James Brown and Kim Storey, who are partners at Brown + Storey Architects Inc., recently put forward this intensification proposal for Toronto's non-Avenue-designated arterial roads. (The term Avenue is an important designation in Toronto planning.) They call these streets Un-Avenues and here's what they are getting at with this definition:

The “Un-Avenues” are the city’s north-south arteries, where the standard residential street was widened in the mid-20th century to allow for more lanes for more cars and vehicular intensification. They are not generally lined with retail, but rather with the original houses that have been devalued because of their location on the arterial roads.

These roads often serve as busy bus routes that connect directly to subways. The widening of the roads has meant there are no trees, narrow sidewalks, and negligible front. Four lanes of rush hour traffic are provided, with rare provisions for bike lanes.

The Un-Avenues run silently through the single-family residential zones of Toronto. As countless articles have pointed out, the “yellow belt,” where the single-family house reigns, occupies a substantial swath of Toronto real estate on any zoning map.

It is hard not to drive or move through Toronto's "Un-Avenues" without thinking that they belong in a different era. They speak to a Toronto that was much smaller and that was not yet a global city. There's little urbanity. And no grandeur. They feel a bit like forgotten streets in a city that has otherwise decided to grow up.

Here's what Brown + Storey are proposing as a solution (images via Spacing):

I haven't spent enough time going through the proposal to comment on whether or not I think this is exactly what should be done. There is also the minor issue of single-family homeowners accepting towers, or anything really, next to their backyards. But I do feel strongly that something needs to be done -- for reasons of affordability, livability, urban beauty, and a bunch of other reasons.

In Toronto we have a street named Avenue Road. If you're learning about this for the first time, you might be wondering: "Well, is it an avenue or is it a road?" Then again, does that sort of distinction even matter? Does it imply certain characteristics? When I think of an avenue, I think of a broad and straight tree-lined street. And indeed, Avenue Road is connected to a street called University Avenue, which is pretty straight, broad, and has trees lining it. It's a ceremonial kind of street that leads you toward the Ontario Legislative Building. It fits my definition. And so maybe Avenue Road is really saying, "Yeah, I know I'm not an avenue in the traditional sense, but I eventually connect into one and so I have decided to use both names."

It could also be the case that we haven't always been that meticulous when naming our roads. Or perhaps we simply changed the way we designed and thought about our streets as we sprawled outward, and along with that came some name changes. In the oldest parts of Toronto, the main streets tend to be exactly that -- streets. And our secondary streets are often named as avenues. This is the opposite of a place like Manhattan, where avenues are the broad north-south streets that take you downtown and uptown, and streets are the smaller east-west roads that take you across the narrower part of the island. Here there is a very clear logic. Avenues are big. Streets are small.

Looking at this road name map of London by Giuseppe Sollazzo (click here if you can't see it above), it's obvious that London's street network is pretty much the opposite of New York's rational street grid. But you can see what appears to be a clear graduation from streets (in the center) to roads and then to some sort of melange that seems to include a bunch more avenues. They may just be street names, but they to speak to a whole host of things, including the evolution of our cities, changing attitudes toward city planning, and naturally the adoption of new kinds of mobility. They also make for nerdy maps.

The out of office responder is on. I am currently on a multi-day stopover in Lisbon on my way to Malaga, Spain. One of my oldest friends (we went to elementary school together in Toronto) is getting married there this weekend. They chose Spain because that's where they met (she is Parisian). They have an incredible love story and I'm looking forward to celebrating with them in a few days. The above photo was taken with my iPhone from Sky Bar. The green you see in the foreground is Av da Liberdade. Here is another photo from a different angle, where you can begin to see the water (Tagus). Its tree canopy is one of the most impressive that I have ever seen. Its grandeur (largely its width) is quite a contrast against the small and winding streets in the rest of Lisbon. And it may be one of the only level places in this exceptionally hilly town. I'm a big fan of Lisbon, already.