Every Saturday, we highlight recent posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
• Growing customer dissatisfaction with the with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the looming municipal election have led to earnest conversations on how the fledgling city agency can be overhauled. One idea on the table is to integrate the TTC into the larger regional transit organization Metrolinx. Spacing Toronto hosts a debate between contributors and transit experts, John Lorinc and Steve Munro, on the pros and cons of uploading the TTC.
• Toronto is one step closer to its first civic museum with the launch of a new website “The Toronto Museum Project”. Marcus Browmen takes us through what the online museum has to offer and why its helping to create a collective “civic consciousness”.
• Spacing Atlantic’s Andrew Matheson explores what’s at stake in Saint John’s plan to redevelop the western edge of the city’s Rockwood Park: one of St. John’s most important public amenities and among the largest urban parks in Canada.
• Widely considered a blight on the urban landscape and a “quintessential example of bad development”, Halifax’s Fenwick Tower is getting an overhaul. Templeton Properties, the new owners of the 33-storey, 40-year-old unfinished tower are hoping to turn the infamous high-rise into a mixed-use space more hospitable to the public. Spacing’s Emma Feltes and Rachel Caroline Derrah take us through the specifics of the new plan.
• Danish architects Louise Kielgast and Kristian S. Villadsen recently gave a talk at Montreal’s Mcgill University. The designers (from the world-renowned Gehl Architects) spoke on “people-focused” urban design with particular attention to the challenges and opportunities of Northern cites. This week Spacing Montreal hosts the video of the talk which should prove interesting to all Spacing readers.
• Émile Thomas offers some small but transformative suggestions on how to improve and re-imagine Montreal’s St-Viateur street.
• Spacing Ottawa looks at the history and the potential future of the city’s Parkdale Avenue:“a fume-filled arterial road functioning as an on-ramp to the busiest stretch of expressway in Eastern Ontario”. Recent community consultations have resulted in comprehensive planning recommendations that, if adopted, would significantly alter the Parkdale Avenue of today.
• In the second post in Spacing Ottawa’s ongoing “CityVotes2010” series, Ian Capstick looks at why Ottawa has become a “change-adverse” city and asks how everyday Ottawa residents can become a “catalyst for change”
Photo credit: Toronto Archives [see the full size image]