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Thorncliffe Park & Flemingdon Park

Yonge is busy only south of Eglinton. When you walk past that, it is just like everywhere else. I fail to understand why since there is a line going from King to Eglinton on Yonge, it has to go straight north as if a subway line can't make turns, like it does in other cities. I never suggest a subway on the Don Mills corridor - you are still assuming a subway has to go along a particular street without making turns.

"as to the DRL stops, the location of stops will depend on the alighment of the corridor" - that says nothing. By corridor I guess you mean a single street again.

Can you engage in a discussion without acting like the other person is beneath your contempt? Please. Stop telling me what I assume or that I'm saying nothing. Thanks. Happy to discuss this with you when you are ready to talk like a grown-up.
 
A really cool market is Iqbal Fine Foods. All sorts of stuff, mostly from Iran and Pakistan. I recently nought a bag of pistachios from there. They were from Iran, where pistachios always used to come from before POM started growing them in California, and they tasted like the pistachios of my childhood.

What's disappointing is the food court at the local mall. I think it's called East York Mall. It's small and somewhat diverse but the food is crummy.
 
A really cool market is Iqbal Fine Foods. All sorts of stuff, mostly from Iran and Pakistan. I recently nought a bag of pistachios from there. They were from Iran, where pistachios always used to come from before POM started growing them in California, and they tasted like the pistachios of my childhood.

What's disappointing is the food court at the local mall. I think it's called East York Mall. It's small and somewhat diverse but the food is crummy.

That sounds great (Iqbal, not the food court).
 
Yonge is busy only south of Eglinton. When you walk past that, it is just like everywhere else. I fail to understand why since there is a line going from King to Eglinton on Yonge, it has to go straight north as if a subway line can't make turns, like it does in other cities. I never suggest a subway on the Don Mills corridor - you are still assuming a subway has to go along a particular street without making turns.

"as to the DRL stops, the location of stops will depend on the alighment of the corridor" - that says nothing. By corridor I guess you mean a single street again.

Wow..
 
An interesting workshop done by U of T students and resident groups in Thornecliffe Park to make grassroots changes to this fascinating neighbourhood.

https://thorncliffedesign.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/workshop_booklet.pdf


Good find.

Though I hate to be a downer on what I'm sure was a substantial and community minded effort, I find it mostly peculiar and underwhelming.

The one clear, salient and must-do idea is the narrrowing of Thorncliffe drive to accomodate cyclists and an enriched pedestrian streetscape!

Its not that the other ideas are poor, but I think they left too much on the table in favour of some utopian ideals that I don't see coming to pass.

For me, the signature to improvement in this area is full-out redevelopment of the East York Town Centre site.

While I'd love a medium-density, mixed-income, utopian hood, I'd settle for re-conceived retail that addressed other community needs and set-up future redevelopment.

Clearly RV Burgess park must grow. It doesn't make sense to tack-on an extra .4 acres here or there.

But to reorganized things to allow growth of up to 2ha or 5 acres in what is the 'central park' for the area.

Very important is quality connections, which they note..............but my solution

An east-west road, connecting Thorncliffe to Thorncliffe, roughly at the rear of the existing mall, ceding just a bit of space that can be used to enlarge the school yard and park.

The north-south connection should be a narrow road, roughly aligning with a pedestrian/bike path across the middle of the park, which would also subdivide the current mall property into 2, and lead to Overlea Blvd.


Ultimately I'd like to see a much finer-grained street grid on that site, but that would be a huge improvement for now.

Most of the retail on the site could be redone as free-standing 'pods' of stores, ideally facing the surrounding streets or the new streets, pending future redevelopment, with surface parking on the balance.

Said parking to be undergrounded, as intensification occurs.

***

The community centre is grossly undersized for the area, the library somewhat.

I'd love to see them moved to the mall property, facing the new street and the park.

This would allow for upsizing the facilities to meet community needs, but would also free up the existing site to become a new, large, much more visible and safe access to RV Burgess Park.

***

Finally, I think the ravine access is noted for its deficiencies.........but there are some other changes needed. Some of the adjacent open space needs to be added so that a dedicated ped/bike trail can be added adjacent to the driveway. The current access does not leave one feeling safe on foot or 2 wheels and has serious visibility issues as well.

Finally, I would add one or two new park accesses beside the Overlea bridge over the West Don/ET Seton Park.

The east side, beside Valley Park school is already used as an entrance by local students.......but there are no stairs or path and the hill is quite steep. I'm sure injuries are too regular an occurrence.

A formal staircase w/bike channel would be ideal.

An entrance on west side would mean a bridge across the river as well, and would cut through some not 1/2 bad forest...............but I think its worth considering............there is ample open space beside the Leaside Towers.....

There is an opportunity to formalize existing informal access and reduce erosion, while removing some non-native and invasive species.

That's must my 5c.......
 
I think you hit on some good points, NL. The mall is an eyesore and needs to go in its current form. Something of that particular nature has no place in one of the highest density neighbourhoods in Canada. Perfect site for a funky mixed-use complex with lots of community services

Also agree with narrowing Thorncliffe Park. It is actually not a high-traffic street and there's no need for all the parking. All the apartment towers have plenty of tenant and visitor parking. My older daughter went to the Montessori daycare in the United church basement on T.P.D. just south of the west lights, and it always struck me what a waste of a potentially fantastic street it is. Something like the Eglinton plans post-LRT construction would work here too. Separated bike lanes with lots of trees.

As to Iqbal's, it's great, but I find I go to Sunny Ray on Don Mills more often than not, as the veggie selection is better and it's a better mix of pan-Asian groceries. But Trupti's in the same plaza as Iqbal is the spice shop king of Toronto. They fresh roast a lot of their own spices and if you like Indian food, it is heaven. Just be warned that their classification of "mild" chilies is based on Indian palates. Holy heat!
 
Maybe if we had some sort of suggestion about where a Downtown Relief Line could wonder north of Danforth towards Eglinton, we could include some rough-in for any future station or stations, or even suggest where the tunnels (maybe) could go.
 
Good find.

Though I hate to be a downer on what I'm sure was a substantial and community minded effort, I find it mostly peculiar and underwhelming.

The one clear, salient and must-do idea is the narrrowing of Thorncliffe drive to accomodate cyclists and an enriched pedestrian streetscape!

Its not that the other ideas are poor, but I think they left too much on the table in favour of some utopian ideals that I don't see coming to pass.

For me, the signature to improvement in this area is full-out redevelopment of the East York Town Centre site.

While I'd love a medium-density, mixed-income, utopian hood, I'd settle for re-conceived retail that addressed other community needs and set-up future redevelopment.

Clearly RV Burgess park must grow. It doesn't make sense to tack-on an extra .4 acres here or there.

But to reorganized things to allow growth of up to 2ha or 5 acres in what is the 'central park' for the area.

Very important is quality connections, which they note..............but my solution

An east-west road, connecting Thorncliffe to Thorncliffe, roughly at the rear of the existing mall, ceding just a bit of space that can be used to enlarge the school yard and park.

The north-south connection should be a narrow road, roughly aligning with a pedestrian/bike path across the middle of the park, which would also subdivide the current mall property into 2, and lead to Overlea Blvd.


Ultimately I'd like to see a much finer-grained street grid on that site, but that would be a huge improvement for now.

Most of the retail on the site could be redone as free-standing 'pods' of stores, ideally facing the surrounding streets or the new streets, pending future redevelopment, with surface parking on the balance.

Said parking to be undergrounded, as intensification occurs.

***

The community centre is grossly undersized for the area, the library somewhat.

I'd love to see them moved to the mall property, facing the new street and the park.

This would allow for upsizing the facilities to meet community needs, but would also free up the existing site to become a new, large, much more visible and safe access to RV Burgess Park.

***

Finally, I think the ravine access is noted for its deficiencies.........but there are some other changes needed. Some of the adjacent open space needs to be added so that a dedicated ped/bike trail can be added adjacent to the driveway. The current access does not leave one feeling safe on foot or 2 wheels and has serious visibility issues as well.

Finally, I would add one or two new park accesses beside the Overlea bridge over the West Don/ET Seton Park.

The east side, beside Valley Park school is already used as an entrance by local students.......but there are no stairs or path and the hill is quite steep. I'm sure injuries are too regular an occurrence.

A formal staircase w/bike channel would be ideal.

An entrance on west side would mean a bridge across the river as well, and would cut through some not 1/2 bad forest...............but I think its worth considering............there is ample open space beside the Leaside Towers.....

There is an opportunity to formalize existing informal access and reduce erosion, while removing some non-native and invasive species.

That's must my 5c.......

All excellent suggestions. Well thought out.
 
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The departure of Target, and the seeming inability to lease the space to any other large retailer (the former Zellers space will, apparently be “re-merchandised” into multi-unit space at some point, says Morguard), has probably put the viability of the East York Town Centre on the line (see articles here and here). The eventual opening of the Costco across the street will not help matters, and I doubt it will draw new customers to the mall. While a neighbourhood mall full of affordable, independent retailers would certainly have its appeal, I am not sure that will happen here. Morguard must surely be considered some sort of redevelopment in the long-term.
 
A new urban farm is setting up shop in the Gatineau Hydro Corridor within Flemingdon Park.

 
Thought I revive this thread... Eglinton LRT is almost built (hopefully) and Ontario Line will be passing by this community by 2031 ish. Flemo has already started its gentrification process and I assume Thorncliffe Park will in the coming years.

This area will become booming in the coming years with 2 major transit lines coming.

Flemo pic
IMG_0307.JPG
 

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