[URBAN NOTE] "Why is it so hard for Toronto to think big?"

[rfmcdonald]

I choose to read Edward Keenan's Wednesday article in the Toronto Star, starting with the Rail Deck Park, as a challenge for us to do better.

I want to fall in love with this thing because I imagine in my mind’s eye what it could be, in a dead zone of the city right now, in the heart of a growing central area, and think: “What a kick-ass awesome thing that would be to have in the city.”

I want to live in the city that says it is worth it, because we are a wealthy and growing city, and because it would belong to all of us, and because it would be awesome.

And yet…

…and yet I know this is a city that already has a much larger downtown park — on the Toronto Islands, roughly the size of New York’s Central Park — and chokes off access to it on aging ferry boats, so that a family of four wanting to visit must pay more than $22 to access the park, and must line up for a long time, crowded into a pen in the hot sun, waiting to board.

…and yet I know this a city in which the man who is now deputy mayor launched a crusade to protest the cost of pink umbrella lighting installations in a new waterfront park just a few years ago, and ramped up the outrage over new washrooms at Cherry Beach.