'This Waterfront Needs A Highway': The Huge Mistakes Cities Keep Making

[yaletown_fella]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Chicago has an excellent waterfront, but Toronto's waterfront is not very impressive, at all. The public infrastructure is pretty laughable.

Toronto is a less waterfront oriented city than Chicago, with most of it's growth oriented on a north-south axis away from Lake Ontario. A couple of exceptions being the high-end Beaches neighborhood on the eastern end of town and upscale Scarborough Bluffs; both very pleasent areas to walk by the Lake.

[Doady]

What makes Chicago's waterfront different from Toronto's is it is a continous public space. Toronto has done a decent job reclaiming its waterfront from private ownership, but Chicago is much more open to the public. Maybe Chicago had more foresight.

It's also nice how ther eis a line of buildings along Michigan Ave that marks where the waterfront space begins/ends and nothing blocks the view and access to the water. I wish Toronto did something similar with Queens Quay.

In the GTA, only Ajax has a waterfront that is continously open and public space, including a street that marks the boundary of that space, just like in Chicago. Ajax Mayor Steve Parrish is a planner by trade so maybe he had more forward-thinking than most mayors.

I'll give Toronto some credit though for not building a freeway along the entire length of its waterfront and through all of the greenspace along the lake like Chicago did with Lake Shore Drive.

[isaidso]

Toronto turned its back on its waterways for most of its history. Huge strides have been made turning industrial land into a place for people but there's tons more work to be done. Some bits are much better than others too. The East Bayfront will be great when it's finished as will the Portlands.

That said, I'm disappointed with what they built on Queens Quay West. It's a huge improvement over what existed before but the road itself is a chaotic mess. There are just too many modes of transportation to accommodate. Cars traveling in 2 directions, dedicated streetcars in both directions, and a bike path in 2 directions just to get from one side of the street to the other. They're trying to cram way many things into a tight space. Hopefully the rest looks more like the East Bayfront.

East Bayfront

Courtesy of Azure Magazine

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by The North One

Wow, Exxon literally built a small isolated city in exurban Houston. All of that could have been infill in downtown.

Obviously Exxoon didnt want to spend that much money

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

'This Waterfront Needs A Highway': The Huge Mistakes Cities Keep Making


Boston diverted a downtown expressway into a tunnel. The project ran a decade late and cost $15bn. Photograph: Bill Sikes/AP

Boston’s “Big Dig” was a fiasco that required a Federal Bailout. It didn’t hurt that U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neil was from Massachusetts.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by urban_encounter

Boston’s “Big Dig” was a fiasco that required a Federal Bailout. It didn’t hurt that U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neil was from Massachusetts.

The Big Dig is the best thing to happen to Boston since the 695 Inner Loop was canceled. Burying the Central Arrtery has stitched the North End and the Waterfront back into the urban fabric of Downtown and Beacon Hill / the West End. It’s been an amazing transformation and there isn’t a single person from the city who has anything bad to say about it... now that the 20 years of continuos construction detours and closed roads is ancient history