Matt Cohen Park
Urban Plaza, below average overall (score 27, rank ~20th percentile). Strongest: enclosure; weakest: natural comfort.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Matt Cohen Park scores 27.4 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and connectivity. 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 · 0.14 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 27 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 (89) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 0) — frame without animation.
- 14 nearby towers cast wind and shadow without contributing canopy — passive surveillance is plentiful but human-scale comfort is not.
- High connectivity coexists with high border-vacuum risk (100) — much of that connectivity is to highways, rail, or parking lots, not to neighbourhoods.
Performance in context
- Reads as a modest underperformer relative to comparable parks (gap -9; cohort: pocket Urban Plaza).
Typology classification
Classified as Urban Plaza: 1445 m², paved (0% canopy), 24.9 buildings/100 m
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 26 active uses (transit_stop, retail, cafe, restaurant) and 12 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 0 mapped paths/walkways and 15 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 9 street intersections within 100 m; 24 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 1 estimated access points across ~257 m of perimeter. edge density is healthy — no superblock penalty. 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: ~8.4% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); 12 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (12.0/ha). Reading: exposed. Source coverage: 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
64 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (35 mid-rise, 15 low-rise, 14 tower); avg edge height 20.9 m (~7 floors); 24.9 buildings per 100 m of 257 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges are at a Jacobs-scale walkable mid-rise (3–7 floors); 14 towers ≥ 40 m within 25 m of the edge. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 35 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: Bloor Street West, Bloor Street West, Bloor Street West, 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 (67)
- highway — Bloor Street West13 m
- highway — Bloor Street West13 m
- transit stop — Spadina Avenue22 m
- retail — Republic of Hair25 m
- retail — Wine Rack30 m
- retail — Sutherland-Chan Clinic31 m
- retail — Three Cent Copy Centre31 m
- highway — Bloor Street West31 m
- retail — Enchanting beauty32 m
- transit stop — Spadina Avenue38 m
- parking lot43 m
- retail — Nice Cleaners46 m
- restaurant — Pita Land47 m
- retail — 7-Eleven48 m
- highway — Bloor Street West51 m
- cafe — Tim Hortons52 m
- retail52 m
- retail — Duke53 m
- restaurant — Majestic Shawarma59 m
- parking lot62 m
- restaurant — Daily Dumpling66 m
- transit stop — Spadina Station68 m
- retail — Freedom Mobile69 m
- highway — Bloor Street West69 m
- retail — Cuppa Tea73 m
- transit stop — Spadina Station74 m
- highway — Bloor Street West76 m
- retail — La La Bakeshop76 m
- parking lot77 m
- retail — glossix79 m
- restaurant — Zaad82 m
- transit stop — Spadina Road East Entrance84 m
- parking lot87 m
- parking lot88 m
- transit stop — Spadina Road West Entrance91 m
- restaurant — WooJoo Bunsik92 m
- highway — Bloor Street West99 m
- restaurant — Masters99 m
- parking lot107 m
- parking lot113 m
- transit stop — Spadina116 m
- transit stop — Spadina119 m
- restaurant — Bhoj Indian Cuisine125 m
- transit stop — Sussex Avenue129 m
- highway — Bloor Street West133 m
- parking lot141 m
- highway — Bloor Street West142 m
- parking lot144 m
- transit stop — Sussex Avenue156 m
- highway — Bloor Street West160 m
- retail — Chelsea Shop166 m
- restaurant — Wild Wing166 m
- parking lot171 m
- highway — Bloor Street West171 m
- restaurant — Ghazale174 m
- transit stop — Walmer Road174 m
- retail — Annex Photo176 m
- restaurant — Burrito Bandidos178 m
- parking lot178 m
- retail181 m
- restaurant — Sushi Maido183 m
- retail — Galleria The Kitchen Express184 m
- highway — Bloor Street West187 m
- restaurant — So Famous189 m
- parking lot190 m
- retail — COBS Bread194 m
- restaurant — Kenzo Ramen199 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality20th
- Edge activation39th
- Connectivity78th
- Amenity diversity45th
- Natural comfort38th
- Enclosure95th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Springhurst ParketteCorridor / Linear Park32
- Princess Street ParkUrban Plaza34
- MARJORY CARTON APARTMENTS - Building GroundsUrban Plaza33
- Broadview Subway Station ParketteUrban Plaza35
- Maughan Crescent ParketteUrban Plaza37
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Toronto Islands - Muggs Island ParkRavine / Naturalized Park25
- Trca Lands ( 26)Ravine / Naturalized Park27
- Rouge ParkWaterfront Park25
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park28
- Toronto Islands - Island ParkWaterfront Park52
Human activity signals
Programming, social attention, temporal rhythm, and nearby pedestrian / cycling flow. An experimental aggregate layer that complements the spatial scores — partial coverage, partial confidence.
Activity reading: pedestrian intensity 42.7/100; cycling/trail 71.2/100. The strongest signal is observed pedestrian/cycling activity. Source coverage: counters.
Does this score feel accurate?
Your read of Matt Cohen 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.
- 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.