Waiting for the fences to come down in the park just off Queen Street. Looks good... for now.

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^ The interesting thing for me in those photos is that the big auger machines that bore the pilings have largely disappeared, and now there are lots of cranes moving formwork. That's a sign of progress. (I wonder what the total number of pilings that were bored for this project will be... it will be substantial.)

If you imagine where the GO platforms will be in the aerials of East Harbour.... it's apparent that lots more forming and concrete work will be needed before the tracks can be shifted to their final alignment. To me, that says there is little hope for bringing the third track back in service until much later in the construction. Possibly the two missing tracks and their platform will be built first, and used as the running tracks while the existing tracks are removed from service and realigned and a second platform built.

- Paul

There are still quite a few machines between queen and dundas street bridges. Whether or not they are done piling, I do not know.

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BTW. I've noticed a second wall going up here and there. You can see it on the north side of the Eastern Transit Hub but also in the park on the south side of the Dundas Street Bridge.

Is this part of the foundation for the Ontario Line tracks that will run alongside the Go Line?

Eastern Transit Hub:

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Secondary wall just south of Dundas Street Go Transit Bridge. You can see it on the left side of the first photo. Same wall.

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Honestly it's unsurprising. Taggers love tagging. It's an eyesore, and I wish people had respect for the public realm, but they don't.

I’m really interested in why some cities have epidemics of tagging while others just don’t.

Vancouver for example is practically free of tagging, same with Calgary and Edmonton. Montreal and Toronto seem to be the worst. My lazy guess is it’s just correlated with density but Vancouver is fairly dense.
 
I’m really interested in why some cities have epidemics of tagging while others just don’t.

Vancouver for example is practically free of tagging, same with Calgary and Edmonton. Montreal and Toronto seem to be the worst. My lazy guess is it’s just correlated with density but Vancouver is fairly dense.
I'd argue that Vancouver as a city cares fare more about the public realm in general than Toronto does. More trees, sidewalks that aren't just poured concrete, etc. Downtown Vancouver feels like a revelation compared to downtown Toronto in terms of the urban realm. So I think they've built a culture of having nice public spaces which deters tagging. But here we do the bare minimum so people don't feel bad tagging stuff because it's not like what we build is nice to look at in the first place.
 
I’m really interested in why some cities have epidemics of tagging while others just don’t.

Vancouver for example is practically free of tagging, same with Calgary and Edmonton. Montreal and Toronto seem to be the worst. My lazy guess is it’s just correlated with density but Vancouver is fairly dense.
Have you been to Europe? Lots of tagging in e.g. Athens
 
I'd argue that Vancouver as a city cares fare more about the public realm in general than Toronto does. More trees, sidewalks that aren't just poured concrete, etc. Downtown Vancouver feels like a revelation compared to downtown Toronto in terms of the urban realm. So I think they've built a culture of having nice public spaces which deters tagging. But here we do the bare minimum so people don't feel bad tagging stuff because it's not like what we build is nice to look at in the first place.

Unfortunately, it's faaaaaaar more complicated. When talking about the public realm, Toronto has like 1400+ parks, whereas Vancouver has around 300. There are a lot of factors involved but, I think, one of the most crucial problems is the lack of widespread (affordable) artistic clubs, classes, and workshops all around the city, as well as those that try to encourage people to join them.

I was one of those kids back in the day but I did not go as far as to tag stuff. I was certainly headed in that direction though.

Also, some people just want to watch the world burn.
 
Unfortunately, it's faaaaaaar more complicated. When talking about the public realm, Toronto has like 1400+ parks, whereas Vancouver has around 300. There are a lot of factors involved but, I think, one of the most crucial problems is the lack of widespread (affordable) artistic clubs, classes, and workshops all around the city, as well as those that try to encourage people to join them.
Its also worth noting that Toronto is 5x larger in terms of area than Vancouver is, and its especially worth noting that compared to Toronto - Metro Vancouver is an extremely polycentric region with Vancouver itself really only being a small part of it. This isn't a one-to-one comparison.
 
Its also worth noting that Toronto is 5x larger in terms of area than Vancouver is, and its especially worth noting that compared to Toronto - Metro Vancouver is an extremely polycentric region with Vancouver itself really only being a small part of it. This isn't a one-to-one comparison.
Ancedotally, when I was visiting Vancouver with small kids in an old 1920s residential area, I was completely blown away how far a walk it was to the nearest playground (other than one for a private school that's behind a lock). About a kilometre. And only one playground! There's at least 7 parks/schools with open playgrounds within a kilometre of my 1920s house here. That doesn't include that one of those parks has 3 playgrounds and a seperate wading pool area!

They might have some pretty major parkland there - even near where I was - but not very useful with small kids.
 

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