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rfmcdonaldblogTO hosts Alex Josephson and Nicola Spunt's article calling on Toronto making use of the proposed Rail Deck Park to revamp how the city works.
The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway remains one of our country's most definitive acts of nation-building. Snaking across the better part of Canada, this critical piece of transportation infrastructure conveys people and goods and drives economies.
It also reflects one of the core stories we like to tell about our national identity: that in spite of its sprawling expansiveness, Canada is a connector, a country that unites diverse peoples across diverse geographies.
Like elsewhere, Canadian cities have grown up and expanded around rail tracks. But this has also created a problematic legacy from an urban planning and design perspective. The downtown cores of metropolises like Toronto and Vancouver are lacerated by transit infrastructure that bisects valuable swathes of real estate and compromises people's experience of their cities at grade.
Cue the Rail Deck Park. A few weeks ago, Toronto Mayor John Tory, flanked by Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat and Councillor Joe Cressy (Ward 20), dropped an unexpected -- and unexpectedly inspired -- announcement: the city's intention to protect 21 acres of space in order to create a legacy park that will blanket the CN rail corridor between Blue Jays Way and Bathurst Street.
The idea comes courtesy of TOcore, a city planning initiative tasked with studying the densification of downtown Toronto and developing strategies for new infrastructure that redresses the physical and social strains arising from vigorous intensification.
It also reflects one of the core stories we like to tell about our national identity: that in spite of its sprawling expansiveness, Canada is a connector, a country that unites diverse peoples across diverse geographies.
Like elsewhere, Canadian cities have grown up and expanded around rail tracks. But this has also created a problematic legacy from an urban planning and design perspective. The downtown cores of metropolises like Toronto and Vancouver are lacerated by transit infrastructure that bisects valuable swathes of real estate and compromises people's experience of their cities at grade.
Cue the Rail Deck Park. A few weeks ago, Toronto Mayor John Tory, flanked by Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat and Councillor Joe Cressy (Ward 20), dropped an unexpected -- and unexpectedly inspired -- announcement: the city's intention to protect 21 acres of space in order to create a legacy park that will blanket the CN rail corridor between Blue Jays Way and Bathurst Street.
The idea comes courtesy of TOcore, a city planning initiative tasked with studying the densification of downtown Toronto and developing strategies for new infrastructure that redresses the physical and social strains arising from vigorous intensification.
