Pelmo Park
Corridor / Linear Park, middle of the pack overall (score 33, rank ~42th percentile). Strongest: amenity diversity; weakest: enclosure.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Pelmo Park scores 32.5 / 100. Strongest dimensions: connectivity and natural comfort. Weakest: edge activation (0). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (100). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 4.78 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 68%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Explain this score
Where did the 33 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
- High connectivity coexists with high border-vacuum risk (100) — much of that connectivity is to highways, rail, or parking lots, not to neighbourhoods.
Typology classification
Classified as Corridor / Linear Park: shape elongation 2.0× a circle of equal area. Secondary read: Athletic / Recreation Park (67% of amenity types are athletic (sports_field, tennis)).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 4 active uses (transit_stop) and 6 dead/hostile uses (highway, 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 9 mapped paths/walkways and 21 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 10 street intersections within 100 m; 10 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 8 estimated access points across ~1,571 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
3 distinct amenity types in the park (playground, 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: ~34.7% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); nearest waterbody ~651 m; 237 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (49.6/ha). Reading: partially shaded. Source coverage: 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
78 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (0 mid-rise, 78 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 4.2 m (~1 floors); 5.0 buildings per 100 m of 1,571 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges are barely there or single-storey; no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 0 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: Highway 400, Highway 400, Highway 400, parking_lot, Highway 400. 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 (3 types · 3 records)
- playground
- sports field
- tennis
Nearby active-edge features (20)
- parking lot0 m
- transit stop — Dalbeattie Avenue1 m
- transit stop — Gary Dr at Dalbeattie Ave17 m
- highway — Highway 40031 m
- highway — Highway 40032 m
- highway — Highway 40033 m
- highway — Highway 40050 m
- transit stop — Lockerbie Avenue69 m
- highway — Highway 40075 m
- transit stop80 m
- highway — Highway 400108 m
- highway — Highway 400120 m
- parking lot150 m
- highway — Highway 401 Collector165 m
- highway — Highway 400171 m
- parking lot — Leon's employee parking179 m
- highway — Highway 400190 m
- transit stop — Langside Avenue193 m
- highway — Highway 401 Collector194 m
- highway — Highway 400194 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality42th
- Edge activation29th
- Connectivity78th
- Amenity diversity93th
- Natural comfort75th
- Enclosure18th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Botany Hill ParkCorridor / Linear Park42
- Masseygrove ParkRavine / Naturalized Park37
- Bestview ParkRavine / Naturalized Park43
- Etobicoke Valley ParkWaterfront Park34
- Lynngate ParkNeighbourhood Park41
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- ALEX WILSON COMMUNITY GARDEN - Open Green SpaceUrban Plaza59
- Bernard Avenue Road AllowanceUrban Plaza54
- Market Lane ParkUrban Plaza63
- Joseph Burr Tyrrell ParkUrban Plaza50
- Ryerson Community 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 Pelmo 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.
- 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.