Toronto Expo 2025

[pman]

Keep your eyes to the ground, Toronto. Aspirational ideas are for socialist tools. It's time we concentrated on potholes and sewer repairs and left city-building to developers and private enterprise.

Maybe if we weren't total crap at the pothole and sewer repair stuff people might have more tolerance for insanely expensive vanity projects like Expo or the Olympics.

 

[animatronic]

Keep your eyes to the ground, Toronto. Aspirational ideas are for socialist tools. It's time we concentrated on potholes and sewer repairs and left city-building to developers and private enterprise.

A truly comprehensive transit network is highly aspirational, particularly around here. Let's focus on real solutions to real problems.

 

[steveintoronto]

@mdrejhon and @TOareaFan: the Expo thread is here.

@steveintoronto: if you could avoid making off-topic, highly debatable, and inflammatory generalizations, it would be appreciated. Thanks!

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I removed a comparison to people inviting their own misfortune, but the rest is *highly* relevant, been discussed many times as MD alludes to with the UPX debacle. Perhaps the inference of repeating that by aiming for yet another sports event based deadline is not apparent with the 2025 reference?

Globe and Mail, Feb 12, 2016:
[...][Plans for an express airport rail link have long been kicked around, and the idea it would pay for itself became entrenched along the way. It was politicians who decided – back when the private sector was going to build it – to include the train in the bid book for last year’s Pan Am Games. Metrolinx was told by the provincial government to build a high-end train service; so it did.][...]
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...not-metrolinx-for-upx-fiasco/article28751913/

Steve Munro devoted a page to it:
http://stevemunro.ca/2015/09/21/evolution-demand-union-pearson-express/

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

I think the likelihood of Toronto hosting Expo 2025 are slim and none because of Walt Disney World. Americans aren't likely to come her to see other countries pavilions as they can go to Epcot in Walt Disney World to do that. Plus a people have pointed out no one really cares about world Expos anymore other than the host country.

 

[steveintoronto]

Very good points Fan. I think a segment of the population will support it, they'll support anything that allows them to jump up and down and be part of a mob, but many cities are now thinking this through, and more are declining after studying their books, and the books of those that have.

The day of the Expo has gone, ditto almost any circus. If there's a case to made for infrastructure investment *That Alone* is what must be acted on, not some jump-up rah rah.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

The day of the Expo has gone, ditto almost any circus. If there's a case to made for infrastructure investment *That Alone* is what must be acted on, not some jump-up rah rah.

Hear, hear. And Toronto has a huge amount of infrastructure investment going on or in the pipeline. I'd like the Liberals infrastructur acceleration include the Don spillway, but a Portlands World Fair would 50/50 chance of derailing rather than accelerating WT's plans.

 

[animatronic]

I think the likelihood of Toronto hosting Expo 2025 are slim and none because of Walt Disney World. Americans aren't likely to come her to see other countries pavilions as they can go to Epcot in Walt Disney World to do that. Plus a people have pointed out no one really cares about world Expos anymore other than the host country.

The lack of attention is a big risk. If/when we pile into 2025 we will instantly be one of the front-runners. Combine that with total local apathy and we've got another Pan Am waste of time on our hands - which we won with a last minute bid snuck in against a very weak field.

 

[CodeMonkey]

Alright, here is what I don't get. After spending billions on the Pan-Am games, and bragging how great and memorable it was, we pass up the opportunity to host the bigger world event called the Summer Olympics, citing that hosting another one time event will be a waste of money that would be better spent elsewhere, only to-do about face and saying hosting the World Expo, another Olympic size one time spending event will be beneficial, because...????

 

[interchange42]

Because the organizers believe that a six-month long event has a far better return with millions more tourists expected.

42

 

[Tuscani01]

I'd like the Liberals infrastructur acceleration include the Don spillway, but a Portlands World Fair would 50/50 chance of derailing rather than accelerating WT's plans.

Not really. A World's Fair would speed up the necessary infrastructure investments required to make the Portlands suitable for development. The buildings and pavillions are largely temporary and won't hamper future development of the land at all. The only thing preventing development is the lack of infrastructure, remediation, and flood protection... neither of these have any funding to solve at the moment and definitely are not likely to be solved by 2025 without an immediate reason to do so.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Not really. A World's Fair would speed up the necessary infrastructure investments required to make the Portlands suitable for development. The buildings and pavillions are largely temporary and won't hamper future development of the land at all. The only thing preventing development is the lack of infrastructure, remediation, and flood protection... neither of these have any funding to solve at the moment and definitely are not likely to be solved by 2025 without an immediate reason to do so.

Call me skeptical. This is a Doug's Ferris wheel project. Assuming that the City powers-that-be don't try to muscle out Waterfront Toronto, the flood protection could be done as per WT and we could end up with their vision. But it's just as likely that some bright light will say "well, we don't have to protect X, Y, or Z, just the World's Fair site" and take money better spent elsewhere to build a 'temporary' berm to protect the temporary structures.

If we took all the dollars that would be spent on the World's Fair and the Gardiner re-build, and used them to fund WT's plans, we could have a developable soap plant site, a developable Portlands, the spillway/parklands would be in place, and the east end of downtown would be a thriving business/commercial/retail/housing community for the benefit of all Toronto. Or we could have a really big version of the Ex.

 

[ADRM]

Call me skeptical. This is a Doug's Ferris wheel project. Assuming that the City powers-that-be don't try to muscle out Waterfront Toronto, the flood protection could be done as per WT and we could end up with their vision. But it's just as likely that some bright light will say "well, we don't have to protect X, Y, or Z, just the World's Fair site" and take money better spent elsewhere to build a 'temporary' berm to protect the temporary structures.

If we took all the dollars that would be spent on the World's Fair and the Gardiner re-build, and used them to fund WT's plans, we could have a developable soap plant site, a developable Portlands, the spillway/parklands would be in place, and the east end of downtown would be a thriving business/commercial/retail/housing community for the benefit of all Toronto. Or we could have a really big version of the Ex.

I don't think it's right to characterize this as a Ford ferris wheel project—that was a vanity project based on no actual reasoning other than a desire to great something big and flashy because neither of the Fords know/knew much about anything. On the flip side, these efforts are being led my some very capable and intelligent people who care about the city and want to see the pace of redevelopment of a long-derelict site rapidly expedited (among other things).

It'd sure be awesome if "If we took all the dollars that would be spent on the World's Fair and the Gardiner re-build, and used them to fund WT's plans..." was a tenable option, but Council is orders of magnitude too shortsighted and small-thinking to make that a reality. The city demonstrated that it can use a large-scale international event of sorts to kickstart redevelopment plans and infrastructure spending (sort of) with the Pan Ams, and it's not wholly unreasonable to expect that similar efforts can be replicated and expanded upon in this case. Council can't even fully fund the TTC operating budget, let alone dozens of billions of dollars worth of transit, flood protection, and district-creation.

To an earlier comment, the benefit of pivoting off of an Expo as opposed to an Olympics is that, among many other factors, the Summer Olympics have become a ludicrously expensive ordeal of a magnitude that isn't really seen with any other type of event. (There are also a whole bunch of practical limitations to an Olympic bid, including the fact that Toronto has no existing stadium that could serve as an Olympic stadium, and would have no use for one if one was purpose built.)

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Council funded WT once. It can do it again. And, I'm sorry, but the World's Fair planning is being spearheaded by a first term councillor, no? That someone is more competent than Doug Ford is a very low hurdle, and leaves lots of room for white elephants and misspent dollars.

And I'm one of the few people on this forum that actually loved UPX from the start!

 

[CodeMonkey]

Because the organizers believe that a six-month long event has a far better return with millions more tourists expected.

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It just hit me! Six months would cover over a lot of existing popular events that already draw million of tourists if you add them all up. From Caribana to Taste of the Danforth and CNE to TIFF and all the events in between would easily filter through the World Expo, guaranteeing an success.

 

[Skeezix]

I don't think it's right to characterize this as a Ford ferris wheel project—that was a vanity project based on no actual reasoning other than a desire to great something big and flashy because neither of the Fords know/knew much about anything.

Agreed. But it was more insidious than that. The Westfield Group was in the background, not to mention various parties vying for an NFL franchise. Doug Ford's plan was all about getting large-scale retail, likely in the form of flood-proofed big box with surface parking, built in the Portlands, with the proceeds potentially helping fund a stadium. The ferris wheel/monorail was all window-dressing to distract from an underwhelming, suburban-style development and the fact that a lot of moneyed interest were keen to benefit from the retail and possible NFL franchise. Dougie was making deals behind the scenes to rapidly develop with the Portlands with mostly low-cost/high-profit commercial development.

I think that collectively we forget how awful it truly was, and all we remember was the crazy ferris wheel idea.