York Mills Park
Waterfront Park, middle of the pack overall (score 31, rank ~34th percentile). Strongest: connectivity; weakest: edge activation.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
York Mills Park scores 30.8 / 100. Strongest dimensions: connectivity and enclosure / eyes on park. Weakest: amenity diversity (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
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 63%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Explain this score
Where did the 31 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
- 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
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: 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 2–3 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" — 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 (64)
- transit stop — Old York Mills Rd Entrance0 m
- rail0 m
- rail5 m
- highway — Yonge Street10 m
- parking lot — York Mills TTC Kiss and Ride11 m
- highway — Yonge Street12 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 Street44 m
- highway — Yonge Street44 m
- highway — Yonge Street48 m
- transit stop — Yonge St at McGlashan49 m
- transit stop — Wilson Avenue49 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 — Yonge-University-Spadina Line75 m
- highway — Yonge Street76 m
- parking lot80 m
- transit stop — York Mills81 m
- rail — Yonge-University-Spadina Line82 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 Street106 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 Street128 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 — Mr Souvlaki154 m
- restaurant — Bento box156 m
- restaurant — Chicken Quarter157 m
- highway — Yonge Street166 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 vitality34th
- Edge activation34th
- Connectivity96th
- Amenity diversity41th
- Natural comfort76th
- Enclosure56th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Park Lawn CemeteryOther30
- St. Clair RavineWaterfront Park40
- Pine Hills CemeteryWaterfront Park29
- East Don ParklandWaterfront Park32
- Islington Golf ClubRavine / Naturalized Park34
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Joseph Burr Tyrrell ParkUrban Plaza50
- Leslie Grove ParkParkette68
- Queen'S Quay Traffic IslandWaterfront Park49
- Bernard Avenue Road AllowanceUrban Plaza54
- Simcoe ParkTower-Community Green Space51
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.
- 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.