CitiesAlive 2024, celebrating its twentieth anniversary in 2024, presented an exceptional event experience. The multi-disciplinary conference, hosted by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities and the City of Toronto, put the spotlight on pioneering green roof designs, groundbreaking policies, and innovative products and services within the green infrastructure industry.
Environment Journal‘s affiliate publication, ReNew Canada, is a proud media sponsor of this event, which took place at various locations in Toronto on November 6 – 9th.
CitiesAlive 2024 highlighted the many ways in which the city is utilizing living green infrastructure to maximize sustainability and resilience. While conference sessions took place at the MaRS Discover District, the opening plenary and other supplementary programming (industry gala, tours, and masterclasses) took place at satellite locations around the city.
The Don River renaturalization project
The conference featured a tour of the Don River Renaturalization, part of the billion-dollar Port Lands Flood Protection and Enabling Infrastructure Project, one of the largest public works initiatives in Canadian history. Participants dodged construction activities as we learned about the many moving parts working toward a world-class example of waterfront redevelopment strengthened by green infrastructure.
Steven Peck, Honorary ASLA, GRP, founder and president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, which is a lead host of the CitiesAlive event, participated in the tour that traversed the Keating Channel. “We need more natural solutions. Public investments would be maximized through green infrastructure. So far there’s only been a token amount provided. We need to invest deeply into green technologies in our cities to increase the forestry cover and to redesign streets to absorb water. We’ve got to get ready for extreme weather.”
Peck is passionate about how grey and green infrastructure can work in tandem with one another, and how in some cases, the green infrastructure can eliminate the need for certain grey infrastructure, for example, by installing stormwater systems such as green roofs.
The tour featured several examples of green infrastructure, such as bioswales and passive irrigation. Shannon Baker (far left) of Waterfront Toronto outlined key features and considerations of the project. “It’s one thing to build a few new streets and it’s another thing to build a river. But when you’re doing it all together, there’s a massive amount of sequencing involved…Over 25 per cent of all of the streetscapes is given over to green space and planting, and that was really important to us.”
The project includes construction, environmental consulting and bioengineering, and more, provided by industry leaders such as Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc., WSP in Canada, Dougan & Associates, Inter-Fluve, Geosyntec Consultants, and several others.
Around the renaturalized river, approximately 330 acres of newly recovered land, including a large new island, will become a mix of public parks, trail systems, restored habitat, and mixed-use development designed in accordance with hashtagsustainable and smart growth principles.
Baker also noted the Indigenous and cultural significance of the area, noting that the new island and park area have been named Ookwemin Minising and Biidaasige Park in Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwemowin.
Technical sessions on green infrastructure
The conference sessions featured interesting updates presented by Green Infrastructure (GI) go-getters from around the world. Christine Thuring of the GRIN Green Roof Infrastructure Network of BC announced that they have commissioned Gentian to map and assess Vancouver’s GI.
Niloufar Mohajerani, M.A.Sc, P.Eng, a senior engineer from the City of Toronto shared how the city is incorporating naturalized solutions into stormwater management to build much needed resiliency in the face of higher intensity rainfalls.
“Toronto’s council direction, policy and strategies are great, but we have to do more in order to implement them,” said Mohajerani, who explained how the Green Streets governance models are driving GI action through collaboration with a steering committee, working group, and issues resolution resources. She and Adriana Gomez, PEng, RPP, MCIP explained how no less than 100 standard drawings were developed.
Green Streets requires a coordinated approach and their colleagues, Lara Tarlo and Anisha Patel, explained that lessons have been learned. “We now have a path forward to ramp up the Green Streets program by implementing tree planting and green infrastructure though master planning, capital works programs, and development projects,” said Tarlo. “The siloed approach has failed us in the decades gone by so we’re looking for partnership to do this together.” A new master plan is in progress as well as guidance documents.
She acknowledged the challenges involved with permits, building codes, maintenance and more, but she also outlined the many benefits, such as added green space, buffering noise pollution, thermal advantages, and building community cohesion. “Do not stay in your lane! We don’t make good solutions when we do that.”
Sudhakar Molleti of National Research Council Canada / Conseil national de recherches Canada also shared his research on large scale applications of GI to address urban flooding across the country through the Climate Resilient Built Environment Initiative, including a consortium with green roof manufacturers to develop national codes and standard test methods.
The trade show area was populated with a variety of innovative products and services related to the green infrastructure space.
One of the more popular booths belonged to Matt Price and Joel Ferguson from Ginkgo Sustainability Inc, who were eager to explain the features of SoiLiNQ, the wireless soil and agriculture monitoring system that is launching this spring.
For further information, please visit: www.citiesalive.org
