What's wrong with Street Car's "Riverside Square"?

By Ward 30 Bikes' member, Michael Holloway

Under a thread I started at 'City of Toronto Cycling' Facebook group about Big Box Retail and Big Parking Lot Retail in the context of a dense urban built form, friend Rob Zaichkowski - cycling advocate comrade with Cycle Toronto - asked me what I thought of the Riverside Square development ... here's my reply to Rob which I wrote in FB and then copied and pasted here.

Here's an image of Rob asking the question (reply printed below):

Join Facebook, then join the group, "City of Toronto Cycling" and then use this link to view the thread: https://www.facebook.com/groups/140997182582942/permalink/1394759757206672/?comment_id=1402865453062769&reply_comment_id=1405168686165779&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R8%22%7D

Rob Zaichkowski - Right off the top, their name sucks! Plus sighting Sue Ann Levy in their messaging has not done them any favours with the community (Sun Newspaper attack dog, going after Councillor Fletcher).

But I think they are doing it for the right reasons - not NIMBYism. (I'm trying to help them message better; but OMB hearing was today ... so we'll see what happens there.)

The type of businesses visioned to set up in this development base their market on the ease of driving to it ... but although this site over-looks the DVP and has a 400 series highway bridge to the south of it (Eastern Avenue Diversion) none of those major arteries are able to funnel traffic directly to the site. There is no way to get to this car sales campus except via Queen! It should be feed from Eastern - but somehow that wasn't visioned or suggested in a consultation process that was accompanied by Street Car scrambling to find new partners, and partner with existing land owners, in what appears to be - after these machinations were revealed - a badly planned proposal.

(Ward 30 Bikes was shut out of the stakeholder group because (I think) I published some vitriol on our site about it^[1] being the leading edge of the same kind of condo-ization of the east waterfront that happened on the west waterfront - lots of high-rise building and no community planning (parks schools, mass transit) - and it is turning out to be just that - except we have a Councillor who won't stand for that usually - not sure what happened in that regard in this particular development).

This is an odd one - the first iteration was a mix of medium and high rise residential with some retail on Queen - and keep the existing Auto dealership. Then in the coarse of the public consultation process it very quickly morphed from one thing to another and then finally into a 5 Auto Dealership Auto Mall with multi-story showrooms featuring light polluting glass walls shining into the valley (live showroom billboards where hedonists imagine the city watching them kick the tires of the latest models 50 metres above the DVP) - plus the mid and high-rise residential.

Having studied it in it's final iteration, there is not enough road capacity at the Queen St Bridge and East Don Roadway (first street east of the valley) to not completely snarl traffic there with the addition of high density and the proposed car-centric retail.

East Don Roadway is visioned to be the street that feeds delivery, servicing and customers to 5 different car brand showrooms in a 'Auto Mall'. A new street, following the line of existing Munro - envisioned as a woonerf - will complete the car consumer drive-thru experience).

Ward 30 Bikes has long been talking about a north-south bike route from LSB/Don Roadway to The Danforth. Our vision uses mainly local residential streets and East Riverdale Park ... but there are three key points along the route that need a work-around - one of them was(is) this parcel of land.

In the first iteration of this neighbourhood sized development proposal, we were looking at a Street Car Developments proposal to run a bike path next to the valley that would have come up to where East Don Roadway dead-ends now at the south-west corner of the site.

But in a later iteration Street Car decided to use East Don Roadway as the delivery, servicing and customer entrance ... and that destroyed the idea of a bike route through there.

So with the eastern, river-valley-edge route gone to a servicing roadway for the site, we shifted our attention to the proposed woonerf north-south through the centre of the site.

This woonerf is supposed to be a tip of the hat to sustainable planning - but it is not that - it is a 'green label' with no practical use. Rather than a way of moving non-car trips from the new residential to their street car stops at Carrol Ave or Broadview (or by bike up to the Dundas Bike Lanes) - this woonerf is the main 'lobby' or 'branded space' of the Auto Mall; it will be full of cars from far, far away - plus thousands of residents trying to make their way from the new towers at the south edge of the project, to the Queen Street streetcar stops. The woonerf will be a parking lot with no curbs - a dangerous place for kids and older people, and Definitely Not a bike route.

This will likely get built and we'll try to make the woonerf a part of a safe north-south route - but i expect the fix will kill the Auto Mall as a business - so we loose. With that we'll likely redirect our sights to Broadview Ave - the last remaining place to get a north-south grid line in the precinct to serve all the new population density.

I expect that once this is built, Queen will be dysfunctional between Queen/Broadview and the valley - much like King West - Spadina to Bathurst is now.

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^[1] Ward 30 Bikes - August 7, 2014 | Masters of Industry: South Riverdale to be the new West-of-Spadina High-rise Tower Goldmine | http://ward30bikes.blogspot.ca/2014/08/masters-of-industry-south-riverdale-to.html



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Advocacy in Action! Keeping Bike Lanes During Construction Projects

It started in early January 2015.

The councillor's office emailed us to ask for some input on a section of the Dundas East bike lanes at Carlaw that would be impacted by a condo development.  The request from the developer was to close part of the bike lane as part of the staging area for the construction of their second phase condo.  A few hundred meters of bike lane closure would result in cyclists having to merge with motor traffic, a safety issue the councillor's office was looking to mitigate.  And this closure would last almost a year, right on the back of the bike lane closure right next door at the first phase of the condo development.  We were potentially looking at a grand total of 2 years of partial lane closures in what is in our opinion, the most heavily used bike lane in the east end.

So, a few ideas were suggested.  Maybe some sharrows and some signage that stated 'shared usage lane single file" would help motorists to stay alert for merging bike traffic.   But then one of Ward30bikes' members Vivien suggested something much safer.  On the south side of Dundas, directly across from construction  site were 4 on street car parking spots.  If we could temporarily remove those 4 parking spots during the construction period and restripe the road, all the lanes could shift south and remain open.  Bike lane, car lane, car lane, bike lane.    This sounded MUCH better than:  merged bike/car lane, car lane, bike lane, parking spots.

So we proposed it, and to our delight the councillors office and Streetcar developments were supportive.  A site visit was organised in February for us and also bringing in city staff.  The site visit went very quickly.  All parties agreed it could be done.

So, with a plan, things were underway.  Council approvals happened, but then we had to wait.  Mostly for weather conditions to improve to do the scraping and painting, but there were also some misunderstandings between city departments thinking it couldn't be done, but then in fact it could.    The group of us working on this really were hoping this would have happened in April, but such is life with city processes sometimes.

Eventually it did happen, and in early May our bike lane re-opened (to lots of cheers from us!).

A big thank you to Paula Fletcher's office for being pro-active on dealing with cyclist safety issues and asking for our input at the beginning.  Also a very big thank you to Streetcar Developments for being open to our ideas for keeping cyclists safe during their development work.

This story was picked up in the Beach Mirror: http://www.insidetoronto.com/news-story/5646319-dundas-bike-lane-re-opens-in-leslieville/

But also, just today PWIC voted unanimously in favour of improving cyclist safety during construction. Thank you to  Councillors Joe Cressy, Mike Layton, and Mary-Margaret McMahon for championing this at the committee.  

Riverside Square Community Consultation - Meeting #1

By Ward 30 Bikes member,
Michael Holloway


Riverside Square is a 4 acre neighbourhood development west of Broadview south of Queen St E down to Eastern Avenue.

Streetcar.ca | Welcome to Riverside Square | http://streetcar.ca/welcome-riverside-square/

I attended tonight's meeting representing Ward 30 Bikes.

Streetcar's VP of Development Jason Garland introduced a 20 minute power point presentation by Streetcar's in-house planner Aaron Knight.

Streetcar Developments have submitted to City Planning an application for a two-phased development. Phase I is at 77-79 East Don Roadway; phase II (2-3 years later) concerns properties at 661-677 Queen St. East.

There is another public meeting on this proposal later this month:

Monday March 23, 2015
6:30 - 8:30pm
Ralph Thornton Centre
765 Queen St. East


Ward 30 Bikes position on neighbourhood development revolves around the idea of creating people places - a counter-point to the city building of the past century which focused on car transportation in a pivotal role.

New planning sees people as the point around which city planning revolves. To that, I asked how the Riverside Square proposal might be better connected to the immediate natural resource - the Don Valley - and the Lake Front and Harbour - just to the south. I also mentioned connecting the new neighbourhood to the neighbourhoods across the river and to the existing Lower Don Trail in the Don Valley.

Of coarse this is also about a great increase in population density (if they get approval for several high rise buildings they are proposing) - which will result in more traffic volume on our already congested (and finite) road grid. The solution is not more space on the roads for more or faster, cars - it is - counter-intuitively - less space for inefficient people movers (like cars) and more room on our roadways for mass transit, walking and bicycling transportation modes.

Along with high density comes the need to create spiritually rich public realm; that means lots of green space and active transportation connections to the green spaces that are nearby.

Joined the Stakeholder Group.


Ward 30 Bikes - October 20, 2014 | Does Streetcar's Riverside Square proposal make the Cycling Connection across the DVP? | http://ward30bikes.blogspot.ca/2014/10/does-streetcars-riverside-square.html





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Ward30 Planning Matters Open House - Ward30bikes was there

Last week Councillor Paula Fletcher and her office hosted a Planning Matters Open House.  The open house included representatives from the city, and local developers to speak about the on going and planned projects for our ward.  Portlands, Broaview Ave extension, Downtown relief line, the fate of the Gardiner, new condo developments - all there in one room.

It was a great community information night, and gave residents the opportunity to ask questions  and make suggestions directly to the people working on these projects.

And Ward30bike was there!  Questioning the plans, reiterating the desire for safe cycle infrastructure to the waterfront (had a great chat with the city planner about the Broadview Ave extension plans and getting access to that little Ward30 jewel Cherry Beach), bike parking along Queen St, and cycle connections across the DVP.    It was also great to see that Councilor Fletcher's office invited a familiar face from the City of Toronto cycling department.  When you get all these people in one room you can hear things like:  '...well we would want to work with the city on that bike lane connection' ' ... so you mean me?' and friendly laughter.

Aside from what we were advocating, it was nice to hear so many residents also express their desires for cycling infrastructure incorporation into these projects.  On the positive, Streetcar developments has in their plans underground weather protected bike parking for residents of their condos. Streetcar also has some ideas on their presentation board for building multi-use connections to some new (to be developed by the city) park space nestled around the DVP eastern Ave pocket (like a smaller version of Corktown Common). They had some big ideas up on their board including a new pedestrian / cycle bridge connection across the dvp parallel to Eastern Ave. The reality (and funding!!) of such an ambitious idea remains to be seen, but when they dream, they dream in fully accessible urban planning.

A note for councilor, I would encourage that funding and implementing these multi-use connections, parklands and greenery be conditional on any development permits.  As one resident that night said, it would be a tragedy for our neighbourhood if this development took shape like the "ghetto-ized" concrete Liberty Village.

Speaking of Liberty Village, overheard was a few residents expressing concern of the potential congestion on the Queen Streetcar line that could result from all the planned condo development.  Definitely a concern that Queen could become the new King Streetcar.  The city of Toronto's planning department representative confirmed that they are running traffic studies for the area, so it's a start.

Finally a note of shame on the presentation of the former Jilly's landmark.  I wish I caught a photo of the Streetcar Developments presentation board that showed Queen Street with a fully redeveloped Jilly's. The street scene showed 2 streetcars slinking down the middle of the road.  On the north side two cyclists pedaled joyously. On the south side a carefree jogger crossed the street, with their delightful golden retriever in tow.  Pedestrians lined the streets casually walking and enjoying this car free utopia.

I questioned the developer.  'Are you proposing that Queen East become car free? '  'Oh no.  Hmm, you know developers... we'll get that picture changed'.

Looks so much like this:  designing nice streets is easy when you pretend cars do not exist

Does Streetcar's Riverside Square proposal make the Cycling Connection across the DVP?

View Does Streetcar's Riverside Square proposal make the Cycling Connection across the DVP? in a larger map

Did a walkabout today (Sunday, October 19, 2014) of the Riverside Square proposed Development by Streetcar - to begin to understand their proposed connections planning.

Streetcar.ca | Welcome to Riverside Square | http://streetcar.ca/welcome-riverside-square/

We know that safe cycling routes attract cyclist users; but we also know that if that safe route is not a direct one it will not attract users just as if it were a dangerous route. The distances of the two comparable routes: straight over the "death ramp" - 1.2km; and via Streetcar's route - 1.9km (see the sidebar placemark notations at the map - http://goo.gl/maps/nykAU ).

In my opinion the streetcar development proposal does nothing more than connect two parks on either side of the Don Valley for recreational users. It does nothing to connect Scarborough to the Downtown; it does nothing to connect the Don Valley Trail to the cycling infrastructure on the road grid in the neighbourhoods to the east or to the west of it.

Does Streetcar's Riverside Square proposal make the Cycling Connection across the DVP? A Map: http://t.co/mo2p1JZlhy @STREETCARlofts #biketo
— Ward 30 Bikes (@Ward30Bikes) October 20, 2014

That being said - the development proposal is a giant leap forward in development planning in that it includes a complete streets transportation vision as part of the architectural design process in the redevelopment (and densification) of a neighbourhood.

Image: Streetcar's Proposed Cycle Network for Riverside Square

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Masters of Industry: South Riverdale to be the new West-of-Spadina High-rise Tower Goldmine

Finance - Industry would line East Waterfront with Highrise Condo Towers from Don River to Woodbine.

By Michael Holloway 

Streetcar Developments - the developer who bought Jilly's - and is voluntarily including low income units in their plan for the remodeling of the property - have also acquired a 4 acre site between Eastern and Queen along the Don Roadway, a project they're calling "Riverside Square".

Streetcar Developments Site Context drawing - Cycling Connections

It's not Mid-rise - it's Highrise - and it's a good indication why the developer did the 'loss-leader' thing about the low income units at the Jillys' proposed development. A little good-will goes a long way (a long way Up - in this case).

Jillys' is the 'Hi how are ya?'

The three, 7, 13 and 24 story towers are the,

'I'm your new neighbour (with the three loud barking dogs).'

But in case, the new neighbour with the loud dogs didn't just buy the house next door - they bought the whole block, and all the blocks in a 1/2km radius!

Welcome to the neighbourhood - I guess...

The good news is this company gets the Complete Streets and Sustainable Transportation part that going up 22 stories necessitates (that Mid-rise on the Avenues necessitates for that matter).

Quoting a recent letter to the Broadview/Queen Community:

"Given the scale and location of Riverside Square we see great opportunity to make much needed bike and pedestrian connections across the Don River to Corktown Common, provide new green space and perhaps most importantly: reintegrate the site into the traditional mixed-use character of the Queen East while providing valuable new services and publicly accessible amenities to the community."

Just so we're all on the same page on this - the elites, the establishment of this country - the banks, the financial institutions and their governments - are out of room on the West of Spadina side of Toronto's downtown - there's no room in South Parkdale - they can't build along the bottom of High Park

And so mark my words - and this development proposal and the First Gulf Leaver site proposal (that visions a Second City Centre anchored by a World Trade Center style array of towers) are the indicators - South Riverdale (and the new Lower South Riverdale, the Port Lands), is the new West-of-Spadina.

The functioning of greed and powerful special interest is visioning miles and miles of lake front highrise towers made of ticky-tacky* - all the way to Woodbine. A wall of private development that will create a another barrier to the water at the Lake front - a barrier to all but those who buy south-facing concrete cubicals (with windows that don't open).

Information link (via Paul Young newsletter) Spring Realty inc. | "Streetcar Plans Largest Development in Riverside History" | http://springrealty.ca/?breaking-news-streetcar-plans-largest-development-in-riverside-history.&p=5340

References:

Streetcar Developments | Riverside Square | http://streetcar.ca/welcome-riverside-square/

* 'tickey-tacky'? --> Pete Seeger - Little Boxes





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