There’s an article in the Globe and Mail today about the debate concerning parking for the newly restored Palais Royale. A plan is in place to put the 125 space parking lot on the grassy median between the eastbound and westbound lanes of the Lakeshore.
The city will also spend $160,000 to build a traffic light so pedestrians can safely cross three lanes of traffic on the Lakeshore to get to the venue. Some area residents are still unhappy, claiming the city never took some of their proposals seriously (like converting one of the lanes of the Lakeshore into roadside parking and dropping the speed limit). The Parkdale Residents Assocation will be holding a picnic on the median September 1st to protest what they consider the destruction of Waterfront parkland: “We will hold this picnic event to prove to the city the park can be used and must not be paved.”
In the article, Palais Royale operator Terry Tsianos says, “Anyone who calls that median green space is terribly mistaken. I would never let my kids run around on a median between two highways. It’s not a green space, it’s land between two highways.”
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He also said no bride would get on a bus to get to his venue – well, we hired a TTC bus to carry us and my family who had flown in from Yonge/Lawrence to Sunnybrook Estates – not that far, but still.
Terry Tsianos misses the point, it IS a green space bewteen 2 highways, thats what is so good about it. To pave it over just makes the entire area one of asphalt. Its too bad that sleepy Sunnyside has been discovered by the likes of Slyvia Watson. sd
I think that we’ve seen movement from the original proposal (parking beside the lake, which was totally unacceptable) and that it’s an acceptable solution. The restoration of the Palais Royale is a public good and we should be willing to make some compromises around it. The land between the lanes, however green, is not reasonably called a park, and is unused.
It is green. It is space. Therefore it is green space. Any questions?
The green space is very large, and I don’t think the parking lot will take up all of it. The only reason someone would go there now would be if they want to be alone. The parking lot might make it even more isolated.
I’m not sure why the need a traffic light where there is already a wheelchair accessable bridge.
“It’s not a green space, it’s land between two highways.”
What a specious argument! It *is* a green space! Whether people use it or not it’s green and that’s always going to be a damn sight better looking than a grey space.
A friend of mine was part of a commercial development project a few years ago that would have turned the Palais Royale into a venue again, but they couldn’t find a way to make it work, partly because of access and parking. They even looked at having a boat bring people from downtown, make an adventure out of it. If the current developers don’t have a better plan than slapping down some concrete over grass then it was poorly conceived.
This is the most frustrating city I’ve ever lived in. There’s so much interest and activism amongst the people who live here in urban development yet the most insane decisions keep being made that will only destroy what little is left of Toronto’s history and blight its landscape with concrete and condos.
Still, I love it so.
“It’s not a green space, it’s land between two highways.†– all right beside another highway!
The problem isn’t that nobody uses the green space, it’s that the roads that flow past it are too wide and fast.
I wonder if that guy would let his kids cross the street to get to his venue!
Toronto certainly can be frustrating, but it’s not only the level of political decision making, but the level of discussion about development. For instance, miles above notes that previous plans to resuscitate the plan failed due to parking concerns, then castigates the current owners for coming up with parking nearby, then laments that we destroy our history. It’s a bit of a jumble of ideas – here’s someone preserving a heritage building in the only way possible – by using the building – and a tradeoff is that a monocultural strip of grass between two four lane roads becomes parking. What are we to do? Re-route the lakeshore? Let the Palais Royale go? Make users park at a distance and hope for the best? City building isn’t a perfect affair, and sometimes compromises have to be made. I’m certainly not going to go to the wall for a strip of grass between highways – Toronto has many of those.
Agreed! I’m sorry to say but the Palais does need parking of some sort. We wouldn’t want to lose the Palais Royale!
Re-routing the Lake Shore is not such a bad idea… according to designer and architect David Dennis (also part of the West8 team) with whom I was chatting about this recently…there have been numerous proposals – notablely Architects Alliance’ Eastern Beaches – to shift the eastbound lanes north, along side the westbound lanes.The City then gains 11 acres of parkland for the price of roadway relocation.
The current proposal as outlined is very dangerous..as has been noted by Ken and others above.
Wow Bob, the voice of reason, myself I lament what passes for critism of development in this city. Lord knows we’ve got our problems but the self-contradiction (or less charitably hipocracy) is frustrating. Come on kids, we need to decide if density is good and sprawl is bad and stick to the story.
“I’m not sure why the need a traffic light where there is already a wheelchair accessable bridge.”
Sure, and you expect people to waste 5-10 mins of their time and energy going a little out of their way by climbing up the dang thing, crossing it, and climbing back down. Given that option, I’d suppose the vast majority would rather jaywalk (or jay-wheel, as the case may be) across a light-less eastbound Lakeshore–which, after all, is a roadway, not a railway or waterway or expressway.
A traffic light might make for good traffic-calming, in fact–conquer the road, rather than letting the road conquer you. (That’s why I despise those suburbanesque places like Calgary where high-speed expressway-wannabe arterials are only traversable by footbridge; they make the pedestrian feel strangely caged and isolated.)
I don’t know whether the lot as proposed will solely serve the Palais Royale, or be more “general purpose”–in which case it might be interesting to see the if whatever’s left of the green median actually gets used as a park to a greater extent than now…
the picnic on the median is a terrible idea – it’s an accident waiting to happen.