adHominem
Senior Member
"Transportation Innovation Zone" is giving me real "World of Tomorrow, Presented by General Motors" vibes.
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.
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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.
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I think that's most peep's experience driving/riding down the DVP.Or a roller-coaster between the GO Station and Ontario Place. Give the toddlers something to remember by.
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From link.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
The City will not give up money making properties for ones that do not bring in any income.
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.