ICYMI: In 2015, Google announced to the world that their ambitious exceeded well beyond cars, glasses, and thermostats. They wanted to build Smart Cities, and announced their spin-off-side-project-in-house-start-up, Sidewalk Labs, to tackle this challenge. In 2017, parent company Alphabet announced that Toronto would be its ground zero, and it’s certainly not been a quiet ride.
Naturally, tech-curious Rotman students were the first ones to line up and find out more about this yet-to-be delivered project from Google’s otherwise quiet parent company. Below are a few questions and highlights from our tour…
Didn’t this project start 2 years ago? What’s taking so long?
This was answered in a multi-faceted way. It included things like: government regulations and permits take time to pass. The street improvements to this site are on severely limited funding. This untouched waterfront? – it’s very difficult to clean up. the west side of the waterfront is beautiful and completely liveable, the the east side (aside from the beaches further east) have barely been touched. For some reason residential construction nearby stopped a few blocks shy of the waterfront, so there’s a lot of heavy lifting to be done in this area.
The expected actual construction of Sidewalk Lab (SWL)’s primary two sites is expected to start next year, in 2021. However, they don’t expect to complete their work until 2028. Additionally, this is only 2 parcels of land in the 4.9 hectacres SWL has committed to. SWL will be working engaging with local developers to bid on the remaining projects, and expects all projects to be completed around 2040.
What are some major themes emerging from the project?
Mobility was a big one that was mentioned. SWL looks to expand bike lines so that not only do bikers feel safer, they can get around each other as well as pedestrians. Pedestrians will have more advanced warnings for streetcars, so they have plenty of time to cross streets and prepare for the upcoming transit. Finally, SWL hopes to create a dynamic street that allows the Lakeshore road to be fully utilized – this means closing it for pedestrian traffic during the day, and opening it for vehicle traffic during the rush hour.
We came with Access for Success – how is this helping those with disabilities?
The development of the new waterfront will bring pedestrians and those with disabilities alike closer to the water without endangering them. Note the ramps that now bring you closer to the water, as well an amphitheater below. This is not something currently available in the western waterfront. The trees and added walkways will allow for added comfort for all users of the street.
What does Toronto think about this? Does the public get a say?
They do! The fun bit in this show room is definitely the interactive pieces, including tons of comment cards where visitors can leave their thoughts and ideas. These ideas are actually read by the SWL teams, and taken into account/prioritized as possible, helping drive their vision.
Neat. What other cool things do we have to look forward to?
As evident in the pictures above, SWL looks to put in housing as well, and are expecting to price at least 40% of their units at below-the-market rates to help ensure that the community is truly a mixed income community, and not an exclusive (20% low-income, 20% mid-range). Also neat are the ideas that they have planned for these buildings, such as improved use of water, and under ground storage lockers for your packages (e.g. from Amazon) to reduce truck traffic by 72% on the surface streets.
Overall, while the tour was informative, it relies heavily on the publicly accessible information that is already on their website and signs. As a user who simply knew the general idea of the company but hadn’t done a deep dive before joining in the tour, I felt like I learned a lot – however, if you’ve been keeping tabs on this project, you may disagree.
Still got questions for SWL? Let us know! We’re working on getting a more in depth interview with a SWL staff member soon!