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Yesterday the City of Toronto unveiled the designs submitted for the "Coordinated Street Furniture Program," its plan to grant a billboard company a twenty-year monopoly on providing and maintaining bus shelters, garbage bins, benches, and other items for Toronto’s sidewalks.
The "renderings" have been posted on the City website as epic PDFs, but our friend Joe Clark has also extracted the images from the PDFs and posted them to his Flickr account for convenient browsing.
Go ahead. Take a look. Form opinions about items such as Clear Channel Outdoor's Megabin-redux of an "Information Kiosk," shown above, and Astral Media Outdoor's double-the-ads-double-the-fun "Canopy Transit Shelter No. 101.3," shown below. Comment on this post, join the lively discussion at the Spacing Wire, or vote in the Toronto Star's poll. It doesn't matter, because the City doesn't care and doesn't want to know what you think.
Unlike with recent competitions to redesign the central waterfront and Nathan Phillips Square, public input is not welcome. This is to be as cloistered a process as possible.
The original Request for Proposals condescendingly stated that:
Public feedback to renderings will not be used in the evaluation of proposals. The sole intent is to provide the public with the opportunity to view street furniture elements that the City is considering so as to provide context for the eventual recommendations of the Selection Committee.
In a private meeting with the street furniture project team last year, one ad company even advised that, "Without offence for the public at large, not everybody is a designer, they do not always know" and "I do not think the community cares about specifics."
The City and the billboard companies are frightened that the public will again react as negatively to the ad-driven privatization scheme as they previously did in the public consultations and official surveys the City conducted last year.
The Toronto Public Space Committee believes, however, that the public should have input into this process which will define Toronto's public realm through 2027, and so they have distributed to the public the email addresses — all publicly available through creative Googling — of each of the six members of the Design Jury (Debbie Adams, Michel Trocmé, George Kapelos, Helen Kerr, Dr. David Moos, and Patrick Bollenberghe):
The TPSC (and Torontoist) encourages the public to politely provide comments to, and ask questions of, the jurors regarding the designs.
Tomorrow Monday, we'll have more coverage of the "Coordinated Street Furniture Program," including why it's bound to fail this City and its residents.
Image of Clear Channel's "Information Kiosk" from their brochure. Image of Astral Media's "Canopy Transit Shelter No. 101.3" from their brochure.
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there are so many reasons why this will fail. But I'm going to start with the fact that the mock-up picture has really white people in it and a volvo. I don't what Toronto they live in, but even North Toronto doesn't look like that. And that has to be one wide sidewalk to accommodate that info Kiosk. and how much of it will be ads?
That doesn't even touch on the elimination of the democratic level of how these things are designed, chosen and placed. The public "doesn't know", we just live here.
I think these are all terrible, mediocre at best - and as David Miller said:
"As a City we must learn to despise mediocrity. We can't accept what we've accepted in the past. 'Good enough' is no longer good enough."
Mayor David Miller
Architecture and Urban Design Awards, May 16, 2005
I agree with you completely - the lack of public input is nothing short of frightening, and the implications are mindblowing. I am not sure what to say to the jurors, though: "Choose the one that sucks the least, please"?
Don't they already have one of these across the street from the Eaton Centre. You can buy maps from it! Seems like a good idea to me.
One thing I can say right off the bat is that that "double add" bus shelter has some serious flaws. The biggest one is that it's open on one side. In Toronto, this is a moronic design, standing in a bus shelter is cold for two reasons, the temperature, and the WIND. Keeping out the wind is a must for any new bus-shelter designs. In fact, the newer shelters that have great big gaps under each pane of glass are markedly colder than the older ones, I hate them. Whoever designed this clearly doesn't live in Toronto, or has never used the transit system. The key word in "bus shelter" is SHELTER. If they continue to ignore the public and it's valuable input, the City is going to have more than one or two annoyed people on their hands.
The only redeeming feature of this proposal is the inclusion of public message boards. I doubt they'd ever see the light of day, or if they do only at half-size and a prominent ad in place. Kudos for at least thinking of it.
I have to agree about the (open-faced) bus shelter. Not only won't they shelter anyone, the design features two unframed panes of glass someone could easily walk into without seeing.
Overall though it's an outrage that public feedback will be ignored. The public is the target demographic, the public is the consumer (both of the 'furniture's services and the advertising featured). And 20 years? That's outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous.
I'm pretty sure they design bus shelters to be off the ground specifically to discourage the homeless for sleeping in there. Of course, this means the people meant to use it -- commuters -- are discouraged from using it too, since it provides little warmth or shelter. But hey! No homeless people!
I'm of the understanding that the shelters don't meet the ground in order to simplify cleaning and drainage. Rather than having to actively sweep the inside, staff can just spray the shelter down and garbage will float out into the gutter where it's much easier to pick up. It also greatly helps with drainage--not being able to get into a shelter on a windy fall day because it's flooded really sucks. This design decision does make the shelter less effective at its nominal purpose but it's actually quite a difficult problem to fix. We should certainly demand they try because it's not something that an advertising company will put effort into unless forced to.
The open-faced transit shelters are for use at mid-street streetcar stops. There's simply not enough space at these locations to enclose the front; people would find it very difficult to enter and then be stuck with a pane of glass inches in front of their faces. Take a look at the shelters on Queen just east of Spadina for an example of what they'd replace.
The double-ads are certainly reprehensible, as is the advertising-oriented nature of every single proposal. If you want to be totally disgusted, take a look at Clear Channel's garbage bin proposals. They took everything that's bad about the current ones, decreased their capacity, and then doubled their length by attaching a big chunk of sidewalk-narrowing plastic solely to display another ad.
It's a total abomination and really illustrates the problem with this whole competition; rather than design and test street furniture and then let companies bid on providing it, the City has done it ass-backwards. Advertising companies are never going to put utility and convenience ahead of maximised ad space, it's simply not in their best interest. I truly hope the City has been smart enough to build a contract with real penalties for non-payment this time, so we can get away from this travesty of a contract in a few short years' time.
P.S. Big thanks to Joe Clark for getting the images--without his tireless hassling of the City and associated agencies, and constant (unfortunately oft-ignored) pushing for all sorts of accessibility, the public wouldn't see these fait accomplis before they popped up on our streets.
Take the time to carefully go through each of the full proposals before posting. The city has a half-dozen shelter types in the RFP, so moronic comments about open-faced shelters are not warranted (there are a couple closed ones in there too). They are also quite state-of-the-art compared to what is going on in other cities, so I don't know where the mediocrity comment is coming from. This is not a gold-plated exercise to invent new sidewalk civic amenities - it is an attempt to burnish the city's image using the best of current practice in this field.
The three PDFs are quite interesting to compare. I'm partial to the CBS designs, which are not as blantantly blitzed by ads as the Clear Channel ones. Astral seems to be offering two different versions, but they seem a little less elegant to me than CBS.
Quit being so offended by the lack of formal feedback - no offense, but not everyone has the background to evaluate this kind of thing. (Case in point - evaluating a proposal based on whether it has white people and Volvos in the pretty pictures? THE FIGURES ARE FOR SCALE ONLY!) The public is represented by the fact that elected officials will be making the decision, so at least it's not a private-sector decision.
The good news is that the proposals were made public for informal comment, they are of high quality, and the city is finally catching up with its American peers.
By the way, here is New York's new street furniture. And no, they did not invite formal public comment in selecting Cemusa.
I think Toronto is looking pretty competitive in comparison.
Obviously Astral is showing how street furniture can reflect and compiment the neighbourhood it's placed in. I think their ideas are the best in that respect, although it may be more costly to produce many different designs. They win in my books ;)
Hmm...I kinda like the New York stuff better than all of the proposals we have. It's more subtle and likely has more longevity, style-wise. I don't know why our furniture has to look all swoopy and futuristic, especially considering that it needs to look appropriate in many types of neighbourhoods.
I don't dislike Astral's, but I don't think it fits into all types of neighbourhoods like the commenter above.
Also, since I've got such a thing 'bout the post-and-ring, I'd be sad to see our unique, brilliant bike rings go.
sheesh people ... settle down with the negativity! what's up with all th enegativity on here lately????
i think some of them are quite good. i agree the CBS ones are quite elegant, but there's something very neat about the Astral ones, kind of futuristic. Clear Channel's, on the other hand, are freakin' me out. I think it has to do with the people they added. They seem to be enjoying the furniture way toooo much. They're also too big and clunky.
What i meant by my comment is not that it "fits into all types of neighbourhoods ", but that they reflect they neighbourhood it's in - i.e. Beach furniture looks beach-ey, Entertainment district looks glamorous, etc. When I fist moved here, I was struck by how our city is a big collection of little neighbourhoods, each with their own character. I think that for someone who comes here from another place, Astral's furniture reflects that notion better than any others. That's all i'm sayin'.
bread and circuses - christopher hume has it right when he calls for Toronto independence.
a great city deserves better
ange, my comment wasn't directed at you btw. waht you pointed out was the thing i DO like about Astral's
Taking a second, closer, look at the proposals, I'm seeing a rather obvious design oversight. Evidently they were asked to design public postering structures, as well as public toilets. Wouldn't the obvious solution be to put postering boards on the walls of these facilities? If built they'd just be covered with posters anyway. That's the nature of the fly postering industry: cover every stationary flat(ish) vertical surface to the point of overlap. Public toilets are an open invitation for people to gather and meet (and in at least one proposal, sit around on benches).
Then I see the newspaper boxes and garbage bins with the fancy sides - slats, odd posts, that sort of stuff - and wonder if the designers have ever looked around as they walked down the sidewalk. Newspaper boxes and waste bins are prime poster real estate; they'll still be covered, and all the design flares achieve is making it a little harder for the buffers to clean off the posters. Why not design for the reality of city life, instead of the more costly ideal?
It just seems silly to me that proposals supposedly tailored for our city can't even make the nominal effort to put in small details like a more diverse population. The CN Tower, for example, is included. How does that help for scale? So we can see how their garbage can design is exactly so many times shorter than the CN Tower? Handy.
Message: Minorities can be generic art too!
actually, if you look a little more closely, you will see a couple of people from the Asian community in the Astral Media one (the only with people). to do be more precise, and sarcastic, the Asian and Caucassion girl are in the bus shelter together, thereby demostrating the diversity that makes up Toronto. they also have people in business suits, whichobviously demonstrate members of Bay st. Then there is the guy in the polo shirt and baseball cap as a rep of the popular UofT Meathead community ....
relax, people. if it wasn't for the CN tower in the background you wouldn't even be able to tell it was Toronto.
i think what would have been more worthwhile and personal is to have design competitions from different areas from the city by the people who actually live there,then take their basic designs and add the technical amenities to the specific obstacle,in my opinion its more legitimate to do this than to hire american media companies to do it and alienate the residents of toronto from the process,a person who lives in chinatown or little italy might appreciate things more if they knew who made the design of benches,amenities etc.mega corps cant offer personal touches,and you can still offer and rent them ad space.ive been a part of bidding and involvement in city projects and the most successful are from the ground up.
What is truly outrageous is this unceasing sell-out of the city's public space to vested interests whose raison d'etre is to plaster, plunder and pollute our shared environment at the expense of its citizenry. The fact that our elected representatives see fit to exploit their positions of trust with a constant pander to commercial interests belies any pretense of their duty to 'public' service.
If anyone has followed 'Spacing Wires' recent postings of intersection pictures from our past, one can only be struck by the paucity of public space hijacking by commercial interests.
From the obscenity of the massive billboards of Dundas Square and the Gardiner Expressway to the dysfunctional designs they seek to impose, we are witnessing a decline in the very humanity of this city and what once helped make it a decent and vital place to live.
Despite what may think, cosmopolitain living and ergonomic working space are not defined by the selling out of the city through advertising clutter nor by pretentious architecture, but by a multi-mix of the inhabitants and the organic viability of their surroundings. The incessant neuroses of this city's need to worship at the altar of big-city pretense has been and will continue to be to its detriment and further hastens the slide from a great, cultural and creative organism into one of bland, indistinguishable nothingness.
The designs themselves constitute unimaginative, semi-curved stainless steel and glass advertising space masquerading as furniture. It's just as bad as the 'mega-bins' except the effort to deceive is a shade less blatant.
There seem to be a lot of comments that are based on misinformation and more gossip than fact. As Dave pointed out there are a number of shelter types outlined in the RFP put forth by the city that encompass a whole range of solutions for the variety of Toronto's sidewalk conditions. The canopy shelter is the only type that will work in tight urban condition. As for the gap at the bottom of the shelter, the RFP stipulates that the walls of the shelter cannot go to the ground. Non-compliance on the part of the competitor could result in disqualification. The RFP actually stipulated an enormous amount of what could and couldn't be designed.
All of the ad companys are resticted to a definitive allowable maximum square footage of advertising. Astral will have the same amount as Clear Channel and CBS. Just because some of the competitors chose not to show ad panels on their elements does not mean that they will not be there. The ads pay for the construction and maintenance of everything. I myself would rather be confronted with ads than have the city raise my taxes to pay for the millions and millions of dollars necessary to implement such a massive program.
Garbage can size. The RFP stipulates the exact size of container that was to be designed for. It also stipulates that are to be two types of bins. A two unit and a three unit. The three unit is for heavy use areas and the two bin unit is for less populated suburban areas. All of the entries however have the exact same inner volume when comparing the two and three bin units.
I do love the comments about massive corporations excluding the little guy. Did anyone happen to read who the "Corporate Giants" teamed up with? I'm not sure about CBS, but Astral is with Kramer Designs and Clear Channel is with Zeidler Architects. Zeidler has been in Toronto since the 50's. Kramer has done a ton of work in Toronto. Are there intelligent people out there who actually think that none of their designers live in Toronto, take the streetcar, use the garbage cans, sit on a bench from time to time, or ride a bike to work? Come on people...I'm fairly certain that the Wizard of Oz was a movie.
While evaluating these designs, we should also consider the past and current behaviour of the companies who've produced them. That way, when the city graciously informs us of which bidder has won, we'll have a better idea of what they've gotten everyone into.
A fine place to start is IllegalSigns.ca and their "Street Furniture" category. Since that category features articles with titles like "Astral Media: A Culture of Non-Compliance With the Law (Part Three)," it's not a warm and fuzzy experience.
CBS' name comes up elsewhere on the site, and Clear Channel comes out possibly worst, with their hilarious SLAPP threat. Yup, all three bidders have demonstrated contempt for the city's bylaws. Think they can be kept in line by the terms of a lousy little contract?
Secondly, the argument that staff and councillors were using to sell the public on this was precisely that this would be "a gold-plated exercise to invent new sidewalk civic amenities."
Thirdly, why is this the "best of current practice in this field"? I think Melbourne, Australia, really represents the best of of current practise.
It's true that Council has the final say on who gets the contract, but their decision will be based on staff's recommendation, which will itself be based on the scores given to each proposal by their appointed Design Jury, as well as the City's own "experts" in areas such as finances. 1) Informal comment is not good enough. The process may not be as shady as the one in NYC, but "less shady than NYC" is not good enough. 2) Aside from the materials they're to be made from, what about the street furniture is of high quality? 3) We could also catch up to our American peers by switching to private healthcare. Not that I'm equating street furniture with healthcare, but I want to point out the absurdity of your statement. A ridiculous amount of my life is built around negativity towards outdoor advertising companies and "coordinated street furniture" in particular. One day I might write a book that answers your question as thoroughly as I want – but don't have the time to – here. Square footage is a shitty way to measure ad space. The Megabin ad panels, for example, are only slightly larger than those on the SilverBoxes, but no one (other than Eucan and a few idiot City councillors) would argue that they are equivalent in terms of their impact and obtrusiveness. Factors such as orientation on the sidewalk, illumination, and height are much more important when quantifying the value of ad space – it's all about visibility, and square footage is only one factor. And God forbid taxes should pay for – gasp! – infrastructure. I assume you also wouldn't mind if ad companies subsidized road maintenance and construction if it meant you had to drive on top of miles of advertising. What does it matter? They're still on contract for corporate clients who by definition are only interested in profits (i.e. ad space), and they have to deliver what their clients want. Do you actually believe that Zeidler, Kramer, and David Milne Design Associates (CBS's guys) were given free reign to come up with what they thought would be best for this city?The renderings of the proposed street furniture in typical Toronto scenes need work. In particular, the promoters need to incorporate:
1. Homeless person sleeping in transit shelter.
2. Garbage everywhere.
3. Much narrower sidewalks and gargantuan streets.
4. Wooden hydro poles gaily festooned with garbage can-sized transformers and wires all over the place.
5. Sidewalk and street ripped up for utility work and patched with cheap asphalt.
6. All trees should be in tiny raised concrete planters and should be dead or dying.
7. Maybe a disabled streetcar while they're at it.