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Toronto Parks Atlas
Austin Terrace Boulevard Lands, site photograph
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Parkettecluster ·Walkable Mid-Rise Neighbourhood Parks (enclosure-leaning)Casa Loma (96)confidence moderate

Austin Terrace Boulevard Lands

Parkette, above average overall (score 41, rank ~76th percentile). Strongest: natural comfort; weakest: edge activation.

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

Austin Terrace Boulevard Lands scores 41 / 100. Strongest dimensions: natural comfort and enclosure / eyes on park. Weakest: edge activation (0). Border-vacuum risk is low. This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors, not a definitive judgment.

Best fora quiet siteveryday neighbourhood use

Area · 0.05 ha

What's here

Facilities
Picnic area
Vitality Score
41/100

Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 70%

Data Confidence
41.0 / 100
Citywide
76th
of all 3,788 parks
Among Parkette
81st
same primary typology
Expected for similar parks
31
median in pocket Parkette (n=296)
Performance gap
+10
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 41 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
Edge Activation0 · p51
-12.5
Amenity Diversity12 · p62
-7.6
Natural Comfort81 · p93
+4.7
Enclosure / Eyes on Park81 · p85
+3.1
Border Vacuum Risk24 (risk)
+2.6
Connectivity54 · p65
+0.7

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

Austin Terrace Boulevard Lands works because its natural comfort score (81) is in the top tier and its enclosure (81) is also top quartile (50% tree canopy provides real shade; it sits inside the ravine system).

What limits this park

.

Most distinctive characteristic

Most distinctive feature: exceptionally high natural comfort (81, top decile).

Jacobs reading

Austin Terrace Boulevard Lands sits between an urban social park and an ecological retreat: moderately useful for both, exceptionally suited to neither.

Tradeoffs

  • Natural comfort (81) significantly outpaces connectivity (54): restorative but hard to reach for daily use.
  • The park is enclosed by buildings (81) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 0): frame without animation.

Performance in context

  • A modest overperformer for its parkette typology (+10 vs the median in pocket Parkette).

Typology classification

confidence 70%
Parkette

Classified as Parkette: small (525 m²) with strong building frontage (18.8 per 100 m)

Edge Activation

25% weightpartial 60%
0.0 / 100

Within 100 m of the park edge: 0 active uses (none) and 4 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

20% weightmeasured 85%
53.6 / 100

Connectivity blends paths, intersections, transit, entrances, and edge density. This park has 0 mapped paths/walkways and 6 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 6 street intersections within 100 m; 6 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 3 estimated access points across ~107 m of perimeter. edge density is healthy, no superblock penalty. Source coverage: centreline, pedestrian_network, transit_osm.

Streets within 25 m3
Intersections within 100 m6
Paths/walkways (50 m)0
Sidewalk segments (50 m)6
Transit stops (400 m)6
Estimated entrances3
Edge connections / 100 m perimeter2.82
Park perimeter107 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 (picnic). 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% weightpartial 60%
81.3 / 100

Natural-comfort components for this park: 50.0% estimated tree canopy; 35.7% inside the ravine system; nearest waterbody ~657 m; 6 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (6.0/ha). Reading: ravine-cooled. Source coverage: treed_area, ravine, waterbodies, street_trees. Impervious surface is approximated (Toronto's authoritative layer ships only as a raster GeoTIFF).

Canopy coverage50.0%
Canopy area0.03 ha
Inside ravine system35.7%
Water surface inside park0.0%
Nearest water (if outside park)657 m
Estimated green100.0%
City-mapped trees inside polygon6
Tree density6.0 / ha
Cover diversity (Shannon, 0 to 100)90.3
Sample points used14

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

Enclosure / Eyes on Park

10% weightmeasured 80%
80.6 / 100

20 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (2 mid-rise, 18 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 8.2 m (~3 floors); 18.8 buildings per 100 m of 107 m perimeter (strong frontage density); edges are low-rise (mostly 2 to 3 floors); no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 2 mid-rise edge buildings.

Buildings within 25 m20
Buildings within 50 m20
Avg edge height8.2 m (~3 floors)
Tallest edge building28.9 m
Mid-rise (3 to 7 floors)2
Low-rise (< 3 floors)18
Towers (≥ 13 floors)0
Frontage density18.77 per 100 m perimeter
Mid-rise share of edge10%
Tower share of edge0%
Blank-edge share (proxy)0%
Park perimeter107 m

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

Border Vacuum Risk

10% weightpartial 60%
24.0 risk

Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: 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

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 · 1 records)

  • picnic

Nearby active-edge features (11)

  • parking lot48 m
  • parking lot48 m
  • parking lot69 m
  • parking lot100 m
  • transit stop: Davenport Rd at Walmer Rd146 m
  • parking lot150 m
  • restaurant: Pizza Nova156 m
  • retail157 m
  • cafe: Tim Hortons160 m
  • transit stop: Dartnell Avenue161 m
  • parking lot173 m

Park profile

Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.

Edge ActivationConnectivityAmenity DiversityNatural ComfortEnclosureAustin Terrace Boulevard Lands
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
    76th
  • Edge activation
    51th
  • Connectivity
    65th
  • Amenity diversity
    62th
  • Natural comfort
    93th
  • Enclosure
    85th

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 Austin Terrace Boulevard Landsmatters. 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.
  • Diversify what people can do in the park (playground, washroom, water, shade, performance, sport, garden): even small additions raise this score.

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.