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interchange42 said:
It wouldn't kill them to put in an aerial tramway to get to Ontario Place from the GO station… would it? Doing anything at all to make Ontario Place more accessible would be innovative.

42
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Or a roller-coaster between the GO Station and Ontario Place. Give the toddlers something to remember by.

roller_coaster1.jpg

From link.
 
interchange42 said:
It wouldn't kill them to put in an aerial tramway to get to Ontario Place from the GO station… would it? Doing anything at all to make Ontario Place more accessible would be innovative.

42
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Especially since the Ex has a long history with a gondola!
 
They were planning to build an elevated light rail loop around it at one point. That in itself would have been both useful infrastructure and a nice scenic ride. But current plans for getting to Ontario Place from the Exhibition station seem to be "gussy up the sidewalk" and pretend it's great urban planning.
 
CapitalSeven said:
They were planning to build an elevated light rail loop around it at one point. That in itself would have been both useful infrastructure and a nice scenic ride. But current plans for getting to Ontario Place from the Exhibition station seem to be "gussy up the sidewalk" and pretend it's great urban planning.
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...and lowest cost. As usual, which is the worst for the user.
 
Personally think the whole experimental transportation part could be quite interesting, but it's an "I'll believe when I see it" thing for me, just like the Toronto Zoo Maglev.

City council can approve it all they like just like they did with the maglev, but there'll be no guarantee that anything will be built.
 
I hate this. This is a massive concrete wasteland most of the year; the way to urbanize it would be to green it up -- to figure out a way to preserve some degree of flexibility for events whilst greening the area and generally decreasing the urban heat island effect, not to bring a bunch more cars on-site.

The Ex grounds and Ontario Place are truly massive sites -- I haven't done a fine-toothed comb planning look at it, but I find it hard to believe that you couldn't satisfy most or all of the City's 40,000 affordable homes target across the two sites alone. But, instead, the Ex is for some reason apparently thought of as some untouchable concrete playground that can't be the subject of a more thoughtful and progressive reimagining, a reality made all the much more frustrating and insane given that it is already served by both GO and streetcar and, by 2094, perhaps also an Ontario Line station.
 
ADRM said:
I hate this. This is a massive concrete wasteland most of the year; the way to urbanize it would be to green it up -- to figure out a way to preserve some degree of flexibility for events whilst greening the area and generally decreasing the urban heat island effect, not to bring a bunch more cars on-site.

The Ex grounds and Ontario Place are truly massive sites -- I haven't done a fine-toothed comb planning look at it, but I find it hard to believe that you couldn't satisfy most or all of the City's 40,000 affordable homes target across the two sites alone. But, instead, the Ex is for some reason apparently thought of as some untouchable concrete playground that can't be the subject of a more thoughtful and progressive reimagining, a reality made all the much more frustrating and insane given that it is already served by both GO and streetcar and, by 2094, perhaps also an Ontario Line station.
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What Exhibition Place feels like most of the time...
businessman-crawling-on-dry-lake-bed-reaching-out-picture-id200549491-001

From link.
 
ADRM said:
But, instead, the Ex is for some reason apparently thought of as some untouchable concrete playground that can't be the subject of a more thoughtful and progressive reimagining
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Perhaps because of all the money it brings in throughout the year with the conference centres, Toronto Police have their mounted regiment there and the fact that some of the structures have heritage protections.

You can't just bulldoze the entire place for affordable housing without being tied up in enough litigation that your grandchildren will need laywers.
 
Richard White said:
Perhaps because of all the money it brings in throughout the year with the conference centres, Toronto Police have their mounted regiment there and the fact that some of the structures have heritage protections.

You can't just bulldoze the entire place for affordable housing without being tied up in enough litigation that your grandchildren will need laywers.
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Straw men up the wazoo! Those uses are in no way mutually exclusive to integrating loads of housing. Large-scale redevelopments occur on revenue-generating properties all the time, and there are many ways to mitigate the impacts thereof.

But, more importantly, you don't have to bulldoze a single building to find loads of space for housing on the Ex grounds; a quick calculation reveals that surface parking alone currently eats up roughly *1.7 million square feet* on the Ex grounds alone. Add in the food building and the Better Living Centre and you're up to more than 2.1 million square feet. That's *48 acres* of developable land without even touching the stables or the conference centre (which could of course both be redeveloped into higher-density uses).

Add in the surface lots across the street at Ontario Place and you've got another nearly half-million square feet for good measure.
 
ADRM said:
Straw men up the wazoo! Those uses are in no way mutually exclusive to integrating loads of housing. Large-scale redevelopments occur on revenue-generating properties all the time, and there are many ways to mitigate the impacts thereof.

But, more importantly, you don't have to bulldoze a single building to find loads of space for housing on the Ex grounds; a quick calculation reveals that surface parking alone currently eats up roughly *1.7 million square feet* on the Ex grounds alone. Add in the food building and the Better Living Centre and you're up to more than 2.1 million square feet. That's *48 acres* of developable land without even touching the stables or the conference centre (which could of course both be redeveloped into higher-density uses).

Add in the surface lots across the street at Ontario Place and you've got another nearly half-million square feet for good measure.
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You do know there are public streets running through there which make money for the City of Toronto during the indy right?

The City will not give up money making properties for ones that do not bring in any income.
 
Richard White said:
You do know there are public streets running through there which make money for the City of Toronto during the indy right?

The City will not give up money making properties for ones that do not bring in any income.
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Huh? The City's affordable housing strategy -- which is administered through its real estate disposition agency -- is almost entirely predicated on exactly this notion.

Also, obviously, any redevelopment would also have to include public streets, which can be taken at face value even before engaging in the discussion around whether a car race should be considered a worthwhile reason to prevent the construction of tens of thousands of units of housing and commercial space and the associated economic benefits that would come along with that.
 
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