The City of Toronto is proposing to turn Dupont Street -- between Dundas Street West and Davenport Road -- into a "complete street."

Here's the area in question:

It's 4.7 kilometers long.

And here's how the city thinks about complete streets:

“Complete streets” are streets that are designed to be safe for all users: people who walk, bicycle, take transit or drive, and people of varying ages and levels of ability. They also consider other uses like sidewalk cafés, street furniture, street trees, utilities, and stormwater management.

Right now, the city is in the public consultation phase. If you'd like to provide your feedback, you can do that here. You have until October 30th. The online tool is also pretty neat. You can drop comments on specific areas of the street. And already the map has been totally filled up.

This is an important and busy artery in midtown. I use it all the time as a pedestrian, cyclist, and driver. It's not the best street, though. Yesterday it took me 45 minutes to drive from one end of it to the other. Along with better street design, this part of the city could use better transit.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Dupont ultimately gets designed.

Public consultation is broken. And by that, I mean that the way in which municipalities, developers, and other city builders solicit feedback from communities is fundamentally flawed.

For new developments, the process works more or less like this: The developer makes an application to the city. The city reviews it and then agrees to move towards a public/community meeting (the goal of which is to solicit feedback on the proposal). Once a date is set, notices go out, and the developer secretly hopes that no one will show up. 

Because what often ends up happening is that it’s only the people with the time or a bone to pick who actually go to these things. Rarely do people go simply to voice their support for a project. That’s why the benchmark for success is usually no community opposition – it’s rarely about support.

But from writing Architect This City, I know that many of you care deeply about your community and about cities in general. The problem, is that I don’t think most of you get a chance to voice your opinions. How many of you have actually gone to a community meeting in order to show your support for a development project or city initiative? I’d be curious to know, but I suspect most of you haven’t.

The result is a system whereby the voice of a few (often naysayers) have a disproportionate amount of weight. They set the tone. But that’s not how community input works best. It needs to be representative of a broad and diverse cross section of the population. It needs to be inclusive. Everyone in the community should have a say.