Mental Maps

First draft report.  05APR08 12:20

The group considered three questions, and the answers are summarized below.

Question One:  What is the western edge of Toronto?  What is the name of a place that you think of as the western edge of "Toronto"? 

Question Two:  What is the eastern edge of Toronto?  What is the name of a place that you think of as the eastern edge of "Toronto"?

Question Three:  Who or where does Toronto report to?  In a world hierarchy of cities, some are "under" Toronto and some are "over" Toronto.

The group's answers (with order scrambled) are:

Q1:

Windsor, Kipling, Hyde Park (sic), Humber River, Thunder Bay, end of Bloor subway, University, Hamilton/Burlington, Bloor West Village, Mississauga, Etobicoke, Stoney Creek

Q2:

Coxwell, The Danforth, Pickering, Broadview, Scarborough, Scarborough-Beaches, Kingston, Scarborough Centre, Beaches, Clarington, Queen St. water treatment plant, Ottawa

Q3:

New York, King+Bay, the global economy, New York, everyone but itself, City of Toronto/prov gov/federal gov, everyone but Toronto, New York, the community, to neighbourhoods - up to whole of city, New York

The group discussed what mental maps are, how they are used.  Some points of interest are:

• 12 people mentioned where they lived: a summary is 6 in the core of Toronto/downtown, 2 in other parts of Old Toronto, 1 in other parts of the New Toronto, 3 from outside Toronto
• the edge of the city is how far you can go and come back in one day, the limit of day-trips, so in the east Kingston
• about 1km east and west of residence, if prevented from using streetcars because not accessible
  
• the mental maps of transit service providers are segmented by their territory, fragmented, if you're in the east you have no map of the west, constantly have to mentally re-map as you navigate around the city, time consuming
  
• must think of your destination and work back to see if a trip is feasible by transit.  If you simply set out you could take all day to get somewhere
• one's mental map is shaped by the transit system, if a location is outside your map, then look for alternate destinations that are in your map
• will walk further in Toronto than in Burlington - interesting vs hostile pedestrian environments
• mental maps as one's local view vs memtal map as transit knowledge
• transit design based on where you think you need to go
• expanding our thinking into a large mental map will priviledge those who drive cars
• children's mental maps - have been shrinking
  
• those using thier car are familiar with roads and car routes but see transit options as narrow, limited, only one path available to get somewhere
• better in European cities where better information lets you make more effective use of your time
• using the subway one has blank space in their mental map bewteen stations that one uses
• distillery district example, started to become known/popular a few years ago, but no one knew how to get there, and many still don't, not on the common mental map of paths
  
•  neighbourhoods - some are strong but overall not cohesive, don't care about the neighbourhood next door, forced megacity led to no common purpose and resistance to intergration
• edge of the city is the end of the streetcar lines
• mental map excludes the suburbs because they so different
• there are virtual mental maps - the net, the telephone
• Toronto prides itself on diversity but its geography is disjointed, rich and poor side by side, no interaction, no trickle down - the nature of our planning systems that compartmentalize things