Jolly Miller Park
Ravine / Naturalized Park, below average overall (score 29, rank ~24th percentile). Strongest: connectivity; weakest: enclosure.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Jolly Miller Park scores 28.5 / 100. Strongest dimensions: connectivity and enclosure / eyes on park. Weakest: amenity diversity (0). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (42). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 0.51 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 57%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Explain this score
Where did the 29 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
Typology classification
Classified as Ravine / Naturalized Park: 100% ravine overlap, 0% canopy. Secondary read: Waterfront Park (nearest waterbody within ~43 m).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 2 active uses (transit_stop) and 10 dead/hostile uses (parking_lot, highway, rail). 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 11 mapped paths/walkways and 5 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 8 street intersections within 100 m; 33 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 2 estimated access points across ~329 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: ~2.1% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); 100.0% inside the ravine system; nearest waterbody ~43 m; 3 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (3.0/ha). Reading: ravine-cooled. Source coverage: 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
5 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (1 mid-rise, 4 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 7.4 m (~2 floors); 1.5 buildings per 100 m of 329 m perimeter — moderate frontage density; 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: parking_lot, Miller Tavern Parking, rail. 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 (28)
- parking lot — Miller Tavern Parking22 m
- parking lot22 m
- rail43 m
- transit stop — Yonge St at McGlashan47 m
- rail51 m
- highway — Yonge Street57 m
- highway — Yonge Street59 m
- highway — Yonge Street66 m
- highway — Yonge Street71 m
- highway — Yonge Street73 m
- highway — Yonge Street79 m
- transit stop — Yonge St at McGlashan79 m
- highway — Yonge Street108 m
- transit stop — Mill Street120 m
- highway — Yonge Street129 m
- highway — Yonge Street130 m
- highway — Yonge Street135 m
- highway — Yonge Street136 m
- rail — Yonge-University-Spadina Line141 m
- rail — Yonge-University-Spadina Line147 m
- rail148 m
- transit stop — Old York Mills Rd Entrance154 m
- highway — Yonge Street168 m
- parking lot — York Mills TTC Kiss and Ride169 m
- highway — Yonge Street185 m
- parking lot186 m
- transit stop — Wilson Avenue188 m
- highway — Yonge Street191 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality24th
- Edge activation30th
- Connectivity63th
- Amenity diversity38th
- Natural comfort53th
- Enclosure12th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Humber River WatercourseWaterfront Park33
- Humber River WatercourseWaterfront Park33
- GEORGE S. HENRY ACADEMY - Building GroundsOther28
- North York Hydro Green SpaceRavine / Naturalized Park22
- Humber River WatercourseWaterfront Park32
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Leslie Grove ParkParkette68
- Kew GardensNeighbourhood Park71
- Market Lane ParkUrban Plaza63
- ALEX WILSON COMMUNITY GARDEN - Open Green SpaceUrban Plaza59
- Bellevue Square ParkCivic Square66
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 Jolly Miller 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.
- 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.
- 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.