Analysis of Existing Street Conditions
SITE PHOTO INVENTORY AND ANALYSIS
These images show the current state of Simcoe Street and Michael Sweet Avenue. Simcoe Street generally has 3 types of conditions:
1. The gateway pedestrian and service vehicle area at Queen Street has newer, large format brick paving. A similar paving wraps around the corner to Michael Sweet Avenue.
2. The mid-section pedestrian road and flanking sidewalks terminate with concrete planter and metal fence barricades. The paving treatment is ageing, with patched asphalt. The sidewalks are raised concrete. The greenspace from edge of sidewalk to property lines is generally in poor condition with balding turf areas, and some street trees have recently been destroyed and removed. Tree species remaining are mostly Silver Maple and Little Leaf Lindens.
3. The north segment of Simcoe is open to two-way traffic to gain access/egress to a parking garage. Sidewalks, as for the landscape condition, are in a poor state.
Michael Sweet Avenue is an under exploited anomaly in the city. It is relatively quiet and receives low traffic flow, despite its downtown core location. The northern street edge faces a large podium condo wall that is planted with a long narrow row of Pyramidal English Oak. The southern street wall presents a prime location for the Relic Park installations with an approximately 4-metre strip of turf running the length of the avenue and the parkade.
