Toronto The Bentway (was Under Gardiner) | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

[Jacob Lisgar]

Just thought I would share a little bit of history with everyone. Under The Gardiner was previously conceptualized in a 2004 document titled Fort York Neighbourhood Public Realm Plan.
The new proponents of The Bentway simply brought some money and specific ideas on how they thought this space should be development.
With all the talk of lack of park space downtown, the mounting development contributions that cannot be spent because land is too expensive to buy, and wonderfully expensive ideas such as Rail Deck Park, it makes one wonder why the city didn't just spend its own money on this space.
The city is talking about spending a billion dollars on raildeck park when right under its nose it was sitting on about ten acres of land under the Gardiner Expressway which was given away to private interests. The city easily could have development park land under here with its own money, but for some reason private money and private ideas where better. Another interesting thing to note is that once the new Bentway idea was proposed, suddenly the city had 10,000,000$ to contribute, most of which will probably go to pay for a bridge crossing that was never a necessity.
Link to For york Plan, enjoy.
http://www.fortyork.ca/images/management-docs/fort-york-public-realm-plan-2004.pdf

 

[AnonymousInvestigations]

We have information to pass on.


The result of the online vote to choose the Under Gardiner's new name is illegitimate. We are in possession of information detailing how members of Waterfront Toronto (unbeknownst to its senior management) had decided on the name "The Bentway" before the vote and how it manipulated the online survey to meet the result that it wanted while making it appear as though the public had chosen this name.


The first vote originated with The Bentway already thousands of "votes" ahead. During the contest, The Artery accumulated votes approaching The Bentway's. In a last minute surge of interest at the end of the contest, The Artery ended up winning but the website was taken down.


In a run off vote, we monitored significant activity to the vote site originating from an IP attributed to 20 Bay Street. A jailbroken iPhone was recorded with the following activity during the runoff vote:

Embedded media from this media site is no longer available

We have watched you and the high interest in this topic on this forum and we find that your members are noble and understanding of civic responsibility. We trust that you will take action.


Keep your public institutions accountable.


We are Anonymous.

 

[Tulse]

I think it's far worse to spy on someone's phone than it is to rig a naming contest.

 

[PinkLucy]

I don't know about members of Waterfront Toronto, but I think Ken Greenberg was a big fan of the name. Rigging an outcome that received less than 5,000 votes if I remember correctly? Would it be worth it?

 

[Skeezix]

The Russians hacked it. Putin also prefers the Bentway.

 

[interchange42]

I talked with Ken about this at a public consultation, and told me he far preferred the working name. Maybe out of the ones that were on the table The Bentway was his pick, but he was not in favour of the renaming in general.

42

 

[Tulse]

I'd have preferred "Under Gardiner" as well, but I'm sure we'll get used to The Bentway.

 

[PinkLucy]

I talked with Ken about this at a public consultation, and told me he far preferred the working name. Maybe out of the ones that were on the table The Bentway was his pick, but he was not in favour of the renaming in general.

42

Interesting, that wasn't the impression I got but that could be a timing thing. I also preferred the working name because it just fits. Maybe if they had called it Project 123 a rename would have made more sense, but Under Gardiner just fit.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

From the WT Finance Committee Meeting:

http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/uplo..._1_project_update_11_30_16_consolidated_1.pdf

AoD

 

[MetroMan]

From the WT Finance Committee Meeting:

http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/uplo..._1_project_update_11_30_16_consolidated_1.pdf

AoD

Well, that sucks. The elevated Fort York crossing has been deferred and a "temporary trail" is being built instead. Yeah... temporary.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Well, that sucks. The elevated Fort York crossing has been deferred and a "temporary trail" is being built instead. Yeah... temporary.

I think it is being paid by the city - and it will open a few months later if the funding is confirmed.

AoD

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

Well, that sucks. The elevated Fort York crossing has been deferred and a "temporary trail" is being built instead. Yeah... temporary.

I went on one of the walking tours and found it absurd that a grade-separated crossing was proposed for Fort York but not Bathurst. Anecdotally, Bathurst seems like the crazier crossing.

 

[ADRM]

Well, that sucks. The elevated Fort York crossing has been deferred and a "temporary trail" is being built instead. Yeah... temporary.

Ugh, yeah, what a horrendous idea: "Hey, let's funnel out a whole bunch of people who just used our partly constructed new public space into a viciously dangerous roadway." That's a very Toronto way to unveil a thing.

 

[P23]

We have information to pass on.


The result of the online vote to choose the Under Gardiner's new name is illegitimate. We are in possession of information detailing how members of Waterfront Toronto (unbeknownst to its senior management) had decided on the name "The Bentway" before the vote and how it manipulated the online survey to meet the result that it wanted while making it appear as though the public had chosen this name.


The first vote originated with The Bentway already thousands of "votes" ahead. During the contest, The Artery accumulated votes approaching The Bentway's. In a last minute surge of interest at the end of the contest, The Artery ended up winning but the website was taken down.


In a run off vote, we monitored significant activity to the vote site originating from an IP attributed to 20 Bay Street. A jailbroken iPhone was recorded with the following activity during the runoff vote:

Embedded media from this media site is no longer available

We have watched you and the high interest in this topic on this forum and we find that your members are noble and understanding of civic responsibility. We trust that you will take action.


Keep your public institutions accountable.


We are Anonymous.

Not surprised if it's true. The fact they redid the poll for such an inconsequential competition was really odd. Then again, online poll manipulation is pretty commonplace, but nobody really cares since online polls rarely have any real impact.

 

[Tuscani01]

RE: The lack of funding for the pedestrian bridge... Did the team reach out to the feds at all for infrastructure funding? It seems like this project would have no trouble securing funding with how far along it is in planning, and how soon it will be completed.