Infrastructure

Waterfront Toronto, in partnership with the City of Toronto, completed a Class Environmental Assessment (EA) Study for the revitalization of Queens Quay in Toronto’s central waterfront. The purpose of the study was to create a plan for Queens Quay that successfully accommodates the various users – pedestrians, transit, cyclists, automobiles, recreational – while enhancing landscape and the public realm; and to develop and evaluate a number of alternative solutions and design concepts for pedestrian, transit, cycling, and automobile improvements along Queens Quay.

In August 2008, the City of Toronto initiated a Class Environmental Assessment Study for a pedestrian and cycle route/bridge over the railway corridors north of Fort York. This bridge is intended to provide a key link between Stanley Park to the north and the western area of the Fort York grounds to the south, improving connections to the waterfront.

A report released this week by Transportation for America titled Dangerous By Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods) ranks the most dangerous metropolitan areas in the U.S. for pedestrians (Florida has the top 4) and the safest (Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis-St Paul.)

A recent BBC podcast is worth checking out. Public Places, Private Lives is a series of portraits of well known places that reveal the lives and stories of those people who come to a famous spot not to gaze as tourists, but for work or for their own private reasons.

This episode is about Times Square in New York City and among the voices of irrepressible New Yorkers we hear Tim Tompkins of the Times Square Alliance talking about what happened when they put out the lawnchairs in the pedestrian zone. It will make you want to hop on the train for Penn Station.

According to a popular Danish blog, the City of Copenhagen is currently planning to expand the existing, extensive network of bike lanes to extend farther out into the suburbs. A network of 13 high-class routes - 'bicycle superhighways' - are dedicated to bicycle commuters and aimed at encouraging more to cycle to work. Currently 55% of the citizens in central Copenhagen ride a bicycle daily and the number is 37% for Greater Copenhagen.

According to Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone, the proposed Strachan Avenue super-bridge we told you about in a recent TCAT News has been averted. While the details of what the new structure will look like are still not fully worked out, Metrolinx's new proposed plans promises to address the issue of creating a cycling and pedestrian friendly corridor between the Waterfront and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

As reported previously in TCAT news,
the City recently held a public meeting to present their plans for
improvements to Jarvis Street. TCAT was represented at the meeting and

In last week's TCAT News,
we reported that 5 kilometres of the Martin Goodman Trail are being
cleared of snow. Thanks to Daniel Egan in Transportation Services for
letting us know that there are actually two sections being cleared as
follows:

5.6 km from Northern Dancer (east of Coxwell) to Sherbourne Street; and
6.3 km from Windermere to Stadium Road.

Also, between Stadium and Spadina and between Sherbourne and Yonge
there are on-street bicycle lanes which are being cleared of snow as
well.

Ireland has joined the ever-expanding list of federal governments
making announcements about ambitious plans and committing big dollars
to sustainable transportation. By 2020 Ireland hopes to have moved
500,000 people out of their cars and is committing €4.5bn
(approximately $7.1 billion CDN) to make it happen. In a country with a
population of only about 4.4 million, those targets and that level of
investment is quite significant. Read more here.