A Toronto local blog about living, playing and working on Queens Quay, Toronto's waterfront

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

More on the Canada Malting Co. Silos

We told you a few weeks ago about the museum project at the site of the Canada Malting Silos.

Here's an update from the Heritage Toronto site

The other issue of import on Friday was the Canada Malting silos. Heritage Preservation Services is moving to designate the silos based on their associative, contextual and design value. This comes as the City's Facilities & Real Estate Division is seeking to demolish all but a representational stub of the footprint of a few of the silos. The Board agreed with the HPS staff recommendation that the silos are worthy of designation, and also added an amendment to recommend that the $8 million set aside by the City for this site, and which Facilities & Real Estate is suggesting be used for demolition, instead be used to stabilize and restore the silos, while demolishing the buildings to the west, which pose a public danger.
The site is apparently no longer being considered as the future home of the Museum of Toronto, and work is now underway to consider the feasibility of Old City Hall for that purpose.

The Gardiner's future: Public meeting and consultation




As mentioned in other local news, Waterfront Toronto last week launched its process to start examining the future of the Gardiner.

Waterfront Toronto and the City of Toronto have started a new project considering the removal, replacement or improvement of the Gardiner Expressway from Jarvis Street to just east of the Don Valley Parkway.

Your input into this project is critical. We want to hear your ideas and feedback throughout this project and we’ve created this online consultation website to help you participate. When you join this community – you will have the opportunity to share your insights, learn about the issues and discuss your ideas. This consultation is being conducted in support of an environmental assessment required by the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act.
The project is soliciting comments on its website and is also holding public meetings.


Thursday, April 2, 2009
Harbourfront Community Centre – Gymnasium
627 Queens Quay West, Toronto
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. (Open House)
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. (Presentation)

More on the project from the Star:

Waterfront Toronto officials and Mayor David Miller want to see the elevated highway razed east of Jarvis St. and replaced with a grand boulevard, as a way to open the city to the lakefront, a move that could cost as much as $300 million.

But that can't be done until a long and costly environmental assessment process – nearly $8 million and not expected to be completed until 2011 – is done. The final decision rests with city council, not likely to tackle the issue until 2012.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Coming soon: Basic Home Essentials



So we have a new store opening up in the neighbourhood, at 249 Queens Quay West, in the former home of Time 2 Run. (It's the empty storefront right beside the Mamma's Pizza.)

It's a 'Basic Home Essentials' store and as you can see from the sign "candles, office supplies, housewares, party supplies, hardware, gift wrapping and greeting cards."

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Another one bites the dust: Harbour Tandoori Grille closes


So, since we started looking at restaurants on this blog, two have closed. Now it's three. Harbour Tandoori Grille, a little shop that served Indian food and seemed to get business, closed a few days ago. According to the sign, they were behind on rent.

This underlines the tremendous pressure retailers are in our neighbourhood. There are thousands of us who live here yet we seem to not give these shops enough business to get by, particularly in the winter months. It seems like the ones that are destined to thrive are brand name franchises?


So the loss of another independent business is not great for business. What could they have done to get more business? Market better? Work to get a robust delivery service?


Well, there goes a viable option for food other than subs (we have three).

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Queens Quay's makeover: An overhead view from Bathurst to Parliament

If you didn't get a chance to get out to the public meetings today or last Wednesday, you would have missed the big billboards they had out of the development. It's fairly grand and you can see how the traffic and south lane of Queens Quay would look like after the facelift.

Here's a slideshow view

Sad memorial after death near CityPlace buildings


We were saddened to read about Soraya Nanji, a resident at condos near our neighbourhood. She was crossing Front Street earlier this week, reportedly talking on her cellphone, when she was struck and killed by a truck. Here's full coverage at the Star, Post, CBC, CTV.

On Friday night, we saw that a memorial of pictures and flowers were set up at the northwest corner of Front and Blue Jays Way.

From this CBC story, concerns that she was distracted while speaking on her phone.


"There's no way to say definitively yes or no, but it certainly didn't help that she was talking on the phone while trying to cross a relatively busy street," said police Sgt. Steve Burrows.

Burrows said there are pedestrian collisions involving some sort of distraction every couple of months in Toronto, "whether it's the use of an iPod … [or] the use of a cellphone — texting or talking.

"These are things we have been warning pedestrians about. You certainly cut off some of your sensory abilities when you're doing something like that," Burrows said.

It can't be denied that in condo land, there are lots of people on foot. And lots of downtown traffic. And yes, many of us are on cellphones, iPods or peering down at our BlackBerrys. All of this is to say that we should listen to what our parents taught us. Look before you cross, and perhaps use your ears as well. Sad story we don't want to read about again.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Public concerns about Queens Quay's facelift and makeover, Part 1

We were at the March 25 meeting and heard a lot of the business, resident association feedback about the proposed alternative -- using the south lane for the Martin Goodman Trial, widening the sidewalk south, greening the transit lanes and confining traffic to the north side.

Here are a first in a series of public comments we heard at the meeting. We have more that we'll put up later.

Traffic was a often cited concern. Residents said there will be greater congestion in the summer

The Bathurst Quay Neighbourhood Association said it was great to get people out of cars, but how cyclists are going to manage from Spadina from Bathurst.. it's a mess now..

Another resident association member said what about the TTC shelters that don't offer full coverage, saying people not to be frozen to death (hyperbole, we think)

There was a concern about the ferry -- will there be any changes? The officials said there were no changes

One resident made a good point that is there a way to get people into the water in the form of a public swimming pool. Note the  major swimming pools on the water in 'central' Toronto are at Sunnyside (6 kilometres from Queens Quay) and at Ashbridges Bay (about 9 kilometres away)

One resident asked about the TTC Queens Quay East Portal -- will you see the ugly sugar factory. The official said that yes, it will emerge at Freeland just west of the sugar factory and north of a condo development

A member of the Toronto island community said she was "extremely excited" about the project but concerned about lack of water access and more connections to the island

A 65 Harbour Square resident said that recent tree plantings have not been successful and how will 300 trees survive? The official said that they plan to allow for a lot more soil (30 cubic metres per tree) and likened it to stacking milk crates and filling it with soil.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Tonight: thinkTORONTO winners at Harbourfront Centre

Via event's Facebook event page

SPACING'S thinkTORONTO WINNERS DISCUSS DESIGNS AT HARBOURFRONT
When: Thursday March 26, 2009
Where: Harbourfront Centre 7pm
Admission: $5
Web: http://spacing.ca/thinktoronto/

thinkToronto winners Mike Wilson, Jason Mills and Springboard creators Amy Mamtura, Cristina Matei, and Esther Hung discuss their winning submissions during View Points at Harbourfront Centre on Thursday March 26 (7 pm, $5). This exclusive discussion gives an unique insight into the thinkToronto competition, which received more than 100 entries as well as mounting exhibitions at Toronto's City Hill and at 401 Richmond's Urban Space Gallery. thinkToronto's goal was to seek ideas from the next generation of city builders who want to challenge how we view Toronto’s public realm. The competition gave participants a platform to explore and experiment with Toronto’s urban landscape while generating a dialogue among Torontonians about creative and sustainable solutions in our shared common spaces. Winners will also take part in a discussion moderated by Shawn Micallef, Senior Editor of Spacing Magazine.

TTC unveils plan for a streetcar line for Queens Quay East to Parliament

TTC's about to embark on a process that could see a massive expansion of its Union Station streetcar platform and a new line that services the developing Queens Quay East neighbourhood.

As part of the Queens Quay redevelopment meeting today that saw the plans unveiled for the $192-million makeover of the stretch from Bathurst to Yonge Street, the TTC also made public its plans for a new streetcar line.

The TTC's Bill Dawson outlined how the commission had gone through years of planning before announcing the potential new line that would see a streetcar start from Union, emerge east of Yonge street and loop at Parliament, which it said would be an interim solution. There would be eventual plans to hook it up with Cherry Street.

The commission had considered several alternatives: using other vehicles other than streetcars, having an above ground line that turned at Bay Street. It had considered whether the streetcar would emerge before Yonge Street but it was decided that it would disrupt pedestrian and vehicle traffic too much.

To accommodate the extra line, it said that Union Station, which Dawson said was already congested, would get a revamp "over time" so that the platforms would run north and south.

It also said the portal, where the streetcar emerges onto the street would possible be made "more attractive" and showed a few interesting renderings.

We've mocked up a Google Map with some of the materials we saw on the street. Remember this is not definitive but reflects the essence of what we saw.


View Larger Map

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

A new vision emerges for our Queens Quay. It's long, wide and ambitious

This marks the beginning of a series of posts on the Queens Quay redevelopment. Read on for the next few days as we digest all the information from tonight's meetings. Here are some newsstories on the facelift of Toronto's central waterfront road, Queens Quay.

When it's all said and done, and all the hyperbole and rhetoric fades, this plan that Waterfront Toronto says will make Queens Quay a jewel, a top-10 type of boulevard that can fight with other big cities, we'll be left with something bigger than you can stuff in a press release.

This vision, of a Queens Quay that's given back to the pedestrians, the cyclists, the residents and tourists to this city, will go a long ways toward changing this neighbourhood. It is literally a long sighted, horizontal vision that stretches a good four kilometres, from Bathurst all the way west to Cherry Street.

John Campbell, CEO of Waterfront Toronto, told the crowd at the Westin hotel tonight that our street is the "ugly duckling" of the waterfront." He's right.

Read a future post about the plans for development and transit for the East Bayfront (Queens Quay East) because it's big.

As a resident of Queens Quay, we were captured by many of the aspects that weren't mentioned in the media reports. Sure, we can mention it'll cost $192-million, hopefully break ground by 2010 and finish by 2012, but we'll leave that kind of numbers for another day.

It's the possibility that a road that takes so much concrete and acts as the central vein of our water's edge can finally give way to greenery that houses 300 trees and 4-metre wide lanes of an actual Martin Goodman Trail that connects Bathurst to Cherry Street and thus the East to the West. It's the possibility that there will be more crossing points to the south and water from the north. It's the slideshows that we saw tonight of show bustling sidewalks with imagined crowds or of a central LRT track that showed the colour green.

We're weighed with the gravity of the reality that time will tell whether they've done their homework. Will a two-lane street be able to move traffic the way a four-lane road does now? Will buses continue to cause congestion, will street parking be addressed in a meaningful way?

There are a lot of questions that the planners have no doubt considered. And tonight, they explained the best they could in a few hours about why they made their decision. For us, the headlines are that they've chosen a way forward that thinks about pedestrian traffic, about the TTC flow, about tourism, the environment and what's best for the city.

The worries from local residents are legitimate: Can I move in my own neighbourhood if you choke off the traffic? Will it hurt businesses? Will this plan make this a liveable and visitable neighbourhood in the winter? Are we still disconnected from the water if all we do is walk near its edge.

Questions, of course, to be answered in due time, but while we digest the news, and think about what that will mean for our property values or for our daily commute or our interaction with hordes of tourists, we at least have a picture to look forward to. It looks something like this:

We were kinda right: Queens Quay south lane to be given to pedestrians and cyclists

This is from Waterfront Toronto. We're heading there now to see what's the public input.
After comprehensive study, Waterfront Toronto is recommending that remaking Queens Quay into a grand lakefront boulevard featuring streetcar lanes in the centre, traffic only on the north side and a pedestrian focused space on the south side is the recommended option for transforming the waterfront’s main road.

Waterfront Toronto will officially present the technically recommended alternative and two options for the traffic lanes, one which would have two-way traffic and the other one-way traffic, for public discussion and input tonight. While Waterfront Toronto has a slight preference for the two-way option at this time, further analysis and public input are required before a final option is presented to City Council.“Today we are one step closer to our goal of revitalizing Toronto’s central waterfront area,” said John Campbell, President and CEO of Waterfront Toronto. “From east to west, Queens Quay is the backbone of our waterfront and it will soon become a revered destination not only for Torontonians but the world.”

Transforming Queens Quay by creating a beautiful linear park on the south side of the street that would include a generous new pedestrian promenade and an expanded Martin Goodman Trail was part of the winning design for revitalizing the central waterfront selected by Waterfront Toronto in 2006 after an international design competition.

Prior to making any changes to Queens Quay, Waterfront Toronto and the City of Toronto began a Class Environmental Assessment (EA) process to study the feasibility, impact, and alternatives to the idea. In fact, Queens Quay has been subject to two EAs, one on the revitalization itself and another, done in conjunction with Toronto Transit Committee and the City of Toronto, focusing on planning transit services for the new waterfront development underway in East Bayfront and future communities in the West Don Lands and Port Lands.

The EA process, which has been ongoing for the past two years, has included the examination of several alternative planning solutions for Queens Quay. Each alternative presents a different configuration for a revitalized Queens Quay that has been analyzed and rated against a series of city planning and environmental criteria.

The EA process also includes a thorough and continuing public consultation component and extensive in-depth technical analysis.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Toronto Museum Project stalled

A hat tip to a QQL reader who spotted this on BQNA's website

We wrote about the Malting Silos recently, here's an update on the touted museum project.

From Councillor Vaughan's office:

The Toronto Preservation Board will be considering a report at its meeting on Friday March 27 about the Canada Malting Silos. The meeting will be taking place at Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen Street West, 2nd Floor, Committee Room 4 at 2:00pm. This report will also be considered by the Toronto and East York Community Council at its meeting to be held on April 21, 2009.

Given the current financial situation, plans for the Toronto Museum Project are no longer moving forward. Councillor Vaughan can provide updates to the neighbourhood on this matter at the April public forum. With this situation, the future of the Canada Malting Silos need to be considered by the city, particularly in light of their deteriorating conditions and work that needs to be done to ensure that they do not pose a safety risk to pedestrians in the area. There are financial constraints on this but Councillor Vaughan is interested in looking at ways of preserving the elements with heritage value within these constraints.

The report is available online here:
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2009/pb/bgrd/backgroundfile-19569.pdf

Queens Quay's future transit: the shortlisted 3 and our pick

Yesterday, we showed you the five options that Waterfront Toronto was originally looking at. Today, here are the three shortlisted ones. Tomorrow, Waterfront Toronto will present its preferred choice.

You can read a lot more about the revitalization of the Queens Quay area on their website. Specifically, you can read a useful December 2008 presentation on the redevelopment of the road in this huge but very readable PDF.

Option 2: Centre transit with on street bike lanes. You can see the difference already and that is that vehicle traffic would be hit. There would be on street parking and in addition, bike lanes, which would mean that both east and west bound traffic would be limited to one lane. You can see that on busy days, the traffic would really down to a crawl, but for cyclists, that would definitely help navigate an area with tonnes of buses and parked cars.



Option 4: South transit with MGT and two-way operation: So, expanded Martin Goodman Trail plus more greenery, the whole south side of the streetcars would be pedestrian/cyclists. The north would be two way.



Option 5: South transit with MGT and one-way operation: Like No. 4 but with westbound only traffic.



The bike lane option, we think, doesn't go far enough and does not make the street any more approachable or walkable by pedestrians.

The one-way street concept is interesting but it would be kind of unmanagable because it is a long waterfront and people need to get to different places (ferry docks, the central waterfront, the condos, or just parking for Rogers Center.)

We think option four is the best one for the neighbourhood. Giving the area south of the TTC row would be just fantastic for making the area walkable and would draw more tourists or even residents outside.

Here are some of the factors that they wanted to keep in mind. Looking at the list below, we think No. 4 is the no brainer.:

Land use and planning and policy context

Urban design and public realm (streetscape, public spaces, cyclists, pedestrians)

Transportation - transit and vehicles, safety, emergency vehicles

Social economic environment - tourism, effects on business, residents

Natural environment - air quality, aquatic habitats

Cultural environment

Cost

Monday, March 23, 2009

Queens Quay's future transit: Five options

As we said in yesterday's post we'd promise we'd show you some information and resources about the new vision for the street to be unveiled this week.

As some background, the Waterfront Toronto is the agency that gets government funding to revitalize our city's waterfront. It's been doing its work since 2001 and you can see its stamp pretty clearly on Queens Quay (HTO Park, Spadina Wavedeck are just two examples).

The organization has been looking at improving the central waterfront area, we can maybe call it from Bay Street to Spadina corridor.

You can read a lot more about the revitalization of the Queens Quay area on their website. Specifically, you can read a useful December 2008 presentation on the redevelopment of the road in this huge but very readable PDF.

In short, the project is looking to achieve some guiding principles: Better balance between traffic and pedestrians, provide a world-class transit system, development "context sensitive approach to design", use all of the transit area to improve the public realm, creating a value added space, making the waterfront a destination, and supporting community and businesses.

Here are some of the options

Option 1: Do nothing, pretty straightforward but it probably wouldn't meet most of the principles mentioned above. As a QQ resident, we think that going forward with nothing it not the worst thing that could happens, but there seems to be a huge divide of ... well, concrete, between the north and south side. Note that option 1 doesn't include the Wavedeck, which is already in the process of being built.




Option 2: Centre transit with on street bike lanes. You can see the difference already and that is that vehicle traffic would be hit. There would be on street parking and in addition, bike lanes, which would mean that both east and west bound traffic would be limited to one lane. You can see that on busy days, the traffic would really down to a crawl, but for cyclists, that would definitely help navigate an area with tonnes of buses and parked cars.



Option 3
: Centre transit with Martin Goodman Trail. This would see parking on the north side and reduced to one land on both north and southbound. Bringing the Martin Goodman on to Queens Quay would be huge for the trail, as it loses its identity between Bathurst and Jarvis, a boon to both runners, cyclists and pedestrians.



Option 4: South transit with MGT and two-way operation: So, expanded Martin Goodman Trail plus more greenery, the whole south side of the streetcars would be pedestrian/cyclists. The north would be two way.



Option 5:
South transit with MGT and one-way operation: Like No. 4 but with westbound only traffic.

Tomorrow, the three finalists

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Queens Quay's facelift as a new vision to emerge this week

The Queens Quay we know now will undergo a massive change in the coming years, not by any new buildings (there barely is enough space) but by the scope of changes coming to the boulveard.

This upcoming Wednesday, Waterfront Toronto is holding a public meeting to present its vision for what Queens Quay will look like and the "selection of the preferred tunnel portal location" for a new streetcar line to the East Bayfront (or Queens Quay East).

It's a massive moment for the neighbourhood so to bring you semi up to date, we'll take you through some of the proposed changes to Queens Quay West.

The meeting on March 25 is at the Westin Harbour Castle, Metro West Ballroom at One Harbour Square, starting with an open house at 6:30 and a presentation at 7 p.m.

A need for a new street?

You may remember in the late summer of 2006, a little pilot project that made way for pedestrians and cyclists. It basically took the two southbound lanes and turned them into a cycling/jogging path and added an extra grassy area along with flowers (yes, flowers) to the dedicated TTC route

Here's an image we took back then to jog your memory.



It appears it was a lot more than just a test case, but part of a vision for what the street could be.

In our next post, we'll discuss five alternatives that the Waterfront Toronto had looked at and on Tuesday, we'll show you the three finalists. Wednesday, we'll attend the meeting and bring any updates to the blog.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

TTC: Know when the 510 and 509 streetcars are coming and going

If you use the streetcar at the Queens Quay neighbourhood, then you know about the next vehicle information system, which we wrote about earlier.

Some chatter on Twitter this morning about the Toronto Transit Commission's beta testing of their GPS time notifier. It's available at this link (http://www.nextbus.com/wireless/miniRoute.shtml?a=ttc) and allows you to select your stop. So now you'll be able to use it to see when the next 510 or 509 Streetcar is coming your way.

We tried this application on our BlackBerry and it worked fine, just some display problems.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Recent violence at Guvernment



The Guvernment is an oddity on Queens Quay East. On many a summer night, it's host to hundreds of party goers who flock to the club that's surrounded by -- well, a Loblaws, a sugar factory and of course the nearby party boats. On Sunday mornings, you'll see all the litter left behind on the sidewalks surrounding the building.

We can't help but notice that in the past few weeks there have been a few reports of violence at or near the club.

The latest was this past weekend when three people were shot, according to the Toronto Sun


Three apparently innocent young men were hurt early this morning when gunfire erupted at a crowded nightclub on the city's waterfront.
Toronto Police say the shots rang out shortly before 2:45 a.m. inside The Guvernment, located on Queen's Quay E. at Jarvis St. But the identity of the gunman and the reason for the shooting remain a mystery.
And investigators have found nothing so far to suggest any of the victims were targeted.
 This follows an odd report of violence outside of an amateur police boxing event at the club a few weeks ago.The Toronto Star reports:


The officer assaulted after an amateur police boxing event was recognized as the 33 Division constable who made the arrest of the month in January.

Const. Gary Gould was beaten up by several other police officers around 1:30 a.m. Friday as patrons of the annual FiteNite left the Guvernment nightclub on Queens Quay, the Star has learned.

This is the first negative incident in the eight-year history of the raucous charity event that attracts some 2,000 spectators from police officers to Crown attorneys, said organizers.
Whether or not the violence is a common thing to the neighbourhood, you can't help but notice that Waterfront Toronto's East Bayside community is looking to implant a lot of residential units around that area. We wouldn't be surprised that years from now, after that community is built up, that there will be a lot more concerns about what happens at the Guvernment.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Photo of the week: View from Toronto Island Airport (or the ferry leading to it)



Happy March Break to our readers. We're taking it a little slower these days but will ramp things up as we've got lots in the story hopper. On a sunny Sunday, we present a picture of the harbourfront community from the ferry to the Island Airport where Porter Airlines are based.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Weekend and March Break guide to Queens Quay

What's going on in our area (minus major league sporting events, you know about those). Know of any events? Leave a comment or mail queensquaylife@gmail.com

March break camps at Harbourfront Centre (link). The Harboufront Centre has a variety of camps for ages 4-17


Free Family Skate Days at the Ricoh Coliseum
____________________

The City of Toronto invites you to take the family to the Ricoh Coliseum for free leisure skating fun from noon to 6 p.m. on Monday, March 16, Wednesday, March 18 and Friday, March 20.

* Children 12 years and under must wear a CSA-approved ice skating/hockey helmet.

The Ricoh Coliseum is attached to the Direct Energy Centre located on the Exhibition Place grounds. For more information, please call 416-392-6696.

CN Tower
During March Break (March 16-20) explore all the CN Tower has to offer, enjoy daily performances by the Famous PEOPLE Players, Top Trumps card tournament plus a chance to win great prizes.  (All activities are included with CN Tower admission.)
Harbourfront Centre (link to weekend)

A program of music, dance and theatre inspired by and featuring Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata.
LIVE / Carey Young: Speechcraft ®
Sunday, March 15, 2009 4:00 PM
Join exhibiting artist Carey Young for this live performance-based artwork in collaboration with Toastmasters, the international public speaking club.
Featuring the music of Elizabeth Morris and José Seves with Proyecto Altiplano.

The Power Plant
The Power Plant's Spring 2009 exhibitions, Lawrence Weiner 'THE OTHER SIDE OF A CUL-DE-SAC' and Carey Young 'Counter Offer,' open Friday 13 March 2009 with a free reception from 6-8 PM. All are welcome.

Rogers Centre March Break

March 16 - 20 (Monday - Friday)
Spring Fling
From March 16 - 20, Rogers Centre is transformed into an indoor carnival wonderland complete with 18 rides and games of chance.

March 19 (Wednesday - Sunday)
Disney on Ice

March 18 - 22, Disney On Ice presents their latest on-ice masterpiece with Worlds of Fantasy. Evening performances highlight the schedule during the week with multiple shows available on the weekend.


Air Canada Centre
Friday: Raptors v. Pisons
Saturday: Leafs v. Flames
Sunday: Raptors v. Pacers
Tuesday: Fleetwood Mac
Wednesday: Britney Spears
Thrusday: Britney Spears