png


1679505389548.png



1679505459843.png

1679505424574.png
 
^I wonder whether our local approach to education conflicts with this idea.

There is no doubt that in my part of town, the daily "rush hour" is not tied to travel to or from work.... but rather motorists dropping and collecting students from schools. The most intensive changes to roads and signage and speed limits in our ward has been outside local schools, because there are huge traffic issues with school dropoffs, and parents overwhelmingly demand the right to drive kids to school even where the distance is eminently walkable. I suspect that if schools in this city were located behind no-drive barriers, parents would howl.

This strikes me as a challenge to the "15 minute community" idea - our society seems to have decided that students should not attend local schools but rather have access to distant schools as a matter of preference or educational specialisation.

I won't recite any old-guy stuff about how we walked to our local school (yes, uphill both ways, in blizzards, barefoot) and how very few students went to anything but the local public or separate school, but there certainly has been a generational shift here. I'm told that commuting for education represents close to 40% of ridership for some transit agencies. Maybe that's progress in education, or maybe not.

- Paul
 
^I wonder whether our local approach to education conflicts with this idea.

There is no doubt that in my part of town, the daily "rush hour" is not tied to travel to or from work.... but rather motorists dropping and collecting students from schools. The most intensive changes to roads and signage and speed limits in our ward has been outside local schools, because there are huge traffic issues with school dropoffs, and parents overwhelmingly demand the right to drive kids to school even where the distance is eminently walkable. I suspect that if schools in this city were located behind no-drive barriers, parents would howl.

This strikes me as a challenge to the "15 minute community" idea - our society seems to have decided that students should not attend local schools but rather have access to distant schools as a matter of preference or educational specialisation.

I won't recite any old-guy stuff about how we walked to our local school (yes, uphill both ways, in blizzards, barefoot) and how very few students went to anything but the local public or separate school, but there certainly has been a generational shift here.

I'm told that commuting for education represents close to 40% of ridership for some transit agencies. Maybe that's progress in education, or maybe not.

- Paul

I think post-secondary and High School would represent a very large chunk of that, and probably always did. There isn't a high school or college campus within a 15M walk of every front door.

***

For elementary grades, we also have the problem of several schools being way over capacity (Yonge/Eglinton area, St. Lawrence/West Don Lands area) among others; those students have to either be bussed by TDSB or otherwise commute to more far-flung locations.

***

Did some digging, there's a modal share study for students in Canadian Cities

1679585561166.png


That's from this study, which is frankly really interesting:


It correlates all sorts of things to outcomes from population density to walk score.
 
I'm with Paul on this, but NL raises some good points. Back in the day (I know - old fogey time) special programs in the junior grades were extremely rare. Elementary schools and even junior high schools (7-9) had 'catchment areas' and that was pretty much it, and there seemed to be little difficulty in having schools keep up with growth. To see a parent drive their kid to school was unheard of; walk them there if they were very junior and fairly close, sure.

High school was a bit different since then you got into special programs. My high school (Northview @ Finch and Bathurst) had multiple shops and a computer (gasp - it was huge) so we had student from several junior school areas as far out as Yonge and 401. Still, I don't recall parents dropping them off; most came by TTC. I never saw a school bus except for field trips somewhere and there were never traffic jams at the front door.

I think today they is a lot more 'program/school shopping' and a lot more helicopter parenting; although I do recognize capacity issues. When our next door neighbour's kid was in high school, they would drive down to meet the school bus (we're rural), which was a grand total of 260m away.

For the record, my junior high was about 2.5km, fairly level, but I played the cello and had to lug it home sometimes.
 
I think today they is a lot more 'program/school shopping' and a lot more helicopter parenting; although I do recognize capacity issues. When our next door neighbour's kid was in high school, they would drive down to meet the school bus (we're rural), which was a grand total of 260m away.

There are narrow-range specialty programs (Vocal, Atheletics etc.) but relatively few in the junior grades.

I think by far the big one in the junior grades is French Immersion which has exploded in popularity.

For the record, my junior high was about 2.5km, fairly level, but I played the cello and had to lug it home sometimes.

I walked to school w/my mother, at 6, and on my own from age 7.

In grade 5, I switched to a school a far-flung distance from home; and I took TTC at age 10 for about an hour each way.

There was a brief window in those next few years, where my father chose to drive to work downtown after finding cheap parking, and I would get dropped at Bloor-Yonge on his way in and subway from there.

***

HS actually saw me dropped off in the first couple of years, simply because I was on dad's route to work, but I walked home in good weather and transited home in bad.

***

My neice (just now in her first year of Uni) never got a drive to school, as neither of her parents drive. She was always walked up to grade 2/3, and then walked on her own thereafter; transiting to HS. She always stayed in schools in her catchment area.

I know from her experience, the kids graduating her elementary school split roughly between 2 HS 's in the area, and Rosedale School for the Arts further afield.
 
In the 1950's and 1960's, the TTC had "scholar tickets", which were sold at the high schools. It was only good with a "student card" and only until 5:00 PM, Monday to Friday, and only during school days. Could not be used during school breaks or holidays, such as during the summer days. During the off hours, an adult ticket had to be used,, or TWO "scholar tickets" had to be used.
 
An update from Becky Katz on the Danforth/Kelvin project, just a bit more progress:

1679927857971.png


Enlarged photos:

1679927887826.png


1679927912708.png
 

Back
Top