Toronto’s rail deck park proposal a ‘golden opportunity,’ experts say
Despite thorny issues around funding and inclusivity, park would be ‘valuable addition’ to city.

thestar.com
By DAVID RIDER
April 25, 2017

Toronto’s rail deck park proposal raises thorny issues around funding and inclusivity but is a “golden opportunity” for landmark downtown greenspace, international experts say.

“I think this is a great opportunity that should not be overlooked,” Matt Nielson, a deputy commissioner at Chicago’s Millennium Park said in an interview after a Tuesday rail deck part discussion hosted by the Urban Land Institute.

“There has to be some patience - it’s a lot of entities and infrastructure involved, it’s complicated, but I have no doubt the outcome will be embraced and become a valuable addition to the crown of Toronto.”

City council voted last year to start exploring how to make real a vision, promoted by Mayor John Tory, of a grass-covered 8.5-hectare deck over the rail corridor stretching from Bathurst St. to Blue Jays Way.

City staff are expected to report back this fall on issues including estimated construction costs of at least $1.05 billion and whether a developer’s claim to “air rights” over the rail tracks presents a real obstacle.

Nielson said the park could link Toronto’s downtown to the waterfront the same way Millennium Park, a 10-hectare redevelopment project that hosted 13 million visitors in the first half of 2016 alone, brought downtown Chicago to Lake Michigan.

Jesse Brackenbury, executive director of the non-profit conservancy that manages the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, which in 2008 replaced an elevated expressway and sits atop a buried interstate, said Boston has made his signature park an “incubator” for new ideas.

“Have a glass of beer in a park? That hasn’t happened in other parks around Boston but this summer when our beer garden opens, the sky will not fall,” he told the panel discussion.

More than 400 free events per year and draws including food trucks have helped make the Greenway, which could have become a series of cultural attractions rather than parkland, a big hit with Bostonians, Brackenbury said.

New York City’s High Line, a reclaimed railway turned elevated walkway through west Manhattan, has created an entire district around it and sent adjacent property values surging.

The linear park is wildly successful but has “failed” to be a truly inclusive attraction with visitors who represent New York’s famed diversity, said Jamie Torres Springer of architects HR&A.

“I think it’s a very real problem for the High Line,” Torres Springer said, one acknowledged by those who spearheaded the project and “didn’t think enough about how to represent alternative demographics,” to the flocks of primarily white tourists who walk the attraction alongside more diverse hometown visitors.

Targeted programming can help, he said, but Toronto should consider inclusivity in the design phase. Torres Springer cited another New York project with basketball courts built in the centre as a conscious draw.

Toronto chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat told the panel she thinks raising funds to build rail deck park downtown, where property values are among the highest in Canada and where neighbouring projects are generating big development charges for the city, will be the project’s “easiest part.”

The city will have to grapple, however, with who pays ongoing maintenance and programming costs likely to outstrip those of a typical city park. Philanthropy and corporate sponsorships could play a role, as they do in many landmark American parks but much less so in Canada, Keesmaat said.

Boston’s Greenway is run by the conservancy with funds from the state of Massachusetts and from donors.

“We still frequently begin our conversations with donors or other stakeholders (saying) ‘No, we’re responsible for the maintenance of the park and no, your tax dollars are only a piece of what’s paying for this park,’ ” Brackenbury said.

Torres Springer said Torontonians should not be afraid of unobtrusive corporate sponsorship.

“There’s like, the KPMG slide, and the little gold (sponsorship) signs are everywhere and you don’t notice it. Certainly my 7-year-old couldn’t care less, so I wouldn’t be afraid of it,” he said.

One thing is certain, Tory told reporters after the discussion. The “handwringers” won’t derail rail deck park.

“I’m going to use every ounce of determination I have to get it built,” he said. “It will take time, it will take a lot of effort, it will take a lot of funding both from private and public sources, but we’ll have a park there that is for everybody in Toronto and the Toronto region, millions of tourists will come there, and (it will be) used by families who live downtown.”