Public Realm in Canadian Cities - Developments

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by biguc

Many, if not most, metro stations in Europe have at least a little convenience kiosk, if not an array of takeout restaurants, grocery stores, porno shops, bars, you name it. Each of them pays rent to the transit agency. It probably goes a long way towards funding the upkeep of the stations, it's great for transit riders, and it's an asset for the neighbourhood.

Try that in a Canadian city though and we'd all have to hear about how the stripmall owner eight blocks away got robbed of KFC as a potential tenant, and that's on top of those damn bike lanes that took away all the customer parking.

I'm surprised Vancouver gets away with it as well as they do. Translink's funding model is a bit different though; they're a bit more arm's length than most city transit agencies.

Isn't there any retail in the Toronto subway?

Here in Montreal there is at least a convenience store in every station, and in the busier ones there is a pretty diverse collection of retail and food outlets.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Isn't there any retail in the Toronto subway?

Here in Montreal there is at least a convenience store in every station, and in the busier ones there is a pretty diverse collection of retail and food outlets.

Yeah, most of the busier stations have convenience and food kiosks.

Most famously the Warden Station patties:


https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/799037158867279398/


Eglinton also has a bustling little mall right above the platform level:


https://www.740cinema.com/new/2017/9...-lines-part-46

[biguc]

Originally Posted by rousseau

1972 called...


...and it wants its cliches back. I don't think anybody who's actually been to both Toronto and Montreal since 1972 would mistake which city is the more laissez-faire freewheeling one and which one is the more fustily bureaucratically top-down one.

The example that always stands out for me is how streetside parking is treated. In Montreal the parking spaces are carefully assigned with street markings for positioning your car and little bollard-like posts with your numbered space on them that you punch into the parking meter when you go to pay.

In Toronto? You try to squeeze in wherever you can between the parking signs along the block, and the only thing you do is indicate your intended parking time when you get a ticket.

The relaxation of the regulations surrounding alcohol is happening gradually. The reason that Toronto isn't an Asian city on that score yet is due to inertia and the fact that it's really not all that pressing a concern for most people. But people drink beer and wine in parks, and the police turn a blind eye.

Allowing rules to be bent instead of fastidiously enforcing them is classic anglosphere behaviour:



A comment under the article:

I'm not really pressing a Montreal-Toronto comparison. Please don't take my posts that way. Certain things about anglo-Canadian culture are annoying and stifling. I don't, for example, find anglos (in general) as good at turning a blind eye as you. If the Quebecois are about as bad at minding their own business as the rest of us, well, that's a shame.

[Innsertnamehere]

Toronto subway retail is laughably terrible and underinvested. I recall the TTC aiming to increase rents and improve the tenants a few years ago, but nothing really seems to have come of that.

[Kilgore Trout]

Thanks for those photos! I could have sworn I saw shops in the subway last time I was in Toronto, but I thought maybe I had been mistaken.

I get what biguc is going for. Canada is a very fussy, conservative country when it comes to a lot of things. There is regional variation, of course, but — just for example — I couldn't see the kind of anything-goes Los Angeles food truck culture existing in any Canadian city, because there would always be a group of people who freak out at how unregulated it is.

I remember visiting Vancouver years ago and taking a day trip down to Bellingham, Washington, where there was a food truck parked in a drug store parking lot selling dollar tacos. It's the most ordinary thing in the US, but I don't think there's anywhere in Canada where such simple, basic street food is allowed, because here we somehow feel the need to restrict what food trucks can sell, where they sell it and how they look while selling it. Which means we get $15 lobster rolls from the food truck branch of a corporate restaurant group instead of $1 tacos de lengua from an immigrant family doing honest business.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by biguc

I'm not really pressing a Montreal-Toronto comparison. Please don't take my posts that way. Certain things about anglo-Canadian culture are annoying and stifling. I don't, for example, find anglos (in general) as good at turning a blind eye as you. If the Quebecois are about as bad at minding their own business as the rest of us, well, that's a shame.

I'm undoubtedly going to start sounding defensive, but seriously, if there's a society that's more open about allowing others to be and do whatever they want to the degree that anglo Canada does, I don't know what it is. Probably Quebec is a close second. Maybe New Zealand comes third.

Ontario had a lesbian premier a while ago (the largest polity so far to have been governed by a gay person), and her sexuality factored precisely zero into the public conversation in the two elections for which she stood. On all sides of the political spectrum, that is.

I think you're living in the past. Or maybe not southern Ontario. I'm in Stratford, a smaller, more rural Ontario city, and the people around me who fit your baleful description of anglo Canada are a small minority of the sixty-plus cohort. One of my neighbours is like that, actually. She stands out in stark relief against the reigning laisse-faire attitude of the majority.

Anyway, not trying to be too argumentative, but I'm just really finding your characterization odd and outdated. Maybe you've just had bad luck?

[MonkeyRonin]

The archetypal Presbyterian busybodies probably still hold more sway in Anglo-Canadian officialdom than their share of the general population would suggest, but it's just that - a small and receding mentality.

Still, there's an observable tension that exists between the conservatism & timidness of Toronto's bureaucrats versus the creativity & entrepreneurialism that comes from the grassroots level. That's why there's a culture of bending the rules and finding loopholes - because the top-down micromanagerial edicts don't align with how we actually live.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wave46

If you dislike dreary southern Ontario in winter, Copenhagen would be a marked step down. Hardly any sustained heat in the summer too, at least comparatively.

Melbourne may be your saving grace, alas, it may not scratch that culture itch.

I'd argue Melbourne isn't really that much of a step down culturally from Toronto.

[MonkeyRonin]

Here's an example of what I mean: during COVID times, a number of restaurants started putting community fridges out front, where they would leave unsold/excess food for those in need. They've since proven popular in the community and many kind people have taken to stocking them with all kinds of essentials.

The City's response once they caught wind of it? Cite an old bylaw prohibiting appliances with doors to be left on the street and order them removed (https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/202...utdated-bylaw/).

To hipster duck and rousseau's point though, I've still seen them outside of a number of places anyway. So there is also that side of the City that doesn't really follow through with enforcement despite being "officially" opposed.

Anyway, to bring this back to the topic at hand - I don't think the City of Toronto would mount any opposition to building retail under highways and overpasses, were it a private property being developed (like the LCBO under the Gardiner that I posted a few pages back). However I also don't think they'd ever have the initiative or creativity on their own to think to sell or rent municipally-owned lands under the same structures.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

It's such a simple concept, I'm shocked this hasn't already been done all over Canada. Arguably Vancouver has done something similar several times around Skytrain stations.

https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2727...4!8i8192?hl=en

Which brings me to my next point, why aren't we building infrastructure in this style when possible? For about 280 meters west of Bayview station in Ottawa, along a multi-use pathway, we have an elevated rail on top of concrete techno block berm. This is near one of the "hippest" neighbourhood in town, Mechanicsville. Had they built it in that style with retail/food vendors underneath, it would have been amazing. To be fair, it think they largely used existing Transitway infrastructure.

These spaces generally get used or developed when most other spaces in a city or metro area are already taken. Even in our biggest cities I'd argue that decently-located space still isn't at enough of a premium to get this to really take off.

Though I do think it will happen eventually.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The archetypal Presbyterian busybodies probably still hold more sway in Anglo-Canadian officialdom than their share of the general population would suggest, but it's just that - a small and receding mentality.

Still, there's an observable tension that exists between the conservatism & timidness of Toronto's bureaucrats versus the creativity & entrepreneurialism that comes from the grassroots level. That's why there's a culture of bending the rules and finding loopholes - because the top-down micromanagerial edicts don't align with how we actually live.

Small and receding mentality - and the granite foundation that holds up the entire structure.

[Acajack]

In my experience living and roaming around both Quebec and Ontario and therefore Montreal and Toronto, the "rules" (either imposed by government or society) in Quebec seem les numerous and comprehensive than in Ontario, but those that Quebec does have tend to be enforced more strongly.

If that makes sense.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by wave46

If you dislike dreary southern Ontario in winter, Copenhagen would be a marked step down. Hardly any sustained heat in the summer too, at least comparatively.

To be fair, though (sheesh, weather talk on SSP infecting other threads), having bright, white snow on the ground goes a long way toward making winter bearable, at least here in the snowbelt.

The problem with Melbourne, or basically Australia in general, would be the isolation.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Still, there's an observable tension that exists between the conservatism & timidness of Toronto's bureaucrats versus the creativity & entrepreneurialism that comes from the grassroots level. That's why there's a culture of bending the rules and finding loopholes - because the top-down micromanagerial edicts don't align with how we actually live.

At some point the younger generations are going to reach critical mass in municipal planning departments and will start to get creative with the public realm. We're seeing signs of this already, such as with Stratford's recent makeover at city hall.

[Innsertnamehere]

While I’m very happy that Stratford redid that lot, I gotta say it still seems a bit bare. Stratford is badly lacking greenery in its downtown and I think they missed the mark here to add some more trees.

St Thomas has had a great rebuild of its Main Street recently too.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by biguc

I'm not really pressing a Montreal-Toronto comparison. Please don't take my posts that way. Certain things about anglo-Canadian culture are annoying and stifling. I don't, for example, find anglos (in general) as good at turning a blind eye as you. If the Quebecois are about as bad at minding their own business as the rest of us, well, that's a shame.

I'll add that of the 20 times in my life where I have been given the evil eye or scolded for sitting in my car in a fire lane while waiting for someone, probably 19 of them were in Ontario. But the one time it happens in Quebec, you're not likely to get the passive aggressive Ontario treatment, but rather the vitriolic asshole barrage of venom.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

While I’m very happy that Stratford redid that lot, I gotta say it still seems a bit bare. Stratford is badly lacking greenery in its downtown and I think they missed the mark here to add some more trees.

Yeah, I agree, Stratford does feel somewhat bare along its main streets downtown. Trees and old Victorian storefronts are magic. We could do with a lot more of them.

[biguc]

That Stratford plaza is really nice. Night and day from the google streetview.

Originally Posted by rousseau

I'm undoubtedly going to start sounding defensive, but seriously, if there's a society that's more open about allowing others to be and do whatever they want to the degree that anglo Canada does, I don't know what it is. Probably Quebec is a close second. Maybe New Zealand comes third.

Ontario had a lesbian premier a while ago (the largest polity so far to have been governed by a gay person), and her sexuality factored precisely zero into the public conversation in the two elections for which she stood. On all sides of the political spectrum, that is.

I think you're living in the past. Or maybe not southern Ontario. I'm in Stratford, a smaller, more rural Ontario city, and the people around me who fit your baleful description of anglo Canada are a small minority of the sixty-plus cohort. One of my neighbours is like that, actually. She stands out in stark relief against the reigning laisse-faire attitude of the majority.

Anyway, not trying to be too argumentative, but I'm just really finding your characterization odd and outdated. Maybe you've just had bad luck?

It's more that I moved out of the country and discovered that many of the things I always found unreasonable and annoying about life in Canada really are. And they don't exist in other countries (although everywhere works really hard to come up with something else unreasonable and annoying).

You're right, of course, that in the broad strokes Anglo Canada is one of the most permissive societies in the world. Canada is at the bleeding edge on most of the broad strokes. The country has a sterling international reputation because of it. I'm even proud of it; I'll argue any burka-banning European into the ground for their lack of respect for religious minorities and women.

But that doesn't reflect day-to-day life. Kilgore Trout and MonkeyRonin nailed it with their examples. In as much as you can do something in Canada, the legality is larded with regulations that narrow the scope of what's allowed.

To borrow some terminology from your favourite people, we can call them micro-oppressions. They aren't in any way targeted or deliberately pernicious, but they can have that affect. Drop a random human in the streets of Toronto cold, and they might be delighted that they can be the trans, pothead Zoroastrian they've always dreamed of. But they'll be confused that they can't set up a grill in a park and sell some food--or buy food from someone else doing just that.

It has a negative effect on cities. That Tokyo underpass pictured earlier would be illegal in Canada--it would fall foul of any number of trifling food and alcohol restrictions, and you can't drive a 60' fire truck down the middle of it.

[kool maudit]

We can separate the feel and structure of Protestant moralism from its traditional targets. There are precious few people around me who are pious in that particular way about Christianity and its taboos, but there are many who remain fond of their pieties.

To put it differently, a society of Swedish Lutherans can be Christian, secular progressive or they can even convert to Islam -- they will still feel a lot like Swedish Lutherans.

There is a kind of muscle memory.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Acajack

These spaces generally get used or developed when most other spaces in a city or metro area are already taken. Even in our biggest cities I'd argue that decently-located space still isn't at enough of a premium to get this to really take off.

Though I do think it will happen eventually.

I understand how developing towers over the Scott Street trench might not be economically viable at this point, but adding retail/restaurants under elevated rail lines and highways, or including them in new infrastructure, is completely feasible. These would be simple projects that would greatly improve the public realm.

Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver would fit in the "running out of space" category. Ottawa less so. There's really no opportunity for this sort of development anywhere due to the way our infrastructure is built on berms/techno blocks instead of elevated (ex Gardiner) or with usable space underneath (ex tracks to Gare Central).