"Do you call it putridly awful in regards to the streetscaping, or what became of the streetscaping after large chunks were dug up for underground services repairs, upgrades, etc? I remember the streetscaping being pretty attractive when it was first done. Prior to that job, St. George was basically a run-down four lane minor arterial, which had the effect of bisecting the campus."
The attractiveness of the streetscaping (which is debatable) is not the issue - pedestrian-friendliness is. Sure, much of it looks nice in July when there's no one around and you're strolling here and there with a camera in hand, but the streetscaping inexcusably hinders pedestrian movement, and every hour on the hour when thousands of people flood onto the street, it's absurdly, offensively inadequate.
At several points the sidewalk narrows to widths where two people basically cannot comfortably pass each other. You can barely walk half a block without having to go around a concrete planter with nothing more than dead grass in it. The cobblestones that they just relaid will need to be fixed in 5 years because people will begin tripping over the the shifting ones in 3 years. They narrowed the road but replaced the lanes of traffic with raised concrete and on-street parking yet the huge mobs of people coming from St. George station didn't even get the 'luxury' of a standard width sidewalk.
It's still run-down and it still bisects the campus...maybe it is easier to jaywalk now, which is good, but god forbid you actually have to walk down the street in winter. I would not wish this mess upon Gould and Ryerson.
Im beginning to doubt I will see it in my years at Rye high.