{"id":1754,"date":"2007-04-09T12:36:17","date_gmt":"2007-04-09T16:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=1754"},"modified":"2013-01-21T12:55:15","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T17:55:15","slug":"hume-lays-into-citys-street-furniture-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/04\/09\/hume-lays-into-citys-street-furniture-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Hume lays into City’s street furniture plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The Toronto Star’s Christopher Hume pulled no punches in his column today<\/a>. He demands that the City refuse all street furniture submissions because they do nothing to making Toronto’s streetscape less cluttered of physical and visual obstacles. Some excerpts:<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

None of the entries — from Astral Media\/Kramer Design, CBS Outdoor\/Elements and Clear Channel\/Zeidler Partnership — is worthy of being on the streets on Toronto. Indeed, they would only make a bad situation worse and set back the cause of cleaning up the city by years.<\/p>\n

In all cases, the problem begins with the designs themselves: They are inappropriate, disconcertingly trendy, overdone and overpowering. They would only increase the rampant commercialization of the public realm.<\/p>\n

Enough already. Yes, we know that advertising will be ubiquitous in a city as impoverished as Toronto, but there comes a point of diminishing returns, when less is more.<\/p>\n

The city is inundated with ads and the last thing we need is to make a bad situation worse.<\/p>\n

Interesting, too, that at least two of the three bidders — Astral Media and CBS Outdoor — are deeply implicated in erecting illegal billboards throughout Toronto. According to some estimates, between 1,500 and 2,000 outdoor ads at any one time are in violation of the law. The media companies know exactly what they’re doing, but there’s too much money to be made for them to bother with such niceties as legalities.<\/p>\n

Councillor Joe Mihevc says they operate “in a rogue manner.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

The fear of being without a contract — and of having to cover the maintenance costs of Toronto’s existing street furniture — seems to the driving force behind the city’s unseemly haste.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given that the contract would be in place for 20 years, it might be worth getting something decent, something that would enhance the city as well as provide garbage bins, benches, bicycle racks, bus shelters and the like.<\/p>\n

If these amenities are as important as the city believes, then it has no choice but to start again.<\/p>\n

There is no shame in this. Indeed, the city went through a similar process back in 1995 and decided against the submissions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other links of note:<\/strong><\/p>\n

• Star feedback from readers: page 1<\/a>, page 2<\/a>
\n• CBC Metro Morning interview<\/a> with TPSC [Real One Player]<\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n

<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Star’s Christopher Hume pulled no punches in his column today. He demands that the City refuse all street furniture submissions because they do nothing to making Toronto’s streetscape less cluttered of physical and visual obstacles. Some excerpts: None of the entries — from Astral Media\/Kramer Design, CBS Outdoor\/Elements and Clear Channel\/Zeidler Partnership —Continue reading “Hume lays into City’s street furniture plan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"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":[21759,32],"tags":[11,307,4470,340,834,5293,408,552,137,2468,339,19],"class_list":["post-1754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-streetscape","tag-ad-creep","tag-cbc","tag-cbs","tag-christopher-hume","tag-clear-channel","tag-clear-channelzeidler-partnership","tag-councillor","tag-joe-mihevc","tag-media-x","tag-player","tag-the-toronto-star","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHume lays into City's street furniture plan - 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\/2007\/04\/09\/hume-lays-into-citys-street-furniture-plan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hume lays into City's street furniture plan - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Toronto Star’s Christopher Hume pulled no punches in his column today. 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