CDL.TO
Moderator
Screw the NIMBYs! The plan is located on both a highway and a subway line and, gosh darn, it's not even tall!
(If only it was that easy)
(If only it was that easy)
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Allen Road/Spadina Subway Urbanization
- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
- Start date
RedRocket191
Senior Member
Screw the NIMBYs! The plan is located on both a highway and a subway line and, gosh darn, it's not even tall!
(If only it was that easy)
I like the way you think!
Beside, we should oppose stuff if its ugly, not if its tall.
"NIMBYstically feasible" or "NIMBYstic feasibility" - feel free to use those terms from now.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
The plan by Zeilder et al. is really quite mild - it doesn't contemplate doing anything to the subdivisions right beside the station.
Perhaps they should just tear down Glencairn station just to spite the locals a little. I am sure it would do a number to the property values - at the very least, accessiblity to the TTC wouldn't be a selling point now, would it?
AoD
Perhaps they should just tear down Glencairn station just to spite the locals a little. I am sure it would do a number to the property values - at the very least, accessiblity to the TTC wouldn't be a selling point now, would it?
AoD
Sir Novelty Fashion
Senior Member
Did I raise the Buckminster Fuller proposal for the line already, or did I just get irritated and start photoshopping things straightaway?
CDL.TO
Moderator
It's not the first one, so I must assume it's the second.
Northern Light
Superstar
Allen Corridor
We can all agree the Allen/Spadina Corridor was completely mishandled in almost every way possible.
Subways should follow major Roads (not expressways) and that stub of an expressway should never have been built.
That said, what to do with what we have?
***
Moving the subway line under Dufferin is just to expensive to be taken seriously.
So it has to stay.
However, what useful purpose does Allen Road have?
It takes traffic from the 401 and north Dufferin and just dumps it at Eglinton.
There is little/no traffic on Allen which is destination oriented to that area of Eglinton.
And once it gets there, it has nowhere to go.
The Allen should simply come out. Not be buried, or covered, just removed.
The subway should be covered.
And the area between the subway corridor and Marlee to the west should all be expropriated for medium to high density to living.
There would be ample opportuntity to add a linear park, and other public amenties and create probably 50ha (125 acres) minimum of new developable space.
The assesment dollars could be worth tens of millions per year to the City!
****
One concession to the car lovers.....North Dufferin (Allen north of Sheppard) should be directly linked to rest of Dufferin south of Wilson.
If a surface connection can't be built because of the runway at Downsview, then a small tunnel would be a good choice.
Then the grid would make more sense in the north/west of the City.
We can all agree the Allen/Spadina Corridor was completely mishandled in almost every way possible.
Subways should follow major Roads (not expressways) and that stub of an expressway should never have been built.
That said, what to do with what we have?
***
Moving the subway line under Dufferin is just to expensive to be taken seriously.
So it has to stay.
However, what useful purpose does Allen Road have?
It takes traffic from the 401 and north Dufferin and just dumps it at Eglinton.
There is little/no traffic on Allen which is destination oriented to that area of Eglinton.
And once it gets there, it has nowhere to go.
The Allen should simply come out. Not be buried, or covered, just removed.
The subway should be covered.
And the area between the subway corridor and Marlee to the west should all be expropriated for medium to high density to living.
There would be ample opportuntity to add a linear park, and other public amenties and create probably 50ha (125 acres) minimum of new developable space.
The assesment dollars could be worth tens of millions per year to the City!
****
One concession to the car lovers.....North Dufferin (Allen north of Sheppard) should be directly linked to rest of Dufferin south of Wilson.
If a surface connection can't be built because of the runway at Downsview, then a small tunnel would be a good choice.
Then the grid would make more sense in the north/west of the City.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
From the Globe:
INFRASTRUCTURE
Allen Expressway: Rethinking the scar across the face of Toronto
JOHN LORINC
Special to The Globe and Mail
July 5, 2008
To its legions of detractors, the Allen Expressway has been a scar running down the face of the city since it was built in the late 1960s. But in recent weeks, Councillor Howard Moscoe has been privately talking up a wildly ambitious scheme to do some reconstructive surgery by erecting a football field, a Catholic high school and even a shopping mall over top a 300-to-400-metre stretch of the Allen near Lawrence Avenue.
Mr. Moscoe (Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence) also dreams of building new boulevards linking Lawrence Avenue and Yorkdale, eliminating the on/off ramps to the Allen and relocating the entrances to the Lawrence West subway station, which is notoriously difficult to enter for students and seniors.
"This is a huge Monopoly game," he said in an interview this week. "It gives us an opportunity to reclaim a facility [the Allen] that has torn apart this community and done considerable damage to the city."
The changes he envisions - grandiose even by Mr. Moscoe's Falstaffian standards - would be central to the just-launched redevelopment of the Lawrence Heights neighbourhood. The low-income housing complex straddles the Allen and has long been isolated from nearby retail areas, such as Lawrence Square.
These proposals come less than a month after city council agreed to press ahead with another complicated highway makeover - a $300-million plan, tentatively backed by Waterfront Toronto, to demolish the Gardiner east of Jarvis.
While Mr. Moscoe's ideas haven't been scrutinized, much less approved, city planners and outside consultants are currently studying major changes to the tangle of roads through Lawrence Heights, as well as those around the Lawrence-Allen intersection, all with an eye to improving connections across the expressway and within the community. About 200 residents turned out for a preliminary public consultation session on Thursday evening at Bathurst Heights Secondary School.
For Mr. Moscoe, the big move depends on enticing RioCan, the owners of Lawrence Square, to erect a new shopping plaza directly above the Allen just north of Lawrence. He's spoken to RioCan officials, who have been considering plans to develop apartment towers on the eight-hectare mall site, currently home to a Canadian Tire outlet, a Zeller's store and other businesses.
The Lawrence West subway entrance, which sits in the middle of the Allen, could be relocated, with improved access through the new mall. The station on the south side could then be redeveloped as a school, with a playing field on a "deck" overtop the Allen, south of Lawrence.
"This is blue sky," Mr. Moscoe acknowledges.
Architect Eb Zeidler has been hired by the city to examine decking over the Allen. For years, such structures have covered parts of the Yonge subway line between Eglinton and Bloor Street, creating new spaces for development, notes John Van Nostrand, a planning consultant working on the Lawrence-Allen revitalization plan. "It's not an unknown technology," he says. "It could make some sense, no question."
Others are more skeptical.
"One thing about Howard Moscoe," comments RioCan president and CEO Edward Sonshine, "he's never been accused of thinking small." Yet Mr. Sonshine says the notion of rebuilding Lawrence Square over a busy expressway is "a long way" from coming to fruition.
As it happens, Mr. Sonshine has his own Monopoly plans for the area. RioCan wants to buy the former Bathurst Heights Secondary School property, just east of the Lawrence-Allen intersection, and relocate its major retail tenants there, freeing up Lawrence Square for high-rises. (Mr. Moscoe is dead set against the idea.)
Yet Mr. Sonshine believes there's an opportunity to develop retail over the Allen, albeit at a smaller scale than Mr. Moscoe has in mind. He's proposed that the city quadruple the width of the Flemington Road bridge - the single link between the east and west halves of Lawrence Heights - and use the additional space for small stores, such as coffee shops or other service-oriented retail. "Wouldn't be cheap," he says, "but we could make that happen."
Mayor David Miller, while praising Mr. Moscoe's vision as "ingenious," doubts it would be possible to build a school straddling the highway. Yet he favours erecting decks over the expressway for new parkland, as well as a significant widening of the Lawrence Avenue bridge over the Allen, also to allow for the development of retail and other venues. They'd be essentially cantilevered over the Allen. "I'm told that is both technically and financially feasible," Mr. Miller says.
All these ideas - both pie-in-the-sky and the more modest schemes - will be fed into the development of a new secondary plan for the area bounded by Dufferin Street, Bathurst Street, Lawrence Avenue and the 401. The city this spring initiated the exercise due to the proposed redevelopment of Lawrence Heights by Toronto Community Housing, which sits in the middle of that fast-growing area. There are numerous stakeholders involved, including the city, TCHC, the Toronto Transit Commission, and both school boards, as well as private landowners and residents.
Noting that the city has "an aggressive timetable," Mr. Moscoe says Lawrence Heights redevelopment affords a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reimagine the relationship between the Allen and the diverse neighbourhoods that abut it. But Mr. Sonshine doesn't expect to see major changes any time soon. "I'm 61. I'm hoping something will happen before I get my old- age pension."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080705.ALLEN05/TPStory/TPNational/Ontario/
AoD
INFRASTRUCTURE
Allen Expressway: Rethinking the scar across the face of Toronto
JOHN LORINC
Special to The Globe and Mail
July 5, 2008
To its legions of detractors, the Allen Expressway has been a scar running down the face of the city since it was built in the late 1960s. But in recent weeks, Councillor Howard Moscoe has been privately talking up a wildly ambitious scheme to do some reconstructive surgery by erecting a football field, a Catholic high school and even a shopping mall over top a 300-to-400-metre stretch of the Allen near Lawrence Avenue.
Mr. Moscoe (Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence) also dreams of building new boulevards linking Lawrence Avenue and Yorkdale, eliminating the on/off ramps to the Allen and relocating the entrances to the Lawrence West subway station, which is notoriously difficult to enter for students and seniors.
"This is a huge Monopoly game," he said in an interview this week. "It gives us an opportunity to reclaim a facility [the Allen] that has torn apart this community and done considerable damage to the city."
The changes he envisions - grandiose even by Mr. Moscoe's Falstaffian standards - would be central to the just-launched redevelopment of the Lawrence Heights neighbourhood. The low-income housing complex straddles the Allen and has long been isolated from nearby retail areas, such as Lawrence Square.
These proposals come less than a month after city council agreed to press ahead with another complicated highway makeover - a $300-million plan, tentatively backed by Waterfront Toronto, to demolish the Gardiner east of Jarvis.
While Mr. Moscoe's ideas haven't been scrutinized, much less approved, city planners and outside consultants are currently studying major changes to the tangle of roads through Lawrence Heights, as well as those around the Lawrence-Allen intersection, all with an eye to improving connections across the expressway and within the community. About 200 residents turned out for a preliminary public consultation session on Thursday evening at Bathurst Heights Secondary School.
For Mr. Moscoe, the big move depends on enticing RioCan, the owners of Lawrence Square, to erect a new shopping plaza directly above the Allen just north of Lawrence. He's spoken to RioCan officials, who have been considering plans to develop apartment towers on the eight-hectare mall site, currently home to a Canadian Tire outlet, a Zeller's store and other businesses.
The Lawrence West subway entrance, which sits in the middle of the Allen, could be relocated, with improved access through the new mall. The station on the south side could then be redeveloped as a school, with a playing field on a "deck" overtop the Allen, south of Lawrence.
"This is blue sky," Mr. Moscoe acknowledges.
Architect Eb Zeidler has been hired by the city to examine decking over the Allen. For years, such structures have covered parts of the Yonge subway line between Eglinton and Bloor Street, creating new spaces for development, notes John Van Nostrand, a planning consultant working on the Lawrence-Allen revitalization plan. "It's not an unknown technology," he says. "It could make some sense, no question."
Others are more skeptical.
"One thing about Howard Moscoe," comments RioCan president and CEO Edward Sonshine, "he's never been accused of thinking small." Yet Mr. Sonshine says the notion of rebuilding Lawrence Square over a busy expressway is "a long way" from coming to fruition.
As it happens, Mr. Sonshine has his own Monopoly plans for the area. RioCan wants to buy the former Bathurst Heights Secondary School property, just east of the Lawrence-Allen intersection, and relocate its major retail tenants there, freeing up Lawrence Square for high-rises. (Mr. Moscoe is dead set against the idea.)
Yet Mr. Sonshine believes there's an opportunity to develop retail over the Allen, albeit at a smaller scale than Mr. Moscoe has in mind. He's proposed that the city quadruple the width of the Flemington Road bridge - the single link between the east and west halves of Lawrence Heights - and use the additional space for small stores, such as coffee shops or other service-oriented retail. "Wouldn't be cheap," he says, "but we could make that happen."
Mayor David Miller, while praising Mr. Moscoe's vision as "ingenious," doubts it would be possible to build a school straddling the highway. Yet he favours erecting decks over the expressway for new parkland, as well as a significant widening of the Lawrence Avenue bridge over the Allen, also to allow for the development of retail and other venues. They'd be essentially cantilevered over the Allen. "I'm told that is both technically and financially feasible," Mr. Miller says.
All these ideas - both pie-in-the-sky and the more modest schemes - will be fed into the development of a new secondary plan for the area bounded by Dufferin Street, Bathurst Street, Lawrence Avenue and the 401. The city this spring initiated the exercise due to the proposed redevelopment of Lawrence Heights by Toronto Community Housing, which sits in the middle of that fast-growing area. There are numerous stakeholders involved, including the city, TCHC, the Toronto Transit Commission, and both school boards, as well as private landowners and residents.
Noting that the city has "an aggressive timetable," Mr. Moscoe says Lawrence Heights redevelopment affords a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reimagine the relationship between the Allen and the diverse neighbourhoods that abut it. But Mr. Sonshine doesn't expect to see major changes any time soon. "I'm 61. I'm hoping something will happen before I get my old- age pension."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080705.ALLEN05/TPStory/TPNational/Ontario/
AoD