I think that Bay Street north of Queen has potential to be a vibrant round-the-clock street. The density is high and there are many spaces for commercial uses by the sidewalk. So much of its built form is still relatively new that the rents for retail are probably too high to encourage many entrepreneurs from opening up the kinds of businesses that would attract more pedestrian activity. The rents will probably become more reasonable as the buildings age and the built form becomes more diversified. Older condos may create new business spaces out of dated amenity spaces to rent out as pedestrian activity increases. It will be important to create an urban design plan to give the public realm a greater sense of unity, predictability, and coherence that will make pedestrians more comfortable walking along Bay, and a design good enough to attract them in greater numbers. Animating public art may be important.
University Avenue is first and foremost a ceremonial route. Theoretically, it has a lot of different uses--financial to healthcare to government--but it's mostly 9-5 users meaning it becomes quite dead after hours. To enliven it, you need more diverse uses which stay open after 5 and will attract different people like bars, drug stores, galleries, and private outdoor terraces where people can relax over beer or coffee near the street. I think it would be fun to shut a part of it down on weekend nights and have dance parties aimed at different demographics. As for aesthetics, the monuments feel like they belong there, even if the median is designed very poorly for pedestrians and should be overhauled to allow continuous walking. I'd like to see a public realm overhaul with improved non-concrete slab sidewalks, more sophisticated street and sidewalk lighting, more mature trees planted, and the sense of monumentality enhanced with soaring columns and sculptures. Perhaps construct a roundabout at a major intersection with a massive monument as a southern terminating vista and as a new vista for an east-west street. But planners should concentrate, too, on encouraging more uses outside of 9-5 hours and on weekends. The province should get involved in an improvement project too. After all, it's the ceremonial route for Ontario's capital in front of its house of democracy.
Admittedly, Queen's Park is another matter altogether, but for University Avenue's sake, I would also like to see some work towards restoring the vista by trimming the trees in front of it. The same goes for Osgoode Hall, whose east wing is supposed to terminate views of York Street, but which is now completely obscured by trees. Yet if we want one of our streets to join the elite grand boulevards of the world, I think Spadina has more potential because it also has the grand scale, but is already a vibrant mixed-use street. I explain my vision for it
here.
