Toronto-Astral Street Furniture Program

[CityPainter]

I saw a big flatbed truck a couple weeks ago on King West, which was half full of these shiny new black bins and half full of the old dirty bulbous ones that had just been removed. I was so happy I took pictures of the truck with my phone, to the puzzlement of those on the streetcar beside me. These new ones look much more sensible in every way, from the fact that they are square and not uselessly rounded, the fact that they are black and hence less likely to show stains, the fact that they don't have a breakable pedal mechanism, and the fact that they have only two holes to choose from rather than three (besides, everyone throws all kinds of waste into all the holes no matter what is "supposed" to go in there anyway.)

A new type of bin is replacing the ugly Toys R Us plastic bins. I like these:

View attachment 16481

They're made of metal and match the newspaper boxes and other street furniture design in this program. The round garbage bins never seemed to fit in, and now it looks like they'll be gone. The new bins don't have pedals or flaps to break. The holes are small enough that racoons won't fit in but I won't be surprised if a squirrel is found in there every now and then.

 

[JasonParis]

Huge improvement, but it still makes one shake their head at awarding Astral the contract based on the original ones.

BTW, Bell Out-of-Home now owns the contract due to Bell's now-successful completion of the Astral deal. Not sure if this will change what we see on T.O.'s streets at all.

 

[christiesplits]

Is there a reason why black street furniture is placed on some streets rather than others? Is this a decision made by the city or BIA?

And has anyone noticed when riding the Spadina streetcar northbound that the Astral trash cans change colours periodically at each shelter?

 

[ShonTron]

Is there a reason why black street furniture is placed on some streets rather than others? Is this a decision made by the city or BIA?

I'm pretty sure it's the BIA. Downtown-Yonge and Bloor-Yorkville both specifically prefer black Downtown-Yonge even paid for black light standards. I wish it was the standard rather than grey.

I'd also change our traffic lights to have black backings rather than yellow (York Region uses grey, which also works in suburban settings, matches the poles and arms) and at least Hamilton-style yellow/black signals, if not all-black at the front. On Yonge and Bloor, all-black should match the street furniture.

The Ontario MUTCD specifically calls for yellow backplates except for historical or special circumstances, which allows Richmond Hill, Kingston and Kincardine to go with all black signals for their downtown cores, but does not specifically state casings or backplates. So some jurisdictions have gone with grey backings, others such as Hamilton (and now Waterloo Region) go for black casings with yellow backplates. Sudbury's signals installed in the last 15 years or so have grey backings and Hamilton-style fronts.

 

[Johnny Au]

The new ones would allow people to lay broadsheet newspapers on them to read.

 

[christiesplits]

I'm pretty sure it's the BIA. Downtown-Yonge and Bloor-Yorkville both specifically prefer black Downtown-Yonge even paid for black light standards. I wish it was the standard rather than grey.

This city does have an odd fascination with grey in its history of street furniture. I would include utility poles to that as well.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

A new type of bin is replacing the ugly Toys R Us plastic bins. I like these:



They're made of metal and match the newspaper boxes and other street furniture design in this program. The round garbage bins never seemed to fit in, and now it looks like they'll be gone. The new bins don't have pedals or flaps to break. The holes are small enough that racoons won't fit in but I won't be surprised if a squirrel is found in there every now and then.

I've seen these in a few places but briefly thought that they were just temporary replacements. Nice! Every single garbage bin around where I live is broken or damaged in one way or another, it's great to see that the flaps and peddles are gone - and that they are metal. Good move forward, now we need more of them to replace all the original steel bins. We lost perhaps 30-40% of the bins to place garbage into when the old one's were slowly being removed before the Astral contract was settled, but all locations were never replaced.
Btw, I'm betting that racoons can definitely get into these, they can squeeze into very tight spots.

 

[khris]

Wow, these new ones are so much nicer!

 

[christiesplits]

Poorly coordinated street furniture on Queen West. Taken from streetcar so I apologize for quality.

 

[christiesplits]

Spotted at Brant & Richmond.

 

[MetroMan]

Why can't just stick to the dark grey? Why the need for two colours? Haven't they figured out that light coloured garbage bins look filthy real quick and are a tag magnet?

 

[allabootmatt]

Can't tell fromthe photo; what color is the top of the new light-colored ones? Is it the same gunmetal-grey as the rest of the bin, or the sickly teal from the retired R2D2 models? Havent yet seen in person.

 

[christiesplits]

Can't tell fromthe photo; what color is the top of the new light-colored ones? Is it the same gunmetal-grey as the rest of the bin, or the sickly teal from the retired R2D2 models? Havent yet seen in person.

Pretty sure it was the sickly teal. Really unfortunate. I am with MM they should make all of them black.

 

[allabootmatt]

Black is the default color of new street furniture, lampposts and the like in almost every major North American city except Toronto, including Montreal and New York. I think it almost always looks sharper. What is it with our obsession with grey?

 

[taal]

Black is the default color of new street furniture, lampposts and the like in almost every major North American city except Toronto, including Montreal and New York. I think it almost always looks sharper. What is it with our obsession with grey?

Yonge street's lights are all black, I actually like the lights a lot, the only nice thing about Yonge (from a public realm point of view).