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
Whew, walking around those European developments can be tiring. So let’s return to Ottawa for a day, to enjoy the bright winter days, the pretty snow on the ground, and the birds at the bird feeder outside my window. La … Continue reading Bird Feeder
How do other western cities reconstruct major areas of their inner urban core? I set off to visit 7 such major urban renewal projects in Europe. I added a few more neighbourhoods on the way, bringing the total to over … Continue reading A Walk in Paris
Like a number of city dwellers, I put out bird feeders for the winter. My west side daily visitors include sparrows, finches, chickadees, juncos, three Downy woodpeckers, and grackles. Every so often I am blessed by the cardinal pair who … Continue reading Urban predators
I live on the south side of the street. The houses cast shade on the sidewalk all winter. The sidewalks were built in the “roller coaster” style with “crazy kitchen”-style tilts. The results are known. Always icy. Always slippery. Frequently … Continue reading Walking in winter
As part of the “plan” for the “southern gateway” collection of high rises being built at Preston and Carling, the City decided that street wiring should be buried around the new towers. This wasn’t a neighbourhood priority, as we know … Continue reading Is it worth burying the wiring? Who should pay?
There is a classic west side semi-detached home at the corner of Oak and Preston, opposite Plouffe Park. Many decades ago proud homeowners planted matching young trees on the front lawn. Here’s an aerial photo from 1928 showing the trees … Continue reading Killed from the roots
The City is hosting an “open house” on Tuesday (Nov 28, 5.30pm onwards ) to show their plans for the future Albert and Slater Streets between Empress (the Good Companions) and Waller (Rideau Centre, UOttawa U). Here are some things … Continue reading West Side Transportation Cornucopia, part viii – Albert-Slater alert
As west side portions of the Confederation Line advance in construction, more fall landscaping is going in, like these trees planted on the north side of Bayview Station: I vaguely recall that the terms of the NCC lending the rail … Continue reading Confederation Line Forest
Some downtown blocks I am familiar with from regular use, at one time had somewhat healthy — well, at least ALIVE – trees. But these live trees are getting scarcer and scarcer. Many are anaemic, tattered, three quarters dead sticks. … Continue reading Tree Pits of Death
Back in 2012 I showed you the picture below. The first apartments on the current rebuild of LeBreton Flats (Claridgeland) had been occupied for a year or so, and baby toys were starting to appear in windows. I asked, how … Continue reading Tot Lot Not
I was wandering a bit far from home, going west of course, and dropped in to “inspect” one of my favorite secret gardens. This is on private property, viewable from a townhouse private lane, but cyclists are pretty innocuous and … Continue reading Deep in the West End, a secret garden
An ambitious community gardener is working to improve a long-abandonned street verge on the West Side. This particular strip of street edge is the neglected “back” of a large institutional lot that fronts the next parallel street. Their front side … Continue reading Community Gardening works everyday
Parks in the old urban neighbourhoods like the west side are often quite small. The one on Elm Street is fairly typical. It is a bit-larger-than-normal pocket park installed when some houses burned down. A few years ago it was … Continue reading From Parking to Parks, a nascent trend?
John Turner and Jim Watson have lots in common. In a crisis, both claim they can’t do something. It didn’t work out well for Mr Turner. So people get killed moving about in Ottawa. Anyone looking at the traffic fatalities knows … Continue reading Yes you can, Mr Mayor
I used to be just as scornful as many when it came to synthetic grass. Fake. Artificial. Faux, to be snobby about it. I’ve changed my mind. I’m tired of seeing public playing fields beat to sh__ mud by over-use. … Continue reading The green green grass of … synthetics
The Cleary Avenue end of the western LRT and motor expressway corridor is shown here: The westbound trains enter the picture from the right, along the orange line. Cleary Station is shown in dark blue. The Unitarian Church and apartment building is shown a bit further west (left). The underground track alignment swings gently under the Unitarian parking lot to get out towards its (under) Richmond Road alignment. The swing out to Richmond will occur under a car repair shop and/or Kristy’s restaurant. These businesses will not remain in place during construction. Since dig-the-ditch-and-cover construction won’t start until 2017 … Continue reading Westward Ho ! (part iii) the curse of stations and transit users
So the NCC and the City came to an understanding for routing the western LRT beyond Dominion Station. It’s time to go beyond the headline coverage. Let’s parse that agreement, and see what’s there and what isn’t. The basic concept: the LRT will extend west from Dominion along the Ottawa River Parkway (ORP) to Cleary Avenue where it will transition southwards to follow the Richmond Road corridor. Instead of being pushed up close to the southern edge of the parkway lands, close to some developed parcels, the LRT will now run roughly down the centre of the space, halfway between … Continue reading Westward ho ! (part i)
Seattle and its suburbs had an abundance of drainage swales. That might reflect the high seasonal rainfall. In a suburban industrial park (in Redmond or Bellevue, I’m not sure) , about half populated with businesses and the other half being vacant lots, the existing roads had been retrofitted to accommodate swales. The existing infrastructure looked to me to be about a decade old. At each half block, a pair of bulbouts had created a “neckdown” or pinch in the road. A crosswalk was installed, simply marked with a zebra stripe and fluorescent sign (Ottawa traffic engineers are horrified at this … Continue reading More exciting drainage swales, in industrial parks
Traditional engineering tries to remove as much rainwater as fast as possible. Rain falls, pavement directs it into storm sewers. Outa sight, outa mind. More recent storm water management for Ottawa streets reduces the permeability of the catch basin grate so water self-stores on the street (that’s “puddles” to the rest of us) and runs off over time. Preston has this feature. Unfortunately, it makes walking the sidewalks within an hour or two of rainfalls a drenching experience. Some puddles remain for 24 hours. It rains a lot in the pacific northwest. They have installed a lot of “drainage swales” in … Continue reading Exciting drainage swales in urban areas
The opening picture is looking up into my backyard Sour Cherry tree. This was the “off year” so there were fewer bushels of cherries. We make little ramekin pies. Since the tree overhangs the yard into my neighbours, they pick some and make jam. For many years, I have found my west side neighbourhood rather shortchanged in the bird variety department. But lately, more varieties have been coming. There is now a cardinal pair nesting near Gladstone/Preston (see what a family-suggestive sculpture can accomplish?). And a pair of beautiful yellow grosbeaks had been visiting my cherry supply. Alas, last week … Continue reading More west side nature news
Community Gardeners, sometimes called guerilla gardeners, inspired by a love of plants, work to beautify their neighbourhood through planting things. Sometimes this is into otherwise empty planters the city leaves scattered around. Other times it is in less-expected places, ie real guerilla planting. Here is the community garden planted outside the Plant Rec Centre: In the Plant case, gardeners worked with the city to install the garden. The city provided a truckload of topsoil as part of the Somerset reconstruction project. Volunteers spread the soil and did the planting with material from other sites and private gardens. A passing … Continue reading Community Gardeners carry on …
Spotted along the Macdonald Parkway bikepath: Could be treatment for emerald ash borers. There were a number of large-ish trees with similar paint markings. Continue reading Syringes in trees
Innocently cycling along the Macdonald Parkway pathway, I came across this: Upon closer inspection, s/he proved to be alive, kicking, and ready to move. As s/he was headed towards the Macdonald Commuter Expressway, I took it instead down the slope to the shoreline and left it a few feet from the water. For those gentle readers suffering from pathetic fallacy * , do not read on. “Rescuing” Benjamin (or Franklin, depending in which language you read kids books) made up a bit for something that has bothered me for months. Driving on the freeway out of Boston, we saw a giant turtle on … Continue reading Paying Attention to Benjamin / Franklin
The City sets aside a certain small percentage of its major capital projects budget (such as road reconstruction) for art installations. West Siders know the ones: Preston Street granite postcards from the piazzas, West Wellie’s marble veggies, the red chairs in the Glebe. The just-getting-completed reconstruction of Somerset between the OTrain tracks and Booth had a very small art budget. One that had to cope with three distinct areas: Chinatown, the bit of Little Italy around Preston, and the OTrain viaduct-bridge. With public consultation, the decision was made to have two installations: one on the Chinatown hill, and one on the viaduct … Continue reading Chinatown Art Installation
