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Only 600 metres is beyond what everyone has already agreed to, a long time ago, just to maintain existing service.
I really see this every time I go to London, UK. In 2022 I walked from the Thames at Westminster Bank to my hotel at Bayswater Stn. and walked over 5 km through parks almost the entire way. Meanwhile if I walk the same 5 km from my house near Riverdale Farm to Queens Quay, I’ll see only the small Allan Gardens, St. James Park and Berzcy Park.
There have been a lot of critiques of this plan over the years, FYI. For one, to get the downtown to "green" by the standard on the first map, you would need about 770 hectares of parkland. That's roughly equivalent to the entire area of the downtown in itself. Parks sets a very "suburban" standard of parkland availability, then labels half the city as "deficient". 28 square metres of parkland per person is not a desirable outcome in city building.
And I think the parks department is out to lunch with this report. The idea that everyone needs parkland within eyesight (500 m) of their front door is ludicrous.
Critiques from who, Robert Moses? Random people with no relevant expertise? The plan is hardly unique in its objectives and the WHO has a minimum recommendation for urban living of 9 m2 green space per person and an ideal goal of 50, which makes Toronto’s top threshold practically half that at 28+. The city's target is green spaces for people within 500m of their homes... the WHO's ideal is 300m. The city's parkland strategy is hardly ambitious or out of step with other targets around the world.
Improve the UPE drop off/pick-up experience at Union and speed up the check-in/security experience at Pearson and YTZ loses its appeal to me. I once waited in the freezing snow for an Uber pickup on Station Street for about 30 mins while the idiot driver waited on Front Street, and when called could not figure out where I was. The UPE needs a dedicated and well understood drop off and pickup spot that does not require passengers to lug their suitcases from the UPE platform to Front Street.
This is a very apt comparison. The distance as the crow flies from the Lincoln Memorial to Washington Monument is actually slightly longer.
What are we really losing if the airport is gone? The flights will go to Pearson. So it's a better security line and the dubious need for redundancy? If they hit even half the numbers they are talking about, the airport experience will be no different than Pearson. I'm just not all that impressed by the value add of this thing.
It's just not practically possible to provide that within walking distance in dense urban environments which is the problem. To me it should be measured less by the amount per person but rather the amount available within walking distance. Downtown isn't stellar on this front, and particularly has a shortage of programmable park spaces (i.e. sports fields), but Parkland when provided at rates of 28m2 per person is less active, engaging urban parkland and more nature preserve levels of activity and use. And it's certainly not an appropriate use of dense urban land at that kind of density..
An airport that serves the public.
No one is putting on there, it predates everyone here who is alive.
More park would not realistically change anything on the island.
The irony (not hypocrisy) that I am noticing is some of the same people fervently, even irrationally pro-idyllic-Europe, pro-tram are also supporting a regional jet airport expansion that mostly benefits private jets and few others.
13% of Toronto is park land compared to 18% of Manhattan, one of the densest, most urbanized islands in the world. Your argument doesn't hold up even when compared to some high-rise-packed Chinese cities.
Do you have any idea how few people out of ~3.5 million Torontonians and more in the GTA would actually use Billy Bishop in any given year? A vanishingly small minority.
The Reich Chancellery predates everyone here, but noone decided to restore and expand that.... What a weak argument.
Who can access the same flights at the other nearby airport.
That's obviously not a good faith interpretation of what I was saying.
I had a large paragraph, not quoted here, about a park being the minimum that could be done with the land. But yes, the ability to access the island without going to the ferry terminal, and making access much easier for those in the west is a pretty big improvement for civic life. I don't know why you won't seem to acknowledge that there are many potential uses at play?
Why not, 737s and A320s fly out of Key West and it's only about 5,500 ft?
