The Junction Arts Festival was in full swing on the weekend on Dundas West, west of Keele. Dundas was closed to traffic from Keele to Clendenan and many of the new bars, restaurants and cafes in the area had spread out into the streets with patios, and the strong local arts community was well-represented. Dundas has a relatively narrow right-of-way, with narrow sidewalks, so like along most of Bloor, front patios are impossible normally except for businesses in corner buildings – it’s amazing when you can see what the city would be like if all the back patios were in fact out front, though short of pedestrianisation, it seems unlikely to ever happen except temporarily.

The Festival is still in its formative years but seems to get better every year and is thankfully one of the lesser-known and more relaxed of Toronto’s street festivals, some of which are starting to choke on their own success. I’m sure many of the restaurants and bars would have preferred a larger turnout, but actually being able to move through the street is a refreshing change from the press of bodies one encounters at Taste of the Danforth and some of the other street festivals.

A moment of refreshment and reflection in Cool Hand of a Girl, a cafe on Dundas St W in the Junction with fair trade organic coffee (2804 Dundas W, E of Keele, opposite McBride’s motorbike shop). For a review of the cafe, see wasabi cowgirl blog here.

A friend sent me a link to a post about this amazing abandoned resort scheme in Taiwan outside Taipei, called San Zhi. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more curious and misguided scheme – but you can’t deny that the photographs are both amazing and surreal. The reasons for abandonment supposedly revolve around local stories that the site is haunted. Visit the original site for more photos and background.

Addendum (May 2010): a commenter indicates that the buildings have now been demolished to build another attempt at a resort development

Tonto sent these bike lane examples from Paris in as a suggestion for ways to improve the way we deal with bike lanes in Toronto (this was part of his comment in response to the last post A Bike Lane Disappears… ). As he says “One solution however, to properly demarcating bike lanes, can be found in Paris. Here are some shots of possible divisions between vehicular and bicycle areas. Some work would need to be done to prevent snowplows from tearing off the strips, but I am sure there are ways around that.”

The bike lane along Davenport between Ossington and Dufferin has essentially been disappeared as a result of infrastructural work. It was bad enough while the construction was going on, but the end result has essentially been an effacement of the diamond lane markings in places, and the complete ruination of the asphalt surface of the lane in others. A recent Spacing Wire post about construction ruining existing bike lanes (see here) was pertinent as we near the frenetic end of the roadworks season.

However, I’m loath to completely blame city services or the contractors for the results – the Davenport example was obviously a quite serious replacement of a water main or some other essential infrastructure beneath the street – it’s only a shame it happened less than a year after a large part of Davenport east of Dufferin was resurfaced. Additionally, placing services anywhere else would still lead to disruption – if they were placed closer to the middle of the road, the bike lane surface wouldn’t be ruined during infrastructural work, but vehicular traffic would no doubt be diverted over the bike lane during the work itself. At any rate, there probably already is an infrastructural service under the middle of the road – in fact these days there are so many services under roads it really is a question whether it would be possible to locate them in a way that could reduce impact on bike lanes.

What is a shame is that in places the relatively fresh bike lane markings were right along the trench they dug – will they be repainting the bike lane? It hasn’t been done yet. In other places the trench is right down the middle of the bike lane and is terribly bumpy – so bumpy in fact that I’m forced to ride out in the vehicular lane. I know my cycling activist friends hate when I say it, but when I’m out there in the vehicular lane, it actually feels like I am where I belong. Call it idiocy, call it a desire for the thrills of mixed traffic, but I can’t help what I feel. That doesn’t stop me from being upset about the state of the bike lanes though.

What added insult to injury was that construction affected the bike lanes all the way to Bathurst – despite minimal trench work east of Ossington – pylons and signs were placed in the bike lanes in what seemed an unnecessary way.

To me this highlights two inherent weaknesses in the way we implement bike lanes. First, simply painting bike lane markings is an invitation for them to be effaced – by weather, construction, dirt. Second, bike lanes sharing the asphalt surface with the vehicular surface (with no barrier or curb between them) is an invitation for the bike lane to be used by everyone and everything – construction crews use them for storing their vehicles and crap – taxis use them to pick up and deposit passengers – cars stand in them when they’re being the pricks that they are – delivery trucks use them as a handy place to stop without interfering with vehicular traffic – pedestrians stand in them when they’re trying to cross the road. Short of stationing a police unit on every corner of the city, enforcing the sanctity of bike lanes seems hopeless.

However, suggesting more off-road routes almost ensures that they will not be plowed and maintained in winter, and as a winter rider that is an unacceptable compromise to me.

DuToit Allsopp Hiller (DTAH) have uploaded a series of cool timelapse sequences of the Quay to the City installation along Queen’s Quay that was in place from August 10th to 20th. These are some stills, but check out the original at their site here (props to Tonto for the link).

There’s a new graffiti-style mural being finished up on Davenport Road west of Lansdowne at the termination of Caledonia Park Road, on the concrete retaining wall of the railway underpass on the south side. The mural appears to (very cleverly) use imagery of the pigeon as inspiration. It’s a surprisingly beautiful addition to an otherwise dreary section of Davenport.

The newspaper box consolidation effort started by the Downtown Yonge BIA at Dundas Square has been extended by the Bloor-Yorkville BIA at the corners of Bay and Bloor and Yonge and Bloor. The design is different than the Dundas Square ones (see Spacing Wire post here), and seems to be similar to the style of the ones in Chicago.

The view west across Fort York’s grounds has always fascinated me – from the vantage point of the Strachan bridge over the railway lines, you have the impression of an island of green and this stunning view corridor focussed on the CN Tower. Your first clue to something being here is a strange staircase that appears to descend from halfway across the bridge – from the top of the staircase, this view presents itself. Fort York itself is not visible here, but the remnant and memorial of the military burial ground is in the middle-distance at the base of the flag. The grounds are relatively quiet, and usually deserted apart from the ocasional dog-walker, though the drone of traffic along the elevated Gardiner Expressway will inevitably be the soundtrack of your visit.

This curious barricade on Kendal Avenue between Walmer and Spadina was created by a rather large tree branch falling into the street. Imagine my surprise when the street I pass almost every day had disappeared behind an instant green screen! Hell, if it can happen by accident, it might as well happen on purpose! Instant hedge formula: artificial turf, potted plants, an armchair? What we really need is a giant fake tree branch to throw into the street whenever we feel like having a street party! A little yellow caution tape just makes it look all the more official.