Planners show the green for Yonge-Eglinton

[attach]7503[/attach]A plan that looks at making the Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue area more green also has the potential to make other neighbourhoods green with envy.

About 100 people packed the basement of the Salvation Army building at 7 Eglinton Ave. East on Feb. 4 for a presentation showing draft concepts and implementation strategies for increasing public realm and adding more greenery to the Yonge and Eglinton area. The Midtown Planning Group used the public consultation event to unveil “five moves” — a series of planning initiatives that would see the total area of public space around Yonge and Eglinton double to 14 percent, and the average walking time to a public space be cut from six minutes to four.

The ideas gained overwhelming support from those in attendance.

“It makes me optimistic that we can see these things jump from the report and actually become projects in the ground,” said Adam Nicklin, principal of Public Work, the company hired by the city to make the recommendations.

“It’s really about gaining some momentum because the moves, instead of being generic advice, are very specific and tailored to midtown.”

The five moves include: revamping Eglinton Park and making Eglinton Avenue a “green line”; improving existing public squares along Yonge Street and building new ones; creating the “park street loop”, which would connect Eglinton Park to Rawlinson Avenue with greenery and shared sidewalk space along Montgomery and Broadway avenues on the north and Orchard View Boulevard and Roehampton Avenue on the south; creating “greenways” out of side streets and residential streets; and adding greenery all along Redpath Avenue.

While some of the ideas could take up to 25 years to realize, Nicklin says there are others that could get under way almost immediately.

“The Yonge Street squares, you can get going on a lot of that now,” he said.

Nicklin says he hopes the five moves, which he stresses are “a combination of a lot of research and discussion with the community and all of the city staff that would be involved in making this happen,” come to fruition.

“When we make these proposals, we think they’re beyond suggestions,” he said. “They’re concrete proposals and we want to see them happen.

“We can’t see any reason they would lose momentum.”