I am a student studying at the Urban Design at the University of Washington. I am currently organizing an alley art walk party (inspired by the events in Nord Alley organized by ISI) and was wondering if you would be available to chat via email or in person about your experiences with alley events.

You can contact me at the email provided below.

Thank you.

Best,

Maddie Beeders

Best,

Daniel

Great seeing the work you’re doing around alleys, which are important, often neglected urban spaces that could be sites for any number of positive activities and uses. A contact at University of Toronto directed me to your blog, which I found fascinating. I’m actually doing a green alley project right now in Montréal right now, and I have a blog too! Check it out here: http://greenalleymontreal.blogspot.com/

Keep it up,
Michael

We can discuss further via email.

Glad to hear that your city is handling development and your community somewhat transparently – this sounds like a very rich opportunity.

Daniel
toole.daniel@gmail.com

We had our meeting and got to see a few dozen large drawings of our area of downtown Toronto. The City Planners have been busy. They recognized the potential importance of our laneways, but did not include them in this round of community discussions. I mentioned that we had been in electronic communication. And the question I got back was, “Any chance we could convince him to visit?” I’m clearly not authorized to offer anything, but I did feel it made sense to ask if you might be willing to visit and comment.

Reactions?

Bob Fabian
http://www.fabian.ca

Thanks for your kind offer. I’ll know more after this evening’s meeting. City Planning is to present their thinking about this area of downtown. Informally, the idea of using the laneways in this way has received positive response. Tonight is the first public presentation of their ideas. It’s really the next step in a public consultation process that began several months ago. I’ll be back after the meeting.

Thanks again.

Bob Fabian

I encourage you to bring this up in any type of community/design review meeting with the developers working on these projects. Just from a cursory glance via Google Streets, you have some fantastic alleys with a lot of potential. With your cold climate, you could even benefit from fold-out restaraunts/bars in the alleys with overhead space heaters during the cold months to activate spots like O’Keefe Lane.

I would definitely try to get some of your community together and interested in a plan before development takes over and you lose those great opportunities! I would love to assist in helping with a framework plan for your alleys if help is needed – Sydney, Australia completed something similar last year and I can put you in touch with the file if you’d like.

Best,

Daniel

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In Toronto we have a “special” challenge. Downtown along the main pedestrial and subway corridor there is intense developer interest. Our “main street” is called Yonge Street. It was the first street in Ontario and is the longest street in the world. Downtown Yonge Street is under active development. I live just off downtown Yonge Street and there’s a 78 storey mixed use bulding going up less than 1 km south and a 69 storey mixed use building going up less than 1 km north. In between, there are something like a dozen tower projects, under development, approved, proposed, or under discussion. The impact on retail along Yonge Street will be dramatic. Our alleys – called laneways here – may provide attractive commercial relief. Many of the “interesting” shops could not pay the kind of rent that will be demanded in new developments. Our laneways can provide the alternative space that the “interesting” shops require.

Robert Fabian, Toronto

Historical End Note: Our laneways go back to the beginning of the city and seem to have been developed to support service access.