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Rail Deck Park (?, ?, ?)

We have crucial transit projects that are unfunded or underfunded that are more important than a new park.
If the air rights above the rail yards are purchased by private developers, this opportunity is permanently lost, whereas the DRL can always be tunnelled.
 
That fund is for the whole city of Toronto and its parks that are in various states of disrepair. Before blowing a billion dollars on a strip of grass let's fix some broken benches and lights first...

Yes, but that fund is for acquisition of new parkland only - not for repairs.

AoD
 
To those who say this is a waste of money: I couldn't disagree more. It's true that there are other ways to spend our money, and many of them are incredibly important. However, there will always be other things that require fixing, or upgrading, etc., etc.. Now is as good a time as ever to allocate some of the City's parks money towards a grand gesture downtown. In fact, we really need to get moving; great opportunities like this won't always be feasible.

I say go for it.
 
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It's a waste of money. We have too many important infrastructure projects that are unfunded.

So parks are a "waste of money"? You'll rather bulldoze all parks and sell them to developers? You'll rather them pave paradise and put up a parking lot?

No thanks. We need more parks and less parking lots.
 
It would be a good idea to tie this into the proposed park that is part of the Garrison Point condo development.
 
It would be a good idea to tie this into the proposed park that is part of the Garrison Point condo development.

See
Mouth of the Creek Park
thread at this link.

8837-30035.jpg
 
I'm confused. Tory proposed something that would actually be good for people who live downtown.
 
Can't find out just who is paying for it, but there is this ...

A few questions I had:
- the presentation and media boards look like they were slapped together (plus no dedicated website). Is this due to another announcement soon? Why so quick? (maybe an Oxford property announcement for the convention centre or a Metrolinx announcement for the new station or Tory's friends are having trouble selling condo's in the Globe and Mail lands)
- I don't know air rights rules but if the park is under 27 feet do we have to buy them from CN? Cost?
- If they try to solicit donations will the city accept naming rights? (almost everything in Millennium Park has a sponsor...McDonalds bike park in Toronto?)
- are they just going for grass or adding destination activities (i.e. grandstand, etc). Will impact the cost. Millennium Park without all the buildings would have been built for about $200M....more than double that for all the other things.

- How does this impact the Bathurst St bridge reconstruction? Can transform the rebuild by adding LRT and bike lanes.
 
A few thoughts:

1) Fantastic.

2) I thought of the Oxford proposal when I saw this too. In fact, the backgrounder that was posted a few pages ago lists the study area as "from Bathurst to Blue Jays Way" and "from Blue Jays Way to York", the latter of which clearly includes the Oxford proposal lands. There may be more to come.

3) As for "decking the whole shabang", that would be significantly more difficult in the east, as it's on an elevated berm. This section is in a defacto trench, as development has been elevated on either side of it. The east side is unlikely to happen.
 
That's silly when you have decrepit parks. In that area too!
That is the legal basis for which the City can demand these funds from developers. If the City tried to use it for other purposes, the developers would march to the OMB looking for it back.
 
That is the legal basis for which the City can demand these funds from developers. If the City tried to use it for other purposes, the developers would march to the OMB looking for it back.
I don't have a problem with the mechanism. It's a great idea. But there are numerous areas in this city screaming for additional parks (some with very high development pressures and growth) and spending the whole budget on a single strip of grass downtown is a bit insulting.

This will likely die a quick death in council.
 

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