Todmorden Mills Park
Ravine / Naturalized Park, middle of the pack overall (score 34, rank ~49th percentile). Strongest: natural comfort; weakest: edge activation.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Todmorden Mills Park scores 33.8 / 100. Strongest dimensions: natural comfort and enclosure / eyes on park. Weakest: amenity diversity (0). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (100). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 10.79 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 63%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Explain this score
Where did the 34 come from? Each weighted contribution against a neutral 50 baseline. Green = pushed up; red = pulled down.
Sum of contributions = the headline score. A negative bar means that dimension dragged the park below the city-wide neutral baseline.
Why this park works
What limits this park
Most distinctive characteristic
Jacobs reading
Tradeoffs
- The park is enclosed by buildings (80) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 0) — frame without animation.
- High connectivity coexists with high border-vacuum risk (100) — much of that connectivity is to highways, rail, or parking lots, not to neighbourhoods.
Typology classification
Classified as Ravine / Naturalized Park: 100% ravine overlap, 73% canopy. Secondary read: Neighbourhood Park (10.8 ha, framed by 20 mid-rise vs 11 towers).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 3 active uses (transit_stop) and 20 dead/hostile uses (parking_lot, highway). Active edges keep "eyes on the park" through the day; parking lots, blank institutional walls, rail and highway frontages drain street life.
Source: OSM POIs (amenity/shop) + Toronto Building Footprints + land use
Connectivity
Connectivity blends paths, intersections, transit, entrances, and edge density. This park has 17 mapped paths/walkways and 18 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 21 street intersections within 100 m; 15 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 2 estimated access points across ~1,725 m of perimeter. moderate edge density — small superblock penalty applied. Source coverage: centreline, pedestrian_network, transit_osm.
Source: Toronto Centreline V2 + Pedestrian Network + OSM transit stops
Amenity Diversity
No amenities recorded — score is 0 until inventory is loaded.
Source: Toronto Parks & Recreation Facilities + OSM amenity tags
Natural Comfort
Natural-comfort components for this park: 73.3% estimated tree canopy; 100.0% inside the ravine system; 4.4% water surface; 12 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (1.1/ha). Reading: ravine-cooled. Source coverage: treed_area, ravine, waterbodies, street_trees. Impervious surface is approximated (Toronto's authoritative layer ships only as a raster GeoTIFF).
Source: Toronto Treed Area + Ravine + Waterbodies + Street Tree Inventory
Enclosure / Eyes on Park
128 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (20 mid-rise, 97 low-rise, 11 tower); avg edge height 11.3 m (~4 floors); 7.4 buildings per 100 m of 1,725 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges are at a Jacobs-scale walkable mid-rise (3–7 floors); 11 towers ≥ 40 m within 25 m of the edge. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 20 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: parking_lot, Don Valley Parkway, parking_lot, Don Valley Parkway, Don Valley Parkway, Don Valley Parkway, parking_lot, parking_lot, parking_lot, parking_lot, parking_lot. Jacobs warned that highways, rail, parking lots and blank institutional edges act as "vacuums" — they suppress foot traffic and isolate the park from its neighbourhood.
Source: Toronto Street Centreline (highways) + rail layer + OSM landuse + building footprints
Equity Context
Equity Context requires inputs not yet loaded for this park (Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles). Score is held at a neutral 50 with low confidence — read with caution.
Source: Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles
Amenities (0)
No amenities recorded for this park.
Nearby active-edge features (39)
- parking lot0 m
- parking lot0 m
- parking lot0 m
- parking lot9 m
- parking lot19 m
- transit stop — Pottery Road28 m
- parking lot31 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway32 m
- parking lot35 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway43 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway44 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway49 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway50 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway51 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway51 m
- transit stop — Broadview Avenue53 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway54 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway61 m
- transit stop — Mortimer Avenue67 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway69 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway70 m
- parking lot79 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway86 m
- parking lot102 m
- retail — Vineyards Estate Wines109 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway113 m
- parking lot126 m
- retail — Shop ‘n Bag129 m
- transit stop — Chester Hill Road130 m
- parking lot133 m
- parking lot146 m
- transit stop — Browning Avenue161 m
- cafe — SUPERNOVA Coffee168 m
- highway — Don Valley Parkway175 m
- retail — Creature Comforts and Collectables177 m
- retail — Dollarama186 m
- parking lot191 m
- transit stop — Hillside Drive193 m
- rail — GO Transit - Bala Subdivision198 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality49th
- Edge activation47th
- Connectivity86th
- Amenity diversity52th
- Natural comfort93th
- Enclosure84th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Playter GardensParkette32
- Lawren Harris ParkRavine / Naturalized Park44
- The Toronto HuntRavine / Naturalized Park33
- Prince Edward Viaduct ParketteCorridor / Linear Park31
- Rosedale Ravine LandsRavine / Naturalized Park37
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Queen'S Quay Traffic IslandWaterfront Park49
- Joseph Burr Tyrrell ParkUrban Plaza50
- ALEX WILSON COMMUNITY GARDEN - Open Green SpaceUrban Plaza59
- Danforth Gardens ParkParkette42
- Leslie Grove ParkParkette68
Human activity signals — not available
No activity signals have landed for this park yet. The model has scored its physical form but it can’t yet say how often it’s programmed, photographed, or walked through. See /data-ethics for what we will and will not collect.
Does this score feel accurate?
Your read of Todmorden Mills Parkmatters. We’re testing whether the model lines up with how people actually use the park. Submissions are stored locally; no account needed.
Tell us how this park feels
We measure structure (canopy, edges, connectivity). You measure feeling. Both matter — and disagreement is itself useful civic data.
What would improve this park?
Generated from the weakest measured dimensions — a starting point, not a prescription.
- Activate the edges: encourage cafés, retail or community uses on the streets that face the park; replace blank or parking-lot edges where possible.
- Diversify what people can do in the park — playground, washroom, water, shade, performance, sport, garden — even small additions raise this score.
- Mitigate border vacuums (highways, rail, parking) with active programming on the still-permeable edges and treat the hostile edge as a design challenge.
Data sources
- City of Toronto Open Data — Parks (Green Space)Polygon boundaries, official names, types.
- Parks & Recreation FacilitiesInventory of in-park amenities (washrooms, fields, rinks…).
- Toronto Pedestrian NetworkSidewalk segments around and through parks; estimated park entrances.
- Toronto Centreline V2Street segments + intersection nodes near park edges; trails and walkways.
- Toronto 3D MassingBuilding footprints + heights for edge-building counts, frontage density, and tower-in-the-park risk.
- Toronto Treed AreaTree canopy share inside park polygons via stratified-grid sampling.
- Toronto Waterbodies & RiversWater surface inside parks + nearest-water distance for cooling.
- Ravine & Natural Feature ProtectionRavine overlap as a cooling / natural-comfort signal.
- Toronto Street Tree InventoryTree count + density inside park polygons.
- Neighbourhood Profiles(Pending) Equity context proxy.
- OpenStreetMap (Overpass API)Cafés, restaurants, retail, transit stops, parking, highways, rail.