BikeWest was a idea I came up with a few years back. Hard now to recall, but just five years ago the city was enthralled with ‘vehicular cycling’, the idea that anyone from 8 to 80 could cycle on the regular city streets and roads, and all that was needed was to educate cyclists as to safe riding on lanes shared with cars, trucks, and buses travelling at 80kmh.   OK, I exaggerate, but not much. Back then, NCC trails were for recreational purposes, real cyclists, mostly bearded males, rode on the real roads as their bikes were … Continue reading BikeWest, RIP

  This figure appeared near Albert Street and the Bayview Station. Continue reading Ode to an Elk

Mayor Jim Watson today committed the City to expanding the not-yet-built LRT and the OTrain. He promised that by 2023, the Confederation LRT line will extend from Tunney’s to Lincoln Fields, where it will split into a south line running to Algonquin, and a west line to Bayshore. And, the Confederation Line will extend east from Blair to St Joseph to Jeanne D’Arc, then to Prom d’Orleans and Place d’Orleans (two separate stations with almost identical names). Also to be up and running by 2023. He further promised expansion of the OTrain in that same time frame. There will be … Continue reading Mayor Jim Promises new Trains

The City continues with its belief that pedestrians are terrorists or (self-) murderers. It feels it is necessary to construct barriers on the bridges over the OTrain to prevent people dropping objects on the trains, or dropping themselves. Currently, it is terror-proofing the (not-yet-built)(and recently relocated, to make way for a car bridge) Hickory ped bridge, which is being partially funded by the condo developers along Champagne. Strangely, the Hickory barrier will have six inch wide slots in it, or gaps between the bars. These are small enough to deter adults from committing suicide at this location. (As shown by … Continue reading Data shows Why the City thinks Pedestrians are Terrorists

I had a lot of problems with the Driving Plan for the Preston-Carling high rise intensification zone, outlined in the previous post. But what of the rest of the plan? Was there some good stuff to suss out of the dross? First, keep in mind this is not a community-up plan. No one is asking us for how we want the neighbourhood to evolve. Mayor Watson — and make no mistake, there is a really high level mandate here — is wanting virtually a clean slate. It’s circa 1960 urban renewal all over again: bulldoze it all, build a shiny … Continue reading Bearing gifts to Troy

Remember your grandmother’s dictum to never say anything bad about the dead? Well, what about the living? I’ve been struggling for days to find something nice to say about the Public Realm and Driving Realm studies the City has underway in the Preston-Carling area. You know, the big studies promised by Council, employing consultants from The Centre of the Universe, who will make the veritable snowstorm of high rises now permitted in the Preston-Carling area into urban nirvana. Now the consultants are nice people, individually. They no doubt think they are honourable people (Shakespearean allusion there, get it?). Educated? –very! … Continue reading Trojan Planners

Building a city is fraught with competing interests and resultant compromises. Complete streets is no exception. This short post will have to tide readers over for a day or so, pending time to write a longer series on a very relevant planning exercise. But trust me, this shortie is relevant to what’s coming over the next few days. The short story: I was pedalling over the Champlain Bridge, going north to Gatineau. It was mid afternoon, and the traffic was busier than I expected. Recall that Champlain Bridge has two painted stripes marking out bike lanes [we all know, of … Continue reading The problem with bike lanes …

Moving aside from Bambinos struggling to improve human rights and dignity, clay globs on Detroit-style parked cars, and PC monitors on marble dog urinals fire hydrants, here is an art installation that brings a smile to all but the crabbiest:   I’m sure I can see Little Jimmy W in this grouping, a tableau reflecting on crucial issues of the burgeoning metropolis. Here’s a more contextual view: Art isn’t just for artists. Or a self-selected cognoscenti. It’s for everyone. Continue reading ART for the rest of us

This is the second try at posting this, several people tell me the previous link is broken. Sorry if you are suffering thru a second reading, in that case, go somewhere else. The story of the Bambinos continues to attract commentary. But thus far, the opinionators have avoided the “other” concrete sculpture in the original story. So here it is again: Can one love one and not the other? Are sono-tube people with Lego arms better than Bambini with no arms? Are absent Lego heads better than present spoons? Are sono tubes better than skittles? Could some readers who know … Continue reading Today’s assignment: compare and contrast

The story of the Bambinos continues to attract commentary. But thus far, the opinionators have avoided the “other” concrete sculpture in the original story. So here it is again:   Can one love one and not the other? Are sono-tube people with Lego arms better than Bambini with no arms? Are absent Lego heads better than present spoons? Are sono tubes better than skittles? Could some readers who know and understand what they like, or know and understand Art, please compare and contrast the two installations as to merit. Is there a village of the dammned on Elgin Street?   … Continue reading Today’s assignment: Compare and Contrast

The Bambinos installation is nearing completion at Gladstone-Preston. It is an installation as part of the Preston streetscaping project. The street has an arch at the south end, an art gallery installation under the Queensway overpass, and at one point was to have a stainless steel gondola at the north end. The Postcards from the Piazza sculpture series lines the streets. The large-globed pedestrian scale lights are deliberately set back from the curb to create a a separate space, a colonnade with trees, for the passagio. Every one of these things was criticized in its day. And now there is … Continue reading But is it art?

  This very large dinky toy arrived this week on LeBreton Flats at the Confederation Line LRT tunnel entrance. It is like a front end loader, but photoshop compressed, flattened out. It will be used when the contractors “mine out” the tunnel. They will be drilling into the tunnel face and removing the debris with this loader. During the planning phases of the LRT, City staff and consultants talked about using a boring machine to dig into the rock face. But the winning proposal used mining techniques. The smooth tires is a bit of a surprise. They seem way too … Continue reading Mining, not boring.

  _____________________ My apologies for the lack of posts for a few days. My PC has lost its “drag and drop” functionality, so I cannot add pictures to posts. This pic is my first work around that actually worked, but it is cumbersome and slow. I am confident my PC will wake up one morning with all its faculties back in place. But we may be stuck with “singles” for a few days.   Continue reading As seen on Albert Street, near Bayview Avenue

It’s so easy to find things we don’t like. It’s somehow harder to praise things we do. Here’s an inspirational bit of shared pedestrian-motorist design from Laurier and Elgin, in downtown Ottawa. It’s a parking lot beside the Baptist Church (on the left) and the new office building that faces Gloucester and Elgin (behind the former Friday’s Roast Beef House). This small parking lot now has wide, slightly windy concrete walkway to the northside doors of the office building. The white concrete screams “pedestrian realm”. Yet the only access to the black asphalt parking spaces is by driving over the … Continue reading Inspiring Design

It doesn’t take much going around the city to find oneself wondering “what on earth were they thinking of when they did this?”. The “they” of course can be any one. Often it’s the City. Sometimes developers. Or homeowners. Remember the old car ramp in front of the Skyline – Crowne Plaza Hotel downtown on Kent Street? Ugly beyond belief, another typical Campeau-built structure with no front door relationship to the street. (We know what they were thinking: cars rule; pedestrians get the basement).   So, the hotel, forty some years after it was built, finally has a front door … Continue reading What were they thinking … part 73, sidewalk edition

  The City continues to be vitally concerned with our safety. It is anxious to protect us from pedestrian terrorists. Of particular concern are pedestrians terrorists who might throw objects onto the OTrain (or presumably the LRT too). I have been cited the example of an egg being thrown at the OTrain out near Heron Road. So, a short while back we saw the incredibly gauche proposed anti-terrorism safety fences proposed for Somerset viaduct. There were several parts to that story, here’s the first:  https://www.westsideaction.ca/somerset-viaduct-hardening/ A bit further south on the OTrain line is the proposed Hickory Street ped bridge … Continue reading Pedestrians as terrorists, or maybe raccoons, the Hickory edition

It’s rarely possible to get very large chunks of land within an established city so as to make a new urbanist infill (although Ottawa had LeBreton Flats, and the OTrain corridor, but instead opted for ubiquitous “slender point towers” ) So often the new urbanist project is outside of an existing town, which makes it hard to develop its own core. Garrison Village has a commercial centre between it and the main highway. It’s more than a mini-mall, but …   It had a generous sidewalk, copper trim (note the drip stains on the concrete), but nose-in parking instead of … Continue reading Garrison Village, shopping and services

New towns often have a few, but not many, pedestrian mews. These do away with the vehicular street completely, replacing it with a walk. The resulting space is cozy. Vehicular access is thru the back lanes only. If the pedestrian mews connects or is a short cut from one area to another, they might be lively.   The gorgeous mews shown above looked like a picture from Seaside (Florida) new town, replicated in our peach country. Not surprisingly, the same architects and planners were involved … repeating what works.   A grand house anchors the end of the mews.   … Continue reading Garrison Village, the pedestrian mews

  the streetscapes or public realm is well handled. There is usually an outer boulevard, with trees. While the new trees look small, they grow quickly in the warm NOTL climate.   Readers sometimes complain my pictures are lifeless, but I am a bit shy of photographing people, sans permission, for the limited publication of blog. But for those particular readers, here is a pedestrian:     And a cyclist:   See, these new urban towns are not ghost towns. In the background of the above picture is my favorite bit of urban planning in Garrison Village. The two way … Continue reading Garrison Village, the streetscape and parks

Some months ago we looked at many of the back lanes of Celebration in Florida, one of the most successful new urbanist towns around. Then at Tradition, by Minto, which has given up and gone traditional suburban with garages facing the street. Garrison Village had parking off back lanes. Many of these lanes were classic new urbanist, and could have been mistaken for Celebration: Mostly one-ways, they created a nice environment for slow motorists and playing kids with wheeled toys. They actually felt like places; and kids might have fond memories of playing there. With clusters of townhouses or duplexes … Continue reading Garrison Village, the rear lanes

Regular readers may recall some previous drop ins — and critiques –to New Urbanist towns. Sometimes these are new new towns, sometimes they are old new towns. Today, Garrison Village, near Niagara on the Lake, On.   This is a new town that wears that moniker proudly on all its marketing materials. The sales office comes complete with a library of books on Seaside, Celebration, and other notable new urbanist stories. The entrance street off the highway into Niagara on the Lake has a fine row of red brick federalist/georgian/colonial homes. They are close to the sidewalk, and strongly convey … Continue reading Garrison Village, new urbanist development, NOTL

Ontario released its new Cycling Strategy on Friday. One of the areas that caught my interest — partly because I sent in comments on the first draft — is intercity tourism. Cycling is a great form of staycation, ie a way to encourage Ontarians to vacation near home. It could also be an economic way for frugalistas like myself to vacate. Of course, it also has a function of encouraging non-Ontarians to vacation (and spend their money) here. I was therefore quite disappointed to see no mention of actually building much infrastructure to accomplish these tourism goals. In fact, the … Continue reading Encouraging cycling tourism in Ontario