Bathurst Quay
Waterfront Park, near the bottom of the city overall (score 26, rank ~15th percentile). Strongest: edge activation; weakest: natural comfort.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Bathurst Quay scores 25.7 / 100. Strongest dimensions: connectivity and enclosure / eyes on park. Weakest: amenity diversity (0). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (60). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 0.58 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 56%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Explain this score
Where did the 26 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
- 5 nearby towers cast wind and shadow without contributing canopy — passive surveillance is plentiful but human-scale comfort is not.
Typology classification
Classified as Waterfront Park: 13% water surface inside park. Secondary read: Corridor / Linear Park (shape elongation 6.7× a circle of equal area).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 13 active uses (restaurant, transit_stop, retail, school, community, cafe) and 8 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 14 mapped paths/walkways and 19 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 9 street intersections within 100 m; 10 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 0 estimated access points across ~1,806 m of perimeter. low edge density — significant 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: 0.0% estimated tree canopy; 12.5% water surface. Reading: water-cooled. Source coverage: waterbodies. 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
30 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (15 mid-rise, 10 low-rise, 5 tower); avg edge height 25.0 m (~8 floors); 1.7 buildings per 100 m of 1,806 m perimeter — moderate frontage density; edges lean tall but still framed; 5 towers ≥ 40 m within 25 m of the edge. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 15 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, parking_lot, parking_lot, The Gravel 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 (45)
- cafe — Aroma Espresso Bar8 m
- transit stop — Dan Leckie Way19 m
- transit stop — Billy Bishop Airport - Queens Quay21 m
- parking lot21 m
- parking lot30 m
- parking lot — The Gravel Lot34 m
- parking lot35 m
- restaurant — Maguro House36 m
- school — City School36 m
- parking lot41 m
- community — Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre46 m
- restaurant — National Yacht Club Restaurant51 m
- restaurant — Iruka Sushi59 m
- retail — Mike the Ticket Host60 m
- transit stop — Queens Quay West, Billy Bishop Airport69 m
- retail — Lincare Dry Cleaners Ltd.72 m
- restaurant — Blomboon Restaurant & Bar73 m
- transit stop — Dan Leckie Way78 m
- parking lot88 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West92 m
- parking lot — Marina Parking96 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West106 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West107 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West111 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West115 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West119 m
- retail — Ride One119 m
- parking lot129 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West131 m
- retail — T.O. Tuck Shop134 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West135 m
- parking lot142 m
- parking lot144 m
- parking lot147 m
- transit stop — Bathurst Street, Billy Bishop Airport153 m
- retail — Harbour Green Farms161 m
- retail — Salon 500 Hair and Esthetics161 m
- parking lot166 m
- retail — Snatched TO170 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West174 m
- restaurant186 m
- retail — Loblaws187 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West192 m
- highway — Lake Shore Boulevard West195 m
- parking lot198 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality15th
- Edge activation65th
- Connectivity61th
- Amenity diversity48th
- Natural comfort14th
- Enclosure17th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- City Wide Open SpaceOther29
- Scarborough Hydro Green SpaceNeighbourhood Park32
- City Wide Open SpaceOther22
- Timberbank ParkNeighbourhood Park31
- Albert Campbell SquareCivic Square25
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Kew GardensNeighbourhood Park71
- Leslie Grove ParkParkette68
- Market Lane ParkUrban Plaza63
- Sir Winston Churchill ParkRavine / Naturalized Park69
- Bellevue Square ParkCivic Square66
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 Bathurst Quaymatters. 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.
- Increase canopy and reduce paved area. Shade and water features extend usable hours and seasons.
- 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.