A quick reminder that there are several community events in the next couple of days related to the Walk21 conference starting this evening in Toronto.
I am going to try to blog about the conference as it happens. Here are a few quick tidbits from the first event, TCAT’s “Our Streets” workshop on Sunday, from former Chief Planner Paul Bedford’s presentation:
To demonstrate the economic power of walking: the new Canadian Tire store at Bay and Dundas has the highest sales-per-square-foot of any store in the chain — almost entirely from people on foot.
Idea: neighbourhood walking days. Encourage everyone in the city to walk for 15 minutes and see how far they get. What destinations will they find that turn out to be that close? A convenience store, a park?
In the 1970s, the city turned a couple of city-owned parking lots into parks, including Berczy Park where Wellington meets Front. A Brazilian mayor referred to this kind of targeted transformation as “urban acupuncture.”
I wonder, now that the city is, instead, turning urban buildings into parking lots, what do we call it?
More to follow …
photo by Adam Krawesky
3 comments
“I wonder, now that the city is, instead, turning urban buildings into parking lots, what do we call it?”
cancer. carmageddon. motormayhem insidioustry. death by legal asphyxiation (as in a sentence for untold wrongs done).
disgusting. a dirty disgusting habit.
We call it a market. Cars users don’t pay the full cost for using their car (including the cost of road damage, etc… that is spread out among non-drivers as well) so their use is increased.
That said, I just bought a car, although I’m not crazy enough to drive downtown.
Fascinating stat about the new C.T. store. thanks