One of the more distressing habits of politicians is to distract critics of what they do (or don’t do) by highlighting the evils of someone else. This is best done if the someone else is a higher level of government, beyond their influence. Thus the sin is compounded by the frustration of helplessness. And is often followed up by an appeal for more money from that someone else, or failing that, from your and my pocket. The space to be taken up by community mailboxes falls into this category. Blame someone else for cluttering up the city, someone beyond the … Continue reading Postage Stamp Crisis (the second lick: sidewalk clutter)

There’s been a lot of media coverage lately about community mail boxes and how much space they will take up. Imagine, added up, all those box footprints are equivalent to a city park ! Before the local letter carriers started driving those post-branded mini-vans to their routes, they used “relay boxes”, one of which is shown above, possibly still in use, in an affluent west end neighbourhood. There used to be one across the (less affluent) street from my house. And another one at the intersection just up the block. And the intersection beyond that. In fact, there was one … Continue reading Postage Stamp Crisis (the first lick)

Public phone booths are an endangered species. This row of three at Westgate Shopping Centre are decidedly un-Bell and vaguely British call box. Continue reading Call boxes at Westgate

  The City has done it again. Delivered a multi use path not on time, but EARLY. In this case, it is the the pathway on the north side of Albert, running from Bayview Station to Bronson Avenue on the edge of downtown. This MUP is wonderful: well removed and slightly elevated above adjacent car traffic, it has longish-stretches without intersections, and is continuous pavement, unlike the pot-holed, cracked, and patched take-your-life-in-your-hands Albert Street adjacent. It drains, rather than puddles. It has been torn up in multi-block sections due to the rebuilding of Albert and its associated sewers and pipes. … Continue reading Early MUP is a great MUP

  I was surprised to see Mayor Watson is going to a pie throwing contest later this morning. Attending an opening event is in character, but being pied  just doesn’t seem in character … But upon closer reading, I realized he was officiating, but the advert did not promise that he would be the target. If I paid my two bucks, I’d probably forget who I pied right after, anyway. Maybe I’d be better being the butt of laughter doing yoga. Continue reading A Pie for Mayor Watson

May is always a busy time for community gardeners, those green thumbed urbanites that think our city would look better if greener. And who don’t wait for the city to do it. Here’s some pictures of the Thursday morning gardening group. First the weedy beds at Bronson/McLaren and Bronson/Christie had to be weeded:   Some perennials were added, and then the boxes of “spent” or finished-blooming tulips from the Preston street BIA planters were opened: A hole about 10″ deep was dug, and the bulbs taken out of the pot and plopped into the hole, and covered with about six … Continue reading More community gardening

At a city meeting last night, I realized everything you need to know about the City’s proposed rezoning of Preston Street north of Somerset can be gleaned from Finding Nemo. The role of the shark was ably played by city planning staff. They controlled the location, the moderator,  the display boards, the agenda, and most importantly the options presented for the public to choose from. Most ordinary fish residents thought Preston north of Somerset, which consists mostly of residences, and has since 1902, as being a residential area. The zoning, which is all what most fish understand about city planning, … Continue reading Finding Nemo on Preston Street

West siders may have noticed all the  blooming tulips that appeared on Preston on Saturday. How did they get there? We’ll skip the months of planning, paying for the bulbs months ago before they were even grown, and jump right to last Friday when the truck arrived: We’ve already unloaded the centre two columns of boxes to make an aisle, and community gardeners and volunteers carried each box into Tom Brown Arena for refrigerated safe keeping until Saturday.  Each box contains 8 blooming pots of several tulips: Go ahead and do the math (hint: there’s about 50 boxes). Before the … Continue reading How the Tulips got to Preston Street

May the Fourth be with You. Continue reading May the 4th Be With You

Confederation Line trains leaving Lincoln Fields Station will proceed south into the Pinecrest Creek corridor. Immediately past Woodroffe HS, the line will split, with some trains going on to Baseline and others turning west towards Bayshore. Baseline Station is located on the west side of Woodroffe Avenue at the western edge of Algonquin College campus, itself a large traffic generator. The Station will be the southern terminus of the Confederation line for many many years and thus will be a major transfer point to local buses and buses to Barrhaven / Riverside South. Before the current plaza was built on the … Continue reading WLRT , part iv, Baseline Station, Queensview, Pinecrest, Bayshore

The new Lincoln Fields Station will, in the LRT era, no longer be a major transfer station, and can be downsized dramatically. The little Iris Station, now merely a bus shelter on the verge, gets major engineering. When the first transitway plans for Lincoln Fields Station were revealed back in the 70’s, the station was directly under the Carling Avenue overpass. The neighbours to the south objected, claiming excessive noise and rowdy behaviour by station patrons, some councillor chimed in that the underpass location would be dark and dangerous, so the expensive drive in-drive out transfer station was built north … Continue reading WLRT Stations, part iii, New Lincoln Fields, new Iris Stations

Walking along the Otrain pathway, I am distressed to see so many trees debarked by rabbits or mice. They probably won’t survive. Last year, we lost a whole bunch on the NCC side of Bayview Station. None of the trees there had chew guards on them, while the city trees south of Bayview Station did. This year, there were no tree guards left at all. I wonder if the contractor picks them up for reuse when they removed the posts that held up the burlap wind protection installed for the first two winters. After all, they only have to ensure … Continue reading Death by a thousand nibbles

Continue reading Bunny Ears

In this season of snow, slush, rain, and general impediments to people walking, it is nice once in a while to spot something positive, right here in laggardly Ottawa. The new entrance to the Rideau Centre, facing MacKenzie King Bridge, has this glass canopy: Notice the nicely patterned glass, the reasonable width … there is much to like here. I have noticed similar struts outside some of the new Lansdowne Park buildings, but when I was last there, no glass [yet?]. One can go further. Look at this glass canopy: Yup, it’s a glass canopy to shelter pedestrians whilst waiting … Continue reading Caring for Pedestrians – precipitation edition

I was out at the EY [trade show] Centre a short while back. Despite being beside the transitway, and there being sidewalks, the connections for people who walk or people who use transit still manage to be awkward at best, discouraging when worst. The Home Show event brought with it the worst. Picture the scene: its 9pm. Dark. [ergo, no pictures of the actual scene of the ….] No signs to the transitway (service to the actual EY Centre itself is hourly and that bus had just gone, and the stop itself is not visible from anywhere indoors to wait). … Continue reading Caring for Pedestrians — ice and drainage edition

After a lengthy period of time working with city engineers and planners, you get to catch onto the tricks and elisions that hide in the plans. We can never catch them all, but some get easier to spot. I especially look for trees at risk, So when community members got a chance a while back to check out the temporary road works on Albert where it runs along LeBreton Flats, and the “final” plan for 2018, I paid close attention to things just off the edge of the plan. Ah ha ! at City Centre Avenue near Albert there was … Continue reading More tree folly

Whenever I meet with city planning or engineering staff and the subject of trees comes up, the rather pius mantra is “we like trees too, it’s just so hard to grow them well in urban environments what with harsh winters, salt, lack of room, etc. I usually enhance my popularity index by rejoining that the biggest enemy of city trees is The City and their work crews. [The lack of room, abundance of overhead wires, and lack of root room and planting soil are, of course, also choices the City makes]. Here’s an example: Shown above is the view a … Continue reading Tree folly

Older apartment buildings get periodic renovations. Maybe not so drastic as the rebuilds going on on Bell Street South. New windows. New balcony railings. Some new pavers to the front door. Often these give a short term facelift, but quality is … well, cheap. They aren’t called replacement windows for nothing, because they’ll soon need replacing. The building pictured above is in the back end of the Glebe, the “glebe annex”, I noticed this building with its new front door treatment, its new windows, its new green-glass balconies  complete with  cream-coloured modesty / privacy appliqués and contrasting green metal rails. … Continue reading Apartment reno with eye candy