As seen at the Westboro Loblaws “real canadian super store”. Someone flunked math. The bin underneath was half empty — or half full. Was this because shoppers were not taking the product … or because they were? Continue reading Really special
The Hawaiian licence plates all have a rainbow on them. On my first day in Hawaii, I was impressed by their tolerance or the astonishing proliferation of gay drivers. Turns out the rainbow — the unsexual one — is the state symbol because there are multiple rainbows in the sky every afternoon after it showers on the mountaintops and we are on the beach in the sun. On the main drag, this store had large posters for valentines day. Boy-boy. Girl-boy. Girl-girl. America the tolerant. Continue reading Aloha Rainbow
Like most other places, Hawaiian condos and other buildings have bike racks. Uniquely, they also have surf board racks, where you can insert your board, close the gate, and lock it, so you don’t have to drag your board up the elevator to your 40th floor pad. Continue reading Aloha racks
This is a streetlight in a parking lot. It has a wind turbine on the bottom, and a solar panel on the top. The lights appear to be LEDs. It struck me as sort of overkill to have two energy sources (unless the solar electricity was used to turn the turbine to fan the parking lot…). Especially, since the light fixtures were in a parking lot of a state park that closed every day at 6 (darkness comes at 7). What exactly was being illuminated? It struck me as a federal funding project in search of an application. Continue reading Aloha green
Every Hawaiian bus had a rack and roll bike rack on the front of it. Oahu, the island Honalulu and Waikiki are on, is all one big city, and city buses go all around the island including one circumnavigation route that takes four hours. As shown, the bike racks carry THREE bikes at a time. Inside the bus, there is an automated announcement system (audible and visual) that announces every stop, complete with landmarks. Consider an Ottawa bus annoucing “Kent Street… Minto Place, Minto Hotel, Constitution Square, Crowne Plaza Hotel, connection to route 12…”. These annoucements were really detailed on … Continue reading Aloha rack and roll
If you examine the above snap closer, you’ll see the cyclist has a surfboard on the rack attached to the side of his bike. On a parked bike, the rack looked like this: However, most cyclists didn’t bother with a surfboard rack, they just cycled along with it under their arm. Yes, the surfboard was longer than their bike; and yes, Hawaii is a windy place. It was also common to see kids about 12 years old with boogie boards on the bus going from school to the beach for a quick bit of surfing after math. Kids also get … Continue reading Aloha transport
Hawaii had a real laid back attitude to signs. Consider the two official signs shown above. Nice graphic of falling rocks, with a human figure. The Humpback whale sign requires some closer scrutiny: notice how it illustrates the consequence of hitting a whale — you may be thrown out of your boat! And yes, the whale and boat are to scale, and yes, with 10,000 whales in a fairly confined bay area they are abundant. Food related signs are usually fun. I like the concept of pizza delivery the Hawaiian way. Do not feed the hippies sign was on a … Continue reading Aloha Signage
From time to time we all come across ideas that just seem so right, we wonder why no one came up with it before. Consider the ugly plywood and 2×4 fences or construction sheds put over sidewalks while a building is being constructed or renovated. Can you picture the ones recently used in downtown Ottawa? Minto Place? The new Export Canada building? Now consider these: This incredibly elegant and yes, beautiful sidewalk covering supports scaffolding and keeps the sidewalk open and accessible. Merchants in the adjacent building have full visibility. How much more do you think a city would be willing … Continue reading Hoarding Sidewalk Space
Alight at night … click to enlarge gingerbread house and UCV Church Photos by Michelle LaFontaine. Continue reading More Christmas Lights at Upper Canada Village
These photos are of the light festival “Alight at Night” held every evening at Upper Canada Village throughout December. Photos by Michelle LaFontaine. Continue reading Christmas Lights at Upper Canada Village
One of the biggest toy hits of Christmas 2009 is the Zhu Zhu Hamster. It’s cheap ($8-$12), small, has zillions of reactions to human stimulus. Zhu Zhu is Chinese for Pig. So it’s a PigPig Pet or PigPig Hamster. So I went looking for it. Not at Zellers. They said it was only at ToysR-us. So onto the 95 to St Laurent. Nope, they don’t have them. The staff cheerily told me the toys are all being reserved for the Toronto market. If you live in Ottawa, you can’t get the top selling Christmas toy because the retailer has decided … Continue reading No Toys for Us
I note with interest that the City has given the go-ahead to the Lansdowne Live proposal with certain conditions, one being that there be a design review or something headed up by George Dark. He is a consultant. He is not cheap. Was the review contract put up for tender? Or is it sole sourcing? Will all the opponents of sole sourcing Lansdowne Live take to the streets to complain about sole sourcing the process to “improve” the urban design? Of course, maybe it’s not sole sourcing at all… Continue reading Lansdowne Live – More sole sourcing?
I received one email and one phone call from readers yesterday. Both were excitedly telling me that info I had blogged on had been picked up by MSM without credit to me. I tried, somewhat inarticulately, to explain why that didn’t bother me. Since I started blogging last April, several stories I wrote about promptly appeared in MSM, twice as headlines. I like to think my content is useful and fun, maybe that’s why the site gets more than 3000 hits a month ( I want it to be higher, recommend the site to your friends !!). I have a … Continue reading Main Stream Media (MSM) and Blogging
A series of posts on the possibilities of a segregated bike route running from Bronson due west to Westboro was a big hit with readers and CBC listeners who yearn for a safe way to cycle. The various blog postings have been collected into one, slightly revised document, which you can have for your very own, free, just by asking me: EricDarwin1@gmail.com, or use the comment button for this posting. Be sure to include your email address if you use the comment button, as all input comes to me on an anonymous basis. EMC newspapers will be running an article on … Continue reading BikeWest project update
west side boulevard sodded Continue reading Bayview – Tom Brown Landscaping Continues
On Wed. Sept 16th there will be a presentation on ways for householders and ordinary people to save energy and reduce their carbon footprint. The presentation will be held at the Montgomery Legion hall.For more info: http://www.seventhgeneration.ca/projects.html Continue reading Energy saving seminar
We have all heard the “jokes” about a new employee at the civil service/union shop working diligently and being reprimanded by the existing employees to “not work so fast”. – Those stories came to mind this week while cyling past Britannia Park. There was a young male driving a large lawn mower, obviously a “summer student”. He was clearly having fun driving the mower, he was moving very fast. I stopped to see if he could actually mow the lawn at that speed, and it looked fine. A few hundred yards further east, an older man was driving another mower. … Continue reading Grass is Greener ….
This high metal fence surrounds the brownfields development just east of the Rideau Centre, near Daly. It is immediately striking to the passer by, because of its high height. My first thought was its like prison fence. But it is to keep people out, not in. Accross the street is the Mission. The curbsides there are held down by persons sitting on the edge of the road, edge planters, edge of street closures. – It is not a pretty sight. Nor a vibrant streetscape. Continue reading Untitled
Mainstream media is now reporting cheerfully on the notion of building higher density cities on top of suburban malls and other underused lands. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1904187,00.html I find the article rather frustrating, though, because it is little more than a concept story. There is not enough on who proposed the retrofit of suburbia, competing proposals, and / or the prospects of anything actually being done in this case. Continue reading Fixing Urban Sprawl
While walking along West Wellington Street I noticed work crews had uncovered many ties in their excavation. Presumably these were from the Ottawa Electric street railway service. I went looking online for a route map of the old Ottawa streetcars, but could not find one. If anyone knows of a map, I would love to look it up. Continue reading West Wellington streetcar?
There has been a lot of concern lately about the deep depth of the downtown Ottawa transit tunnel(s). I share that unease. But I also sense that critics of anyLRT/tunnel/initiative are also seizing on this one issue as it is a safe one to pile onto. Recall that the shallower tunnel schemes mean that the tunnel has to fit between the existing buildings of the downtown. Neither Albert nor Slater are wide. Utilities are burried under the road and sidewalk surfaces. If the station is under the street, the access points will likely have to be up through existing buildings … Continue reading DOTT Station Depth, Tie-Ins to Buildings, Etc.
While heading back from City Hall via the Library the other day, I noticed how few potential sites there are for a new Library. Recall that the new site is supposed to be on land now used for a parking lot, in the area bounded by Wellington-Bronson-Gloucester-Canal. That isn’t a very large area. And I suspect the library people will want a fairly sprawling building rather than trying to fit one onto a tight site, given their desire for public visibility, easy access, and desire for a multi-purpose building with meeting rooms, etc. So as I walked I speculated on … Continue reading Library Location Location Location
In the Citizen today: Cullen is preparing a “motion asking the provincial government to give the city the power to ban all corporate and union donations to municipal election campaigns, and it’s bound to be controversial. Cullen, and some other left-leaning councillors, already choose to reject donations from these groups, but other city politicians accept them.”It will be interesting to see the wording of this motion. Back in my civil service days, I was a union steward for about 7 years. Marion Dewar was running for office, and the union called all its reps out “on union business” for one … Continue reading Funding Municipal Politicians
Over at the blog The Ottawa Project is a story of visiting Lorne Ave and the not-unreasonable assumption that what is visible on Lorne represents that which was demolished on the Flats in the early 1960’s. I think that overview is overly sympathetic to the demolished areas. I do not wish to take the view that it was right to demolish whole neighborhoods/built up areas in favor of total rebuilding, which was the big government view of urban renewal then (note to today’s amateur city rebuilders and commentators who too often wish for bigger govt action – be careful of … Continue reading Urban Planning Nostalgia
Last Wednesday, May 13 about 1/3 of the park was sodded. There was no further action until Tuesday, May 19 when the remainder of the park was sodded. Fences have been constructed to try to keep people and animals off the fields. Limited activities (not including soccer) will be permitted during the summer when the Plant Pool Rec.Assoc (PPRA) holds summer camps. The big green swatch in the middle of the ward is really welcome given all the construction and dirt elsewhere. This neighborhood has the least amount of City greenspace of any ward in the City of Ottawa. Continue reading Plouffe Park sodded
