
Stan Wadlow Park
Neighbourhood Park, one of the city's strongest overall (score 52, rank ~95th percentile). Strongest: amenity diversity; weakest: natural comfort.
Photo by Hobert Nadales via Google Places · cached 5/9/2026
Stan Wadlow Park scores 51.9 / 100. Strongest dimensions: connectivity and enclosure / eyes on park. Weakest: edge activation (17.1). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (48). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors, not a definitive judgment.
Area · 9.30 ha
What's here
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 72%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
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Boundary: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Explain this score
Where did the 52 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
Stan Wadlow Park works because its amenity diversity score (66) is one of the city's strongest and its connectivity (78) is also top decile (15 distinct amenity types support different kinds of use).
What limits this park
Stan Wadlow Park's edges are fronted by border-vacuum land uses (highways, rail, parking, blank institutional), risk score 48.
Most distinctive characteristic
Most distinctive feature: exceptionally high amenity diversity (66, top decile).
Jacobs reading
Stan Wadlow Park sits between an urban social park and an ecological retreat: moderately useful for both, exceptionally suited to neither.
Tradeoffs
- Connectivity (78) significantly outpaces natural comfort (46): well placed in the city but offers little shade or ecological respite.
- The park is enclosed by buildings (67) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 17): frame without animation.
Performance in context
- This park is a strong overperformer for its cohort: raw 52 versus an expected 39 for similar parks (large Neighbourhood Park) (gap +13).
Typology classification
Classified as Neighbourhood Park: 9.3 ha, framed by 8 mid-rise vs 0 towers
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 8 active uses (transit_stop) and 5 dead/hostile uses (parking_lot). 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 21 mapped paths/walkways and 41 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 21 street intersections within 100 m; 30 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 8 estimated access points across ~1,325 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
15 distinct amenity types in the park (community_centre, dog_area, playground, skatepark, sports_field, tennis, …). Diversity, not raw count, drives the score so a park with many distinct activity types can outrank a larger park that repeats the same use.
Source: Toronto Parks & Recreation Facilities + OSM amenity tags
Natural Comfort
Natural-comfort components for this park: ~4.3% effective canopy (0.4% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); 13.8% inside the ravine system; nearest waterbody ~282 m; 57 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (6.1/ha). Reading: exposed. 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
169 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (8 mid-rise, 161 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 5.5 m (~2 floors); 12.8 buildings per 100 m of 1,325 m perimeter (strong frontage density); edges are barely there or single-storey; no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 8 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, parking_lot. Jacobs warned that highways, rail, parking lots and blank institutional edges act as "vacuums" that 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 (15 types · 58 records)
- community centre
- dog area
- playground
- skatepark
- sports field
- tennis
- washroom
- bench
- drinking water
- garden
- ice rink
- other sport
- picnic
- pool
- table tennis
Nearby active-edge features (29)
- transit stop: Cedarvale Avenue0 m
- transit stop: Gledhill Avenue0 m
- parking lot0 m
- transit stop: Haldon Avenue10 m
- transit stop: Stan Wadlow Park13 m
- transit stop: Gledhill Avenue17 m
- transit stop: 9 Haldon Avenue (East York Acres)25 m
- transit stop: Cedarvale Avenue30 m
- parking lot37 m
- parking lot45 m
- parking lot46 m
- transit stop: Westlake Crescent79 m
- parking lot96 m
- transit stop: Westlake Crescent113 m
- parking lot119 m
- parking lot125 m
- retail: Coin Laundry137 m
- retail: Curves Weight Loss Centre137 m
- retail: Silver Star Beauty Salon137 m
- retail: Ditchon Greenhouse138 m
- transit stop: Woodbine Avenue143 m
- transit stop: Bracebridge Avenue148 m
- transit stop: Cosburn Avenue151 m
- parking lot156 m
- parking lot161 m
- transit stop: Plains Road165 m
- transit stop: Cosburn Avenue166 m
- transit stop: Woodbine Avenue172 m
- retail180 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality95th
- Edge activation77th
- Connectivity98th
- Amenity diversity100th
- Natural comfort49th
- Enclosure66th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Edithvale ParkNeighbourhood Park51
- Rosebank ParkNeighbourhood Park53
- Irving W. Chapley ParkAthletic / Recreation Park47
- Jimmie Simpson ParkNeighbourhood Park49
- Goulding ParkNeighbourhood Park49
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space. Useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Trca Lands ( 26)Ravine / Naturalized Park27
- Toronto Islands - Muggs Island ParkRavine / Naturalized Park25
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park26
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park28
- Rouge ParkWaterfront Park25
Visitor signals
Public attention measured by Google Places aggregates. This proxies attention, not occupancy. Aggregate-only: no usernames, no review text, no extra photos beyond the cached hero.
“8.5 hectares of green space featuring baseball fields, a playground & an off-leash dog area.” (Google editorial summary)
p90 citywide · p85 within Neighbourhood Park
Source: Google Places API · match high (0.99 composite confidence) · last refreshed 5/9/2026. Privacy contract. Measures public attention, not occupancy.
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 Stan Wadlow 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.
- 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. Boundaries are reconciled against OpenStreetMap (ODbL) for new and updated parks.
- 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.