The temporary LeBreton transit station requires many transferring people and station walk-ins to cross one or more intersections. Some of the crossings, or repeated crossings, are because the city was too cheap to provide sidewalks even paved shoulders on both … Continue reading Contempt for Pedestrians at Transit Station and some Unworthy thoughts as to how it came to be that way
As promised by the City, the extension of the Trillium (OTrain) pathway from Young to Carling Avenue is essentially complete. I think it is wonderful. Multi-user pathways (MUP’s) get better with every new build. The most significant new feature for a MUP is a physical separation of people who cycle from people who walk, or animals who walk their humans. The bike path portion remains full width; the pedestrian portion is additional, bonus width. There is a very low curb between the two paths to separate them. The lowness of the curb prevents a pedal from getting caught. The separated … Continue reading Trillium Path Extended to Carling Avenue
Fences, fences, everywhere a fence ! IF it’s not a song yet, it should be ! But I’m not sitting on one, there is no doubt in my mind that these fences are trouble. It is truly amazing the City (or is it RTG) spending so heavily on fences along Albert and Scott. These ones, along Scott, are wooden … … to keep the salt and slush from splashing on the houses when the 2500 buses a day go crusin’ by. They will also block some of the residential views of the bus lanes, albeit at the price of a … Continue reading Fences Fences Everywhere a Fence
Alas, for those people walking or cycling east towards the downtown, there won’t be a separated multi-user path, nor as direct a path as along the north side of Scott and Albert. Starting near Tunney’s, there is a south-side east-bound painted bike lane, which I suppose it a wee tad better than cycling with sharrows in the “50KMH” lanes: The cycling lane is “buffered” from cars, trucks, and buses by a 2′ painted median, but the cycling lane is also the right turn lane and driveway access lane. And boy, are there ever a lot of those: There are many … Continue reading Navigating Scott-Albert (east bound)
The City’s newest pedestrian – cyclist bridge opened for public use today. The bridge, just north of the OTrain Trillium line Carling Station, connects Hickory Street in the Civic Hospital neighbourhood with Adeline and then Preston Street on the Little Italy side. It makes it much easier for residents to access the Preston traditional main street, and opens a new off-Carling route for east west movements. It provides better access to the Carling Otrain station for those days the OTrain is actually running, and provides every-day access from the new condos and student housing high rises on Champagne Avenue to … Continue reading Hickory – Adeline Bridge opens
In the last year or so, steel plates have begun appearing where walkways meet roads at intersections. These steel plates have a tactile surface to warn pedestrians that they are at an intersection. I have heard city engineers refer to them as Lego dots or Lego blocks, due to the similarity of the tactile bumps to the popular children’s toy. As evidenced by the above picture, the plates can rust. The dots get ripped open by sidewalk and road plows in winter. In the example above, a number of the dots “stood up” like ripped open bits of tin cans, … Continue reading Steel “Lego” crossing markings have gotta go
Preston Street and West Wellington were reconstructed several years ago with much improved pedestrian facilities and nice landscaping [every street should be similar]. However, neither included bike lanes or bike tracks (tracks were recently constructed on most of Churchill Avenue south of Byron). Instead, people who cycle were viewed as “recreational” , able to be diverted off the main street onto side streets (eg Armstrong) or the Trillium Pathway. That people who cycle might want to shop or eat was underrated, and still is by some BIA’s. I was surprised, therefore, to see this separated bike track appear just days … Continue reading New Preston Separated Bike track
Like in any entrenched religion or philosophy, internal contradictions eventually create cogitative dissonance in civil engineering standards. That people who walk must always defer to people who drive is one such encrusted rule slowly crumbling in the face of pedestrian revolt. Occasionally we see examples of people who walk getting the right of way over people who drive, but there very scarcity makes them noticeable. At selected road crossings, after much lobbying and pressure, the engineering staff may, with many caveats, permit a walkway to cross a minor road with priority going to the people who walk. Scarcely common. Cambridge, … Continue reading Harbinger of New Walkway Design
In the West End, the Confederation Line LRT will eventually extend to Lincoln Fields, then along Pinecrest Creek (where the transitway is) and it will split into two directions from a point north of the Queensway. One leg will carry on to Algonquin College. The other leg vers westward under a city park and emerges from its underground tunnel between the Queensway and the west end bus garage on Queensview Drive. The in-an-open-cut Queensview Station ( much like Westboro and Tunney’s Stations) will replace the lawn directly in front of The Brick. Directly opposite The Brick is The Ottawa Citizen plant, and … Continue reading Queensview Station Crossing (part iii)
Will the redeveloped Tremblay Station area be better than what is there today? Will there be a wonderful world of tomorrow, or just a bigger – higher – denser version of autotopia? Here’s a city-provided sketchup of the Tremblay LRT Station (formerly known as Train). Construction starts in December this year, for completion in July 2017. The ring road that services the train station is visible at the top; with the VIA Station at the top right. The parking lot shown is existing, but not for long. While the main LRT entrance is to the east, by the ring road, … Continue reading Coventry Bridge, Tremblay LRT Station Underachievers (part ii)
I do occasionally get out of my WestSide stomping grounds. A recent trip took me to the near East Side where I had the opportunity to use the new Coventry bridge for people who walk and people who cycle, over the Queensway. It’s also useful to look at it in light of the similar proposed Queensview bridge. I took the transitway to the Tremblay Station (in the hole in front of VIA Rail Station). The formerly landscaped slopes around it have been clearcut for construction starting later this year of the realigned roadbed and new Confederation LRT Line station location … Continue reading Coventry Active Transportation Bridge (part i)
In the previous three stories I’ve tried to review what is planned, what some of the tradeoffs were, what the consequences area, and slip in just a teensey tiny wee bit of my opinion. So what would Eric do if faced with the same starting situation, of the City insisting its Western LRT had to go down the parkway space; and the NCC insisting that people using transit is incompatible with their revised greenspace plan? (note I am not considering other completely different route options). The physical plan My goal going into the conflict would be to keep rail on … Continue reading Westward Ho ! (part iv) in which Fantasies come to the fore …
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
Rochester Field, now to be a condo development site with a green corridor to the parkway along its western (left) edge, is shown on the above map just above the word Richmond [Road]. The new LRT line, in a shallow cut-and-cover tunnel, with the eastbound traffic lanes of the Ottawa River parkway piggybacking on top, is shown as a thick orangey line extending straight along the parkland. This kilometer-long straight section I find very alarming. The “Parkway” is already derisively known as the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway because of its current high volumes and speeds that rarely descend to the posted … Continue reading Westward ho ! (part ii) Western LRT along the parkway
There is an enormous bridge structure just west of Preston, where the Queensway spans the OTrain cut. It is enormous because it spans not only the cut, but allows for a 2 – 4 lane freeway on each side of the cut, the defunct Champagne Freeway, that would have connected the airport parkway at Confederation Heights to the Fairy Lake Parkway in Gatineau. (*diagram below) A few years back the space on the east side was improved to make the OTrain multi user path. We had to dragoon the city into building it, and much to their surprise (but not … Continue reading Qway Overpass Replacements, part ii, the (N)oTrain and Pathway
People who walk or cycle want infrastructure improvements. Fortunately these improvements are cheap compared to facilities for people who drive motor cars. More cycling and pedestrian infrastructure isn’t an extravagance or luxury in a city budget, it’s a bargain. Repeat: people who walk or cycle are cheap dates. Pretty much all residential streets in the US and Canada built since the 1940’s lack facilities for people who walk. We just decided to ignore them and their needs in favour of people who drive cars. In the west side of Ottawa, this is generally true anywhere west of Churchill Avenue. Now look … Continue reading Proof People Who Cycle are Cheap Dates
Readers of yesterday’s story might get the impression I was unenthused about the design of the Preston extension and LeBreton temporary transit station. You’d be right. Now we all know it snows in Ottawa. Sometimes a lot. So I am sure the planning boffins ran their fingers over the paved road shoulder “sidewalks” and the platforms at LeBreton Station and the walking required to get from platform to platform, or neighbourhood to platform. And then imagined how they could be plowed. And then coordinated with the snow plow folks to ensure the stations and their access were plowed early, plowed … Continue reading Rare unplanned-for-event at the transit station …
Yesterday, we looked at the car-first infrastructure at the Lyon LRT station entrance. Money appears to be available to spend on cars, but not pedestrians, even when building transit infrastructure. This save-a-penny attitude, when it comes to pedestrians, prevails in the city’s rail implementation office. Down on the Flats, Preston was recently extended out to the War Museum. The extension is temporary. It is wise to be frugal when building throw-away infrastructure, as this road will be rolled up and trashed in two years. But the penny pinching didn’t include narrower car lanes. No siree, they are full width, and the … Continue reading Temporary transit station puts cars first, part 2
Too often I cringe in dismay at the 99% motorist-focus of our planning and engineering staff. Do [m]any of the staff and consultants working on the LRT stations actually use transit? I have been known to cause moments of embarrassment by asking at an OTrain planning meeting if any staff present have actually ridden the train. [answer: rarely]. It’s quite easy to tell the station planners don’t walk to stations. Ever. Or take transit to work anywhere else, for that matter. Here’s a small example of how even when building and designing a state-of-the-art rapid transit system (ie, the Confederation … Continue reading Fostering transit by catering to cars (part 1)
The South Waterfront neighbourhood is very well landscaped. Intensively landscaped, with interesting bits of planters, plants, gardens, courtyards, and squares tucked into the smallest corners. The contrast to Ottawa’s LeBreton Flats couldn’t be stronger. Some of this may be due to a milder climate in Oregon. Or a project that has had vegetation in the ground and growing for longer. Or maybe a much more generous budget for greenery. The Flats look good on paper, and on the ground the “right elements” are laid out, but the execution makes me wince and thus far is poorly maintained. The City has … Continue reading Building a Better LeBreton, part 9, Walking Portland’s SouthWaterfront streets
Rescue Bronson was born a few years ago when the City decided to “improve” [for through motor traffic] Bronson north of the Queensway. Their plans did not include landscaping, traffic calming, fixing the jack rabbit stop-and-start flow or the frequent rapid lane changes. Pedestrians? Never heard of ’em. Cyclists — run ’em over til they go somewhere else. Rescue Bronson had limited success in correcting the City’s mania to facilitate commuting to Pointe Gatineau. We got better landscaping. A signalized intersection at Arlington where the unmarked crossing was heavily used by cyclists and pedestrians. Cost of relocating the utility poles … Continue reading Traffic splitting in the Glebe
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
I hope readers haven’t been too bored with the ongoing series of stories of how well some cities protect / separate pedestrians from motorists. Here’s another example, where a series of large granite bollards not only delineate the separation, but provide an enormous measure of subjective safety. Don’t you just feel comfortable on this sidewalk, that no motorist is going to take it over for a “just for a moment” parking space, or a careless overrun of the curb that leaves the motorist unscathed (so much redundancy is put into road design to protect the motorist, usually by transferring the … Continue reading On separating cars and pedestrians
OK, I’ve wondered (and bitched) bit about the cacophony of crossing markings at Fifth and the QED. So what are other options? In the above pic, there is a bi-directional bike path leading to the intersection in the foreground. A lateral shift, what laypeople might call a severe jog, in the bike path encourages cyclists to slow down at the intersection. Built in traffic calming. The cross street sidewalk is brick, so there is a colour and texture identification. And for the cyclists and pedestrians on the street we are standing on, there is one giant zebra-striped crossing. Not a … Continue reading Example of a simple big-crosswalk
