Elite architecture critic Lisa Rochon – I suppose that’s tautological – leaned out the window of her Smart long enough to notice Toronto’s atrocious sidewalks and streets.
But which excerpts below came from Rochon just today (Ⓡ) and which came from an actual engineering (Ⓔ) graduate two or three years ago?
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“You’d like to ask directly about the reverse skunking of roads across the city, with long swaths of asphalt poured haphazardly down their centres.”
Ⓡ ☐ · Ⓔ ☐ -
“Since when did asphalt (please don’t call it ‘ashphalt’) become the repair material of choice – no matter what it’s repairing – in the city? And it’s on every single goddamned downtown block. It’s ugly, shameful, a spit in the face of the original construction design and utterly, utterly unacceptable.”
Ⓡ ☐ · Ⓔ ☐ -
“Toronto doesn’t have a really shitty pothole situation because of our freeze-thaw cycling; Toronto has a really shitty pothole situation because the repairs are not made properly.”
Ⓡ ☐ · Ⓔ ☐ -
“Note the one-inch slab of asphalt atop the sinkhole. Another job well done by Toronto’s talented and supercompetent construction contractors, workers, supervisors and inspectors!”
Ⓡ ☐ · Ⓔ ☐ -
“Compare the glories of… legendary civic boulevards to the jarring black asphalt stripes on University’s sidewalks.”
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“To repair the asphalt is, in city parlance, a ‘restoration.’ Restoration might conjure the granite cobbles of London and Paris. In Toronto, it’s a euphemism used by city employees for the replacement of black patches with ordinary concrete.” (This is precisely backwards.) “ ‘Despite this, we continue to make great strides in ensuring that repairs are done properly and promptly.’ ”
Ⓡ ☐ · Ⓔ ☐
“You might have assumed by now that my distress over the state of Toronto’s streets, and their lack of civic grace, has been percolating for a long time.” The brave simply leave.