It's not meant to be used by people. I'm referring to green track in this case, which can be anything from grass, moss to sedum but there are also additional things that could have been improved when we had the chance. A bit more thought into the design could have granted this area some much needed atmospheric and aesthetic improvement. It needn't always be tangibly functional. A quality environment is just as purposeful to people as a bench under a tree can be.
Green track has benefits for things like improving local ecology (whether it benefits birds, bees or subterranean things like worms), mitigating heat island impacts, rainwater/snowmelt runoff management, less pollution (that is by using less concrete...most people don't understand just how bad concrete is...it makes the oil industry seem green), noise reductions and so on. Overall it's a superior thing to use.
But most importantly, it simply looks nice. For example, here is some grass and sedum track in Zwickau, Germany. The sedum is great because it offers pollinators a great resource for plants to use. Similarly, here is some green track in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany that not only has grass on the trackbed, but also plants running up the actual poles holding the centenary lines as well as plants that run along the track to mitigate noise and make it look a lot prettier.
There's no reason we couldn't have replicated this here and had much nicer streets (well I'm sure our "leaders" would have had some excuses ready). It could have made so much of the LRT route feel a lot more pleasing, with this particular section of King Street being a good example. No amount of new buildings will really change the fact that it'll always have this lifeless, cold atmosphere when you're actually outside. To make it even nicer, moving the power lines underground could have opened up a lot of space for new trees, bushes, shrubs, flowers, grass etc to be planted along the sidewalks which would have further improved this area. Even some non-plant barriers between the sidewalk and roads/tracks could have been put up which would have made it a lot nicer for pedestrians if they didn't have to see or hear cars and trains going by all day.
![[Image: RbxCTLz.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/RbxCTLz.jpg)
![[Image: nEZ6I1X.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/nEZ6I1X.jpg)
Green track has benefits for things like improving local ecology (whether it benefits birds, bees or subterranean things like worms), mitigating heat island impacts, rainwater/snowmelt runoff management, less pollution (that is by using less concrete...most people don't understand just how bad concrete is...it makes the oil industry seem green), noise reductions and so on. Overall it's a superior thing to use.
But most importantly, it simply looks nice. For example, here is some grass and sedum track in Zwickau, Germany. The sedum is great because it offers pollinators a great resource for plants to use. Similarly, here is some green track in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany that not only has grass on the trackbed, but also plants running up the actual poles holding the centenary lines as well as plants that run along the track to mitigate noise and make it look a lot prettier.
There's no reason we couldn't have replicated this here and had much nicer streets (well I'm sure our "leaders" would have had some excuses ready). It could have made so much of the LRT route feel a lot more pleasing, with this particular section of King Street being a good example. No amount of new buildings will really change the fact that it'll always have this lifeless, cold atmosphere when you're actually outside. To make it even nicer, moving the power lines underground could have opened up a lot of space for new trees, bushes, shrubs, flowers, grass etc to be planted along the sidewalks which would have further improved this area. Even some non-plant barriers between the sidewalk and roads/tracks could have been put up which would have made it a lot nicer for pedestrians if they didn't have to see or hear cars and trains going by all day.
Too late to do anything smart like this, sadly.