Tag: waterfront

• A petition to Toronto City Council to remove the Gardiner Expressway East

  

  “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

  2015.05.16

• The infrastructure sandwich

  Today I came across the following tweet by Brad Tabke. (Brad is the mayor of Shakopee, Minnesota.)

  @clmarohn’s version of hell from the top of the Memphis pyramid. pic.twitter.com/XLd5hlNY1I

  — Brad Tabke, Mayor (@MayorTabke) May 7, 2015

  //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  On the left of the image is downtown Memphis. On the right is the Mississippi River. And in the middle is, well, a bunch of elevated highways. 

  It’s a powerful image regardless of where you happen to be from. But if you’re from Toronto, you might know why I’m posting it today.

  2015.05.13

• 32

  Today is my 32nd birthday. It felt like a beautiful summer day here in Toronto and so I mostly took the day off from anything too serious.

  At 1:00pm though, I did participate in a Jane’s Walk taking place right around the corner from me. As part of that, I spoke briefly about why I think Toronto should remove the eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway and replace it with a surface boulevard.

  Given what the other speakers had to say and given some of what I heard at the event, this is definitely not a universal position. In fact, one person commended me on taking a “courageous stance.”

  A number of people seemed to support Quadrangle Architect’s Green Ribbon proposal and/or the notion that, whatever is done, the Gardiner Expressway must remain in operation.

  At the same time, quite a few of the people I spoke to seemed unsure of any position and instead came to the walk simply to learn more about the options. Hopefully by the end of it they were closer to one.

  If I have one piece of constructive feedback on the walk it’s that it wasn’t interactive enough. It’s fine to standup and talk for 5 minutes, but it would have been great to also have a discussion and debate. At the very least, I would have liked to see where most people stand. Hopefully you will all share that in the comment section of this post.

  I continue to believe that removing the Gardiner East is the right city building decision. But I also respect anyone who is willing to take a firm stance. Toronto City Council has already punted this decision before. It’s now time to make a decision and own it.

  2015.05.03

• Waterfront Cities of the World comes to Toronto

  

  This morning I was interviewed for a Montreal-produced TV show called Ports D’Attache. The English version of the show is called “Waterfront Cities of the World” and it airs on Discovery. 

  Here’s a list of all the cities they’ve visited in the first 4 seasons and here are all the shows from the first 2 seasons in English (which you can watch online for free).

  Rather than a travel show, it’s a look at the “spirit and soul” of each waterfront city through the lens of “local personalities.” There’s definitely a lot of fodder for city geeks and so I thought you all might find the series interesting.

  Toronto was the last stop of season 5. The other cities from this season include Philadelphia, Budapest, Rome, Taipei and Kuala Lumpur, to name only a few of them. 

  I’m glad that they decided to come to Toronto and I’m delighted that they invited me to be on the show. The team was great and, if you haven’t already noticed, I love supporting this city.

  The show will first be released in French (with my comments dubbed over), but an English version will follow. Once that version is released, I’ll circulate a link.

  2015.04.25

• A Jane’s Walk about the Gardiner Expressway

  

  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

  2015.04.19

• Fun Friday: How Montreal makes winter awesome

  //player.vimeo.com/video/113321361

  It’s wintertime in Canada and that means people complaining about the cold and/or the fact that in our climate there are certain things that simply can’t (or shouldn’t) be done when it comes to city building.

  But I don’t buy that.

  A great counter example is Igloofest in Montreal. Unless you’re into electronic music (OK, fine, young people call it EDM today), you probably haven’t heard of it. But it’s basically an outdoor dance party on Montreal’s waterfront in the middle of the winter.

  The opening night is tonight and the overnight low is expected to hit -27 degrees celsius. Take a look at the video at the top of this post though (click here if you can’t see it). That’s how many people are going to crowd outside in the cold and dance their hearts out this evening.

  And so whether you’ve got harsh winters or summers, there are always creative ways to make it work for you. You just have to own it.

  If anyone would like to take a trip to Montreal this winter, I promise to stand by my words and dance outside in the cold. Have a great weekend everyone.

  2015.01.16

• Merry Christmas everyone

  

  Today is Christmas Day. I hope that you are all having a wonderful day and spending it with family and friends. That is exactly what I’m doing here in Toronto.

  It’s certainly nice to have a bit of downtime. I’ve been playing around with my new GoPro (see above photo), which had been sitting unopened on my shelf for the past few weeks.

  The photo above was taken at the Pier 27 condos. It’s still very much a construction zone. The area at grade in the photo will be a linear public park that connects the main street to the waterfront. I’m looking forward to seeing it come together.

  Have a great day everyone 🙂

  2014.12.25

• The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion

  

  A few days ago I wrote a post talking about what happens when you demolish an urban highway. It was a link to an article giving 5 examples of cities that have removed their urban highways and benefited.

  After I wrote the post, a number of people responded on Twitter. Some thought it was a great idea and gave examples of other cities, such as Detroit, that are thinking about doing the same. But others responded and said that I was out of line. And that while it might work in some cities, it simply isn’t a viable option in cities like Toronto.

  So as somebody who believes we should be taking down the Gardiner Expressway, I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit the topic and provide a bit more information.

  To be clear, I’m not suggesting we remove the Gardiner and replace it with nothing. My belief is that we should replace it with a broad surface street that would still move lots of cars, but that would make our waterfront much more open and accessible to everyone.

  So how is this feasible?

  Again it comes back to the concept of induced demand. Back in 2009, two economists from the University of Toronto and University of Pennsylvania – which are actually both of my alma maters – published a study called The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion.

  In it they discovered something really fascinating: there’s a near perfect relationship between new roads and highways built and the total number of miles driven. In other words, as cities increased road capacities (during their study period of 1980 to 2000), the amount of driving went up just as much.

  What this should tell you is that trying to build your way of out road congestion is usually a losing proposition. That’s why every large city has a traffic problem. Try and think of one that has solved this. And as much as it might seem intuitive to tell people at cocktail parties that your city simply needs to build more roads and highways, it’s typically not that simple. (In my view, the solution is road pricing.)

  The other really interesting thing that this study revealed is that it works both ways. When you reduce road capacity, drivers start to disappear. People choose to live closer to where they work. People choose transit. People go into the office at different times. People make all sorts of different decisions in response to this road change, just as they do when there are more free roads available to them.

  So within a reasonable band (obviously you can’t remove all roads), there is no perfect amount of road capacity. If you added another lane to your highway, it would be full. If you took away a lane, it would end up equally full. That’s why removing the Gardiner Expressway isn’t lunacy.

  

  Instead, it actually makes a lot of sense:

  • It’s the cheapest solution (compared to repairing it or burying it)
  • It would free up money for transit and other mobility solutions
  • It would make our waterfront more open and accessible
  • It would beautify our downtown
  • It would increase land values all along the waterfront

  And since we’re still in the early days of developing our eastern waterfront, now is the time to do it. The longer we wait, the harder it’ll get and the more expensive it’ll get.

  So I hope that the leaders in this city will think long and hard about this as opposed to immediately assuming we need an elevated highway to keep this city moving. The last time I checked, it doesn’t work so well in its current state.

  Images: Before and After the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco (via Gizmodo)

  2014.12.19

• Exploring the Mimico waterfront

  

  This morning I explored Humber Bay Park, which is a waterfront park in the west end of Toronto. It’s in a neighborhood called Mimico that used to be a separate town, with its own mayor, until 1967. I honestly can’t remember the last time I was there, so it was fun to explore what felt like a new part of the city.

  Given its proximity to downtown and the fact that it’s very well connected to the water, the area is currently facing tremendous development pressures. In fact, as I was standing in line waiting to order an Americano, the conversation happening directly in front of me was all about how developers are fighting to buy up every piece of land they can find. Normally I would chime in, but today I decided to stay silent.

  

  Today the area is an interesting mix of old low-rise and mid-rise rental apartment buildings (many of which fell into decline a long time ago), and new high-rise condominiums that are all fighting for unobstructed views of the lake and downtown.

  

  There wasn’t a ton of street or public life going on, but it was certainly a beautiful place to spend a Sunday morning. As much as I’m looking forward to getting back into snowboarding, I’m not quite ready for summer to be over. So I’m happy that we’ve been having some great weather in the city.

  2014.09.07

• Pre-delivering new homes

  

  Today was my mother’s PDI for her new condo. For those of you who aren’t in the industry, a PDI is a “pre-delivery inspection” that happens about a week or two before you take occupancy of a new home. It’s basically a time for you to identify all the mistakes that the construction team has made and have them (hopefully) correct them before you actually move in.

  But for someone like my mother who is making the move from a house that she’s lived in for decades, a PDI is actually something much more significant: It’s the first time she saw her new “home.” And a home is something much different than just a house or a condo – it has emotional significance.

  It’s going to be an adjustment for her. One of the first things she did was open up the oven to see if she could fit her Christmas turkey in it. But in the end, I have no doubt that she’s going to love her new home. As I’ve mentioned before, people often overestimate the potential risks of change. But never be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

  2014.07.26