Adding a brick street to this area would make it look so much more beautiful. What's the meatpacking district without their bricked streets?
 
I could be wrong but aren't streets made of brick o cobblestone a nightmare to deal with in terms of plowing throughout the winter?
 
It sounds expensive. Would you be able to plow it with the same equipment, or would you be force to have a separate set of plastic-tipped plow blades for those districts?

[Ed: Yes, what the above poster said].
 
Since such streets are now quite common in central and northern Europe--a part of the world that gets snowy winters like we do--they must have come up with a cost-effective solution. It's probably simple. Our plow trucks are supposed to keep the plow several centimetres off the ground, which is probably enough not to damage brick streets. The bricks on May Street in Rosedale and on Carlton Street in Cabbagetown appear to be fine, though they might be decades old. I doubt the city uses different plowing methods for these small and obscure stretches of brick roadway which survive in the city. The difference that traditional street paving can have on the aesthetics and historical character of an urban place is significant.

It's an important public realm investment in any area that matters to city--like vibrant and historic neighbourhoods. One of the things I noticed when I returned to the Junction after spending some time in Europe a few years ago was how paving has a huge effect on the sense of place. Our Victorian built form isn't really inferior to what I saw on average in many European cities in similar neighbourhoods. Our side streets are lined with beautiful soaring oak and maple trees. But the paving of cheap cracking asphalt and stained concrete everywhere gives the streets a somewhat uglier and less significant character in spite of solid fundamentals like architecture, tree canopy and street life.
 
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I couldn't agree more Junctionist. A truly great and sophisticated city happens at street level, not up in the air. If you take a good look around at most of Toronto you see that we are just not there yet. Tons of potential though!!
 
You can't really compare the winters here to the winters there
 
It doesnt get cold enough in London or Paris for any fallen snow to accumulate longer than for a few hours.

I lived in London for two years and it snowed twice and it was all gone hours later
 
Other than this winter, how many really bad winters have we had over the past ten years though? Meanwhile they have had some bad winters in London and Paris!

I don't know, it's become a bit of a habit to bitch about how bad the weather is here but it really isn't. Heck we're even making pretty decent warm-weather red wines in the Niagara area these days. We need to stop using 'winter' as an excuse for a piss-poor public realm.
 
Brick pavers were recently used when Yorkville Ave between Yonge and Bay was redone this past fall/winter. Seems like they held up pretty well through the snow this year.
 
Russia, Scandinavia? But why compare to Europe. Montreal and Quebec City have many stone paved streets. Granted they are not high traffic, but there are plenty of Toronto streets that could be cobbled and survive Winters. And besides, I'll take dilapidated stone paving over dilapidated tarmac any day. Quality finishes develop character over time. Cheap ones just get uglier.
 
GrandSlam said:
Russia, Scandinavia? But why compare to Europe. Montreal and Quebec City have many stone paved streets. Granted they are not high traffic, but there are plenty of Toronto streets that could be cobbled and survive Winters. And besides, I'll take dilapidated stone paving over dilapidated tarmac any day. Quality finishes develop character over time. Cheap ones just get uglier.
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While i am an advocate of nicely done brick streets, many of Montreal's are in rough shape. Winter eats at the mortar.
 
Sure, but our tarmac streets aren't in great shape either, thanks to Winter. I'd rather have brick in rough shape than tarmac. Those are the kind of streets that give a city character. But anyway, I'm derailing the thread.
 
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