UrbanToronto.ca recently published an extended interview / discussion with urbanist Richard Florida about cities and, in particular, the future of Toronto. What it’s doing wrong. What it’s doing right. And what it should be doing to properly position itself for the future.

What became clear to me after reading the interview is that Toronto is really at an inflection point. We are transitioning into a much bigger global city and we have yet to fully embrace the city that we are quickly becoming:

“…the city was—and is—still too dominated by a NIMBYist, faux-progressive left that refuses to engage with having to build a dense, transit-oriented, and inclusive city.”

The interview is packed with information and it’s definitely worth a read this morning. There’s a lot I agree with, including his views on transit and his positions on the Island Airport and the Gardiner East – which is a topic that is near and dear to me.

In case you don’t have time to read the full interview, below are 3 excerpts.

First, on the Gardiner East:

“There’s also a learning curve to Mayors, and I think they tend to get a better understanding of urbanism over the course of their tenures,” Florida adds, hoping that Tory, self-described as an “ideologue on very few issues,” will make pro-urban decisions as his time in office continues. “For one thing, I really hope that he reverses his decision on the Gardiner,” Florida continues, highlighting Tory’s controversial support for renovating—as opposed to demolishing—the eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway as an example of especially poor urban policy.

Second, on the need for a true urban agenda at all levels of government:

Offering prescriptions for the future, Florida calls for a “virtual moratorium on road-building,” arguing that the perpetuation of an automobile culture hinders a city’s creative capacity, with little exchange of ideas and culture occurring when people are sitting in their cars, and not engaging with life on the street. “The city also needs a more committed Federal partner,” Florida adds, calling for a ’ministry of cities’ to help provide a vision for growth and fund urban infrastructure projects. 

And third, on the value of Toronto’s openness:

“A huge reason for the city’s continued success—as we trudge along despite our lack of urban vision and reactionary tendencies—is the fact that we continued to be so open to newcomers, allowing a great deal of global creative energy to be harnessed. It means we can fuck up a lot, but as long as we continue to remain open, we’ll have an important edge.”

There’s a lot of great discussion fodder here. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

If you’ve been reading this blog since the summer, you might remember that there was a period of time where I wrote incessantly about the removal of the eastern portion of Toronto’s elevated Gardiner Expressway.

Ultimately City Council didn’t vote the way I believe we should have. But I remain hopeful that somehow we will manage to do the right thing and replace it with a surface boulevard. Now – before the east waterfront gets developed – is the right time to make that happen.

However, the western portion of the Gardiner Expressway is a different story. The adjacent area is already developed and it is unlikely that this highway is going anywhere any time soon. So for the foreseeable future, we are stuck with it.

And if we are stuck with it then we should make the absolute best of it – even celebrate it. Which is why Toronto is buzzing right now with the news that a 1.75 km stretch under the western portion of the Gardiner Expressway will be remade into a vibrant public space by 2017. This is thanks to a generous $25 million private donation. (Is that enough money?)

Here’s the overall programming strategy, going from west to east (via undergardiner.com):

And here are two renderings:

The first phase is expected to run from Strachan Avenue in the west all the way to Spadina Avenue in the east. That is what is shown above.

Two key elements include a grand stair at Strachan Avenue, which looks like this today (via Google Streetview):

And a pedestrian bridge over Fort York Boulevard, which looks like this today:

All of this doesn’t change my opinion of the Gardiner East, but I do believe that this is an incredibly exciting opportunity for the city. Today the space under the Gardiner is a void in our public realm.

I also think it could be quite interesting to have these two opposing urban conditions along the central waterfront. A linear underpass park in the west and an open air boulevard in the east.

It’s also exciting to see private money step up. It goes to show you that there is no shortage of passionate city builders in this town.

Top image courtesy of Harry Choi Photography.

When I was a kid I remember my parents having something called a “Perly’s” in their car. It was basically a map book and it was the best thing around. 

You would start by looking at a big grid of the city and then you’d find the specific area you were looking for and then flip to that page. If you were on the road a lot for work, a Perly’s was a mandatory addition to your car.

Things have obviously come a long way since then. It could take you a long time to find the street you were looking for in a Perly’s. I remember doing that from the passenger seat. Now our phones do that for us and if the connection makes us wait for more than few seconds, we get irritated.

But we’ve also moved beyond just static maps. 

The other morning I was driving out to the suburbs and I saw this road sign telling me that – given current traffic conditions – it was going to take me 15 minutes to get to HWY 427. 

Have you ever wondered how they come up with those time estimates?

There are a few ways to do it. But here in Toronto along the Gardiner Expressway and Lake Shore Boulevard it’s done using your mobile phone. Phones have unique network identifiers called MAC addresses. And when they try and connect via Bluetooth or Wifi they actually send out their MAC address.

So what happens as you’re driving along is that your phone’s MAC address is being picked up at various locations. And since the distance between these various reception points is known, it’s pretty easy to determine how fast you’re traveling. That’s how they come up with those time/traffic estimates. 

This data is anonymous but, in theory, the city also knows if people are speeding when the traffic is light.

This same technology is being used by many retailers and shopping malls to track how people move through their spaces. It’s used to see, among other things, which merchandising strategies are working and what synergies one might be creating (or not creating) with the tenant mix.

But getting back to traffic, there are obviously ways to collect traffic data without any additional physical infrastructure.

As I was about to leave the suburbs and head back downtown, my phone somehow knew I was about to do that (perhaps because I was stopped at a Starbucks near the highway) and so it decided to tell me this:

It wasn’t the best notification to receive on my phone, but I was impressed nonetheless. This traffic data is collected using GPS data transmitted from mobile phones using Google Maps, Apple Maps, and so on. Clearly we’ve come a long way since the days of manually leafing through a thick Perly’s.

At the same time, it feels like we are still pretty far away from solving the problem of urban congestion. Every big city in the world is grappling with this issue. 

Part of the problem, I think, is the belief that there’s some sort of silver bullet – more highways, a magic smartphone app, and so on – that will enable everyone to be able to drive around in their own car by themselves. I don’t believe that’s possible in big cities. And the sooner we get away from that toxic thinking, the quicker we’ll solve this problem.