Toronto Bloor Street Revitalization | ?m | ?s | Bloor-Yorkville BIA | architectsAlliance

South side of Bloor between Church and Yonge:

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Yeah, like they're worth peanuts or something. (Hey, I made a funny. "Planters". "Peanuts". Hahaha)
 
I just hope they're not destroyed and treated badly by the city workers like the rest of our sidewalks. Those ugly ashphalt marks they leave behind on sidewalks are so ugly.
 
That's not City workers, mostly. It's the utilities, like Hydro, Telus, etc., whom the City doesn't force to repair their damage. Making it yet another example of a thing we could change to make Toronto more attractive that would require zero public money.

I am hoping that the Bloor rebuild inspires other BIAs to push for revamps, if less lavish ones. The Junction should be the model for most neighbourhoods.
 
Oh right sorry. Didn't mean to blame the wrong people! The city should definitely make them fix it properly when they do that.
 
Oh they will ....

Read about the elaborate system they have created to enable the trees to survive. It's somewhere back in this thread.

If you saw some pics earlier on during construction there was some funky stuff going on that will help the roots of the trees apparently.
 
khristopher said:
Oh right sorry. Didn't mean to blame the wrong people! The city should definitely make them fix it properly when they do that.
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It's not that simple, as it involves constitutional questions. The telecommunications utilities are federally regulated, outside of the control of the city or even the province, and the courts have struck down past efforts by municipalities to control or prohibit the companies from digging up road allowances. There is, in fact, a public policy argument that the telecommunications works are important infrastructure, that Canada's ability to function in a digital world is more important than the appearance of one component of the streetscape, and that municipalities aren't necessarily appropriate gatekeepers for the installation and improvement of this sort of infrastructure (esp. since there are instances in the past, before all the issues had been fully litigated, where some municipalities effectively tried to hold the telcos to ransom for the right to excavate and install equipment in road allowances).

Having said all that, I agree that it looks terrible, and there has to be some better middle ground. It's not my area of law, and there may be an obligation on the telcos to restore the road allowance to its past state -- it could be that the city is not very effective in forcing the worst offenders to do more than just asphalt patches. I don't know. Is there someone that is more up on this topic?
 
khristopher said:
The city should definitely make them fix it properly when they do that.
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When a utility (or anyone) digs up the street or sidewalk they need a City permit. When they finish they make temporary repairs to the hole/trench/whatever and pay the city $$ to repair the 'utility cuts". Then every year the City uses this money to do the repairs which, in theory, are fully paid for by the utility and properly repaired to City standards by the City or its contractors.

You can see signs of this happening by looking at the white painted notes on the sidewalks/roads. A letter followed by a number. W=water, G=gas, TH=Toronto Hydro, B=Bell, R=Rogers etc etc. In order to do these repairs in a fairly organised way the City does one area at a time and usually does not do every area every year - in fact in 2008 they fixed some utility cuts on Front Street which I know were made in 2001. According to the City website their target is 18 months!
 
DSC said:
In order to do these repairs in a fairly organised way the City does one area at a time and usually does not do every area every year - in fact in 2008 they fixed some utility cuts on Front Street which I know were made in 2001. According to the City website their target is 18 months!
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Just in time for the utilities to be dug up again!
 
DSC said:
When a utility (or anyone) digs up the street or sidewalk they need a City permit. When they finish they make temporary repairs to the hole/trench/whatever and pay the city $$ to repair the 'utility cuts". Then every year the City uses this money to do the repairs which, in theory, are fully paid for by the utility and properly repaired to City standards by the City or its contractors.

You can see signs of this happening by looking at the white painted notes on the sidewalks/roads. A letter followed by a number. W=water, G=gas, TH=Toronto Hydro, B=Bell, R=Rogers etc etc. In order to do these repairs in a fairly organised way the City does one area at a time and usually does not do every area every year - in fact in 2008 they fixed some utility cuts on Front Street which I know were made in 2001. According to the City website their target is 18 months!
Click to expand...

So what happens in a case like the new Bloor St. They are laying down large granite paving stones. I don't think you can slap some asphalt on them when you're finished.
 
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