News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 10K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
EarthCam Time-Lapse Documents Rafael Viñoly-Designed New Stanford Hospital Construction
 42K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
Resort Town
 6K     0 

queens park and spadina circle aren't typical of traffic circles AFAIK and they're definitely not roundabouts. most circles and roundabouts are designed to force drivers to slow down, not have 4 lanes of traffic moving at 80 km/h. queens park traffic can be calmed - the intersections at the north, south, and at wellesley should be redesigned. come to think of it, does university/queens park really need 3-4 through lanes in each direction? the speed of the traffic doesn't exactly help pedestrian friendliness.
 
unimaginative:

Actually, I never find it particularly difficult to cross, and I jaywalk across it several times a day. The one-way street means that there's always a long gap with no cars.
Click to expand...

I found going between Trin and St. Mike's at the section marked by the Faculty of Law and Pratt Library to be quite a pain, especially in winter. The traffic is certainly mean, and with a 10 minute gap between lectures the rat-race becomes more or less untenable.

GB
 
I rather like how the traffic, which represents the cruel world, bisects the campus and disturbs the separate, "Forbidden City" nature of it. Emerge from the groves of academe, run the gauntlet of the vile world of Mammon, and scurry back into safety at the other side.
 
"most circles and roundabouts are designed to force drivers to slow down, not have 4 lanes of traffic moving at 80 km/h."

I'm guessing that you've never spent much time in a car in the UK? Okay, 3 lanes is the max, but still...

Anyway, I think eliminating the Wellesley overpass and replacing it with a signalised intersection would really help to humanise the area. Chopping off a lane northbound would help too (maybe instead using it for bike lanes separated by a curb from the other traffic). I really think that Queen's Park (Road) should have a landscaped median espically counting how ceremonial of a location it is.
 
What do you think about building a landmark building in the northern half of Queen's Park (ie. the existing park)? It could provide an architectural focus for the Avenue Road view looking south, help to "humanise" the area, and if it could be a cultural building, it would fit in with Toronto's trend of building cultural landmarks.
 
There's already something there, a large monument to the 48th Highlanders who died in the two World Wars.
 
What do you think about building a landmark building in the northern half of Queen's Park (ie. the existing park)?
Click to expand...

How about a 50-story condo?

W/rt to the metaphorical potential of the road cutting through the university, I prefer to think of it in more prosaic terms than babel's. For me, it represents the daily miracle of children not killing themselves despite being given every opportunity. It represents the persistence of humanity, faced with its own youthful stupidity, its frequent intoxication, and traffic coming around a corner at high speeds.
 
I bet St. Mike's liked being physically separated by Queen's Park before it was affiliated. Now it just sucks.

There's about 4 traffic lights that allow safe pedestrian access to northern Queen's Park, but they're not in very good spots and when you have thousands of people rushing across every day, they're gonna cross wherever they feel like it. Hart House and St. Joseph have none. Crossing at Hoskins is also a problem because the yielding right turn (I'm sure there's a better name for those things) means cars pass through continuously without ever stopping - occasionally a patient driver will stop to allow the crowds through.

"There's already something there, a large monument to the 48th Highlanders who died in the two World Wars."

There's a 48% chance of being run over trying to get to it from the north. Almost every monument around Queen's Park is treated horribly. The new firefighters one isn't raised on any sort of pedestal. The police is hidden by some shitty landscaping. Edward VII on horseback is surrounded by a mud hill crawling with footprints and dead grass. There's some sort of volunteer memorial hidden on a grassy knoll behind Gerstein that got cut off from everything when Wellesley & Queen's Park were grade separated.

Also, the sidewalk all around Queen's Park is standard issue - it should be wider.

edit - added the % sign
 
its not a volunteer memorial, its the fenian war memorial. i think that one's my favourite monument on campus
 
It's the Canadian Volunteers Memorial - maybe volunteers from the Fenian war?
 
well the point of people speeding through traffic circles is kind of moot point anyway....queens park isn't a circle, it's essentially a pair of one way streets, and that's the way it functions.
 
I find the firefighter memorial rather prosaic. Saving people from fire - there's a strong concept that could have been memorably memorialized without recourse to figurative art.

I love Eddy on his hoss. Students used to paint his ( the hoss, not Eddy ) generative organs in bright colours at one time. Thanks to those Indian givers for shipping him over to us once they eased the Brits out. Now he's all the raj over here.
 
babel:

Indeed - the firefighter memorial is quite frankly *awful*, with the pondorous black granite monolith, bronze sculpture and brick red paving screaming "yuck".

Why can't they ever choose something more chaste and dignified like the National Police Memorial in London?

GB
 
A veterans group intended to erect a conventional figurative memorial on the north west corner of that intersection a few years ago. I believe there was a somewhat forced "rethink", though no new design has emerged yet as far as I know.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top