planning

U of T's Andre Sorensen on why a proposed LRT is the real city-building opportunity for Scarborough

ullahnor — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 16:02:22 +0000

U of T's Andre Sorensen on why a proposed LRT is the real city-building opportunity for Scarborough

ullahnor Tue, 03/28/2017 - 12:02

Cutline

Mayor John Tory (centre) speaks to the media at a press conference at Kennedy Station last month about a report on the Scarborough subway (photo by Vince Talotta/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Topic

City & Culture

urban

Cities

Transit

Scarborough

Geography

planning

U of T Scarborough

Toronto City Council is expected to debate and vote today on the proposed subway extension along the McCowan corridor to the Scarborough Town Centre.

Professor Andre Sorensen, chair of the department of human geography at U of T Scarborough, talks about what's at stake, and why the proposed LRT lines should be the top rapid transit priority for Scarborough.

Rendering of a proposed LRT courtesy of Bombardier

There is no question that Toronto needs to expand rapid transit capacity, coverage, speed and convenience as quickly as we possibly can. The population of the region continues to grow rapidly, yet a lack of investment in transit over several decades means that much of the inner and outer suburbs remain woefully auto-dependent. The result has been a growing crisis of congestion that costs more than $6 billion per year according to the Toronto Board of Trade, threatens the economic vitality of the region and limits new investment in inner suburbs like Scarborough. The lack of rapid transit imposes costs particularly on low-income residents of the inner suburbs, who would most benefit from improved transit for access to jobs and services.

Over the last decade, Scarborough has been the focus of major debates over transit investment. Under former mayor David Miller, a Light Rail (LRT) 'Transit City' plan was approved by council, designed and engineered, and fully funded by the province. The plan focused on a set of LRT lines throughout the inner suburbs. This plan was under construction when Rob Ford was elected mayor in 2010, and Ford's first act as mayor, before even being sworn in, was to call then-head of the TTC Gary Webster to a 7 a.m. meeting where he unceremoniously – and without legal authority, it was later revealed – cancelled the Transit City plan.

This act ranks as one of Toronto's greatest transit planning disasters, as by throwing out a fully approved, engineered and funded transit plan, Ford delayed transit expansion in Toronto by a decade, and opened the door on years of conflict over a new approach. Shortly before the 2014 election for mayor, city council agreed to a new plan that included an extension of the Bloor subway from Kennedy to Scarborough Town Centre, and during the election John Tory promised to invest in his SmartTrack plan to create a new transit line based on improvements to, and more stations along, the GO Transit rail corridors. Mayor Tory now promises to build SmartTrack, the subway extension and a revived LRT plan to extend the Eglinton Crosstown LRT east from its currently planned terminus at Kennedy all the way to the University of Toronto Scarborough at Ellesmere Road and Military Trail. Funding is still being negotiated for all these projects, and none have yet completed detailed engineering and planning phases.

In one of a very few detailed evidence-based contributions to this debate, Paul Hess and I researched and published a report in 2015 that compared the three main options for transit investment in Scarborough: SmartTrack, subway extension and Transit City LRT network, on the basis of the number of existing residents and jobs each new transit facility would serve, and the potential for property redevelopment to allow intensification of population and jobs within walking distance of new transit stops.

The result was clear – the Transit City LRT plan with lines along Eglinton to Kingston Road, Morningside Road and U of T Scarborough, a renovation of the SRT line and the Sheppard line from Fairview Mall to Morningside Road far outperformed both the subway and SmartTrack on every measure. The LRT network can be built more quickly, would serve trips both within Scarborough and to downtown, and would create more potential for investment in housing, employment and services in Scarborough. Crucially, the major opportunity for the creation of walkable, transit-oriented communities in Scarborough is through mid-rise intensification along the east-west arterial corridors, such as Eglinton and Sheppard Avenues, which can best be served by LRT lines. The superior performance of LRT is not only because it offers greater coverage and more stops, but because it represents a much better fit with existing urban form and patterns of population and jobs in Scarborough.

We concluded that it would be a terrible mistake if the investment in a subway extension and SmartTrack means that the LRT network is delayed further or cancelled. That conclusion still holds today: the proposed LRT lines should be the top rapid transit priority for Scarborough.

U of T planning collaboration with community group in Thorncliffe Park featured in Maclean's

ullahnor — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 21:05:35 +0000

U of T planning collaboration with community group in Thorncliffe Park featured in Maclean's

ullahnor Wed, 03/15/2017 - 17:05

Cutline

Mosque in Thorncliffe Park. U of T master's students in planning worked with the Thorncliffe Park Women's Committee to help them with developing neighbourhood priorities for cultural, recreational and economic renewal (photo by Eric Parker via Flickr)

Topic

Community Partnership

Maclean's reports that universities are increasingly partnering with local residents and non-profit organizations in their communities. The magazine highlights a project where U of T master's students in planning worked with the Thorncliffe Park Women's Committee to assist them in publishing a booklet on neighbourhood priorities for cultural, recreational and economic renewal.

Read the Maclean's story

The magazine quotes U of T President Meric Gertler talking about how the success of U of T and the city are entwined.

“Everything we do using our intellectual resources and our energy from our students and faculty to make Toronto a better place ends up helping us,” he says. “When we go to recruit faculty from across Canada and around the world or when we go out to recruit students from across Canada and around the world, Toronto is a big part of our offer.”

The article mentions that U of T is considering a possible multidisciplinary “school for cities” to address complex urban issues. And that in 2015, U of T's Shauna Brail was appointed the presidential adviser on urban engagement to foster partnerships in the city.

Stephanie Cirnu, who will graduate this spring, says she and her classmates learned from listening to the community through workshops and interviews.

“I had always conceptualized urban planning and design as more of a technocratic exercise,” she says to the magazine. “I now see any design is the product of community participation in the process.”

U of T President Meric Gertler talks about career success and family in Globe and Mail feature

ullahnor — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 21:06:41 +0000

U of T President Meric Gertler talks about career success and family in Globe and Mail feature

ullahnor Tue, 02/28/2017 - 16:06

Cutline

President Meric Gertler is featured in Globe and Mail series called, Halftime (photo by Christopher Wahl)

Topic

City & Culture

urban

Cities

President Meric Gertler

University of Toronto

planning

University of Toronto President Meric Gertler is featured in a Globe and Mail series called Halftime, which features people from across Canada talking about their fifth decade.

The series highlighted President Gertler's work as an internationally renowned urban planning and policy expert. He reflects on career success, family life and the importance of taking risks.

President Gertler says he could never have predicted heading U of T and taking on such a big leadership role in the academic world. He says he's glad he focused on becoming a scholar first.

“It was really important for me to achieve what I wanted to achieve as a scholar in my field and have that kind of global recognition at a certain point,” he says in the feature.

President Gertler, named a member of the Order of Canada in 2015, said success in his 40s was “feeling like my work was having some kind of impact, both in terms of the direction of my discipline, so shaping some major debates and the evolution of the field. But also having an impact in terms of public policy. To me, that has always been important.”

As a child, he developed his interest in cities because of his dad who was a planner for the City of Toronto.

“I remember looking at these very cool models of parts of the city,” he says. “One of the hot issues then, as it continues to be now, was what would the waterfront of Toronto look like in the future? There were all these futuristic, spacey models, none of which came to pass, of course. But just imagining future living environments was really exciting.”

Read about President Gertler joing the Waterfront Toronto board

What made him happy in his 40s?

“My kids, who were eight and five when I started my 40s,” he says. “They were pretty small and developing into real people, so that was a huge amount of fun. Professionally, I would say becoming recognized in the wider world. It was really in my 40s that I felt like my impact in my discipline was really registering.”

If he could go back and give himself advice two decades ago?

“I would tell myself maybe take a few more risks. I was always very cautious and careful and studied and considered. It has worked out pretty well but you always reflect on what opportunities you might have passed up by not taking a few more risks in terms of the work that you do or the activities you get involved in.”

Food Systems Lab at U of T tackles Canada’s food waste problem

Romi Levine — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 11:20:48 +0000

Food Systems Lab at U of T tackles Canada’s food waste problem

Romi Levine Thu, 11/03/2016 - 07:20

Cutline

U of T PhD candidate Tammara Soma stands by one of the university's vegetable gardens (photo by Romi Levine)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Faculty of Arts & Science

Trudeau Scholarships. Cities

Subheadline

PhD student Tammara Soma wants to break the wasted food cycle

We’re all guilty of wasting food.

Sometimes we dump the leftovers in the trash after a big meal, or we find forgotten food in the fridge that has long since expired.

Restaurants, grocery stores and food distributors are also wasteful – throwing out ugly-looking but perfectly good produce and getting rid of products as soon as they hit the "best before" date.

In fact, according to Value Chain Management International, a sustainability-focused consultancy firm, it’s estimated that $31-billion worth of food is wasted every year in Canada.

Tammara Soma hopes to break the cycle of wasted food and wasted money. The University of Toronto PhD student in the Faculty of Arts & Science and Trudeau Foundation Scholar founded the Food Systems Lab, which aims to work with private, public and community organizations to find solutions to Canada’s waste problem.

planning

U of T's Andre Sorensen on why a proposed LRT is the real city-building opportunity for Scarborough

U of T planning collaboration with community group in Thorncliffe Park featured in Maclean's

Read the Maclean's story

Read more about the Thorncliffe Park project

U of T President Meric Gertler talks about career success and family in Globe and Mail feature

Read about President Gertler joing the Waterfront Toronto board

Read more of the interview

Food Systems Lab at U of T tackles Canada’s food waste problem

Read more about Soma's research

Read about the food waste symposium Soma helped organize