Not content with merely being home to the most richly-diverse population of stupid, lazy, inept, ugly, selfish and downright mean people on the planet, the City of Toronto must go one step further to secure its desperately-sought-after title of “world class”.
World Class Embarrassment seems apropos in this context, as block after block of Toronto’s downtown core is continually, incessantly torn up, repeatedly and without apparent supervision or inspection, providing pedestrians and drivers alike with an amusing, maze-like array of obstacles to overcome (or on which to injure ourselves).
One of Toronto’s great tourist destinations — and home to shuffling throngs of dead-eyed, probably-retarded teenagers as well as overentitled families with triple-wide strollers — is downtown’s Eaton Centre and, really, a destination of such high calibre practically demands inconveniences on a similar scale:
South of Yonge & Shuter, Toronto, 12 January 2009
Note, please, in the photo, above, one full sidewalk and two lanes of a four-lane street magically disappearing during construction, all of which, for the observant among you, actually occurring in only one-half of the sidewalk. Note, too, the ugly wound torn right down the middle of the sidewalk patched with — what else? — not just asphalt, Toronto’s go-to repair material, but the shittiest asphalt available in the western hemisphere. (Honestly, it’s like going into an apartment and seeing a hole in the drywall “repaired” with masking tape and paint.)
Bad enough? No, of course not. In Toronto we need to sink one level deeper into Ugly Territory. In addition to repairing — badly — an ineptly-undertaken excavation, every manner of incompetence must be brought into play. You say that Toronto experiences temperature changes? Well, then, let’s make sure whatever shitty asphalt repairs are undertaken are made without using a grade of asphalt in any way appropriate to Toronto’s temperature cycles and — icing on the cake, as it were — make sure to avoid any drainage of groundwater to prevent… To fucking prevent this:
North of Yonge & Shuter, Toronto, 12 January 2009
I wish I could adequately convey the FIVE FUCKING INCH BUMP in the shitty asphalt, above, but you’ll have to take my word for it. Sometimes I wonder why they even bother trying, and then I remember:
They don’t.
8 comments
Your posts make it sound like Toronto is driving you up the wall. Have you considered moving? I haven’t been there in years and there is actually not much to miss.
Your love for Toronto seems nearly limitless. Nearly.
There are now entire swaths of Bloor and Yonge that I avoid whenever possible, not least because I don’t know how traverse them on foot. When I do manage to figure one section out, it mysteriously gets draped with caution tape and reconfigured, sometimes later the same day. The workers seem to be more efficient at this than at conducting the actual repairs.
I’m surprised no one has snapped in the face of this and gone on a shooting spree. (I’m looking at you, Brett!) It’s a good thing we have gun control, such as it is, though I’m about ready to head out to Scarborough and see what they’re selling on the black market. It may be time to bust a cap in somebody’s ass.
As always you are right on the mark. Not only do these city crews leave such unsightly work (what happened to the idea of being proud of your work and ashamed to leave such work in public) but as you point out in the process they seem to go out of their way (with a degree of pleasure) to make it inconvenient for everyone involved, pedestrians, and drivers. It never ceases to amaze me how unorganized the whole process seems (or maybe it is organized by some sadistic city engineer?).
I was home in Toronto recently for the first time in a couple years and was shocked at how many sidewalks were blocked by “construction” and the sidewalks that weren’t blocked consistently had dog shit on them. It was terrible! The sidewalks of Brooklyn are shockingly clean in comparison.
That is why we high-tailed it to the burbs. I will take the big box stores and mini vans over the vapid creatures of Toronto (city management and workers included). Lived it for 20 years and watched Toronto rise, then fall, then rise a little again, and then fall, and now just bottom out…..
… My city has no pretentions of being “world class” at anything except maybe beach quality, and nobody would let any of that happen here. Granted, it doesn’t snow here, so that’s not a factor, but that stuff there is *insane*.
Major thoroughfares get roadwork done on weekends or at night. (Really at night. Like 3am under floodlights, for really critical sections; starting at 10pm for others; those that are important but can be diverted around *somewhat* just get done on weekends.) City centre footpaths don’t get blocked off, they leave pedestrian paths under the scaffolding.
The tragic thing is, we take it utterly for granted…
Okay, you kind of lost me at “beach”, Sami. Grrr.
And what you’ve described, in terms of timing repairwork so as to inconvenience the public as little as possible, is what REAL cities do. That must be grand. Jellus!