Trca Lands ( 86)
Waterfront Park, near the bottom of the city overall (score 20, rank ~3th percentile). Strongest: natural comfort; weakest: enclosure.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Trca Lands ( 86) scores 20.1 / 100. Strongest dimensions: natural comfort 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 · 6.27 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 61%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Explain this score
Where did the 20 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
Performance in context
- Strong underperformer relative to its cohort — raw 20 vs an expected 37 (gap -17).
Typology classification
Classified as Waterfront Park: 23% water surface inside park. Secondary read: Wilderness / Conservation Park (92% ravine, 10% canopy, 6 ha, connectivity 41, 0 amenity types).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 8 active uses (transit_stop, retail) and 25 dead/hostile uses (rail, 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 13 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 3 street intersections within 100 m; 16 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 0 estimated access points across ~3,121 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: 9.5% estimated tree canopy; 91.9% inside the ravine system; 23.0% water surface. Reading: ravine-cooled. Source coverage: treed_area, ravine, 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
3 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (1 mid-rise, 2 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 7.7 m (~3 floors); 0.1 buildings per 100 m of 3,121 m perimeter — thin frontage — significant blank-edge share; edges are low-rise (mostly 2–3 floors); no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 1 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: Dundas Street West, Dundas Street East, Dundas Street West, Dundas Street West, parking_lot, Dundas Street East, Dundas 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 (80)
- transit stop — Dundas Street At West Mall Crescent25 m
- highway — Dundas Street West28 m
- highway — Dundas Street West28 m
- highway — Dundas Street East33 m
- transit stop34 m
- parking lot42 m
- parking lot44 m
- highway — Dundas Street West44 m
- highway — Dundas Street West45 m
- highway — Dundas Street East46 m
- highway — Dundas Street West50 m
- parking lot53 m
- parking lot53 m
- highway — Dundas Street East59 m
- highway — Dundas Street West62 m
- highway — Dundas Street East63 m
- highway — Dundas Street West72 m
- parking lot77 m
- retail — Car Squad86 m
- retail — Motion87 m
- parking lot87 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision90 m
- parking lot91 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision94 m
- highway — Dundas Street West94 m
- retail — Love Shop95 m
- parking lot96 m
- transit stop — Neilson Drive97 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision98 m
- parking lot99 m
- transit stop — Dundas Street At Neilson Drive100 m
- rail100 m
- retail — Sophie's Gown Shoppe100 m
- parking lot101 m
- parking lot107 m
- retail — Plato's Closet108 m
- rail110 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision110 m
- parking lot111 m
- parking lot111 m
- parking lot111 m
- retail — Floor & Bath Pros114 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision114 m
- retail — Hyperama117 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision117 m
- parking lot118 m
- rail121 m
- rail123 m
- restaurant — Bounty Family Resturant124 m
- retail — Mobile Klinik124 m
- parking lot125 m
- retail — Jenco Canada LED130 m
- parking lot131 m
- parking lot132 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision133 m
- parking lot133 m
- parking lot134 m
- retail — Xpression Hair Salon135 m
- parking lot135 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision136 m
- parking lot136 m
- cafe — South Creek Donuts137 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision138 m
- retail — Cedar House Spa142 m
- highway — Dundas Street East143 m
- parking lot146 m
- transit stop151 m
- transit stop — Dundas Street East Of Southcreek Road151 m
- restaurant — Fat Fork152 m
- parking lot156 m
- transit stop — Dundas Street At 2200 Dundas Street159 m
- parking lot166 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision175 m
- highway — Dundas Street East176 m
- parking lot177 m
- highway — Dundas Street East181 m
- parking lot181 m
- transit stop — Dundas Street West Of Neilson Drive184 m
- transit stop — Dundas Street At Southcreek Road188 m
- parking lot190 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality3th
- Edge activation23th
- Connectivity35th
- Amenity diversity33th
- Natural comfort75th
- Enclosure4th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- City Wide Open SpaceWaterfront Park30
- North Mimico Valley ParkWaterfront Park30
- City Wide Open SpaceOther20
- North York Hydro Green SpaceRavine / Naturalized Park28
- Toronto IslandsWaterfront Park28
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Leslie Grove ParkParkette68
- ALEX WILSON COMMUNITY GARDEN - Open Green SpaceUrban Plaza59
- Market Lane ParkUrban Plaza63
- Kew GardensNeighbourhood Park71
- Sonya'S ParkUrban Plaza60
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 Trca Lands ( 86)matters. 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.
- Add or open more entrances and improve sidewalk continuity around the park. More permeability means more spontaneous use.
- Diversify what people can do in the park — playground, washroom, water, shade, performance, sport, garden — even small additions raise this score.
- Encourage mid-rise, windowed frontages around the park so residents have direct sightlines onto it.
- 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.