York Mills Park
Waterfront Park, middle of the pack overall (score 35, rank ~52th percentile). Strongest: connectivity; weakest: edge activation.
Aerial, City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
York Mills Park scores 34.8 / 100. Strongest dimensions: connectivity and enclosure / eyes on park. 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 · 4.25 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.
Loading map…
The parks map is loading.Explain this score
Where did the 35 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
York Mills Park works because its connectivity score (76) is one of the city's strongest and its natural comfort (62) is also top quartile (34 transit stops sit within a 400 m walk; 17 intersections fall within 100 m of the edge).
What limits this park
York Mills Park is held back by edge activation (0, below-average): the surrounding streets carry too few active uses to spill into the park; border-vacuum risk is also elevated (100).
Most distinctive characteristic
Most distinctive feature: exceptionally high connectivity (76, top decile).
Jacobs reading
York Mills Park sits between an urban social park and an ecological retreat: moderately useful for both, exceptionally suited to neither.
Tradeoffs
- The park is enclosed by buildings (64) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 0): frame without animation.
- 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 Waterfront Park: 8% water surface inside park. Secondary read: Ravine / Naturalized Park (100% ravine overlap, 14% canopy).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 10 active uses (transit_stop, retail) and 23 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 18 mapped paths/walkways and 31 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 17 street intersections within 100 m; 34 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 7 estimated access points across ~1,246 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
2 distinct amenity types in the park (bench, drinking_water). 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: 14.3% estimated tree canopy; 100.0% inside the ravine system; 8.3% water surface; 25 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (5.9/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).
Source: Toronto Treed Area + Ravine + Waterbodies + Street Tree Inventory
Enclosure / Eyes on Park
46 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (6 mid-rise, 40 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 7.6 m (~3 floors); 3.7 buildings per 100 m of 1,246 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 6 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: Miller Tavern Parking, Yonge Street, Yonge Street, Yonge Street, York Mills TTC Kiss and Ride, parking_lot, rail, rail, Yonge Street, Yonge Street, Yonge Street, Yonge Street, Yonge Street, Yonge Street, Yonge Street. 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 (2 types · 2 records)
- bench
- drinking water
Nearby active-edge features (64)
- transit stop: Old York Mills Rd Entrance0 m
- rail0 m
- rail5 m
- highway: Yonge Street11 m
- highway: Yonge Street12 m
- parking lot: York Mills TTC Kiss and Ride13 m
- highway: Yonge Street24 m
- transit stop: Yonge St at McGlashan25 m
- highway: Yonge Street25 m
- highway: Yonge Street26 m
- highway: Yonge Street29 m
- parking lot37 m
- highway: Yonge Street41 m
- highway: Yonge Street43 m
- highway: Yonge Street45 m
- transit stop: Yonge St at McGlashan49 m
- transit stop: Wilson Avenue49 m
- highway: Yonge Street49 m
- parking lot: Miller Tavern Parking50 m
- retail: Shell Select54 m
- parking lot57 m
- transit stop: York Mills Road63 m
- transit stop: York Mills Rd at Old York Mills Road70 m
- rail: Line 1 Yonge-University75 m
- highway: Yonge Street76 m
- parking lot80 m
- transit stop: York Mills81 m
- rail: Line 1 Yonge-University82 m
- transit stop: York Mills83 m
- parking lot86 m
- transit stop: Yonge Street91 m
- rail91 m
- highway: Yonge Street94 m
- transit stop: York Mills Rd at Old York Mills Rd102 m
- highway: Yonge Street105 m
- highway: Yonge Street107 m
- transit stop: Mill Street107 m
- highway: Yonge Street109 m
- transit stop: Yonge Street111 m
- highway: Yonge Street117 m
- transit stop: Yonge Street121 m
- transit stop: 16 York Mills Entrance122 m
- highway: Yonge Street127 m
- restaurant: Druxys135 m
- transit stop: Yonge St at Wilson Ave137 m
- transit stop: Yonge Street138 m
- cafe: Starbucks139 m
- transit stop: Yonge / Wilson Northwest Entrance143 m
- highway: Yonge Street148 m
- highway: Yonge Street151 m
- highway: Yonge Street153 m
- restaurant: Thaï Express154 m
- restaurant: Chicken Quarter157 m
- highway: Yonge Street166 m
- retail: INS Market168 m
- cafe: Tim Hortons170 m
- transit stop: 4025 Yonge Entrance172 m
- transit stop: York Mills Road179 m
- transit stop179 m
- highway: Yonge Street181 m
- highway: Yonge Street194 m
- retail: Gateway Newsstands/Public Mobile196 m
- transit stop199 m
- transit stop: York Mills Station200 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality52th
- Edge activation29th
- Connectivity97th
- Amenity diversity67th
- Natural comfort79th
- Enclosure59th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Alex Marchetti ParkWaterfront Park39
- Mallow ParkCorridor / Linear Park41
- Duncairn ParkCorridor / Linear Park43
- Don Mills TrailCorridor / Linear Park33
- St. Clair RavineRavine / Naturalized Park35
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space. Useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Arnell PlazaCivic Square50
- Marita Paine ParkOther47
- Queen'S Quay Traffic IslandWaterfront Park49
- Leslie Grove ParkParkette73
- Bernard Avenue Road AllowanceUrban Plaza57
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 York Mills 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. 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.