Are existing Ottawa River bridges really at capacity? We traditionally measure capacity in vehicles carried, and by this measure some bridges are very busy. But if we measure capacity by people carried, the story changes. Typically, in North America, bridges … Continue reading No new bridges til we use the old ones first
At last week’s transit committee meeting I gather the City announced it will continue to run buses through the downtown on Albert and Slater for three weeks after the LRT opens. Alas, there were no other details released about this … Continue reading Buses and LRT at the same time, surely not !
I am often struck in Europe by how much they promote vacations within the home country or inside Europe. And not just de luxe vacations. Here’s a grocery store chain poster for local weekends not-far-away: Note they are not so … Continue reading Urban Design (xv) Local promotions
European cities have livlier street life than we do. Much of this is due to deliberate design choices, like limiting car traffic. And providing benches: Our new Official Plan is to make Ottawa attractive for those new age employers and … Continue reading Urban Design (xiv) Benches, cafes in fine mixed use areas
Hmm, is this mop-haired, pouty-lipped hunk with the exposed nipple really giving out city maps? Well, sort of. It’s a edisplay billboard, and once the camera pans down the hot bod fellow you discover Adonis is advertising boots or something … Continue reading Urban Detail (xiii) Urban wayfinding, signage
A while back I posted some pic of a container-style hotel, although actually converting containers to accommodation is very difficult, it is possible to build a new building that looks like stacked containers: Travel in Europe remains affordable (for me, … Continue reading Urban Design (xii) Container Hotel
The Netherlands, and Europe generally, has a reputation amongst North American progressives as transit, train, and walkable-city nirvana. The reality is quite different. Suburbanization is accelerating, and with it, ring roads and strip development. Car commuting is as popular there … Continue reading Urban Detail (xi) Wooden bridges
It’s difficult to remember when our local mainstreets weren’t populated by cannabis stores every second block. It’s even more difficult to remember the short period when these stores were actually open for business. Now they just promise cannabis but aren’t … Continue reading Urban Detail (x) Cannabis Retailing, legal or not
Right now Ottawa seems happy with bicycles parked on sidewalks. Even many downtown office buildings surround themselves with on-sidewalk bike parking (eg Jean Edwards buildings) while some others make room for bikes indoors (Constitution Square, Flaherty building). But on-sidewalk bike … Continue reading Urban Detail (ix) More on bike parking issues
There are gazillions of bikes in European town centres (not so much in the car centric suburbs). Reducing clutter via bike parking becomes an important tool in keeping old town centres passable. In this photo, the City of Bruges has … Continue reading Urban Detail (viii) bikes in the old town core
This is one of a series of short stories on interesting bits of design noticed elsewhere. Below is a picture of a road given a drastic traffic calming. Instead of being two directions of car traffic, this paved surface was … Continue reading Urban Detail (vii) unusual cycling infrastructure
This is a blog about the West side of the downtown, not the East. But I cannot resist a few comments on the proposed East stations. They are so dismaying. First, I remain appalled that the City decided to run … Continue reading Confederation Line’s new East stations Dismay
The City proposes to expand the services on the north-south Trillium Line. This will involve some additional double tracking and extending the service to Riverside South and to the Airport. As part of this expansion, the City has ordered 7 … Continue reading Trillium Line – big plans, bad rollout
Lincoln Fields is a major transfer station on the transitway and will in the future be a major transfer point from LRT Confederation Line to buses serving the further west end neighbourhoods. Here is an aerial view of the station … Continue reading Phase 2 Lincoln Fields, west, and south stations
The current Dominion Station is currently a bunch of bus shelters where the transitway trench made a temporary curve to connect buses to the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway, aka Sir John A Macdonald Parkway: When converted to rail, the trench … Continue reading More Confederation Stations, continuing westward Dominion, Cleary, New Orchard …
Last Friday, the City revealed its detailed plans and costing estimates for the expansion of the Confederation Line east and west, and rebuilding the Trillium Line to a higher standard while extending its length southwards. As part of the show, … Continue reading New West Side transit stations revealled
Valuable space can be pressed into service when imagination is applied to demand. This city, with a wide river and expensive real estate on each side, built a municipal recreation pool on a barge floating on the river: Sundecks, swimming … Continue reading Urban Detail (vi): imitate faster
It’s a pretty standard trope for travellers to take pictures of signs with oddly translated English signs. I certainly have a collection of them. But pictograms can sometimes be just as bizarre: Just what is being prohibited on this metal … Continue reading Urban Detail (v) Signs of the Times
The simone de Beuavoir pedestrian/cyclist bridge is more properly termed a “passerelle” as it doesn’t carry motorized or heavy vehicles. It’s also stunningly beautiful and even more functional, in ways that manage to escape bridge builders in Ottawa. Look again … Continue reading Urban Detail (iv) Better ped bridges
Technological obsolescence is sometimes a tad distressing, especially when it is me that is out of sync with the times. Here is a familiar looking urban fixture being repurposed … Yup, it is a telephone call box being repurposed as … Continue reading Urban Details (iii) travel and technology
In addition to converting minor urban streets into cycling-friendly facilities… or removing a parking lane from very wide streets to make a cycling facility … we can find entire roads or multi-lane freeways removed to make way for pedestrian and … Continue reading Urban detail (ii) repurposing roads and streets
Enough of multi-part stories touring European housing projects. Let’s switch to somethings much briefer, more immediately rewarding. Thus starts a new series of very short stories showing only a few details of good (or occasionally bad) urban design that might … Continue reading Urban Detail (i)
Nordhavn definitely appealed to me more than Orestad. A big part of that is scale. Another part is that it seemed less out to impress me with “oh wow” buildings. Especially when those buildings are set apart (“big buildings in … Continue reading Nordhavn (viii): some miscellany
UN City is a large 8-armed star-shaped building that consolidates all the suffering UN staff in Copenhagen into a single location. The surrounding residential buildings were all low rise, with intimate courtyards. Very much in the style promoted by the … Continue reading Nordhavn (vii) UN City and the Jan Gehl school of development
The developers of Nordhavn promise “new architectural masterpieces each year”. Let’s look at a few of them. For convenience, a bunch of them were clustered together. This struck me as part of the “branding” that seems to dominate so much … Continue reading Nordhavn (vi): Yes, there is starchitecture too
