Spacing Toronto

Bikes

OP-ED: Road Safety for All — What’s Not to Like?

In contrast to past battles, opponents of the extension of bike lanes further west on Bloor are facing a City Council that has strongly supported complete streets

By Albert Koehl

By Albert Koehl and Roger Morier, road safety advocates and members of the We Belong on Bloor campaign of Community Bikeways. There’s nothing new about NIMBY-ists circling their wagons to bleat about new public infrastructure that causes minor inconvenience to their way of life but delivers major benefits to many others. What’s new about a recent example in Etobicoke is the unified response by City Council to the NIMBY group. At issue this time around is not a neighbourhood multiplex or a... Read more

Architecture

Robarts Library, an architectural oral history

From ‘Fort Book’ to Brutalist masterpiece
By Jesse Carliner and Tys Klumpenhouwer
Politics

LORINC: Clear-cutting the rules at Ontario Place

The Ford government repealed all the environmental rules governing the Ontario Place redevelopment. But will Therme's $350 million project survive a shift in the location of the parking garage?
By John Lorinc
Walking

REID: The pedestrian blood sacrifice

We shouldn't have to wait for a pedestrian to get killed at a location before we institute safety measures there
By Dylan Reid
Parks

OP-ED: City parks at the tipping point

Maintaining existing parks is as important as building new ones, but is often neglected, says Jake Tobin Garrett, co-author of Park People's 2023 Canadian City Parks Report
By Jake Tobin Garrett
Events

Spacing’s 20th anniversary party happens December 2!

Spacing is excited to release an anniversary issue, a new book, and the opening of two-month exhibition
By Spacing
Waterfront

BREAKING: Grassroots group seeks injunction to stop the Ontario Place mega-spa

The Ford government is facing yet another legal challenge to the Therme development schemes
By John Lorinc

Culture

REVIEW: Cities: Skylines II – A new dawn for city-building gaming

A senior city planner gives her perspective on a sophisticated (if buggy) new city-building game
By Nathan Abraha
Infrastructure

I visited public toilet paradise and it was heaven – why can’t Canada do this?

A visit to Hong Kong and Japan revealed plentiful public toilets to Spacing's Shawn Micallef, a situation that puts Canada to shame. There's no excuse why we can't do this too.
By Shawn Micallef
Traffic

OP-ED: Reining in Uber

Thorben Wieditz argues that the early prospect of big tech companies as urban saviours gave them too much credit
By Thorben Wieditz
Bikes

Emerging perspectives on cycling policy and practice in the GTHA

A discussion of cycling in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area brings up interesting insights and perspectives
By Thomas Van Laake
History

The Old City Hall Cenotaph

Toronto's memorial to the war dead has been the site of remembrance, and occasionally controversy, since 1925
By Jamie Bradburn
Waterfront

How to build a waterfront transit line

Toronto planners and politicians need to learn from Hamburg's HafenCity about why starting with transit is the key to waterfront revitalization
By John Lorinc

Culture

The Ultimate Guide to the Best Songs About Toronto

In the Fall 2023 issue of Spacing (coming soon to a store or mailbox near you), we shine a spotlight on five “Toronto Troubadours” — musicians “dedicated...
By Todd Harrison
Pandemic

LORINC: The pandemic is about cities

Viruses, in the abstract, don’t care much about their host organisms, beyond the latter’s on-board, physiological defenses. Yet it’s clear the coronavirus...
By John Lorinc
Waterfront

What’s really happening at Ontario Place? (Part 1)

The investigation by Ontario Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk into the Ford government’s removal of 7,400 acres of prime farmland and wetlands from the...
By Ian Darragh
Housing

LORINC: The Tories’ use-it-or-lose housing ruse

On the north-east corner of Bathurst and St. Clair West sits a snazzy purpose-built condo sales office, ostensibly there to promote Foret, a giant...
By John Lorinc
Waterfront

Q&A with Steven Evans on photographing Ontario Place

With the chaotic Greenbelt scandal swirling in the background, the updated plans for the Ford government’s deeply contentious and destructive scheme...
By John Lorinc
Waterfront

What’s really happening at Ontario Place? (Part 2)

Sequel to Part 1 of “What’s really happening at Ontario Place?“ Ontario Place was conceived by Conservative Premier John Robarts in 1968 as an...
By Ian Darragh

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