While some parks are jam-packed with kids, dog walkers and seniors practicing Tai Chi, others are deserted and neglected. Producer Mieke Anderson speaks to David Harvey about his recent study on improving parks.

Also, Spacing Ottawa's Evan Thornton discusses his city's plans to turn back the clock to a time when car was king. And reporter Andrew Walsh addresses the pros and cons of the public bike network, BIXI, with Spacing Montreal's Alanah Heffez.

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio 026:

• The Metcalf Foundation report, Fertile Ground for New Thinking: Improving Toronto’s Parks
• Saving Ottawa's Bronson Avenue: WestSideAction and Centretown Citizens Community Association
• BIXI: in Montreal and in Toronto
• Our musical guest is Forest City Lovers: website and MySpace page

George Smitherman loves to walk. Earlier this week, in fact, he walked along Eglinton — all the way across Toronto.

Spacing's Todd Harrison caught up with him yesterday in Leaside, and they walked and talked until just west of Victoria Park. Todd asked how Smitherman’s vision for Toronto applied to walkability, and what he as mayor would do to improve walking conditions in suburban communities.

Smitherman, however, does not see walking as an issue-in-itself. Integration is his buzzword, and as such, he thinks of walking primarily as a means to connect people to “higher-order” forms of transit. “The walkability’s got to get you somewhere,” he says.

He sees the individual health benefits of walking, but has yet to investigate how walkability initiatives can impact people’s abilities to better traverse their own neighbourhoods.

The interview also included discussions about road cuts and the new pavement degradation fee, urban design, bike lanes, public transit, trash, and trees.

Links:

• George Smitherman's mayoral campaign website
• A Toronto Star article about the walk
• Spacing Toronto post about the City's Public Realm office
• Paul Hess's walkability studies

Ask a bunch of people their definitions of a 'complete street' and you're bound to get a whole bunch of different answers. In today's SUMMER SHORT, reporter Andrew Walsh explores what it means to share our roads. He attended the 2010 Complete Streets Forum this past April and spoke with Barbara McCann, credited with coining the phrase, and New York City's Assistant Commissioner for Planning and Sustainability Andy Wiley-Schwartz.

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio's Summer Shorts 006

• Barbara McCann: National Complete Streets Coalition
• Andy Wiley-Schwartz: New York City Department of Transportation

NOTE: This edition of Spacing Radio represents the finale of our first season. We're going to take a bit of a break. Look for another podcast in a couple of months.

Join us as we listen in on a handful of the 117 walks Torontonians led and attended as part of this year's Jane's Walk.

In this podcast, we'll travel to Bloor and Lansdowne, Kipling and Steeles, the Lower Don Lands, and the Geary Avenue hydro corridor. Also, host David Michael Lamb talks to organizer Jane Farrow about how this year's Jane's Walk events played their part in documenting and celebrating what Jane Jacobs (for whom Jane's Walk is named) famously called "the complexity of the sidewalk ballet."

Plus, we'll hear music by local independent band Hooded Fang.

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio 006

• Jane's Walk: the website, and the list of Toronto walks
• Jane Jacobs: her Project for Public Spaces bio and Wikipedia entry
• Mayor's Tower Renewal: the project's official site
• Lower Don Lands: redevelopment details on the WaterfronToronto website
• Hooded Fang: the band's MySpace page, CBC Radio 3 page, and Zunior.com catalog entry