Toronto Ontario Place | ?m | ?s | Infrastructure ON

[steveintoronto]

MONORAIL ON THE TABLE!!!!!!

Sorry for the random colours, I just needed to vent about how ludicrous this is. Un-paywalled story from QP Briefing:

In the meeting at Queen’s Park, Tibollo also raised the idea of a monorail, referencing the one at Disney’s 123-hectare EPCOT Center in Florida. Unprompted, the minister raised the possibility during a discussion about easing transportation difficulties around Ontario Place. He said there should be a link to Union Station and that a monorail, as an example, could serve both the Ontario Place and Exhibition Grounds.

MINISTER REPEATEDLY CALLS STATE OF ONTARIO PLACE 'SHAMEFUL' IN CLOSED-DOOR MEETING: SOURCES

And just yesterday:

Lol, people here have gone from Railway Stations to homes on Toronto Islands

I call that prescience, not absurdity on the part of some of us posters. The absurdity though is best left to the experts...

 

[3Dementia]

Satire: my limp attempt was a search for intelligent life on planet UT. The goal is to make the reader laugh, then be horrified.

And take action. the media is our only friend here. Write to the Star, Globe and even the Sun. If you have video -CTV, CBC, Global and Citytv.

If a UT tempest in a teapot was articulated and published.. good first step. It's not too soon.

I'll do my bit. Any other voices out there? All the best.

 

[Blovertis]

I get that the Simpsons has stigmatized monorails for all time and, sure, it's a PC minister talking, but give Tibollo credit for grasping the essential problem: Ontario Place's isolation from the rest of the city. Haven't numerous posters on this thread made exactly the same point, bemoaning the lack of transit to OP?

As for Tibollo's description of the condition of OP as "shameful"? Well, that's just a simple statement of fact.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The problem we have is that Lake Shore Blvd. W. cuts off Exhibition Place from Ontario Place. Used to be there was no through roadway by the lake. From link.

1921.

Then they started to landfill into the lake for the Lake Shore Blvd..

1928.

 

[DSC]

From: https://ontarioplaceforall.com/?utm...l&utm_term=0_95833c94db-3ba62cfb55-1245288389

How can you help?
There are a number of ways

1. Spread the word. Forward this message to your friends and networks and urge them to sign up and support Ontario Place For All.
2. Follow along. Like the Ontario Place For All Facebook page and follow us on Twitter. Our handle is @OnPlace4all. On Instagram , you can find us at @ontarioplace4all.
3. If you have agreed to volunteer, Save the Date of Feb. 6th, 7-9 pm for Ontario Place for All’s organizational meeting at the historic St. Lawrence Hall. Volunteer to help us stop the government’s plans.
4. Donate: Make a contribution at our website to support our work.
5. Contribute: Submit your ideas for Ontario Place to the government at OntarioPlaceDevelopment@infrastructureontario.ca.

Ontario Place for All Principles


Ontario Place for All believes the following principles should guide any changes to Ontario Place:

• Ontario Place must be for ALL and kept publicly accessible.
• Before any changes, there must be a thoughtful, comprehensive public review, with a full and robust public consultation.
• Public interest, not commercial interest must drive the new vision.
• No casino.
• Future plans must:
• • acknowledge the waterfront’s Indigenous heritage.
  • maintain Ontario Place as part of Toronto’s waterfront park system.
  • be integrated with the revitalization of Exhibition Place.
  • Celebrate Ontario.

The government is wrong if it thinks Ontario Place is “disgraceful” and in “complete disrepair”. More than 1.4 million people visited Ontario Place last year, and that doesn’t include the attendance at the Budweiser Stage.

Let’s make sure Ontario Place continues to grow and thrive.

 

[Edward Skira]

I get that the Simpsons has stigmatized monorails for all time and, sure, it's a PC minister talking, but give Tibollo credit for grasping the essential problem: Ontario Place's isolation from the rest of the city. Haven't numerous posters on this thread made exactly the same point, bemoaning the lack of transit to OP?

During the good years transportation to Ontario Place was no better than today. People got there. The problem is there's not enough there to get people to go.

 

[W. K. Lis]

During the good years transportation to Ontario Place was no better than today. People got there. The problem is there's not enough there to get people to go.

The streetcar loop was moved to under the Gardiner Expressway, making for a further walk to get to Ontario Place. Bad decision from a transit user point-of-view.

 

[steveintoronto]

give Tibollo credit for grasping the essential problem: Ontario Place's isolation from the rest of the city. Haven't numerous posters on this thread made exactly the same point, bemoaning the lack of transit to OP?

I wouldn't give him the.....

Best I start again: There are *already plans* far more sensible, doable, and rational than a "monorail". In all due respect to the present regime in QP: Talent on the benches is absent, let alone in the backrooms save for the Machiavellian Masters.

How prominent a point does it have to be other than a feature in the Globe and Mail and elsewhere in the past? Perhaps if Ministers weren't such morons, the following wouldn't have to be pointed out to them, but alas:

URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Transit clouds Ontario Place vision
Open this photo in gallery:
John Tory, chair of CivicAction, announces the Ontario Place revitalization plans for the now closed park.
DEBORAH BAIC/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
JANE SWITZER
PUBLISHED JULY 27, 2012 UPDATED APRIL 30, 2018

Amid the fanfare over the new vision for Ontario Place and its inclusion of mixed-use residential development onsite, concerns are being voiced by politicians and urban designers about how the transit needs of residents and visitors will be met and paid for.
Direct TTC bus service, a new LRT line and a local streetcar loop are recommendations included in a 55-page report by the panel charged with making over the shuttered tourist attraction.
The panel, chaired by CivicAction head John Tory, recommends public-private partnerships to fund new lines in the underserved area. The TTC's 29 Dufferin bus route is currently the only direct transit link to Ontario Place and has irregular summer and non-summer hours.
[...]
The panel also proposes extending the current streetcar loop from Exhibition Place farther south through Ontario Place, an addition provincial transit authority Metrolinx estimates will cost $100-million.

Mr. Tory said that although the pricetag is hefty, any option is preferable to the current lack of transit.

"It's certainly unacceptable for a much more active site like we contemplate in our report where people actually live, study, work and come there to visit," he said.

However, he noted that public-private partnerships to raise the funds may be tricky. Mr. Tory warned against Ontario Place becoming a "wall of high-rise condos" in exchange for money from developers to be funnelled towards transit.

"They'll say, 'We'll give you an extra $25-million to help enhance transit, but you have to let us build 10 more storeys on those buildings,'" Mr. Tory explained. "Even then, if I was sitting at the government table, I would say, 'No thank you.'"
[...]
Ken Greenberg, a Toronto architect who worked as a consultant on a 2004 report about the future of Ontario Place, said the proposed LRT line and streetcar loop would benefit not only Ontario Place, but the Exhibition and Liberty Village as well.

Keeping the space public, opening pedestrian and transit access and rejecting over-commercialization will bring Ontario Place back to its roots, he said. However, he said, it's easier to write reports than to execute them.[...]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/transit-clouds-ontario-place-vision/article4446457/

Oddly, a monorail wasn't even mentioned once, or even breathed on moron breath...the morons didn't arrive until half a decade later.

Here's a concept for the 'Intelligentsia' (Phhhh) at QP: Do some reading before opening your idiotic mouths on...well....on *anything*. And to make my stance clear, I've voted Conservative when I've voted in this nation. That's when they were minimally at average intelligence...

 

[DSC]

From Built Heritage Newsletter:

HOW TO SAVE ONTARIO PLACE is in print, updated, with DOUG FORD'S HEX ON HERITAGE in NOW Magazine, January, 24-30, 2019, pp 6-7
and online, at: https://nowtoronto.com/news/doug-ford-ontario-place-waterfront-toronto-casino/

The Ontario Place Statement of Cultural Heritage Value that was deleted from the provincial governments website last week has been recovered, courtesy the Wayback machine. It is now at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181224082541/http://www.mtc.gov.on.ca/en/ontarioplace/heritagestatement.shtml.

The statement was replaced with:
Transforming Ontario Place: https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-place

The provincial governments guidelines for properties in its care are at:
Ministry of Tourism, Culture & Sport Standards & Guidelines for Conservation of Provincial Heritage Properties:
http://www.mtc.gov.on.ca/en/publications/Standards_Conservation.pdf see, especially: D.Maintenance, E.Use, F.Disposal

If you have IDEAS that would revitalize Ontario Place, make it self-sustaining, active and productive year-round with its machine in the garden character intact, send them to: OntarioPlaceDevelopment@infrastructureontario.ca as well as to your local MP, MPP and Councillor and to: letters@nowtoronto.com

If you have ideas that would revitalize Exhibition Place with Ontario Place, send them too!


You don't know or you've forgotten Ontario Place?
Visit (with your skates) the Winter Light Exhibition at Ontario Place:http://ontarioplace.com/en/winterlightexhibition/
or see a movie at the Cinesphere, the worlds first IMAX theatre: http://ontarioplace.com/en/Cinesphere/
Access: http://ontarioplace.com/en/visit-us/directions-transit/
Easiest on foot: from Exhibition Place, across the bridge over Lakeshore Boulevard.
Most beautiful: across Lakeshore Boulevard south of the Princes Gates, south to the Inukshuk, south to the William G. Davis Trail moccasin marker, west through Trillium Park to Ontario Place.

For more about Trillium Park and The Bentway:
https://nowtoronto.com/news/trillium-park-the-magic-carpet-that-flies-us-back-to-ontario/
https://nowtoronto.com/news/the-bentway-busts-out-in-a-big-way/
for previous articles in NOW magazine:
https://nowtoronto.com/topics/richard-longley/
Remember: Ontario Place is yours to re-discover.

Richard Longley, Former President Architectural Conservancy Ontario

 

[cc46]

2nd try

 

[adma]

I get that the Simpsons has stigmatized monorails for all time and, sure, it's a PC minister talking, but give Tibollo credit for grasping the essential problem: Ontario Place's isolation from the rest of the city. Haven't numerous posters on this thread made exactly the same point, bemoaning the lack of transit to OP?


As for Tibollo's description of the condition of OP as "shameful"? Well, that's just a simple statement of fact.

Re isolation: how about an Ikea/Porter-style shuttle from the loop or wherever? A lot cheaper than a monorail. (And in fact, the reiteration of monorail/ferris wheel/casino trope is tedious--neither of them would, in and of themselves, wreck Ontario Place. The real argument against a monorail is a bread-not-circuses argument.)

And as for "shameful", that shouldn't equate with "unsalvageable"

But it's interesting how destination-tourism focused the thrust seems to be, i.e. definitely aiming "for the people" who go to Florida for the beaches and the theme parks and outlet malls rather than the, uh, "culture"--I wouldn't be surprised if even with their Florida abode/business/whatever, the Fords have never been to Miami Beach's Art Deco district--too Jewy-turned-faggy, or something

 

[APTA-2048]

Re isolation: how about an Ikea/Porter-style shuttle from the loop or wherever?

The Aurora festival did this. Two mini school buses going from the GO stn to the pedestrian bridge every 5-10 mins. The Dufferin bus also gets you pretty close, but you have to cross the parking lot.

 

[salsa]

MONORAIL ON THE TABLE!!!!!!

In the meeting at Queen’s Park, Tibollo also raised the idea of a monorail, referencing the one at Disney’s 123-hectare EPCOT Center in Florida. Unprompted, the minister raised the possibility during a discussion about easing transportation difficulties around Ontario Place. He said there should be a link to Union Station and that a monorail, as an example, could serve both the Ontario Place and Exhibition Grounds.

Wouldn't simply rerouting a portion of the planned waterfront LRT along Lake Shore Blvd get the job done, without any of this ridiculous monorail talk?

 

[Torontovibe]

For those who forget what Ontario Place was like, watch the videos

OP today

I've been advocating for OP since the Liberals closed it down!

 

[W. K. Lis]

One agreement we have is that we need better transit access to Ontario Place. The original Ontario Place had parking lots or bridges over w-i-d-e roadways as the first "scenery" we have a vision facing us when we arrive.