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

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Tewder:

Is there anything more 'civilized' than beautiful parks and gardens and canopies of trees in urban spaces? Ditch the green roofs and all the other questionable 'green' policies and direct the funds to something that will truly make the city healthier and more sustainable for its citizens... okay, roof gardens would be nice too.

No offense, but this comment is rather - for the lack of a better word - misguided. Beautiful gardens and parks doesn't necessarily deal with the environmental issues (such as runoff or heat island effect); nor is beautiful necessarily "green" - just think golf courses. Throwing buzzwords like healthy or sustainable without knowing what it meant is misleading, to say the least.

AoD

 

[Tewder]

Actually if cared for correctly and responsibly, these things can be wonderfully uplifting and healthy for the city (providing oxygen, shade to control heat, etc. etc.). It's not just about gardens and parks but about tree canopies along streets and thoroughfares and natural sustainable plantings (native plants and grasses rather than fussy specimens etc) to feed on all that gorgeous green bin compost we are generating. If we want our city streets to be urban and inviting we need more of this.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Tewder:

Totally agree - personally, I think we need both beautiful, well maintained public spaces and city programs that are targeted towards less sexy but no less important programs like green bins, recycling, downsprout disconnect and green/cool roofs. It's not an either/or in my books - just think say, the difficulty in maintaining street trees in an environment with extremely high salt use. A green program targeted towards the latter, which at first sounded boring, could turn out to be quite important.

AoD

 

[Tewder]

Absolutely AoD, and I think people can 'own' the process and will embrace the various efforts when they are seeing and enjoying the benefits of the greenery everywhere around them.

 

[DSC]

From City of Toronto Road information - I assume they are re-doing the roadway and utilities here as the final (?) stage of the sidewalk project?

CHURCH STREET – TORONTO AND EAST YORK DISTRICT
At BLOOR STREET EAST. Church Street will be fully closed due to road work.
START DATE: Friday April 17th, 2009
COMPLETION DATE: Monday April 20th, 2009
HOURS of WORK: 12:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. Continuously
TRAFFIC IMPACT: SEVERE

 

[drum118]

The eastbound lanes were close at Church St as well Church including both sides of Bloor St.

Concrete was been pour Sat and paving of the intersection was done Sunday. Concrete work is almost up to the Bay.

Lost History of TTC Streetcar system past was found and removed.

The east bound Bloor Streetcar tracks as well tracks and switches to Church St were removed. Most of the track is in the south-east cor of the intersection.

 

[drum118]

April 19

Concrete pour for eastbound lanes

TTC Streetcar track that were pave over in the 60's for Bloor St as well Church St

Church St pave

April 18

 

[MetroMan]

Lookin' good.

I wish we'd see something like this happen on Queen St. Not exactly granite, but a uniform look with interesting materials (not patchy cement sidewalks) and a tree roots system that would allow them to mature.

Are there BIA's on Queen?

 

[299 bloor call control.]

There's no BIA for Queen West, the closest would be the Entertainment District BIA, which includes the CTV Death Star. However, further down there's West Queen West and Parkdale Village.

 

[barrytron3030]

queen doesn't need revitalizing (although i'm always in favour of adding trees anywhere).

yonge needs an injection of greenery. all of those billboards, tv screens and black lampposts can't hide it's true face.

and let's not forget bay street. that boy is but ugly. it's a good thing he has a loving mother in UTF.

 

[torontoguy]

Fantastic...looks like dundas sq materials all over again. Maybe equally inspired. So glad we look beyond toronto architects to build this city.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

torontoguy:

So glad we look beyond toronto architects to build this city.

Actually both Dundas Square and Bloor Street Revitalization are designed by Toronto-based architects - Brown & Storey and architectsAlliance.

AoD

 

[grey]

Photos taken on Friday:

 

[jb007]

green is good. im in singapore right now and the greenery here is fantastic. it really transforms the city. tbh, TO needs to learn how to imitate the condos here too; all are perfect (apart from price - avg price for a 2bd is about 2mill+)

 

[Xarina]

Btw, since we've been talking street trees in this thread...

All the saplings that were struggling on Yonge St. beside the Eaton Centre were cut down last week. Anyone know why? I know they weren't super healthy but I looked at the tiny little trunk stumps and they looked fine.

And anyone who thinks that trees can't survive the salt... we need to find out why Chicago's street-trees seem to do just fine... I know they use salt there. Anyone know?

(Finally... widening the south sidewalk of Bloor across from the Bay? I wonder how well it will be used considering that the sunny side of the street is the north side - or is it because it was just for easier traffic flow?)