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Toronto Parks Atlas
City Wide Open Space, site photograph
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Waterfront Parkcluster ·Walkable Mid-Rise Neighbourhood Parks (enclosure-leaning)South Riverdale (70)confidence moderate

City Wide Open Space

Waterfront Park, middle of the pack overall (score 37, rank ~59th percentile). Strongest: edge activation; weakest: enclosure.

Aerial, City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026

City Wide Open Space scores 36.6 / 100. Strongest dimensions: connectivity and natural comfort. Weakest: amenity diversity (11.9). Border-vacuum risk is low. This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors, not a definitive judgment.

Best forwaterfront recreationlong walks

Area · 2.20 ha

What's here

Facilities
Benches
Vitality Score
37/100

Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 64%

Data Confidence
36.6 / 100
Citywide
59th
of all 3,788 parks
Among Waterfront Park
69th
same primary typology
Expected for similar parks
30
median in medium Waterfront Park waterfront (n=130)
Performance gap
+7
raw − expected · context confidence high
modest overperformer

Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.

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Street context. Park polygon highlighted on the citywide map.

Explain this score

Where did the 37 come from? Each weighted contribution against a neutral 50 baseline. Green = pushed up; red = pulled down.

Download JSON
What pushed this score up or down vs a neutral 50weight × score
Amenity Diversity12 · p61
-7.6
Edge Activation25 · p83
-6.3
Border Vacuum Risk0 (risk)
+5.0
Natural Comfort37 · p29
-2.0
Enclosure / Eyes on Park33 · p5
-1.7
Connectivity45 · p51
-0.9

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

City Wide Open Space works because its edge activation score (25) is above average and its amenity diversity (12) is also above-average.

What limits this park

City Wide Open Space is held back by enclosure (33, bottom quartile).

Most distinctive characteristic

Most distinctive feature: exceptionally low enclosure (33, bottom quartile).

Jacobs reading

City Wide Open Space sits between an urban social park and an ecological retreat: moderately useful for both, exceptionally suited to neither.

Performance in context

  • A modest overperformer for its waterfront park typology (+7 vs the median in medium Waterfront Park waterfront).

Typology classification

confidence 85%
Waterfront Park

Classified as Waterfront Park: 42% water surface inside park

Edge Activation

25% weightpartial 60%
25.0 / 100

Within 100 m of the park edge: 2 active uses (transit_stop) and 0 dead/hostile uses (none). 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

20% weightmeasured 85%
45.4 / 100

Connectivity blends paths, intersections, transit, entrances, and edge density. This park has 0 mapped paths/walkways and 15 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 3 street intersections within 100 m; 7 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 0 estimated access points across ~654 m of perimeter. moderate edge density, small superblock penalty applied. Source coverage: centreline, pedestrian_network, transit_osm.

Streets within 25 m4
Intersections within 100 m3
Paths/walkways (50 m)0
Sidewalk segments (50 m)15
Transit stops (400 m)7
Estimated entrances0
Edge connections / 100 m perimeter0.61
Park perimeter654 m

Source: Toronto Centreline V2 + Pedestrian Network + OSM transit stops

Amenity Diversity

20% weightmeasured 75%
11.9 / 100

1 distinct amenity types in the park (bench). 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

15% weightinferred 30%
37.0 / 100

Natural-comfort components for this park: 0.0% estimated tree canopy; 41.9% water surface. Reading: water-cooled. Source coverage: waterbodies. Impervious surface is approximated (Toronto's authoritative layer ships only as a raster GeoTIFF).

Canopy coverage0.0%
Canopy area0.00 ha
Inside ravine system0.0%
Water surface inside park41.9%
Nearest water (if outside park)0 m (inside)
Estimated green58.1%
City-mapped trees inside polygon0
Tree density0.0 / ha
Cover diversity (Shannon, 0 to 100)98.1
Sample points used155

Source: Toronto Treed Area + Ravine + Waterbodies + Street Tree Inventory

Enclosure / Eyes on Park

10% weightpartial 60%
32.9 / 100

5 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (1 mid-rise, 4 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 4.9 m (~2 floors); 0.8 buildings per 100 m of 654 m perimeter (thin frontage with significant blank-edge share); edges are barely there or single-storey; no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 1 mid-rise edge buildings.

Buildings within 25 m5
Buildings within 50 m5
Avg edge height4.9 m (~2 floors)
Tallest edge building11.7 m
Mid-rise (3 to 7 floors)1
Low-rise (< 3 floors)4
Towers (≥ 13 floors)0
Frontage density0.77 per 100 m perimeter
Mid-rise share of edge20%
Tower share of edge0%
Blank-edge share (proxy)75%
Park perimeter654 m

Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)

Border Vacuum Risk

10% weightpartial 60%
0.0 risk

Park edges face the city. No significant border vacuum detected.

Source: Toronto Street Centreline (highways) + rail layer + OSM landuse + building footprints

Equity Context

contextinferred 15%
50.0 / 100

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 (1 types · 2 records)

  • bench

Nearby active-edge features (13)

  • transit stop51 m
  • transit stop62 m
  • highway: Lake Shore Boulevard East138 m
  • highway: Lake Shore Boulevard East139 m
  • highway: Don Roadway148 m
  • parking lot149 m
  • highway: Lake Shore Boulevard East156 m
  • highway: Lake Shore Boulevard East157 m
  • highway: Lake Shore Boulevard East157 m
  • highway: Don Roadway183 m
  • parking lot189 m
  • transit stop: Commissioners St at Munition St191 m
  • highway: Gardiner Expressway194 m

Park profile

Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.

Edge ActivationConnectivityAmenity DiversityNatural ComfortEnclosureCity Wide Open Space
Edge activation, connectivity, amenity diversity, natural comfort, and enclosure, each 0 to 100.

Citywide percentile ranks

Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.

  • Overall vitality
    59th
  • Edge activation
    83th
  • Connectivity
    51th
  • Amenity diversity
    61th
  • Natural comfort
    29th
  • Enclosure
    5th

Most similar parks

Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.

Most opposite parks

Furthest in metric space. Useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.

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 City Wide Open Spacematters. 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.

Rate this park on as many dimensions as you have an opinion about. 1 = not at all, 5 = strongly. Skip the ones you don't feel sure about. Aggregated only, no comments stored at the row level.

feels socially active
feels comfortable
feels safe
feels connected
feels welcoming
feels ecological / natural
feels good for lingering
feels family-friendly
feels culturally important
70%

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.
  • Increase canopy and reduce paved area. Shade and water features extend usable hours and seasons.
  • Encourage mid-rise, windowed frontages around the park so residents have direct sightlines onto it.

Data sources

real Toronto data
  • 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 Facilities
    Inventory of in-park amenities (washrooms, fields, rinks…).
  • Toronto Pedestrian Network
    Sidewalk segments around and through parks; estimated park entrances.
  • Toronto Centreline V2
    Street segments + intersection nodes near park edges; trails and walkways.
  • Toronto 3D Massing
    Building footprints + heights for edge-building counts, frontage density, and tower-in-the-park risk.
  • Toronto Treed Area
    Tree canopy share inside park polygons via stratified-grid sampling.
  • Toronto Waterbodies & Rivers
    Water surface inside parks + nearest-water distance for cooling.
  • Ravine & Natural Feature Protection
    Ravine overlap as a cooling / natural-comfort signal.
  • Toronto Street Tree Inventory
    Tree count + density inside park polygons.
  • Neighbourhood Profiles
    (Pending) Equity context proxy.
  • OpenStreetMap (Overpass API)
    Cafés, restaurants, retail, transit stops, parking, highways, rail.