{"id":11180,"date":"2010-05-17T12:38:15","date_gmt":"2010-05-17T16:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=11180"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:12:09","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:12:09","slug":"lorinc-no-space-for-public-space-in-this-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/05\/17\/lorinc-no-space-for-public-space-in-this-election\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: No space for public space in this election?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Is it possible that the closest we\u2019ll come to a public space debate during this morbidly fascinating election is a slag-fest over bike lanes real and imagined?<\/p>\n

Maybe I was asleep at the keyboard, but I haven\u2019t heard the six candidates so much as peep about the public space file (although it\u2019s only a matter of time before Rob Ford declares the recent Banksy sitings<\/a> to be some kind of abomination).<\/p>\n

Or so I thought, until I learned recently that Giorgio Mammoliti\u2019s suite of \u201coutrageous\u201d platform ideas includes a pledge to transform part of lower Yonge into a pedestrian mall. \u201cI want to make Yonge Street infamous (sic) around the world,\u201d he told me this week, apparently straight up.<\/p>\n

Outrageous?<\/p>\n

In a recent tweet, my colleague Jonathan Goldsbie nailed it<\/a> when he described Mammoliti\u2019s candidacy as a \u201cself-consciously absurd performance art project.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now the public space crowd must pause to consider whether Mammoliti\u2019s muddle-headed endorsement of a rock solid idea \u2013 originally advocated by Matthew Blackett in Spacing\u2019s winter 2009 issue — is a blessing or curse.<\/p>\n

Mammoliti\u2019s scheme involves eliminating vehicular traffic from Dundas to Gerard, and he claims he\u2019ll only do it after consulting with the usual cabal of stakeholders.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I think we can agree that Mammoliti got it (almost) right for the (mostly) wrong reasons. Fortunately, though, he\u2019s not out there on the limb by himself. Asked for his thoughts, Joe Pantalone told me last week, \u201cI support the idea of a pedestrian mall on Yonge Street and would push for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he argues that the Queen-to-Dundas stretch is more \u201cappropriate\u201d because that stretch has only one intersection, where Shuter disappears into the maw of the Eaton\u2019s Centre. Pantalone sees the block as a natural extension to Dundas Square. Indeed, if Toronto wants to replicate Michael Bloomberg\u2019s amazingly successful experiment with the pedestrianization of Times Square, the eastern flank of the Eaton\u2019s Centre seems like an obvious place to start.<\/p>\n

George Smitherman also made some sympathetic noises on this topic: \u201cIt\u2019s just so regrettable that the city\u2019s main street has sidewalks that are one umbrella wide,\u201d he said Friday. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen what\u2019s possible in Montreal where they\u2019re willing to create spaces where people can come together.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he hedged his support (glad you were sitting, right?) by saying the city first has to conjure up a comprehensive transportation strategy rather than trotting out \u201cone-offs,\u201d like the recently fletchered University Avenue bike lanes or a Yonge Street pedestrian-only zone.<\/p>\n

Yes, let\u2019s do the big traffic plan. But the fact is that Yonge between Queen and Dundas \u2013 a fully built-out, street parking-free retail strip served by three subway entrances — is mostly a speedway for taxis. If there\u2019s anyplace downtown where you can shoot first and ask questions later, this is it. Sane people don\u2019t drive there.<\/p>\n

As it happened, Smitherman weighed in on another public spacey controversy last week \u2013 the waterfront design review panel\u2019s tub-thumping about the four-pad hockey rink complex planned for the Portlands. After the panel\u2019s esteemed planners and architects hurled The Star\u2019s Chris Hume in the direction of the mayor\u2019s office<\/a>, David Miller pledged to \u201ctinker\u201d with the scheme\u2019s excessive parking requirements and have the city consider a complex with stacked rinks and a smaller footprint.<\/p>\n

Smitherman, for his part, called on council to find another location or \u201cice\u201d the current plan and mull over the possibility of building\u2026stacked rinks. The existing plan, he said, \u201cis a huge set-back for the future prospects of the portlands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Setting aside the damned-if-you-do dynamic of this fight (a stacked rink will cost more and the money\u2019s got to be extracted from someone\u2019s hide, likely rink users), the problem with the panel\u2019s somewhat sanctimonious critique is that it imposes unrealistic development expectations on an area that is, let\u2019s face it, about the same size as the rectangle bounded by Parliament, Bathurst, King and College.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a whole lot of city, and it can\u2019t all be prizing-winning architecture. What\u2019s more, there\u2019s something to be said for creating uses that draw large numbers of people to an area that\u2019s been off the radar for decades. A \u201chuge set-back?\u201d Hardly.<\/p>\n

Point is, let\u2019s purge cars from those parts of the city where they\u2019re least welcome instead of rushing to judgment about neighbourhoods that won\u2019t exist for decades.<\/p>\n

photo by Sam Javanrouh<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is it possible that the closest we\u2019ll come to a public space debate during this morbidly fascinating election is a slag-fest over bike lanes real and imagined? Maybe I was asleep at the keyboard, but I haven\u2019t heard the six candidates so much as peep about the public space file (although it\u2019s only a matterContinue reading “LORINC: No space for public space in this election?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[94,5573,5715,15045,425,154,1804,3036,6245,3944,1103,5216,370,667,426,38,316,5097,227,663,405,3225,19,9462],"class_list":["post-11180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-2010-election","tag-bathurst","tag-bloomberg","tag-chris-hume","tag-david-miller","tag-dundas-square","tag-eaton","tag-eatons-centre","tag-george-smitherman","tag-giorgio-mammoliti","tag-joe-pantalone","tag-jonathan-goldsbie","tag-king","tag-matthew-blackett","tag-mayor","tag-montreal","tag-queen","tag-retail-strip","tag-rob-ford","tag-sam-javanrouh","tag-the-star","tag-times-square","tag-toronto","tag-transportation-strategy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: No space for public space in this election? - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/05\/17\/lorinc-no-space-for-public-space-in-this-election\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: No space for public space in this election? - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is it possible that the closest we\u2019ll come to a public space debate during this morbidly fascinating election is a slag-fest over bike lanes real and imagined? 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