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Lisa Rochon: Toronto Street Furniture (Globe & Mail)

regardless of any individual preference about the style of any of the new street furniture, the most discouraging fact is that it will all be abused and defaced a short time into its life. Perhaps they should have built in tasers to zap would be vandals.

And to reply to Unimaginative re the weekly pedestrian takeover of the streets in Bogota... no, they are not at all focused on retail or cultural areas. Its more of a meeting of the masses and a very direct statement about taking back the streets from the automobile.

anyone interested in learning more about the transformation of Bogota is recommended to view this program from the e^2 series: (in 3 parts)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j3FVPeTwoU&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_7N2ajOYYw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUSg7br5sLU&feature=related
 
I liked Rochon's article, and thought it was even tempered in its acknowledgement that not all the "street furniture" under the current contract is poorly concieved. I think comments here about the greater availability of garbage dispensers are good and true - there certainly seem to be a lot of them. And, I've always liked those small imprints of leaves in Vancouver streets as well.

I do think the garbage dispensers are uniquely ugly in a way the benches and shelters are not. They seem ... lardy. But my biggest beef with them is that they are overdesigned. I wonder how many people really put out their cigarette butts into them, and I think the pedal for opening the slots is very badly thought out - likely to be broken from plows in winters, and clearly when someone steps on it, it creates some pressure forward that can tilt the bin off it's access - and I've seen several of the bins that are already leaning forward (which of course means the pedal no longer works - and the flaps are quite hard to push).

I would prefer something more durable and that does less than these bins do.

Finally, they capture and hold a lot of filth because of the extended belly just below the flaps. If anything spills, and it does, a lot, then everyone passing by gets to see that for the next several weeks. They already look filthy.
 
The new GARBAGE BINS...

I've been saying since the beginning of their appearance on our streets: the new garbage cans lack one utmost important feature: they are not functional.

They already look banged up and dirty. They are FAR too small to hold ANYTHING, so there is always garbage sticking out of them-- they don't even do their job as garbage receptacles because they can't hold all of the garbage. How pathetic.

And what REALLY sucks is we are stuck with these new garbage bins for a few decades.... *shudder*

The fact alone that they are made of numerous plastic pieces and intricate components like a foot-pedal means that they are going to have all sorts of technical issues and need repairing withing the next five years. And we know that that type of high-maintenance street furniture is never going to get the attention it needs from city maintenance crews. It's simply not possible given the number of them that will be throughout the city.

Agreed with Rochon-- the garbage bins are a complete fail. F-. Why can't we have something simple, modernist/stylish, and functional? It's only a garbage bin for God's sake, is that too much to ask for?


/end rant. I just don't understand how you can get something as simple as a GARBAGE BIN wrong... perhaps including room for more than five people's garbage would be a nice start.
 
SP!RE said:
And what REALLY sucks is we are stuck with these new garbage bins for a few decades.... *shudder*

The fact alone that they are made of numerous plastic pieces and intricate components like a foot-pedal means that they are going to have all sorts of technical issues and need repairing withing the next five years. And we know that that type of high-maintenance street furniture is never going to get the attention it needs from city maintenance crews. It's simply not possible given the number of them that will be throughout the city.
Click to expand...

A lot of your concerns are valid but you're simply not informed about the program: the city does not maintain the bins or any of the new street furniture.

It's in the contract that Astral MUST maintain or replace broken or damaged furniture, including the bins. The city collects the garbage, it does not maintain the furniture.

... and no, we're not stuck with the same design for decades. Astral simply won the right to the contract for that period. At some point, they'll want to update the designs -- they need city approval -- and roll them out as older furniture needs replacing.

The garbage bin itself can shift its appearance by simply replacing the panels which were designed to be easy to swap out.

Because this is a privatized venture, if Astral sees that their bins are getting damaged easily, they're going to look for a way for them to better endure the city environment, including switching to vandal proof materials (i.e. dimpled metallic shells).

I've seen many dirty and tagged bins so the plastic is going to be a problem. As for overflowing bins, I used to see a lot more of that with the old megabins. There are a lot more of these smaller receptacles so they're staying within capacity more regularly -- at least in the areas I frequent.

If the city finds overflowing bins, they'll have more installed in those problem areas. They're new... give it some time for the kinks to get worked out.
 
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Good to know. I hope you are right about those things. You can tell I am just very cynical about how well maintained these things really will be.

A continued issue, however, is how ugly these garbage bins are. Their design makes sense in maybe one or two neighbourhoods, but will look absolutely out of place in so many neighbourhoods. Oh well.
 
MetroMan, your comments are appreciated. Maybe it won't be as bad as I imagine, but I've been surprised by how many bins already seem to be in quite poor shape, so some re-thinking of the design is probably necessary, and I'm sure it will happen.
 
I don't care for these Astral garbage bins at all. Astral's entire line has a rather generic feel to it.
 
Archivist said:
MetroMan, your comments are appreciated. Maybe it won't be as bad as I imagine, but I've been surprised by how many bins already seem to be in quite poor shape, so some re-thinking of the design is probably necessary, and I'm sure it will happen.
Click to expand...

By contract, Astral needs to replace or clean damaged or vandalized furniture in a timely manner. Looking at how the plastic panels are dealing with real world usage, I think Astral is already considering how they can replace the panels with a vandal proof, easier to clean material.

Again, I'd suggest a form pressed aluminum sheet into the shape of the existing panels but with smaller and more dimples.

The metal finish cleans and keeps clean easier. The dimples make it difficult to post bills and to write on.

I like the new bins. They're friendly in size and shape. They fit easier on sidewalks and don't have ads. I just think the choice of material missed the mark. Simple economics will sort that out pretty quickly as Astral doesn't want to be constantly buying and replacing panels to keep to its contractual commitment.
 
It's been about two months now since the old style garbage bins were removed from my neighbourhood, new one's have slowly been installed. Every week or two I see a new one here, a new one there. There are problems though. As I mentioned in a related thread these bins are not lasting and they are not being cleaned or maintained. Of the 15, perhaps 20 new bins in my nabe (roughly Yonge to Jarvis, Bloor to Wellesley) 4 or 5 of them have been broken into and some are hanging open (one at Church & Gloucester for well over a month now), at least three that I've noticed have broken metal supports for the foot pedal (I've seen this downtown by the EC too), the mini versions are often overflowing with trash as they aren't big enough and they are not placing many of them near intersections, sometimes they are 100 - 150 feet away from a major intersection (i.e. Church & Wellesley). I don't understand the logic. My nabe is still missing at least half of the number of bins that used to be in place, presumably more are to come. By the end of next summer I predict most of the bins are going to need to be replaced already, mark my words. I really like the bus shelters but most every one has been scratched already, it's heartbreaking.
 
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