One could argue that aside from starchitect projects like a few parks designed by Cormier, Toronto is simply incapable of producing a decently designed, well built and properly maintained public realm. These few blocks of Wellington are a particularly sad example, but mostly we just can’t get our act together, and there are always a lot of perfectly valid reasons why it’s impossible. Maybe we should just give up on attempting major streetscape projects? We grind through a lot of money trying, and it often goes badly. If it goes at all. Or maybe give Waterfront Toronto oversight of the public realm in a somewhat expanded area? Dying trees aside, they don’t seem as clueless as the City. If my suggestion makes people sad then perhaps the alternative is to focus on completely reorganizing the way we plan, build and maintain our streetscapes, because insanity is surely doing the same thing over and over in the vain hope of achieving different results.
I've pointed out many successful streetscape projects in the City before and won't repeat the whole list.
There are too many failures though.
There are common elements to the failures.
The department most often responsible for the failure is Parks, Forestry and Recreation.
Partly, it is that they are stretched thin.
But there is also something of a can't do culture that has seeped into that department.
They don't take outside criticism well (other depts do take it better).
They don't sweat the details as well as they might.
In conjunction with Transportation which is another problem plagued department there are a lack of good project management skills; and there is too much tolerance of mediocrity.
Both can do better.
The best projects have generally been achieved with outside influence.....St. George Street had U of T, and an outside donor (Judy Matthews), at the design stage, but U of T has also actively managed the streetscape since construction.
Some of the better development based projects have been approved by the City by it was the developers landscape team that came up with the right solutions (irrigation, right species choice, barriers to salt penetration etc.)
There is a need to clean a lot of dead-wood out of both departments and replace 'yes people' with people who know and care about their fields.
There is a need for more project management expertise.
There is also a need for more resources (staff and capital dollars)
Finally there is a need for department leaders who when they see things running off the rails intervene and put their foot down.
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I'd be leery of starting yet another agency to get into the alphabet soup of managing Toronto's public realm. But I do wonder if we shouldn't consider it. I've often wondered if we might designate certain prominent roads
and have them overseen for design purposes by a PCC (Provincial Capital Commission) that might also oversee key public spaces.
The latter might also be alternatively overseen by Conservancies.
But I do worry that this is just another layer of complexity and cost as opposed to fixing what we have.
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On public realm/parks maintenance the following changes are what I would recommend.
One, utilities should share common conduit or fibre in where that makes sense to reduce the frequency of road/sidewalk dig ups.
Two, garbage/litter removal should be daily in all Toronto parks.
Three, all parks where grass is to be maintained should have irrigation.
Four, all parks/streetscape must be subject to aggressive salt-reduction plans by considering snow-melt systems, and alternative treatments and applications.
Where salt use remains necessary, paths should all be designed to mitigate this by either either lipping/bordering edges to reduce salt being sprayed/drained into landscapes or be edged by salt-tolerant plant choices.
Five, the City needs to hire more damned plumbers, they are acutely short vs demand.
Six, the City needs more 'foremen' who have the handy fix-it skills and can respond quickly to minor damage to things.
Seven, the City needs replacement parts for everything, in every design, stored in parks yards.
There should be replacements for every bench, light fixture, light bulb, designed waste receptacle, flower pot. ie. fixes should not wait for special orders or budget approvals.
Eight, when ever a surface is dug up in the City, it must be replaced by the same or like by the contractor who digs it up. (no replacing brick or even concrete with asphalt)
