“If the decision ultimately of the council is to support the hybrid I think frankly it’ll be a major step backwards and you’re going to miss a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’ll be very frank, we’ll be the laughingstock of the world.”
-Paul Bedford, former chief planner of Toronto
As many of you I’m sure know, I have been a vocal and passionate supporter of removing the eastern portion of the elevated Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto. I have written about it so many times that a lot of you are probably sick of hearing about it.
I’m sorry if that’s the case. But it’s a hot and important topic in Toronto right now. We’re just over 3 weeks away from City Council finally making a decision. That is scheduled to happen on June 9th and/or 10th.
For the most part though, I was pretty confident that we would ultimately make what many of us believe is the right decision. But then this past week Mayor John Tory went public in his support for the “hybrid” option, which is basically to rebuild the elevated expressway in a slightly different configuration. And that really upset me.
Here’s what that looks like (versus the remove option shown at the top of this post):
Have we learned nothing from our past city building mistakes?
Since that announcement, I went on Twitter every night this week to check out the discussions that were happening around #GardinerEast. And every night it got me so worked up that I then had trouble falling asleep. I have since stopped reading about the Gardiner East before bed.
But rather than just get frustrated, my friend (a fellow city builder named Stephen Job) and I decided to do something about it and create a petition using Change.org.
It is a petition that we will ultimately be sending to Toronto’s entire City Council prior to their June 9 meeting and we hope that you will consider signing it and sharing it with your network – regardless of whether or not you happen to live in Toronto. (Although it’ll certainly help if you’re a taxpayer and voter in the City of Toronto.)
We just finished getting it up and you can check it out and sign it by clicking here.
Images: Toronto Star
“If the decision ultimately of the council is to support the hybrid I think frankly it’ll be a major step backwards and you’re going to miss a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’ll be very frank, we’ll be the laughingstock of the world.”
-Paul Bedford, former chief planner of Toronto
As many of you I’m sure know, I have been a vocal and passionate supporter of removing the eastern portion of the elevated Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto. I have written about it so many times that a lot of you are probably sick of hearing about it.
I’m sorry if that’s the case. But it’s a hot and important topic in Toronto right now. We’re just over 3 weeks away from City Council finally making a decision. That is scheduled to happen on June 9th and/or 10th.
For the most part though, I was pretty confident that we would ultimately make what many of us believe is the right decision. But then this past week Mayor John Tory went public in his support for the “hybrid” option, which is basically to rebuild the elevated expressway in a slightly different configuration. And that really upset me.
Here’s what that looks like (versus the remove option shown at the top of this post):
Have we learned nothing from our past city building mistakes?
Since that announcement, I went on Twitter every night this week to check out the discussions that were happening around #GardinerEast. And every night it got me so worked up that I then had trouble falling asleep. I have since stopped reading about the Gardiner East before bed.
But rather than just get frustrated, my friend (a fellow city builder named Stephen Job) and I decided to do something about it and create a petition using Change.org.
It is a petition that we will ultimately be sending to Toronto’s entire City Council prior to their June 9 meeting and we hope that you will consider signing it and sharing it with your network – regardless of whether or not you happen to live in Toronto. (Although it’ll certainly help if you’re a taxpayer and voter in the City of Toronto.)
We just finished getting it up and you can check it out and sign it by clicking here.
Images: Toronto Star
This May 2nd at 1:00pm I’m going to be participating and speaking at a Jane’s Walk here in Toronto called, Gardiner Expressway: To be or not to be?
The other “walk leaders” include Andrew Hilton, City Councillor Jaye Robinson, Ed Levy, Kyle Baptista, and architect Les Klein (Quadrangle Architects).
This will be my first time going to a Jane’s Walk, but it’s clearly a topic that I’m interested in. For over a year I have been arguing that we should remove the Gardiner East (the portion east of Jarvis Street).
This has proved to be a contentious position and topic. One critic said that I only want to remove the Gardiner East so that – as a real estate developer – I can make it harder for people to get into the city, which in turn will force them into buying more condos in the city.
That was not my thinking.
Instead, I view it as an opportunity to truly unlock the eastern portion of Toronto’s waterfront and the Portlands area. Take a look at the Keating Channel (shown above) and tell me whether or not you could imagine a better and more urban kind of waterfront. I get excited when I think of the potential.
And, if we’re going to do this, I believe now is the time, before the area gets developed. Because once it gets developed around the Gardiner, things will never be quite the same – even if we do eventually remove or bury it.
Click here for more information on the Jane’s Walk. Please also keep in mind that there will be many other viewpoints expressed at the Walk. This is just mine.
Image: Gardiner Expressway and Don River, Flickr
This month’s issue of Monocle is centered around fashion, style, and retail. And one of the most interesting pieces is a report on small retail spaces.
The argument (which you can read in the preface shown above) is that micro retail spaces are incredibly important for entrepreneurship and urban vitality. Because if all a city has is large retail spaces, then you’re creating impossible barriers for new retail startups. The rents simply become too high.
It’s on page 79 in case you have this month’s issue or want to go pick it up.
After reading the article, I immediately thought of 2 posts that I recently wrote on related topics. The first is “Incubating new ideas in cities” and the second is “The hard things about retail.”
In the first post, I questioned how cities might be able to encourage and incubate new ideas alongside new development and buck the Jane Jacobian truism that new ideas require old buildings. And in the second post, I expressed my concern for a micro retail condo complex here in Toronto that appears to be struggling.
But maybe that micro retail complex is on to something (just with the wrong tenure: condo instead of rental). Maybe it’s as simple as starting with great urban design and small (affordable) retail spaces.
It seems to be working for Columbia Road in London, Knez Mihailova in Belgrade, and Tower Theater in Los Angeles (the 3 examples that Monocle gives).
This May 2nd at 1:00pm I’m going to be participating and speaking at a Jane’s Walk here in Toronto called, Gardiner Expressway: To be or not to be?
The other “walk leaders” include Andrew Hilton, City Councillor Jaye Robinson, Ed Levy, Kyle Baptista, and architect Les Klein (Quadrangle Architects).
This will be my first time going to a Jane’s Walk, but it’s clearly a topic that I’m interested in. For over a year I have been arguing that we should remove the Gardiner East (the portion east of Jarvis Street).
This has proved to be a contentious position and topic. One critic said that I only want to remove the Gardiner East so that – as a real estate developer – I can make it harder for people to get into the city, which in turn will force them into buying more condos in the city.
That was not my thinking.
Instead, I view it as an opportunity to truly unlock the eastern portion of Toronto’s waterfront and the Portlands area. Take a look at the Keating Channel (shown above) and tell me whether or not you could imagine a better and more urban kind of waterfront. I get excited when I think of the potential.
And, if we’re going to do this, I believe now is the time, before the area gets developed. Because once it gets developed around the Gardiner, things will never be quite the same – even if we do eventually remove or bury it.
Click here for more information on the Jane’s Walk. Please also keep in mind that there will be many other viewpoints expressed at the Walk. This is just mine.
Image: Gardiner Expressway and Don River, Flickr
This month’s issue of Monocle is centered around fashion, style, and retail. And one of the most interesting pieces is a report on small retail spaces.
The argument (which you can read in the preface shown above) is that micro retail spaces are incredibly important for entrepreneurship and urban vitality. Because if all a city has is large retail spaces, then you’re creating impossible barriers for new retail startups. The rents simply become too high.
It’s on page 79 in case you have this month’s issue or want to go pick it up.
After reading the article, I immediately thought of 2 posts that I recently wrote on related topics. The first is “Incubating new ideas in cities” and the second is “The hard things about retail.”
In the first post, I questioned how cities might be able to encourage and incubate new ideas alongside new development and buck the Jane Jacobian truism that new ideas require old buildings. And in the second post, I expressed my concern for a micro retail condo complex here in Toronto that appears to be struggling.
But maybe that micro retail complex is on to something (just with the wrong tenure: condo instead of rental). Maybe it’s as simple as starting with great urban design and small (affordable) retail spaces.
It seems to be working for Columbia Road in London, Knez Mihailova in Belgrade, and Tower Theater in Los Angeles (the 3 examples that Monocle gives).
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