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Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan
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Mind_the_gap
Active Member
^ Be careful what you wish for…
T3G
Senior Member
Why, particularly?
Mind_the_gap
Active Member
My uncle who worked in the Soviet Union would tell me, the guards told you: ”This is where you eat and sleep, and this is where you work. This is the pathway leading between the two. You’re not allowed to leave it.”
That’s all I’ll say without getting political - this is a transit/infrastructure forum after all.
… no further comment.
adys123
Active Member
The 15-minute city is not designed to trap you (though I know some people that believe it). It is built on the principle of being able to fulfill your daily needs within a 15-minute radius of your residence. Both to encourage sustainable urban design, sustainable transportation, and to provide people with more leisure time.
T3G
Senior Member
Every major European city, and most of Manhattan, too, is based on urbanist principles of this nature. This concern doesn't seem realistic to me.
Cambry Ardship
Active Member
There's no reason why road planning should force people to drive to reach the nearest hairdresser or grocery store.
Planning to provide amenities within easy walking and cycling distance of most people is going to improve a range of outcomes, including health and civic life.
Design is not neutral: the status quo of environmentally unfriendly roads that require a car to get around was a decision, too. It is beyond farcical and frankly, incredibly offensive to compare 15 minute cities to prison camps.
Planning to provide amenities within easy walking and cycling distance of most people is going to improve a range of outcomes, including health and civic life.
Design is not neutral: the status quo of environmentally unfriendly roads that require a car to get around was a decision, too. It is beyond farcical and frankly, incredibly offensive to compare 15 minute cities to prison camps.
Northern Light
Superstar
Perhaps it would be useful to be illustrative.
Toronto once was a 15-minute City; all that is being suggested is to return to that.
Excuse the blemishes...... as you can see, this area of East York is served, today, by 1 full-service supermarket (chain).
In the 1950s it was served by several more, of which I've highlighted but 4 (there was an additional one on Donlands, for sure, and I suspect others)
Today, this area has zero operating cinemas. The star I placed shows one former location (Roxy); but there were also cinemas at Danforth/Coxwell, on Donlands by O'Connor and on Woodbine near Sammon.
The 15-minute city means nothing more or less than trying to recapture what we never should have lost.
If you cap the size of supermarkets at ~30,000ft2, you would essentially divide each of the Metro and Loblaws at VP/Danforth and VP/Gerrard in 1/2. Recreating two additional locations.
If you modestly grow the density to support more retail; and break up the oligopoly in grocery, you'd get get a couple of more in this area.
***
We won't ever go back to one-screen cinemas on every second block, but its entirely easy to imagine one or two built within the right developments, likely next to Line 2.
That's the 15-minute City in a nutshell.
You're not confined to your area; you simply don't HAVE to leave it, just to get groceries.
crs1026
Superstar
I agree this concern as expressed is hyperbolic. First of all, no one is seriously advocating restricting choice. Putting more amenities closer to one's home will create convenience which will result in people gravitating naturally to walkable, cyclable destinations that are easily reached. That's a much more sustainable and healthy future state.
But if you really like the bakery on the other side of town.... no one is going to stop you. And hopefully you can get there and back easily by transit.
Having said that, I do react to some of the stuff that is argued about urban utopias. For example, a while back Jennifer Keesmatt (who I generally like) wrote a piece raving about how small is beautiful and we all need to learn to live in shoeboxes and we will be happier doing so. Sorry, I don't agree.
In my view, that is propaganda aimed at convincing people that the suboptimal lot they have is good, instead of giving them better options.
It's all a matter of degree. To confess, I'm an empty nested boomer who lives in a house on a lot that is ripe for conversion to a triplex, with room for a garden suite in the spacious back yard. Clearly, that kind of space is an extravagance, and I don't see that there is any point trying to prevent what will happen to neighbourhoods like mine. (And I'm disgusted by the monster single family home that my neighbour is building at the moment)
But at the other extreme - I don't find (for example) Humber Bay or the Rail Lands downtown to be much different than a Soviet apartment complex.... except the architecture of the buildings is more interesting. But it's ultimately just a bunch of people living cheek by jowl in a very compressed and sterile environment where amenities are not keeping pace with lifestyles. A friend said it well - "We are flowers and birds people" - meaning a cubicle on the 22nd floor isn't on. Being able to access personal garden space (by which I do not mean a vegetable plot next to the GO line) and having nature at hand still is imperative. (Some of the back-alley development happening in the city's "streetcar suburbs" is wonderful to see, and may be where folks like me end up living)
It strikes me as somewhere between ironic and just dumb that I would drive my car (with bike rack attached) all the way to Palgrave just to cycle on a trail. But I can't see myself living the life of a Manhattanite whose main source of natural space and greenery is Central Park. I need mobility and I need destinations beyond my own precinct - Farmers' Market in St Jacobs is popular, but even with improved GO will not be nearly as reachable by transit as by car.
Paradoxes abound. I'm a big believer in living in middle ground.
- paul
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T3G
Senior Member
^ I do definitely agree that trying to force people to live in one type of housing is sub-optimal. There's a lot of hatred in urbanist circles for single family homes (hell, there's been much of it on this forum!) and I don't agree with that, though I have no personal use for a house.
I personally find the lifestyle of the Manhattanite more appealing than most others, but I certainly don't think it would be right to force everyone. I'd be content with such a lifestyle being within financial reach of those who want it. And of course, a focus on green spaces within the city is critical. This is one area where I think Toronto does better than most cities, though we can always do better. And letting giants like Metrolinx threaten our green spaces is entirely the wrong course of action.
Bringing up the Soviet apartment complexes is interesting. My grandparents live in Slovakia in one such complex. They have two grocery stores, a post office, pharmacy, two schools, and several pubs and restaurants within a 5 minute walk of their apartment. To say that I was sick with envy when I visited, being used to sprawling suburbia, would be a gross understatement.
I personally find the lifestyle of the Manhattanite more appealing than most others, but I certainly don't think it would be right to force everyone. I'd be content with such a lifestyle being within financial reach of those who want it. And of course, a focus on green spaces within the city is critical. This is one area where I think Toronto does better than most cities, though we can always do better. And letting giants like Metrolinx threaten our green spaces is entirely the wrong course of action.
Bringing up the Soviet apartment complexes is interesting. My grandparents live in Slovakia in one such complex. They have two grocery stores, a post office, pharmacy, two schools, and several pubs and restaurants within a 5 minute walk of their apartment. To say that I was sick with envy when I visited, being used to sprawling suburbia, would be a gross understatement.
Cambry Ardship
Active Member
I am somewhat younger, though middle age is looking nearing to me these years. There are large generational differences in lived experiences in Toronto. Many of my friends and colleagues live in small condominiums and apartments, often less than 650 square feet, and with some now paying over $3000 per month for the privilege. There is a dichotomy of under-used and over-sized single family homes in untouchable neighbourhoods on the one hand, with cramped apartments next to busy arterials and highways on the other hand.
This will need to change, particularly as Toronto is going to greet many new residents in the coming decades. Part of the change must be through convincing older folks in large houses on large lots that they what they have is unneeded. If cities can provide denser neighbourhoods providing a range of amenities and housing type to help people live in neighbourhoods, that's a pretty convincing and positive argument.
A core part of that is having safe and amenity-rich streets that support an active lifestyle.
Yes, a large part of this is recognizing that no one housing type fits all people. But young people have very few options these days and we see the decades of financial and political support for monocrops of car-dependent single family home neighbourhoods, to the exclusion of all other alternatives.
This will need to change, particularly as Toronto is going to greet many new residents in the coming decades. Part of the change must be through convincing older folks in large houses on large lots that they what they have is unneeded. If cities can provide denser neighbourhoods providing a range of amenities and housing type to help people live in neighbourhoods, that's a pretty convincing and positive argument.
A core part of that is having safe and amenity-rich streets that support an active lifestyle.
Yes, a large part of this is recognizing that no one housing type fits all people. But young people have very few options these days and we see the decades of financial and political support for monocrops of car-dependent single family home neighbourhoods, to the exclusion of all other alternatives.
Towered
Superstar
I had a very similar experience. Growing up in sprawly bungalowland of central Etobicoke, I'd feel extremely frustrated coming back from every time I visited relatives in Austria. That frustration with Toronto is rooted very deeply within me even to this day (it's gotten more intense over time). Everything they do over there seems to just be more...logical. Throw in the endless stunning scenery and architecture on top of that and the recipe was complete for very lengthy periods of depression upon coming back here.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
I know there are hairdressers, caterers, seamstresses, handymen, and even after hours lawyers working out of their basement office, in residential areas. Maybe it is technically illegal, but that is how many enterprises started, as a basement operation. They don't want to pay high-priced leases in corporate malls for a part-time job.
Why should every retail be in a corporate big box? ATM's could be located at a bus stop (with bollards and cameras for security). Stores don't have to carry 100's of the same soup can. Small store within walking distance from that bus stop can be used as they walk home. It would be better to have doctor and dentist offices within walking distance, instead of being chauffeured around in traffic congestion and risking collisions.
There will still be big box stores. I would expect them for lumber, appliances, and furniture.
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evandyk
Senior Member
I assume mind_the_gap is doing a shtick to make fun of the conspiracy theorists around this issue.
goreckm
Active Member
I think the big problem is solving these problems for families. I used to live in a condo, but, when we had kids, we moved to a relatively small house. Still in the city, but, not as convenient as living near Bay and Bloor. I can't envision living in the tiny condos that are being built now. We use up all 1800sqft of space (inc basement) and are still bursting at the seams, since we work from home as well. If you go to Europe, a lot of their apartments, even in the inner city, are quite a bit bigger, with lots of storage and big rooms. We need more of that here. After that's done, we also need to solve the amenity problem. Clicking refresh at 7am in the morning to book swimming lessons because so few spots are available really does resemble Soviet Russia.