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Walk and Bike for Life

By Jonathan Goldsbie

20090414URS-One.jpg


On first glance, the above shot could be a generic photo pulled from our Flickr pool to accompany any article about pedestrianism/cycling/active transportation/Toronto. But look at it for another moment, and you may notice that there’s something amiss about the City’s topiary logo alongside the Gardiner…


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That’s right! Pedestrianism and cycling are of only tertiary concern to the City of Toronto, and there’s no particular reason to think that the City would make a point of highlighting itself as a place where pedestrians and cyclists are especially plentiful and/or welcome.
This is how the sign looked last Friday. The first photo was taken over the weekend.
And the added icons were the work of the Urban Repair Squad, who told us, “This is an Easter present from the Urban Repair Squad to the City of Toronto and all its residents. Happy Easter!”
The thing is, this wasn’t a Photoshop job. These were actual twelve-foot-tall plywood figures that the URS lay down early Saturday on the strip of green wedged between the Gardiner Expressway and King Street West, just west of Wilson Park Road. Unfortunately, they also inform us that “The installation was taken down this Monday morning by ‘confused looking’ city staff after being enjoyed by thousands who saw it over the 48 hours it was on display.”

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Oh well. At least the City is being honest that they don’t care about these things. That’s a step above the usual platitudes. They should take a tip from the TTC, which has quietly allowed the URS’s January contribution to remain in place.
All photos by Martin Reis; design mockup courtesy of the Urban Repair Squad.

Comments

  • http://null torontothegreat
  • http://null Greg Smith

    Umm?

  • http://null octpatp

    Who cares about plywood figures on topiary?
    “At least the City is being honest that they don’t care about these things.” So Goldsbie’s proof that the city doesn’t care about cyclists and pedestrians is that city workers remove graffiti from city displays? So if the city left the figures in place, Goldsbie would conclude that the city really does care about cyclists and pedestrians? This is the height of fallacious reasoning.
    The problem is that Goldsbie’s take on this issue (the city’s disrespect for cyclists and pedestrians) is correct–the city needs to change its policies statim–but he does a terrible service to the cause by making such silly arguments.
    Isn’t the real issue that city policies and actions give too much respect to cars and not enough to cyclists and pedestrians? In other words, we need to pay attention to the city’s *real* shortcomings–insufficient cycle lanes, badly-designed urban space–rather than its refusal to tolerate spontaneous additions to the city logo.
    That whole strip along the Gardiner, replete with corporate logos, is obscene. But I don’t think the Urban Repair Squad (who elected them, anyway? what democratic legitimacy do they have?) is doing anyone any favours by adding ugly figures to an already ugly strip. Instead, let’s have serious democratic pressure on the city to (a) get rid of the corporate hedgerows and (b) doing something *real* to improve cyclist and pedestrian life.
    Complaining about the city removing graffiti placed by a non-elected, self-appointed group is totally beside the point and only discredits the real cause.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    >That’s right! Pedestrianism and cycling are of only tertiary concern to the City of Toronto, and there’s no particular reason to think that the City would make a point of highlighting itself as a place where pedestrians and cyclists are especially plentiful and/or welcome.
    Now read the literature I posted.
    I really wish Torontoist would stop enabling (even, encouraging) Mr. Goldsbie obvious mental disorder(s).
    Sad really.

  • http://www.publicspace.ca Jonathan Goldsbie

    Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re taking the post waaaaayy too literally.
    I think you’d be much happier with the previous article I wrote about the Urban Repair Squad, which directly addresses their actions in the context of government infrastructure priorities. I didn’t feel the need to write the same article again, but I suppose some more context might have been helpful.
    I also invite you to read other media coverage that URS has received, as well as my own body of writing (at Torontoist, Eye Weekly, and elsewhere) about cycling and pedestrian infrastructure.

  • http://undefined octpatp

    “You’re taking the post waaaaayy too literally.”
    Does that mean I should take what you write metaphorically? sarcastically? ironically? Biblically? ostentatiously? hypothetically?
    Is there some hidden code in your articles for when you’re being tongue-in-cheek that I’m missing? Cause really, it would be much easier for the rest of us if you just said what you actually meant.

  • http://www.publicspace.ca Jonathan Goldsbie

    Incidentally, I’m mid-way through my long response to your other comment — you know the one. I started it last week and had to put it on the back burner again.
    Sorry it’s taken me longer than I expected. You raised many good points and deserve a response.

  • http://null octpatp

    Incidentally, it was smart of you to include the link to the google maps satellite view of the heinous strip. I hadn’t realized that the pestilential corporate shrubs were visible from space. All the more reason to get rid of them.

  • http://undefined Ben

    PDFs dawg?

  • http://null montauk

    I took it sexually, personally speaking. I mean – decorative shrubbery? “Wedged between”? Thousands of voyeurs? I’m frantically jerking off to the diagram as I type. I want to peel apart that man’s red and green legs and give him a Photoshop job, if you know what I mean.
    *Do not take this literally. I am joking. I agree with your point.

  • http://undefined rek

    4chan-style quoting?

  • http://null Marionette

    I like the way you’ve positively spun the TTC’s, uh, reluctance to remove the stickers.