Christopher Hume has an interesting story in today’s Toronto Star about the city’s efforts to “rearrange the furniture”. It looks at the city’s renewed focus on improving the the street-scape when it comes to things such as newspaper boxes, transit stops and garbage bins. The number of newspaper boxes is a great example of urban furniture gone out of control when you realize some corners can have a dozen different boxes. In Chicago, they created a multi-box format that provides space for 10 newspapers. It’s a much better looking entity, and something that can easily be introduced. The city would also do itself a favour if it killed the idea of the mega-bins, which are currently being “tested”. Sure, the city will get some cash from Eucan but the mega-bins are downright ugly and not very functional. For one, they don’t hold much trash, which is not a good thing in a city with a growing litter problem.
March 7, 2006 at 11:45 am
Trash the mega bins. put more garbage bins out, empty them on a frequent basis. This can be done by outsourcing to private collection and not having to pay someone close to $20 an hour to do it. The problem now, the cost of garbage collection from city workers is far too high and this hampers the citys ability to budget accordingly. The city is then forced to partner with comanies like Eucan and it solves absolutely nothing but take up sidewalk space.