There are ~no streets being constructed anywhere in Toronto that are “narrow and European-like”, as Parkdalian put it. Instead Toronto streetscapes are being driven by old-school American transportation engineering, plus a specific idea of maxmizing sunlight on the public realm, to an extent that is unusual - if not unique - in the West.
This is such a curious take and I would argue, a misleading one.
Many European cities have extremely prescriptive zoning and entitlements and rigid height limits; as such there is no shortage of sunlight on the public realm.
To suggest, well, they don't regulate for sunlight this way in Paris.....err.....tell me about all the 40-storey residential towers in Paris please; 30? , 20?, anyone? That's right, that's pretty much non-existent. As is equally true in most European cities. There are pockets of exception, but even then, off-hand, I can't think of a single 40-storey residential tower anywhere in Europe {there's probably some that I'm unaware of.....)
But Toronto has a comparatively unique scenario in respect of impaired access to light vs Europe.
Its also important to add, many European cities are bereft of green, and tree canopy, and that's, in part why many experience inordinate death rates during heatwaves.
The Cities that's have more robust tree canopy by the way, tend to have wide open roads or clearances, along with short buildings.
Lets look: Paris:
4 travel lanes, 1 parking lane, total cross-section 33M
Comparing this, by the way to just one street over, which lacks trees:
I certainly don't think of the second example as more walkable or pleasant than the first. I think of this as less safe, and frankly, ugly.
cross-section 8m (lots of on-street parking btw)
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Off to Vienna next:
Nice, lush, greenery, but look at the size of this ROW!
The inner-portion (excluding the transit ROW) is ~25M, but the subway, which is open-trenched to the left of this image, plus addtional space you see on the right, brings the ROW to ~43M
Sure Vienna also has some wonderful pedestrian-only spaces and some very narrow roads, but we need to be careful but extolling there virtues w/o limit:
Does the above really induce the desire for a lovely stroll?
At least this street to which it connects has nice stone for a road surface, but its still fairly dark and completely devoid of greenery:
Yes, some of the narrow passages are pretty likable; but I still want something going on here to add some vibrance:
But what about suburban Vienna you ask? Glad you did!
My goodness all that vertical density, and hold on, is that street parking on both sides of the road?
Yes, there are ultra-narrow 'streets' (really more like lanes) that run off this street, but note the heights, and the setbacks, and the absence of sidewalks....
How about a street through lowrise apartment blocks? :
How about outer-suburban Paris for a comparison?
Ok, maybe not every Paris streetscape is worth emulating, let me go several km to the south to see another one:
Is this what you had in mind, Alex?
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My point here really isn't to give Alex a hard time; its to point out that he often makes sweeping statements which really require detailed, practical comparisons to understand. Things in different places, are different for a reason.
Much of Europe is not built like you see in post-cards or at a new-urbanist seminars.
I support narrower roads, but we see clear examples of how to achieve those from Europe, with low building heights, and you still need some measure of width to support greenery, which really improves the walking experience immeasurably, particularly in areas that get really hot in summer or really cool in winter.
