animatronic
Senior Member
Logic, sanity and cooler heads will kill it just fine. Some of us dream of a day when City Council stops getting distracted by flights of fancy and actually does something useful.
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- Thread starter coolcanadian
- Start date
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Well said. A city that works, now that's something to aspire to. We can't even get the police budget under control, let alone anything more complicated than that.
TonyV
Senior Member
Metroman, as usual, I find it a pleasure to read you, probably because we are so similar. My self-caution about this bid is coming from the reactions of John Tory.
I'm a guy who has travelled a bit. On my more recent returns home, I've been delighted to see/feel what Toronto really is. It is a very energetic and culturally rich city in every way, a city with its best years yet to come. The issue here is people with cold feet who often win the political battles -- and I am afraid that John Tory is one of those people. To win an expo bid, we need a "dog with a bone" mayor, not a weathervane mayor.
44 North
Senior Member
Since transit planning for the waterfront has already been "Reset" (what with the new Waterfront Transit Reset plan), I wonder if an Expo bid would result in a reset of this reset?
Surely a streetcar, operated similarly to the one crawling down the sidewalk on the rebuilt Queens Quay West, wouldn't be sufficient for the summer crowds with an Expo bid. Frankly I doubt it'd be sufficient for the future eastern waterfront without the Expo. Even with an LRT-ized right-of-way and side-of-the-road alignment, service speed / reliability / capacity is fairly low when operating through a dense urban environment (as we'll have in the Lower Yonge Precinct and East Bayfront). There's no way a streetcar line could reliably carry the loads. Peak demand would probably be in excess of 10,000 per direction at peak hour, yet capacity would probably max out at 4,000 (with slow, iffy service).
Whether we bid on an Expo or not, I definitely hope that the Waterfront Transit Reset takes into consideration the possibility that something major could be built in the Port Lands. Better to slightly overbuild than severely underbuild.
Surely a streetcar, operated similarly to the one crawling down the sidewalk on the rebuilt Queens Quay West, wouldn't be sufficient for the summer crowds with an Expo bid. Frankly I doubt it'd be sufficient for the future eastern waterfront without the Expo. Even with an LRT-ized right-of-way and side-of-the-road alignment, service speed / reliability / capacity is fairly low when operating through a dense urban environment (as we'll have in the Lower Yonge Precinct and East Bayfront). There's no way a streetcar line could reliably carry the loads. Peak demand would probably be in excess of 10,000 per direction at peak hour, yet capacity would probably max out at 4,000 (with slow, iffy service).
Whether we bid on an Expo or not, I definitely hope that the Waterfront Transit Reset takes into consideration the possibility that something major could be built in the Port Lands. Better to slightly overbuild than severely underbuild.
Euphoria
Active Member
I'd love to see major developers and architecture firms showcase building and design technology, especially in glazing, insulation, and green roof technologies. Energy systems would be interesting too in terms of geothermal, deep water cooling, solar, and so forth. I'm sure the non-permanent pavilions will be portable structures that could be relocated and reused as civic structures. This is most importantly a way to harness the expenditure needed to naturalize the Don and create one of the most liveable places with amenities that benefit the city as a whole, such as a park with a river, a bit like London's Regent Park, in a dense neighborhood rich with cultural facilities, well served by transit.
44 North
Senior Member
That'd be great to see, particularly the energy systems. We already have a deep water cooling system downtown that theoretically could be expanded to this area, as well as a gas plant in the Port Lands that damn well should be configured/optimized for cogeneration and district heating for future neighbourhoods in the area. Another thing I think could work is hydroelectricity. The proposed Expo site (which if I'm not mistaken will be on Villiers Island between Cherry and Don Rdwy) will be right alongside the Keating Channel - a channel that will have a weir built across it as part of the Don mouth naturalization. Even if a small diversion to a generating station provided only a few kilowatts, such an installation could be a great opportunity to showcase green energy as part of a public display.
I'm not really familiar with Expos and how these pavilions are owned and used afterward. But as it stands much of the area in question is City-owned (albeit by way of the quasi-autonomous TPLC), so I don't see why the pavilions shouldn't end up for civic uses after the games. It'd be great to have a grand civic tourist attraction instead of a hodgepodge of condos. And it'd be even greater if it was built as place with no auto access - similar to the Toronto Islands. Not even a woonerf, simply a large public place where no cars go and you can walk a toddler without holding their hand the whole time.
ksun
Senior Member
Except Toronto never won or held anything that is truly international (aka: which most countries participate"). Wishing for "something that works" is precisely the reason why Toronto is not an attractive city. I am sure Manhattan would still work without Central Park, and Paris was not rebuilt based on the idea of "as long as it works".
Do the TTC tokens work? yes, they do. For decades. Doesn't mean it is not an embarrassment. Then why do this fancy "Presto" gimmick? To say we should fix the sewers and infrastructure would imply Toronto should NEVER hold any major event, because there will ALWAYS be sewers and roads to fix. You are only advocating mediocrity and lack of ambition in the guise of practicality. You should just say we shouldn't have any global events because we don't want them, but let's not pretend it is because there are higher priorities.
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
Feeling like the Expo is one of the few things that would actually get us to build the damn DRL in a timeframe that is not +20 years.
44 North
Senior Member
That'd be a dream. I'd be 100% behind an Expo bid if I thought it could expedite the DRL (currently I'm at 50% support, with an inherent bias seeing that my ward borders the Expo site). But unless we were to see a spur or waterfront branch, I don't foresee the DRL being part of an Expo bid. I think transit-wise the focus would be on an acceleration of the east waterfront LRT, Broadview extension, and improved GO/RER.
animatronic
Senior Member
Saying no to a vanity event like Expo is not the same thing as advocating mediocrity. That's like saying you lack ambition for driving a minivan instead of leasing a Ferrari.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Actually the way it works, is multple levels of gov't will get behind the bid by saying they'll support the DRL, and then delay any real work until the bid is won. Once the bid is lost, all the preparations and promised from the province and feds vanish.
Relying on a global celebratory event to justify and invest in basic transit infrastructure is ridiculous. If you're going to use the event as a impetus to moving on something, make it big, something you wouldn't have done otherwise, only now sooner. We're going to see transit and infrastructure improvements without Expo or Olympics, or whatever events. So, if you want to link Expo to a mega project in Toronto, make it a showcase we wouldn't do otherwise, like a downtown park like Central Park or the Olympic island in Montreal.
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Euphoria
Active Member
I think Expo provides an opportunity to concentrate and model our highest ideals and advances in an area of the city that needs intervention at a macro level, especially where naturalizing the Don is concerned. The scale of this undertaking requires more resources than a handful of condo projects and our city budget can muster. What's more, it's about time that our built form matched our economic and cultural heft. As for the naysayers who will dump on any proposal, I say don't water the rocks. Instead, let's crowd source a powerful city building project. If we get the plan right, we deserve to bid and win the bid. This is a real, rare opportunity that coincides with the most protracted period of growth in our city's history. We may not be able to keep up this pace. Let's capitalize on it. Something tells me that this exercise could dramatically change notions of what's possible. It certainly gives us something constructive to look forward to and share. Exciting time to live in Toronto.
Riverdale Rink Rat
Senior Member
Hahahaha... OK. Here's my contribution: Build WaterfrontToronto's plan. It will be fabulous, even if we don't get to have soft-serve ice cream in a South Korean pavilion.
Also -- Wisla, c'mon. There is NO WAY to justify building the DRL due to an Expo in the Portlands. They could put it in the bid, sure. But it'll never get done due to that. Maybe -- maybe -- an LRT to the Portlands. Maybe.
The part I really don't get is the idea this will be fun. But I'm not a huge fan of the Ex or the Calgary Stampede, either. Why in God's name would you want to go to a temporary Epcot Centre without the rides? Like, how is that at all entertaining?
animatronic
Senior Member
They're expecting 225,000 tickets a day for six months, so I'm guessing blackjack and hookers?
MetroMan
Senior Member
You should get out more. Why were the PanAm Games so much fun even though most people never even attended a sports event? It was the vibe in the streets, the activities all around us, the visitors seeing Toronto for the first time, bringing the city together, those CN Tower fireworks!
I was at the World Fair in Lisbon in '98 and I can tell you, the country was weeping when it was over. I can barely remember anything in the pavilions but I do vividly remember the feeling of being there, of expo98 dominating every conversation, of the theme of the oceans influencing me throughout my life since.
This isn't just a 2 week event, it'll be an event that defines the year 2025 for Torontonians and we'll want to do it again. It's that drive that will propel our city towards caring about built form, about public spaces, about being an international city, about hosting the world.
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