AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Try contacting the Star's fixer? Nothing gets work done better than bad press.
AoD
AoD
So here we are on Front St East nearly a year after my previous bout of complaining, and the Pan Am games are nigh.
The bump-out plantings on Princess St and Berkeley are still all 100% dead, looking exactly as shown in my July 2014 photo with the addition of more trash and garbage.
The intersection of Sherbourne and Front itself still looks like Berlin circa 1945.
A good percentage of the new faux "wrought-iron" lamp posts along Front St E. remain missing, or are damaged, crooked, or in some other state of semi-repair.
And just last week crews were going along all those new sidewalks and curbs along Front St E. at random intervals, ripping up bricks and digging new deep holes for unknown purposes, then filling them in haphazardly with the usual attention to detail provided by Toronto construction crews, which is to say, none.
Plus ça change... funny how after several years of construction hell I feel like we're more or less back where we started.
Business as usual in Toronto. CP highlights two issues common to pretty much all attempts to improve Toronto's public realm:
1. Haphazard maintenance, and
2. Almost immediate destruction of whatever we build for utility work that's invariably patched as cheaply and shoddily as possible.
There has to be a better way to organize ourselves. Maybe set up a structure where one City manager is responsible for planning, executing and maintaining any street where the City has attempted to make the public realm somewhat less ugly? Perhaps with the power to veto utility work and to compel utilities to coordinate construction and properly remediate the damage they do? Because the way we (dis) organize ourselves now means that even when the City builds something good, there's a reasonable chance it will be a shabby mess within a decade.
All the other issues are valid. But the Sherbourne construction from Queens Quay to King is only occurring this year. They only just ripped up from Front to Queens Quay, and the piece from Front to King is delayed until construction hoarding can be removed from the new condo at the southeast corner of King/Sherbourne ... presumably the Front/Sherbourne intersection is part of this final stage.The intersection of Sherbourne and Front itself still looks like Berlin circa 1945.
Improvements to Pedestrian Boulevards on Front Street East
Rather than create a new thread it seems appropriate to revive this one for this good news: