Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Vancouver Island film on labour activist Ginger Goodwin crowdfunding campaign

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Toronto’s New Waterfront Street —
Queens Quay Open After Three Years
of Revitalization Work

After three years of construction, Toronto’s revitalized waterfront boulevard is open – on schedule, and in time for the Redpath Waterfront Festival and the upcoming Pan Am and Parapan Am Games.
Once a street that featured poor design, insufficient room for pedestrians, and ageing infrastructure, Queens Quay has been transformed into a beautiful boulevard that includes a separated TTC right-of-way, a new section of the Martin Goodman Trail that connects the Trail across the downtown waterfront, and an enlarged pedestrian promenade that reflects the central waterfront’s importance as the second most-visited area of the city. Under the street, key infrastructure has been replaced or upgraded, including power, gas, water, sewage and telecommunications systems.
Area: Central Waterfront  Topic: design excellence,  parks & public spaces, queens quay,  reconnect to the water,  sustainable development
Read more: Toronto’s New Waterfront Street - Queens Quay Opens on Time After Three Years of Revitalization Work / Waterfront Toronto
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Monday, June 29, 2015

RT @jmfplan —
"you don't need planners for growth... you need planners for city building"
— @awallace1961

Monday, June 22, 2015

Unanimous vote: all downtown Toronto residential streets max speed 30 Kph


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Saturday, June 20, 2015

Brent Toderian in Halifax

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Thursday, June 18, 2015

From Better! Cities and Towns —
Form-based codes: What's the deal?

Form-based codes: What's the deal? The community gets walkable neighborhoods with affordable housing—developers get a streamlined approval process.

Posted by Better! Cities & Towns on Wednesday, June 17, 2015
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From Better! Cities & Towns Online —
A mixed-use waterfront for the city

This is the third of a series of articles on the Form Ithaca design charrette.
The series begn with a piece on how a section of NYS Route 13, a barrier between the City of Ithaca, New York, and its waterfront, could be remade into a pedestrian and bicycle-friendly boulevard. 
Once that change is made, a large swath adjacent to Cayuga Inlet opens for redevelopment--creating the potential for a spectacular transformation that includes: Read more: A mixed-use waterfront for the city | Better! Cities & Towns Online

10 good reasons for cities to invest in parks

More at: 10Best: Parks that have helped revive their cities
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Sunday, June 14, 2015

From The Globe and Mail —
Queens Quay waterfront redesign
thoughtful, modern urbanism


ALEX BOZIKOVIC The mason was chipping away the granite by the inch: Picking up each small block, studying its lines, knocking off a facet before laying it firmly in place. Then he moved on to the next 10-centimetre hunk of pink stone, as he and his colleagues filled in the face of Queens Quay.
“This is how it is done,” said landscape architect Jelle Therry of the firm West 8, “in very small ways, but very carefully and with great craft.” Mr. Therry was giving me a hard-hat tour of the street, which reopens this week after a three-year renovation by West 8 and Toronto’s DTAH that is largely complete.
This 1.7-kilometre project for Waterfront Toronto is a street, but that’s not a simple thing. It has been shaped with real craft and with clear thinking about materials, traffic, climate, crowd psychology and the culture of the city. The Queens Quay project will be an example of thoughtful 21st-century urbanism. Read more: Queens Quay revealed: Why the waterfront redesign is thoughtful, modern urbanism at its best - The Globe and Mail

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

New West Mayor Cote uses SFU urban studies degree to solve real-world problems


Jonathan Cote wasn’t even dreaming of becoming a mayor when he enrolled in SFU’s master of arts program in urban studies in 2011. He was looking for solutions to New Westminster’s rental housing and transit issues.
Yet today, at age 35, he is Metro Vancouver’s youngest mayor, and his rental housing innovations are capturing the attention of mayors across the region. More at: New Westminster's Mayor Cote uses degree to solve real-world problems - SFU News - Simon Fraser University
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Thursday, June 4, 2015

RT @MikeLydon: Portland creates opportunity for small entrepreneurs
on surface parking lots


Monday, June 1, 2015

Apparently, incredibly, this really happened...

From SFU Continuing Studies —
Strong Towns' Charles Marohn Curbside Chat


In October 2013, SFU hosted an urban planning lecture featuring Charles Marohn. The lecture was part of a series on Minnesota, a state that shares more than a border with Canada. 
Marohn is the co-founder and president of Strong Towns, and a professional engineer who is passionate about planning and small towns. He brings a civil-engineering perspective that results in original ideas such as the "stroad," a street/road hybrid that manages to be both expensive and unproductive. He's a fiscal conservative who makes his case effectively to a small-government audience as much as to urban planners and engineers.
This lecture was sponsored by TransLink, the City of Surrey, and SFU Urban Studies. It requires an hour of your time but if you're interested in cities you won't spend a more rewarding hour this week: 

 The Minnesota Series: Original Thinking from the American Midwest - YouTube
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