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I am not a transportation engineer, but sometimes I like to, you know, pretend. And lately, I've been thinking about how to better design the Toronto intersection of Dundas, Dupont, Annette, and Old Weston (which I touched on briefly over here). It's a weird 5-point intersection that is often cited as one of the most confusing in the city. And so there's a lot that could be done.
Here's what it looks like today:
The centerpiece is the Dundas-Dupont Traffic Island, which is actually a city-owned park. It's not the most generous green space, but the real problem with this park is that it's very much an island. There's really only one pedestrian access point -- its north end. For the most part, you need to be unlawful in your movements on and off it.
This is a fairly common occurrence in cities. The island is, almost certainly, a remnant space. It was never explicitly designed; it is just what was left over after they figured out how to connect all of these streets and negotiate the intersection's grade changes.
The other signal, that these are remnant spaces, is the paint markings on the street. Their main job is to tell cars where to go. But they're also unproductive spaces. Nobody is intended to actually occupy them. So what they really say is, "we have too much road and we didn't know what to do; so we just painted them."
If you watch the below video of Claire Weisz (founder of WXY Studio) explaining the work that she has done in New York City, you'll see remarkable similarities to what I'm talking about here. This sort of thing happens all the time, especially at messy intersections where multiple streets converge. The objective was to connect the streets and the rest became a byproduct.
https://youtu.be/FsDaZH-RpWA?si=DYwICeahXk9pxOqr
But when properly designed, these spaces actually become better for everyone: drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. And this Toronto intersection strikes me as a perfect candidate. So if my local Councillor Gord Perks is reading this post, I would ask him to do what he can within the city to encourage this kind of positive change.
And not just here, but wherever there is a street that sucks.
Okay, last Toronto-centric post for the week. We are back to regular scheduled programming tomorrow.
Later this month, Councillor Gord Perks will be hosting a community meeting for Junction House (see conceptual rendering above).
You can find all of the details, here, on the Globizen blog. But pop it into your calendars: Tuesday, November 21, 2017 from 7 to 9pm.
Even if you can’t attend, definitely weigh in on the rooftop public art component over in the comments on the Globizen blog.
I hope to see you all there. It’s always nice when happy people come out.
I was out last night near Yonge and College for a friend’s going away party and the topic of the College Park building came up (originally an Eaton’s department store). We talked about how in the 1920s it was planned as a 38-storey Art Deco tower (see above photo), but that the Great Depression forced Eaton’s to scale back their plans. They ended up building a 7-storey building, albeit an impressive one.
Then today, thinking about that discussion, I became curious about the story of Eaton’s. Where exactly did it start and how did they get to a point where they were planning the largest retail and office complex in the world?
Well, as many of you probably know or can guess, the first Eaton’s store was opened where the Toronto Eaton Centre mall currently sits today. The exact address was 178 Yonge Street, which is just north of Queen Street. But what was interesting about this location is that, at the time, it was considered to be far removed from Toronto’s center of fashion and retail. That was King Street East. Below is a map from 1842.
In 1869 when Timothy Eaton opened his first store, the heart of Toronto was what is today known as Old Town (although most people would probably just refer to it either as King East or as the St. Lawrence Market). People shopped along King Street between Yonge and Jarvis, and Queen Street probably would have felt out of the way.
But Eaton’s succeeded at Yonge & Queen, along with rival store Simpson’s, and retailing shifted northward. With Eaton’s College Street, the company was once again looking north. In fact, they wanted to move their entire operation from Queen Street up to College Street, and they even tried to get Simpson’s department store to do the same (somebody clearly understood agglomeration economies).
But since the full build out of Eaton’s College Street never actually happened, both stores were kept in operation and a customer shuttle bus was run between the two of them (until the Yonge subway line opened up in the 1950s). With the opening of the Toronto Eaton Centre mall in the 1970s, Eaton’s closed both Queen and College Street locations, and consolidated operations near Dundas Street.
In 1999, after 130 years of operation, the company went bankrupt.
What I find interesting about this story is that it speaks to how dominant the department store business model was at the time and how it was shaping the city around it. If Eaton’s had achieved its vision for the corner of Yonge & College, Toronto might look a lot different today. Perhaps we’d all be shopping for fashion along College Street.
I am not a transportation engineer, but sometimes I like to, you know, pretend. And lately, I've been thinking about how to better design the Toronto intersection of Dundas, Dupont, Annette, and Old Weston (which I touched on briefly over here). It's a weird 5-point intersection that is often cited as one of the most confusing in the city. And so there's a lot that could be done.
Here's what it looks like today:
The centerpiece is the Dundas-Dupont Traffic Island, which is actually a city-owned park. It's not the most generous green space, but the real problem with this park is that it's very much an island. There's really only one pedestrian access point -- its north end. For the most part, you need to be unlawful in your movements on and off it.
This is a fairly common occurrence in cities. The island is, almost certainly, a remnant space. It was never explicitly designed; it is just what was left over after they figured out how to connect all of these streets and negotiate the intersection's grade changes.
The other signal, that these are remnant spaces, is the paint markings on the street. Their main job is to tell cars where to go. But they're also unproductive spaces. Nobody is intended to actually occupy them. So what they really say is, "we have too much road and we didn't know what to do; so we just painted them."
If you watch the below video of Claire Weisz (founder of WXY Studio) explaining the work that she has done in New York City, you'll see remarkable similarities to what I'm talking about here. This sort of thing happens all the time, especially at messy intersections where multiple streets converge. The objective was to connect the streets and the rest became a byproduct.
https://youtu.be/FsDaZH-RpWA?si=DYwICeahXk9pxOqr
But when properly designed, these spaces actually become better for everyone: drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. And this Toronto intersection strikes me as a perfect candidate. So if my local Councillor Gord Perks is reading this post, I would ask him to do what he can within the city to encourage this kind of positive change.
And not just here, but wherever there is a street that sucks.
Okay, last Toronto-centric post for the week. We are back to regular scheduled programming tomorrow.
Later this month, Councillor Gord Perks will be hosting a community meeting for Junction House (see conceptual rendering above).
You can find all of the details, here, on the Globizen blog. But pop it into your calendars: Tuesday, November 21, 2017 from 7 to 9pm.
Even if you can’t attend, definitely weigh in on the rooftop public art component over in the comments on the Globizen blog.
I hope to see you all there. It’s always nice when happy people come out.
I was out last night near Yonge and College for a friend’s going away party and the topic of the College Park building came up (originally an Eaton’s department store). We talked about how in the 1920s it was planned as a 38-storey Art Deco tower (see above photo), but that the Great Depression forced Eaton’s to scale back their plans. They ended up building a 7-storey building, albeit an impressive one.
Then today, thinking about that discussion, I became curious about the story of Eaton’s. Where exactly did it start and how did they get to a point where they were planning the largest retail and office complex in the world?
Well, as many of you probably know or can guess, the first Eaton’s store was opened where the Toronto Eaton Centre mall currently sits today. The exact address was 178 Yonge Street, which is just north of Queen Street. But what was interesting about this location is that, at the time, it was considered to be far removed from Toronto’s center of fashion and retail. That was King Street East. Below is a map from 1842.
In 1869 when Timothy Eaton opened his first store, the heart of Toronto was what is today known as Old Town (although most people would probably just refer to it either as King East or as the St. Lawrence Market). People shopped along King Street between Yonge and Jarvis, and Queen Street probably would have felt out of the way.
But Eaton’s succeeded at Yonge & Queen, along with rival store Simpson’s, and retailing shifted northward. With Eaton’s College Street, the company was once again looking north. In fact, they wanted to move their entire operation from Queen Street up to College Street, and they even tried to get Simpson’s department store to do the same (somebody clearly understood agglomeration economies).
But since the full build out of Eaton’s College Street never actually happened, both stores were kept in operation and a customer shuttle bus was run between the two of them (until the Yonge subway line opened up in the 1950s). With the opening of the Toronto Eaton Centre mall in the 1970s, Eaton’s closed both Queen and College Street locations, and consolidated operations near Dundas Street.
In 1999, after 130 years of operation, the company went bankrupt.
What I find interesting about this story is that it speaks to how dominant the department store business model was at the time and how it was shaping the city around it. If Eaton’s had achieved its vision for the corner of Yonge & College, Toronto might look a lot different today. Perhaps we’d all be shopping for fashion along College Street.
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