[Northern Light]

So we often talk streetscaping or fixing up a particular city space, or the City overall aesthetic image.

Of course, we could reimagine the whole City or spend an unlimited amount of money!

I thought we should have a thread to see if there is a consensus on what Toronto needs and where the money should be spent.

For the purposes of this thread I'm going to ask that people limit themselves to a $40M budget.

The number is not arbitrary as that is the cost of the Nathan Philips Square Redo and roughly double what's being spent on Bloor.

So its enough to do something very substantial; but its also a realistic number.

Here's a selection list of general possibles:

Gateway and Gateway corridor beautification:

Think massive landscaping at major points of entry to city on both highways and major arterials and extending landscaping on probable major routes into the City (say 427 from the Airport or the Gardiner from the west).

Grand Parks

This might be about 1 new park, or it might be about making 3 or 4 parks go from ordinary to stunning. A full-block Moss Park with grand flower beds twice the scale of those in Allan Gardens as an example.

Grand Boulevards

Think University Avenue or Bloor (as upgraded) and extend this treatment to another 3km of City roads.

Nooks, Crannies and Courtyards

Tougher to define, but what I'm thinking of is all the special little public places you encounter in Vienna or Paris the tiny little parks, courtyards, beautified back lanes. For 40M you could do alot is a series of 10 or 15 small places.

General Streetscape

The least spectacular, but makes the largest if most subtle difference.
Example would be putting most/all street trees in trenches or pits (as opposed to boxes) or burying Hydro wires (40M would buy you total burial in downtown) etc.

Where you would spend the money for the most impact?

A poll is there for the general direction to find out what people think needs the most attention; while the thread is for your project details.

 

[Roy G Biv]

General streetscape improvements will enhance existing assets. This is the best value choice. Let's take care of what we got.

 

[yyzhyd]

At a minimum within the boundaries of Dufferin, Bloor, DVP and Lake Ontario I'd like to see the burying of all wires... in my lifetime.

 

[Dilla]

I would love to see the tarmac patches on the side walks eradicated.

Perhaps a fund for store front improvements (match what the owner is willing to put in up to a celling. I know some BIAs already do this). Some of Toronto's look horrible.

 

[TonyV]

Streetscaping, that's it.

Trees and other plantings in properly irrigated trenches, the removal of overhead wiring, cohesive signage, a rethink of newspaper boxes (take a look at the huge lineup of them at Yonge & Queen, for example) and also a rethink of those garbage bins, or whatever the politically correct among us call those.

Great poll and post, Northern Light.

 

[DC83]

General Streetscapes

They give Identy to neighbourhoods while making them seem cleaner and more safe.

I really dislike those 'Gateways' you see driving along the QEW from Toronto to Niagara. They're kinda lame, and totally a waste of money. And the MTO has final say as to how it can/should look ...terrible!

Spend it on Streetscaping! Everyone wins!

 

[Tewder]

On Bloor we're already seeing just how much of an impact a decent planting of trees with pavings can have, transformative! Not every street has to be granite obviously but there is probably a happy medium between this and the hideous, cracked and patched concrete walkways that currently typify the city streetscapes.

It's really about basic housekeeping and maintenance, along with appropriate upgrades, all of which we should be doing anyway. Lets bury the poles (their time has come) and step up the standard of our streets a little. This will go a long way.

To dream a little I would love to see better upkeep of gardens and public spaces, Grange Park around the AGO seems horribly wasted as an example. City Place Canoe Park is disappointing. I'd love to see an urban 'Soho Square' on Queen West. Clarence Square?? The Parliament Site?? There are so many other opportunities that would put the spit and polish on grungy ol' Hogtown.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

I'm not asking for homogenity in streetscaping (lamps, benches, etc.) as long as what's put in is attractive and maintained well.

Where I would like to see the city take ruthless, fascistic action is in the following (and you know what's coming) with regards to general streetscaping:

* absolutely *zero* tolerance for postering, of any kind, anywhere. I have visions of fleets of trucks with power washers going along King, Queen, Bloor, Bathurst, Spadina, etc. every night relentlessly washing away nightclub posters and other crap that gets glued up everywhere. Same thing with those stickers on the backs of traffic island signs, and the endless driving school ads that wallpaper bus shelters in Scarborough and North York. Fines, like $2000 per poster should be put in, name-and-shame campaigns, you name it, I'm just sick and tired of seeing the city wallpapered in this spam-garbage. In the absence of this, roll-out versions of the Yonge BIA all over the city, and get a company like they have hired to remove posters everywhere. You claim to hate the commercialization of public spaces? Well, no better place to start than with postering. No other city has a postering problem like ours, and it's time to stop this as it's a complete disgrace.

* wooden poles: get rid of them, and bury all utilities, I don't care what the nostalgists say, they are embarrassing, hog sidewalk space, and are a visual symbol of this city's indifference to its apperance and aesthetic bankruptcy. Absolutely no need for them in the 21st century.

* newspaper boxes: get rid of them, or, barring that, ensure they're consolidated in larger boxes, and placed on the sides of buildings, not closest to the street. I haven't bought a paper from a box in almost 12 years. And those free paper boxes should be fined to the hilt if not banned. Just too much crap being published that produces too many publication boxes that crowd out sidewalk space, add to clutter, etc. Most of that's online anyway.

* mailboxes: if Canada Post isn't going to maintain them and remove graffiti from them, get rid of them. You can't tell me they're heavily used these days, and as with the newspaper boxes, get them off the middle of the sidewalks to somewhere less obtrusive. I see more mailboxes out there now than I do in pics of Toronto from the 1930s, and I'm pretty sure there was *twice* daily delivery back then.

* graffiti: barring summary executions for taggers, make it such that there are teams dedicated to removing it under bridges, wherever it's found. I've placed orders to remove graffiti in some places that took weeks, that's just not acceptable.

* shift from vacuum litter carts to bag-and-broom men. Main corridors should be swept old-school style, as I find they do a better job getting litter thrown into crevices, on planters, between said publication boxes. They also tear down ads, the vacuum guys don't. Some streets should have mandatory, twice daily pick-up runs. And yes, I'm willing to pay higher taxes for this.

* and speaking of planters: get rid of those concrete block eyesores across the whole city, and replace them with something like this.

* rusted out light poles: replace, replace, replace.

* simplify: does every intersection in this city need giant, mounted over-hang traffic lights? Why not simple, pole-based signals like this. And yes, can we turn all our street furniture to black? So much slicker and modern.

I think that's a start. The city needs to raise standards, ruthlessly, and hopefully the rest of us will follow.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Do beautification and sterility go hand in hand?

 

[MetroMan]

I'm not asking for homogenity in streetscaping (lamps, benches, etc.) as long as what's put in is attractive and maintained well.

Where I would like to see the city take ruthless, fascistic action is in the following (and you know what's coming) with regards to general streetscaping:

* absolutely *zero* tolerance for postering, of any kind, anywhere. I have visions of fleets of trucks with power washers going along King, Queen, Bloor, Bathurst, Spadina, etc. every night relentlessly washing away nightclub posters and other crap that gets glued up everywhere. Same thing with those stickers on the backs of traffic island signs, and the endless driving school ads that wallpaper bus shelters in Scarborough and North York. Fines, like $2000 per poster should be put in, name-and-shame campaigns, you name it, I'm just sick and tired of seeing the city wallpapered in this spam-garbage. In the absence of this, roll-out versions of the Yonge BIA all over the city, and get a company like they have hired to remove posters everywhere. You claim to hate the commercialization of public spaces? Well, no better place to start than with postering. No other city has a postering problem like ours, and it's time to stop this as it's a complete disgrace.

* wooden poles: get rid of them, and bury all utilities, I don't care what the nostalgists say, they are embarrassing, hog sidewalk space, and are a visual symbol of this city's indifference to its apperance and aesthetic bankruptcy. Absolutely no need for them in the 21st century.

* newspaper boxes: get rid of them, or, barring that, ensure they're consolidated in larger boxes, and placed on the sides of buildings, not closest to the street. I haven't bought a paper from a box in almost 12 years. And those free paper boxes should be fined to the hilt if not banned. Just too much crap being published that produces too many publication boxes that crowd out sidewalk space, add to clutter, etc. Most of that's online anyway.

* mailboxes: if Canada Post isn't going to maintain them and remove graffiti from them, get rid of them. You can't tell me they're heavily used these days, and as with the newspaper boxes, get them off the middle of the sidewalks to somewhere less obtrusive. I see more mailboxes out there now than I do in pics of Toronto from the 1930s, and I'm pretty sure there was *twice* daily delivery back then.

* graffiti: barring summary executions for taggers, make it such that there are teams dedicated to removing it under bridges, wherever it's found. I've placed orders to remove graffiti in some places that took weeks, that's just not acceptable.

* shift from vacuum litter carts to bag-and-broom men. Main corridors should be swept old-school style, as I find they do a better job getting litter thrown into crevices, on planters, between said publication boxes. They also tear down ads, the vacuum guys don't. Some streets should have mandatory, twice daily pick-up runs. And yes, I'm willing to pay higher taxes for this.

* and speaking of planters: get rid of those concrete block eyesores across the whole city, and replace them with something like this.

* rusted out light poles: replace, replace, replace.

* simplify: does every intersection in this city need giant, mounted over-hang traffic lights? Why not simple, pole-based signals like this. And yes, can we turn all our street furniture to black? So much slicker and modern.

I think that's a start. The city needs to raise standards, ruthlessly, and hopefully the rest of us will follow.

I wish this would become a campaign issue. If other like minded Urban Toronto forumers want to make it an issue, we can join together to do so: Right here and right now, I'm committing to attending many (if not all) of the open house Mayoral debates and raising this issue when/if questions to the candidates are allowed. Who's with me?

 

[Spoonman]

Do beautification and sterility go hand in hand?

I was just thinking the same thing after having read fiendishlibrarian's post.

I admire his/her fierce advocacy for improving our public realm, and while I certainly stand behind many of those ideas, others border on the absurdly draconian. Removing postboxes and newspaper kiosks? I think I recall in the Then and Now thread, fiendish was also condemning the "unnecessary payphones" in the Now shot? I can't say I'm eager to relinquish public sidewalk amenities in an effort to create a sterilized, Disneyland-like public realm for neat freaks. With this kind of precedent, we'll soon be vilifying those pesky benches, public art installations and restaurant patios that spill out onto the sidewalk and clutter it up.

 

[kettal]

No other city has a postering problem like ours

Is Toronto the world's worst in this category?

Personally, I prefer postering to tagging.

 

[Torontovibe]

Is Toronto the world's worst in this category?

Personally, I prefer postering to tagging.

I really think Toronto is the worst. It's certainly the worst I've seen. I think it should also be an election issue.

 

[MetroMan]

I think it should also be an election issue.

Let's make it one.

We all know that all you need is a critical mass of visible unity on an issue to get the media interested. We also know that the media defines the election issues.

It could be as simple as having a question re-occur at every Mayoral debate's question period to have the media take note. Other opportunities are writing to newspapers and calling in to radio talk shows and TV programs where candidates are taking questions.

In order to be effective, the message must be focused.

We could narrow it down to beautifying our streets by burying our hydro poles throughout downtown.

That single action will eliminate the majority of surfaces where people poster.

The unified question that every participating member would ask would be:

"Will you as Mayor, return civic pride to our public spaces by burying hydro poles, therefore removing not only the visual clutter they cause but the majority of surfaces used for postering and tagging?"

If this succeeds in becoming an election issue, it can be further pursued along these lines:

Where else does postering and tagging occur?
- Street furniture: Astral media is already obligated under contract to clean and maintain garbage bins, transit shelters, benches, consolidated newspaper boxes and all other street furniture they own. Hold them accountable to their contractual obligations.

- Canada Post boxes: I believe Canada Post is a federal agency. Work with or otherwise issue an ultimatum to Ottawa that Toronto will not tolerate unkempt Canada Post boxes. Tagged and postered boxes will be removed from city property and stored at a location for Canada Post to pick up and clean. Take Ottawa to court if necessary. Eventually, they'll get the message and put a system in place where mailmen picking up mail can report an unkempt box, which then puts it on an itinerary of a regular cleaning crew that cleans and restores mail boxes.

- Newspaper boxes: Deploy the consolidated newspaper boxes and newspaper box corrals. Issue an identical ultimatum to that of Canada Post boxes. Defaced boxes get removed by the city. Again, there's somebody on the responsible entity's pay role that sees these boxes every day or at least weekly. They can report unkempt boxes before the city removes them.

- Parking meters: Lobby Queen's Park to make it illegal to deface parking meters. Have parking enforcement officers report defaced meters at the end of their shift. Put a couple of Police officers on duty to investigate infractions. It should be easy to catch the perps since posters advertise an event or service. Follow the trail and issue hefty fines to those hiring people to poster.

- Construction hoarding: Make it a condition for approval of hoarding permits that all hoarding shall be clear of posters and tags/graffiti. Fines are issued to the developer. Allow for removal within a reasonable time frame. Developers will learn to notify their construction managers to get a guy with a scraper and paint can & brush on the problem if it occurs.

Rapidly removing tags and posters deters all but the most persistent of offenders. This leaves few places to poster, making it inevitably not worth the effort to design, print and hire somebody to post these things.

 

[MisterF]

a rethink of newspaper boxes (take a look at the huge lineup of them at Yonge & Queen, for example) and also a rethink of those garbage bins, or whatever the politically correct among us call those.

Great poll and post, Northern Light.

Replacing the newspaper boxes with multi-publication structures is part of the street furniture plan. I don't know the timing of them though. I agree with everything else you've said. The old garbage bins are better (they just need bigger openings) and the postering columns should be simple stainless steel collars like in Ottawa.

Do beautification and sterility go hand in hand?

No. The survival of the great funky storefronts in Toronto doesn't depend on wooden hydro poles covered in posters.