Archives /// Matthew Blackett
August 26th, 2010
Looking down at Pittsburgh
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The title of this post is deliberately misleading simply because whenever I go to a city I look down to see what the city offers — whether it be garbage bins, sidewalk etchings, or fire hydrants.
As any long-time Spacing reader will know, I have a bit of an obsession with streetscapes and the elements that are peppered along roads and sidewalks. Whenever I visit another city I tend to spend a day wandering around, looking down and photographing the details. That was no different when I visited Pittsburgh this past weekend.
When I told friends and colleagues I was off to Pittsburgh for four days the most often response was, "Pittsburgh?"
Yes, Pittsburgh. While I've been to Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo, Pittsburgh has always been off my radar. The city has always had a reputation as being down-in-the-dumps since it lost hundreds of thousands of jobs from the 1960s into the 1980s when steel mills and factories closed shop. While the population of the city has dwindled from 675,000 in 1950 to 311,000 in 2009, the city has reinvented itself as a bio-medical and education hub (luckily, the city has six universities all within walking distance of each other).
August 19th, 2010
How to (not) promote access to the waterfront
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I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed but Toronto's waterfront doesn't seem to be on the radar of the mayoral candidates in this election. This is surprising since one of the candidates (Joe Pantalone) is a city councillor of a ward that borders Lake Ontario while another one (George Smitherman) used to represent a provincial riding that includes the Toronto Island, airport, Don River, and skirts the Port Lands. I suspect it's only a matter of time before HTO Park's yellow umbrellas are introduced to the miser wrath of Rob Ford.
But this post is not meant to challenge candidates. Instead, I'd like to discuss our access to the waterfront. Or more importantly, how the City of Toronto and Waterfront Toronto have dropped the ball on effectively directing pedestrians and cyclists to make their way down to Lake Ontario.
I live in the most southern part of Parkdale, just west of the CNE grounds. The Jameson pedestrian bridge that crosses over the eastbound lanes of Lakeshore Blvd. is a one-minute walk from my place and I have a clear view of it from my balcony. It's used quite often by walkers and cyclists. But it's the only entry point to the waterfront and the Martin Goodman Trail for over a kilometre in either direction.
So how is this vital access point promoted? With two rather insignificant signs: one is a few blocks away from the bridge itself (see it on Google StreetsView at Jameson and King West) and another sign is two short blocks away at Dunn and Springhurst, both residential streets (shown above). These are the only signs I've found in the western part of the city promoting access to the waterfront. The other popular pedestrian bridge, at Roncesvalles and King, has a grand total of zero signs promoting its location.
August 11th, 2010
WWW: Bikes, transit, and why gardens are good for school kids
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• There is a tradition amongst cycling advocates around the world to attach a "ghost bike" — every part of it painted solid white — to a light pole or bike rack in order to memorialize the death of a cyclist near that location. New York City is considering a law that would allow the city to remove these bikes.
• The Guardian reports, "Much has been written about a war between cyclists and drivers, as if the two groups were such polar opposites that they could never cross in a Venn diagram. But according to new research, people who cycle the most are likely to own at least two cars."
• High-speed rail is a hot topic south of the border, especially along the densely populated east coast. The Philadelphia Inquirer has compiled a handful of their articles on the topic into one easy-to-read section.
• "The controversial Cincinnati streetcar plan may have made its final political stop at City Hall on Wednesday, when City Council authorized moving ahead with $108 million in grants and bonds for a project that has dominated civic debate for the past three years. In a series of 5-3 votes mirroring the action of council's budget committee earlier this week, council gave city administrators approval to proceed with $44 million in grants and $64 million in bonds that will finance most of the Downtown-to-Uptown streetcar line's $128 million first phase."
August 10th, 2010
VIDEO: Skateboarding in Kabul
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I was never very good at skateboarding as a kid, though I spent way too many nights trying to slide the bottom of my board along the curb outside my house. Over time, the board became more useful as a tool for moving my ball hockey net to nearby school yards and parking lots. But I had a lot of friends in high school who were excellent boarders so I spent numerous hours taking photos as they perfected their moves and tricks.
In the intervening years I ...
August 9th, 2010
San Francisco’s plan to deal with parking
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SFpark Overview from SFpark on Vimeo.
I know I'm stating the obvious when I say this: parking a vehicle downtown, in Toronto or any city, can be a challenge if not entirely frustrating. But the parking policies of a city go a long way in determining how a city is experienced at street level. For instance, the city of Prince George, BC has nearly 50% of its entire downtown area covered in parking lots. Toronto's downtown used to ...
August 4th, 2010
Mapping subways
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If you've been reading Spacing Toronto for any length of time you'll know that I have a fascination with transit maps. So much so, I've proposed a few map ideas to the TTC in the past (which is probably why I was asked to design the original Transit City map).
The world's most famous subway map, designed by Harry Beck, is found in London, England and is considered the world standard-bearer of transit maps. It compresses the sprawling Underground (12 lines, 270 stations) network into a digestible size that is rather easy to understand.
Toronto's subway map is simple, simply because we have so few lines and only 69 stations. New York, on the other hand, has 26 lines and 468 stations (as a side note: can you imagine what we at Spacing would have to do to make subway buttons for NYC's subway system?!?). A quick look at a New York subway map reveals that the city has yet to find a comfortable way to display their system with the same ease as London.
In an O'Reilly Radar post, graphic designer Eddie Jabbour explains why he chose to re-design New York's subway map and all of the minute details that need to be considered during the creative process. One of the more interesting tidbits he points out is that in North American cities our subway networks tend to follow the grid of the streets, whereas in most European cities the subways operate in rail corridors and cannot conform to the winding, medieval street grid. This means that North Americans usually have a greater understanding of where they are once they're underground.
July 15th, 2010
VIDEO: Nothing is higher than an architect
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If you live in a place without air conditioning than you can relate to my current plight: the heat wave is making it difficult for me to sleep at night. When I find myself wide awake and sweating buckets at 3am, I sometimes sit on my couch, place the fan directly in front of me and watch a bit of late night TV.
The other night/morning, the TV gods were kind to me: they offered up a Seinfeld episode where George Costanza is handing out a scholarship, in honour of his late fiancée, to a kid who aspires to be an architect (George's fake occupation). The recipient later changes his mind and wants to be a city planner, which earns George's wrath: he revokes the scholarship. The kid ends up in a gang who later confront George by demanding that he give back the scholarship and let the kid become a city planner.
July 13th, 2010
Bike parking takes over car parking spaces
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Toronto bike riders can celebrate a "first" today: the City has converted two car parking spots into parking for a minimum of 16 bikes.
Here is a little background on how it happened.
Last year after I returned from a month-long trip to Scandinavia — where I witnessed a variety of amazing bike infrastructure projects — I was determined to see if any of them could be implemented here in Toronto. One of the easiest things, I figured, was the conversion of a few car parking spots into bike parking. Montreal had done it a few years back and I saw other examples in cities like Vancouver, New York and Portland.
A year ago, there were six ring-and-post bike racks in front of Spacing's office on Spadina that could hold up to 12 bikes, yet a survey conducted by our landlord, the Centre For Social Innovation, determined that 75% of tenants rode their bike to our building in the summer. That meant there was a demand for 150 bike parking spots near our building. While the landlord provided bike parking in our building for about 30 bikes, there was still a significant shortage of spots available on the sidewalk for a few blocks. Cyclists were parking to stop signs, support wires for light poles, the pipes of water mains, the scaffolding attached to our building for much of the summer, and any other thing you could fit a lock through.
June 29th, 2010
G20: The revolution will be televised (on YouTube)
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Last week, social media demonstrated that Toronto is a quite a plugged-in city: Twitter, Flickr and Facebook quickly confirmed that an earthquake had happened before any news media could get it out. And this weekend, Torontonians did an outstanding job of documenting the G20 protests and altercations. Here are a few items that made an impact on me.
THE BEST VIDEO, DAY 1: This is a well-edited video of the rampage that took place in the downtown core. The videographers at times were able ...
June 28th, 2010
G20: A few questions to ask organizers of G20
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Simply put, this weekend in Toronto was horrible on every level. All of the events that transpired need to be examined with critical eyes — from residents, elected officials, and the media — in order for the city to come to grips with the scars left behind by the G20 Summit. I've pulled together a few questions any Torontonian should ask their elected officials.
WHY TORONTO?
Violent protests at G8 and G20 summits are as common as breathing air, so why would any federal government official think it would be a good idea to hold this event in any Canadian city? Mayor David Miller clearly stated that he did not want the summit held in the city as did many other local politicians. But Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has said the summit was a chance to showcase Toronto and Canada. "These are marketing techniques that have been put forward by our best people to be able to showcase Canada, and that's what we all want. We want to be proud of what Canada represents and what we can do."
So what did the delegates and foreign media get to see on their visit to Toronto? Not the vast array of cultural activities available downtown. Not the amazing restaurants we offer on King and Queen streets. Not the vibrant neighbourhoods and local businesses that operate so close to the core. None of the delegates got to see a city that prides itself on tolerance and diversity. When an event like this forces downtown residents to flee the city, no foreign television crew or intrepid newspaper reporter will have a chance to discover the true spirit of this city.
