Yup, Bascule is still upright

IMG_3700.jpeg
 
It's been down the last few days, so I guess it just went upright again recently. I rode across it a few time over the weekend.
 
I wonder how many times it needs to go up and down per week?

Google Maps is alternately showing road closed until May 6th or May 8th.
 
The should call that bridge the Bascule Wood, as it's always up... >.<
 
Is anybody going to the Villiers Island density study meeting in person tonight? If so, please let us know how it goes.
 
It was still up today (Thurs). I’d only bothered to look because I’d flipped on a live Johnny Strides video the other day, and some cyclist had asked him if the bridge was open. He’d mistakenly thought he meant the yellow one and told him yes. So no apparently no signage.
 
jxmith_ said:
It was still up today (Thurs). I’d only bothered to look because I’d flipped on a live Johnny Strides video the other day, and some cyclist had asked him if the bridge was open. He’d mistakenly thought he meant the yellow one and told him yes. So no apparently no signage.
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There was a sign at Commissioners saying ROAD CLOSED but there are so many out of date signs in the City that it was ignored by many.
 
An interesting article from Smart Density about changes they would like to see to the current plan.

smartdensity.com

The Time Is Now and the Opportunity Is Gold! Calling on Waterfront Toronto to Lead Us to a People-First, Cars-Last Urban Future - Smart Density

Tonight, Waterfront Toronto is hosting a public meeting to collect feedback for their recent release of a new design scheme that reflects the proposed density increase for Villiers Island. While the focus of the meeting is the density, it is another aspect of the plan that additional attention...
smartdensity.com smartdensity.com
 
Jeff Morgan said:
An interesting article from Smart Density about changes they would like to see to the current plan.

smartdensity.com

The Time Is Now and the Opportunity Is Gold! Calling on Waterfront Toronto to Lead Us to a People-First, Cars-Last Urban Future - Smart Density

Tonight, Waterfront Toronto is hosting a public meeting to collect feedback for their recent release of a new design scheme that reflects the proposed density increase for Villiers Island. While the focus of the meeting is the density, it is another aspect of the plan that additional attention...
smartdensity.com smartdensity.com
Click to expand...
I have flagged this to a board member on WT that I know through a friend.

I really also want to see more walkability and think we can do better on this front. Downsview shows us what’s possible.


Great article!
 
The response from officialdom will be that that type of development is not feasible here due the regulatory environment. So the real problem are the sacred cows like the size of emergency vehicles, prohibition on point access blocks/single stair development etc. If the answer is that it is not possible here, we need to understand why we are making livable cities illegal.
 
afransen said:
The response from officialdom will be that that type of development is not feasible here due the regulatory environment. So the real problem are the sacred cows like the size of emergency vehicles, prohibition on point access blocks/single stair development etc. If the answer is that it is not possible here, we need to understand why we are making livable cities illegal.
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Except for the problem of the above being entirely untrue, it's a fine thought.

Don't get me wrong I agree we have over sized loading in many buildings and yes, the fire dept can be an irritant at times.

But that has nothing to w/40M ROWs or even 20M rows in Villiers.

That's a function of streetwall height and density.

Villiers as currently proposed is 9,000 units on 20 hectares

Merwede is 4,250 units on 24 hectares.

So Villiers is much denser and much taller with 2.11x the number of units in just over 80% of the land area.

Villiers - 450 units per hectare

Merwede - 177 units per hectare.

When you drastically reduce height, you drastically reduce shadows and wind, this reduces the need for setbacks and large separation distances.

It also slashes the projected traffic too.
 
Northern Light said:
Except for the problem of the above being entirely untrue, it's a fine thought.

Don't get me wrong I agree we have over sized loading in many buildings and yes, the fire dept can be an irritant at times.

But that has nothing to w/40M ROWs or even 20M rows in Villiers.

That's a function of streetwall height and density.

Villiers as currently proposed is 9,000 units on 20 hectares

Merwede is 4,250 units on 24 hectares.

So Villiers is much denser and much taller with 2.11x the number of units in just over 80% of the land area.

Villiers - 450 units per hectare

Merwede - 177 units per hectare.

When you drastically reduce height, you drastically reduce shadows and wind, this reduces the need for setbacks and large separation distances.

It also slashes the projected traffic too.
Click to expand...
I was referring to the form they were proposing. It basically can't be done, even if we wanted to. Very little in the way of car light development is proceeding in North America. Cul De Sac Tempe is an example, and that still required concessions for emergency vehicle access.
 
afransen said:
I was referring to the form they were proposing. It basically can't be done, even if we wanted to. Very little in the way of car light development is proceeding in North America. Cul De Sac Tempe is an example, and that still required concessions for emergency vehicle access.
Click to expand...

What Smart Density is asking though is

a) Smaller ROWs that are within tolerance for Toronto Emergency Vehicles, or very close, but much less wide that WT has proposed here. That could be achieved if you lowered the height/density.

b) They are proposing some of the roads be car-free paths of travel instead, but generally with the same ROW between buildings, that's easy, we do that now in all our ravine parks where we require a 4M wide bike path for just that reason. It also needn't be asphalt, just drivable hardscape.

***

Pushing parking to the edges of the perimeter is a feasible choice, but to be cost-effective, particularly when working with a high water table, it will mean retaining some land for above-ground parking (likely as a garage, not surface parking, and hopefully with retail blended into the grade-level), but this will come at the expense of density on the site.

In general, and I'm not singling you out here, we have a lot of people at UT who have advocated for higher density and more height here, when the opening density was already high by global standards. If one wanted narrower, lower traffic roads, one would need less density and lower height.

That's how it works. It's just math; not ideology.

Yes, we can talk about single-point egress, but not on its own; if we do that, we must talk about comprehensive fire suppression systems. If we do that, we will drive up costs for lowrise buildings. I'm fine w/that, but I hear people advocating for design changes that put people's lives at risk if they aren't accompanied by other changes we don't currently require and that add costs.

Everything is a trade, and there are no 'free lunches'.

People here keep going on............"If only we could be like" In this case Utrecht. Great Utrecht's population density is 25% lower than Toronto's at ~3,600 per km2. So we should stop building tomorrow, and kick 25% of the people out; then housing will be affordable and we can build shorter buildings with narrower roads. Is that what everyone meant? LOL

Sorry for the rant, my patience is just tested by people who look at pretty pictures and don't read the text. (not picking on you on this point)
 
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