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I think it's more a problem with having too many independent real estate agents or ones that work for smaller companies that don't access the listings and instead try to go door to door.
It is hard to know where to start ....
Anyone with access to a computer can see real estate listings (realtor.ca) so whether one works for a large broker or work alone makes very little difference. The reason people get phone calls (or visits or mail) asking if we might want to sell is because that agent has a potential client who wants a house or condo 'just like yours'. I find it hard to believe that getting a call like this (and I get a few myself) would suddenly make someone want to sell but, at least, it may plant a seed (and that agent's name) in a potential seller's mind.
 
A solution to that has been done in other cities and what was done was a section of a condo was given to the school board and it's a separate building within the condo with a separate entrance only for the school. That's something that all condo development companies should be looking at but they don't all they want to do is build it fil it and move on to the next one and not really care of the needs of people in the area are being met.
Pretty sure the problem with this isn’t the condo developer but TDSB. IIRC they don’t have the designs/ability to push for building a school into a tower? Perhaps someone can correct me if I’m wrong?
 

Plans for new schools looking up — way up

From link. Dated 2016.

In some densely populated areas of the city, schools may soon have nowhere to go but up.

The Toronto District School Board is looking at putting classrooms into highrise buildings, an idea dubbed “vertical schools.” The concept could see students with their heads quite literally in the clouds within the next decade.

It would be a first for Canada and could be in place by 2024, school board officials say.

“We haven’t done this before. We haven’t needed to do this. But we have areas of town right now… where we’re running out of capacity,” said Jeff Latto, senior manager of major capital projects and building partnerships.

Some areas of the city, such as Yonge-Eglinton, have such a high density of students and no space left in schools that students are going to school outside their ward, said Shelley Laskin, TDSB trustee for Ward 11, St. Paul’s.

In some neighbourhoods, the board can re-open a closed school or put in portables. Ideally, it would build a new school. But in other areas, such as Laskin’s, those options are not possible, she said.

“The schools are already full. They’re on small sites… and there’s no closed school to re-open,” she said.

A solution the TDSB is now looking at would involve mixing schools with new developments. Though the board hasn’t decided what exactly these schools would look like as the program is still in its early stages, Laskin and Latto had similar ideas.

Laskin said she could imagine putting satellite campuses — most likely early elementary-school grades — into designated floors of a building. The satellite schools would carry the name of their larger counterpart elsewhere in the city, have a separate entrance into the building and ideally access to a fenced area outside with a playground, she said.

“You would be taking one or two floors of that condo… you would actually have to be working with the developer at the very early stages,” she said.

Yonge and Eglinton would be a prime candidate for satellite campuses, but some areas, like the lower Yonge St. area, are getting heavily developed with no school in the immediate area.

There, Latto said, he envisions schools in what’s called the podium position of a development — the lower floors of a building, usually used for retail. Latto said a complete school could fit into a position like that, on the second or third floor of the building, and as in Laskin’s vision, could have a separate entrance and be close to green space.

“It’s the same criteria we have with all our sites — needs to be safe, needs to be accessible — it’s just that now, instead of a stand-alone building, it’s on the second or third floor of a podium,” Latto said.

Toronto already has a school connected to condo buildings, North Toronto Collegiate Institute. But Latto said, it’s not quite an example of what they’re envisioning for vertical schools. For one, the school board owned the property where the school sits, and a development was built around it.

“It’s different when we try to get space within a condominium or a mixed-use building that we don’t own. Up until now we’ve always owned our own sites,” he said.

A better example is Spruce Street School in New York City, Latto said. There, the four-storey brick school forms the base of a 76-storey apartment tower.

There’s a benefit for a school like that for both developers and families, Latto said. Developers would be able to attract families to their building with the lure of a school nearby, a convenience for parents looking for schools close to where they live.

The TDSB will need to work with both developers and the city to get vertical schools built, Latto said, and the work is still in its early stages. Latto expects to deliver a report to the board in June, which will have more details on the logistics of building such schools, he said.

“There might be some developments coming on board soon… but it’s all very early,” he said.

To get a school built by 2024 though, Laskin said, the board would have to start right now, before the buildings are even designed, to be a part of the process.

“I’ve learned the hard way that some of these great ideas take five, 10 years to generate. You have to have all the conversations… now,” she said.
OTHER STRANGE SCHOOLS

The proposal to put vertical schools in Toronto may be unusual, but there are plenty of other unique schools around the world.
Spruce Street School
tab-ci-vertical-schools-ghery-001jpg.jpg

A four-storey brick school that forms the base of a 76-storey tower, Spruce Street School is an inspiration for similar vertical schools in Toronto.
Zhongdong School
zhongdong.jpg

The entire village of Zhongdong is in a cave in southwest China, in one of the poorest areas in the country. The name means “middle cave.” Apart from the buildings, this cave also once housed a complete primary school. Like most of the other buildings in the cave, the school has no roof. The Chinese government closed the school in 2011.
Abo Elementary School and Fallout Shelter
ci-verticalschools001jpg.jpg

Built at the height of the Cold War, when nuclear war was one of the biggest concerns on people’s minds, Abo Elementary School was one of the world’s few subterranean schools. Designed to house 540 students, the New Mexico school doubled as a fallout shelter that could potentially house more than 2,000. It was replaced with an above-ground school in 1995, though the underground structure still exists as a storage shed.
 
When will construction begin on the new "Hybrid Design Alternative 3" configuration for the Gardiner/DVP interchange? Does this need to happen for the Sediment and Debris Management Area to be installed?
 
Does anyone know why this eastbound ramp between Jarvis/Richardson is closed?

View attachment 355453
To get driver used to a new way to get to the DVP.

The next year or so, everything between the Jarvis off ramp going east to the DVP will be close to allow the building of the Hybrid Design that.

This will require new ramps for the DVP and shifting Gardiner to the north with a new section. Can't do that with live traffic going by. Parts of the new ramp can be built before shutting the whole thing down to speed thing up.

Once all reconstruction is complete, should reopen in 2025.
 
To get driver used to a new way to get to the DVP.

The next year or so, everything between the Jarvis off ramp going east to the DVP will be close to allow the building of the Hybrid Design that.

This will require new ramps for the DVP and shifting Gardiner to the north with a new section. Can't do that with live traffic going by. Parts of the new ramp can be built before shutting the whole thing down to speed thing up.

Once all reconstruction is complete, should reopen in 2025.
Yes, though why the signage (clearly seen in the photo above from @dufferin1 ) is still up is a bit of a mystery!
 
To get driver used to a new way to get to the DVP.
That ramp just got reconstructed, and enters the highway before the new section to the DVP.

The next year or so, everything between the Jarvis off ramp going east to the DVP will be close to allow the building of the Hybrid Design that.
My understanding is that work doesn't start until at least 2024. Also they've just done a massive reconstruction of the Gardiner east of Jarvis to Bent 294 (east of Parliament - closer to Cherry than Parliament). That's not going anywhere.

Once all reconstruction is complete, should reopen in 2025.
I thought it was closer to 2030.
 
That ramp just got reconstructed, and enters the highway before the new section to the DVP.

My understanding is that work doesn't start until at least 2024. Also they've just done a massive reconstruction of the Gardiner east of Jarvis to Bent 294 (east of Parliament - closer to Cherry than Parliament). That's not going anywhere.

I thought it was closer to 2030.
This came to Council in June 2021. The rationale is:

"The intersection of Lake Shore Boulevard/Lower Jarvis Street/Gardiner Expressway Lower Jarvis Ramp is controlled by traffic signals. The eastbound approach lanes on the off-ramp operate on a fully protected phase, resulting in a split phase with the eastbound movements on Lake Shore Boulevard East. The purpose of the split phasing is to allow eastbound movements from Lake Shore Boulevard East to safely weave through two traffic lanes to access the on-ramp, with no conflicting movements from the off-ramp. In order to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of the lane reconfiguration, removal of the split phasing is recommended. This will allow eastbound movements from the off-ramp and Lake Shore Boulevard East to cross the intersection simultaneously. Consequently, the weaving manoeuvre to access the on-ramp from Lake Shore Boulevard East will now conflict with eastbound movements from the offramp. Therefore, closure of the eastbound on-ramp from Lower Jarvis Street is recommended to eliminate any potential conflicts and unsafe manoeuvres." See: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/ie/bgrd/backgroundfile-166845.pdf
 
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This came to Council in June 2021. The rationale is:

The intersection of Lake Shore Boulevard/Lower Jarvis Street/Gardiner Expressway Lower Jarvis Ramp is controlled by traffic signals. The eastbound approach lanes on the off-ramp operate on a fully protected phase, resulting in a split phase with the eastbound movements on Lake Shore Boulevard East. The purpose of the split phasing is to allow eastbound movements from Lake Shore Boulevard East to safely weave through two traffic lanes to access the on-ramp, with no conflicting movements from the off-ramp. In order to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of the lane reconfiguration, removal of the split phasing is recommended. This will allow eastbound movements from the off-ramp and Lake Shore Boulevard East to cross the intersection simultaneously. Consequently, the weaving manoeuvre to access the on-ramp from Lake Shore Boulevard East will now conflict with eastbound movements from the offramp. Therefore, closure of the eastbound on-ramp from Lower Jarvis Street is recommended to eliminate any potential conflicts and unsafe manoeuvres. See: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/ie/bgrd/backgroundfile-166845.pdf
Always figure it was a safety issue and not sure where it was located since it's a blue moon I am using the ramp or the Gardiner in the east end.

To bad this did not come up/out before the rebuilt as it would have been a good time to remove the ramp 100% and save money by not rebuilding it.

From my walking experience of the area, have seen numerous safety issues for that ramp, let alone the intersection.
 
With the new Gardiner and Lake Shore hybrid when completed, this will go back to a split configuration as there will be new ramps to Lake Shore built further down. It is a temporary change until all of the construction is complete.
 
The same Report confirms the timelines:

Lower Yonge Precinct Project - 2024 to 2025 • Shortening the Lower Jarvis Street off-ramp to Yonge Street; and • Removal of the Bay Street on-ramp to eastbound Gardiner Expressway.
Gardiner East EA Project - 2026 to 2030 • Construction of two new access ramps on the east side of Cherry Street, connecting the Gardiner Expressway with Lake Shore Boulevard East.
 
Thanks everyone for the information on why this is being done this way! Seems to make sense - and presumably it would increase the capacity from the off-ramp onto Lake Shore.

I'm a bit puzzled though, I drove through the other day, and noticed that the Don Roadway doesn't allow left turns from Lake Shore! That means there's no eastbound access to Lake Shore/Gardiner between Bay and the DVP - which will push some traffic onto Villiers.

To bad this did not come up/out before the rebuilt as it would have been a good time to remove the ramp 100% and save money by not rebuilding it.
It hardly takes up much additional space, and will have utility once the whole project is completed. They were doing the rest of the rebuild in that area anyway - so why not do that at the same time? Normally we complaint that they keep going back to do more work somewhere, rather than doing it at once.

From my walking experience of the area, have seen numerous safety issues for that ramp, let alone the intersection.
Once the off-ramp is moved further west by 2025, then the safety issues will be dealt with. Sounds to me this very much came up in the rebuild! The original design of having the ramp extend from near York Street to Spadina seems excessive. I wasn't aware they were going to remove that entire ramp, and replace it with one that ends at Yonge - while moving the eastbound Lake Shore to follow the Gardiner! (see https://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/nbe...nthome/projects/lower+yonge+precinct+planning)

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