The Inclusive on Courtland | 38, 34, 30 & 29 fl | Proposed

[ijmorlan]

I’m sensitive to the issue of detracting from street life, but on the other hand they can only do so by attracting people inside. If people prefer to be inside, who are planners to say they’re wrong? However, the real solution is to integrate the indoor and outdoor spaces so people have a real choice of which route to take. It should be a realistic choice to decide to take the outside route on a nice day and stay indoors on a crummy day. For example, in the specific case we’re discussing, I would have an exterior path or sidewalk separated from an indoor route only by a glass wall with occasional doors. I would put signs for the businesses inside immediately outside as well to help people find what they want.

You say they’re not at street level. That doesn’t have to be the case, depending on the location, and in this particular case my proposal was that the ground floors (street level floor) of all these buildings should be linked together. But there is a more fundamental issue, which is “what is the street”? Does it have to be where motor vehicles circulate? What is so magical about them? My main gripe is that people talk as if putting a roof and walls around a pedestrian route somehow ruins it. The reason the corridors of Conestoga Mall aren’t ideal pedestrian environments isn’t that they have roofs and climate control.

tomh009's suggestion seems good to me. I do think that it makes sense in this particular context. But indoor connections among the shops on King St in either Waterloo or Kitchener would be strange, I think for similar reasons to how it would be strange to have indoor connections among the houses on your street.

More fundamentally, it's not the roof and walls. And so Toronto Premium Outlets fails at this also. It's that these spaces are not public spaces. They're private spaces in which we are the guests of the owners. Waterloo Town Square or Kitchener's Speaker's Corner are public spaces, and people who might make us uncomfortable have the right to be there. This is more relevant to spaces where people might congregate for some time, rather than passageways like the ones between buildings on university campuses.

My idea for King St. would be a stepped-back main floor. So immediately beside the sidewalk there would be in effect another sidewalk that is covered. Most likely this would be open on the street-facing side so it wouldn’t actually be “inside” but it would provide precipitation protection. Of course when the old buildings along King St. were built, it was common for stores to have awnings. So during the day when the stores were open, there would have been almost continuous awnings along at least some stretches. On the other side of the street where Waterloo Town Square was re-developed, those buildings should have been built as I describe. Additionally, a roof of some sort (probably glass) joining between the buildings and wrapping around to the back of each would allow travelling all the way down the block under cover. This is a perfect example of medium-sized buildings where interior connections may not be practical but we still don’t have to give up on the concept of making use of the marvelous technology known as a “roof”. Although in this case the whole block was built as one project, please note that coordinated ownership is not required:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_(ar...s_-622.jpg

I defy anybody to explain how our streetscapes are in any way better than that.

(That side of King St. should also have been built about one traffic lane further back, which would have allowed both LRT tracks to stay on King St. But that’s another story)

As to the public vs. private, you’re exactly right — it’s not about the roof and walls, meaning it’s not about whether the space is inside or outside, meaning that most complaints about my ideas are off-point. But you are right — most interior spaces are private. To which I say, the city should build some public interior spaces. Also I should mention that there have been issues in Toronto with privately-owned exterior spaces that are supposed to be provided as a public amenity but which end up neglected or excessively restricted, so that problem exists outdoors as well as in.

Another problem that people sometimes raise is that homeless people might be attracted to interior spaces. Well, of course they are — who wants to sleep outdoors? Same reason people live under bridges. The solution there is proper housing, but in the absence of that, ubiquitous public covered areas would spread out the — I don’t want to say “problem” — maybe “symptom”.