Category: USA

Seattle

Seeing Seattle (ii) : When bike paths and pedestrians conflict

Westsideaction

Of course we rented bikes. Gotta explore and check out their bike facilities. In the Green Lake area, we found ample evidence of cyclists and pedestrians — and dog walkers, joggers, and runners  — in conflict for limited space. This solution is pretty rational: it appears to be a bi-directional asphalt path and a flush concrete pedestrian sidewalk beside it (on both sides). But once the pedestrians and cyclists are separated, other issues of equity arise. Joggers go faster than walkers, the elderly, or people with strollers. Is this jogger going the right way being on the left sidewalk or should … Continue reading Seeing Seattle (ii) : When bike paths and pedestrians conflict

Seattle

Seeing Seattle (iii): the Burke Gilman trail

Westsideaction

The most famous bike path / trail in Seattle is the Burke Gilman trail.  It runs from Puget Sound (the Ocean) inland along the ship canal that connects to Lake Washington (fresh water) via the smaller Lake Union (half and half). The path then runs past the University of Washington campus (called “U Dub” by the locals. Dub is short for W. Now, in my old age, I know why the previous US president was nicknamed Dubya. It’s sort of scary to be 10 years out of date.) From the northern shores of Lake Washington, the trail runs forever to … Continue reading Seeing Seattle (iii): the Burke Gilman trail

Ottawa, Seattle1 Comment

Benchmarking Ottawa

Westsideaction

Readers may have noticed I’ve been away for a while. I was in the American Pacific Northwest. And have tons of photos of intensification, sidewalks, streetscaping, traffic circles, transit, street painting, infills, bio-swales, bike lanes, bike paths, and just plain weird stuff. Since this is election time in municipal Ottawa, I’ll take the next few weeks to look at Seattle, Bellevue, some smaller towns on the Olympic Penninsula, and nirvana Portland. It’s both interesting to see how they do things, and of course compare them to what we get here. Of course the cities are bigger; the climate is different … Continue reading Benchmarking Ottawa

Florida, Ottawa, pedestrians, streetscaping, walkways4 Comments

Putting pedestrians first at intersections

Westsideaction

Yesterday I self-indulged in a bit of bitch about how the City makes intersections safer for motor vehicles at the expense of pedestrians: Look at almost any intersection. The City locates the signal posts back from the curb line, for the safety of motorists. But then directs pedestrians to stand in the same spot where they deem it too dangerous to place a wooden or steel post.  Allright, the natural question is what could be done to make it better? My first response is Amsterdam, like many European cities, puts real bollards (set deep into cement bases, designed to repel … Continue reading Putting pedestrians first at intersections

Florida, Ottawa3 Comments

More time lingering in Portofino

Westsideaction

Look carefully at these buildings. The floor inside is actually all one level, with an internal corridor like any hotel or apartment building. But the colours, varied rooflines, and different window treatments give the people outside the joy of a traditional Italian streetscape. I see no reason why buildings cannot be built here, using these techniques, but not necessarily the faux-Italian stucco. After six or eight “houses” (hotel rooms) the building row takes a shift, with an inset portion that fosters the 3D effect. These exteriors do not seem expensive to construct, but pay huge dividends in civilization. the Portofino … Continue reading More time lingering in Portofino

Florida3 Comments

Portofino is eye pleasing

Westsideaction

My architect and planner acquaintenances snort in derrision at the “nostalgia” element in new urbanism. I think some of it is jealousy, because they rarely can come up with anything as popular with the public. I made a point of dropping in on Portofino during the past winter. The one in Florida. Near Universal Studios. Its a resort inspired by / derived from / copied from / a faux version of Portofino, Italy. The drive in is a masterpiece of view manipulation, compression and release, and successfuly separates the outside Florida from the inside event.     Like all most … Continue reading Portofino is eye pleasing

Florida, sidewalks, streetscaping, walkways1 Comment

City sidewalks, pretty sidewalks …

Westsideaction

  So, the picture isn’t of an Ottawa sidewalk. What are the clues? First, there is no snow. But there are people. Happy people. Sitting around with friends, drinking … alcoholic beverages ! The walking pedestrians have to share the space with others using the sidewalk as a living room. There is a [private] overhead roof. With fun lights. That someone could electrocute themselves on if they stuck a wet pole into the light socket. Oops, that last comment was my city bureaucrat bad doppelgänger coming out. Someone with a stroller would have to exercise some caution getting through the … Continue reading City sidewalks, pretty sidewalks …

Florida2 Comments

Miami Metromover

Westsideaction

Last winter brought me once again onto the Miami Metromover transit system. This time I took a video, link below. The Metromover is a free people-mover type of transit system. It has 4.4 miles of track. It opened in 1986, and was expanded in 1994. It has 3 “loops” (actually one loop and two spurs that extend outward) and 21 stations in the urban core. Some of the stations connect directly to the Metrorail (subway) system. The Metromover carries about 32,000 passengers a day, or 9 million a year (the OTrain carries about 12,000 /day on a similar length of … Continue reading Miami Metromover

Boston, Transit3 Comments

Public transit isn’t just for cities

Westsideaction

We hear a lot about LRT, subways, big city transit systems. But public transit isn’t just for big metro areas. They get the most attention because the big media lives in big cities, because the dollar price tags are bigger for big transit, and many Canadians live in big cities. But not all do. I confess to a certain occasional fondness for rural inter-town public transportation. I once spent considerable time on the topic. This was rekindled during a visit to Cape Cod last year. Previously featured here were posts on the multi-modal transit centre in Hyannis; and the real … Continue reading Public transit isn’t just for cities

Florida

Post peak-auto drive-in, and other misc.

Westsideaction

Will cars some day be so rare they are like coin-op riding dinosaurs found in the mall? Ottawa has very few KFC’s in operation, and they were of the past-their-best-before date design: gaudy stripes, the rotating bucket …  I certainly don’t recall seeing ones branded quite so nicely as this one. And, BTW, it is Kitchen Fresh Chicken, fried being a concept that has gone a bit rancid. We are at the blissful, idealistic, utopian stage of encouraging food trucks and street vendors. Later, what’cha get are hamburger stands enlivened with wide-screen outdoor TV’s. Given Ottawa’s generally dull architecture and … Continue reading Post peak-auto drive-in, and other misc.

Florida, Tradition1 Comment

A Tradition of inspired design

Westsideaction

Did you get the clue in yesterday’s (and today’s) story titles? It’s all about the houses at Tradition. Here is the back patio of a home being built by a local builder. Notice the large shaded patio, plus some un-roofed patio area. The utility plugs in the wall to the right are for an outdoor wall-mounted TV.   The ceilings in these houses tend to be nine or ten feet high, and the patio sliders are equally oversize, which fills the rooms with light. In this new area, wild life was still around, and curious:   Moving on around the … Continue reading A Tradition of inspired design

Florida, Tradition

Inspired Design at Tradition

Westsideaction

Tradition has long “parkway like” access roads to the housing clusters, as shown here:   There is a bicycle lane marked on the right, and a sidewalk visible on the far left. These roads could have been designed by the NCC – they are circuitous, scenic, manipulate vistas, and thoroughly boring to try to walk or ride along. Adjacent subdivisions back onto the road right of way. Think Jeanne d’Arc in Orleans or Spratt Road in Riverside south, but on steroids. Periodically, there are side roads into housing clusters. Each is announced by a large “gatehouse”, none of which appeared … Continue reading Inspired Design at Tradition

Florida, Ottawa, Tradition1 Comment

Tradition, cont’d

Westsideaction

Just a very short distance from the Tradition village centre with its new urbanist nostalgia-infused vibe, we discovered the real reason for its high vacancy rate. A big box mall. Straight out of Nepean or Gloucester or Kanata, but with more landscaping in the parking lots:   There was the obligatory big box pet store, a large supermarket, department store, home furnishings store, etc. [remember now it is pronounced Tar-jay, in faux French  to mock the higher design pretensions of Target].  Now to be fair it is rather difficult to fit these large format businesses into a walkable village centre. Loblaws in Westboro … Continue reading Tradition, cont’d

Florida, Ottawa, Tradition4 Comments

Tradition new town

Westsideaction

On a recent Florida vacation-with-a-urbanist-theme, I made a point of visiting some “famous” examples of planned towns. Some were from the early 1900’s (eg Winter Park City, covered previously; and Coral Gables, maybe to be covered in the future) and two were new towns launched in the last decades specifically to provide an alternative to conventional lollipop cul-de-sacs of garage-fronted car-dependent suburbia. Celebration I liked. It actually seemed to have “launched” itself into a growth pattern and developed a genuine sense of place. Definitely a better suburb. The second new urbanist townsite was Tradition, near Port St Lucie, near the Atlantic coast of Florida … Continue reading Tradition new town

Celebration, Florida9 Comments

More Celebration

Westsideaction

The town of Celebration is divided into a number of villages, aka real estate development clusters. It is productive to visit a number of neighbourhoods since they vary in what might appeal to the renter or buyer. above: one of the busier residential streets had very large houses, but all were zoned to permit home occupations, adding another element to the blend of occupancy types. above: across the short bridge shown in the background, and through the portico, brought us to a courtyard apartment development that I’d love to see in Ottawa as an alternative to glass box highrises. Turning around, we’d … Continue reading More Celebration

Celebration, Florida, walkways

Celebration New Town: the residential villages

Westsideaction

So, as shown yesterday, they did a good job of  downtown Celebration, building in flexibility, growth, and finely mixed uses. But every city is more than its downtown or mixed use mainstreet. These commercial places are backed up by the primarily residential hinterland. Are these simply more traditional suburbs or can new urbanism successfully mimic the more naturally evolved pre-1940’s neighbourhoods  urbanists love? Over the next few posts, lets look at several  residential neighborhoods in Celebration. The first neighbourhood is Sienna, part of the South [quadrant] Village. Once again, let’s talking about pictures (and video links too !): Above: Sienna neighbourhood is close to … Continue reading Celebration New Town: the residential villages

design, Florida, Ottawa

Celebration in Florida

Westsideaction

  Celebration is a well-known new-urbanist town near Orlando, Florida. In January 2013 I spent about two days there, and came away very impressed. Like other new urbanist towns it takes it architectural and layout cues from pre-1940 successful American towns. It is an attempt to build today neighbourhoods similar to successful walkable areas like the Glebe, Hintonburg, Westboro, Dalhousie … rather than the overtly car-centric suburban model that has dominated our cities since the mid-20th century. Does it succeed? Can we recreate the successful neighbourhoods of the past? I must say I visited with a sceptical mind. I had been there about a decade ago and … Continue reading Celebration in Florida

Florida1 Comment

Winter Park uses overhead space

Westsideaction

Here in Ottawa, our traffic engineers threw fits when the local BIA and streetscaping committees suggested overhead decorations on traditional mainstreets like Preston and Somerset. The idea was to close in the overhead space, slowing traffic. “No way” said our engineers, “too dangerous”. It would distract motorists, making the road unsafe. They won the argument of course. Winter Park takes another approach. At each intersection along its main street, overhead lighting closes in the space, encouraging moderate speeds. The lighting is festive, making it seem like you arrive somewhere special when you hit the main drag.   And at each … Continue reading Winter Park uses overhead space

Florida, Ottawa1 Comment

Winter Park City, Florida

Westsideaction

In January, I escaped the Ottawa winter for two weeks in Florida. Theme of the trip: new and old urbanism. I set my sights on two old “planned” cities — Winter Park, near Orlando; and Coral Gables, now a suburb of Miami. And two new urbanism places, Celebration and Tradition. Winter Park is old urbanism that still works today. Winter Park is a part of the Orlando metropolis. It’s much like Dalhousie or Hintonburg, but more up scale  with a higher proportion of apartments. And a downtown university campus also helps create pedestrian traffic.  Over the next few days,  let’s let … Continue reading Winter Park City, Florida

Florida3 Comments

All cracked up over a sidewalk

Westsideaction

Construction of pedestrian walks is ridiculously simple in Florida. Scrape away a bit of the sod or ground cover, lay the wooden side forms, and pour concrete. No digging required. No deep gravel foundations. No frost heave. The result is smooth, long lasting walk surfaces. The main hazards to a walk’s existence are tree roots heaving the ground, or heavy vehicles cracking the concrete. Nonetheless, municipal maintenance crews must keep busy. Shown below are some sidewalk squares being removed and replaced for what in Ottawa would pass as inconsequential cracks:   The walks above are in Orlando, Florida. The area … Continue reading All cracked up over a sidewalk

Boston

Making use of a very narrow space

Westsideaction

I came across these buildings a few months ago. There are two older buildings, separated by a 3 – 4 foot gap. This gap has been built into the renovated buildings:   Both buildings were brick industrial structures, both have been partially reclad in shiny metal when renovated. The former alleyway, now a stairway, is shown in the centre. The stairs can be accessed from a small lobby at the foot of the stairs, directly from the street or from either adjacent building, giving maximum flexibility.   To further play with the odd space, the new stairs are partially see-through, … Continue reading Making use of a very narrow space

bike path, Boston, cycling in Ottawa, Ottawa

Cycle tracks, beginning and end of

Westsideaction

In a previous post on cycle tracks (segregated cycling lanes set back from the general motor vehicular traffic, sometimes protected by parked vehicles)  –illustrated with pictures from the Cambridge MA cycle track installed a number of years ago — a reader inquired for more details on how the track segments begin and end. Ever mindful of faithful readers, here are two ends, alpha and omega: And just for completeness, the middle: Continue reading Cycle tracks, beginning and end of

Boston, cycling in Ottawa7 Comments

Will your bike make the traffic signal change?

Westsideaction

The city of Ottawa puts three yellow dots on the traffic loop buried at intersections, marking where cyclists should stop to activate the signal. I don’t think many cyclists know this; and frankly, I don’t trust these marks to actually work. The one I use the most, at Lanark/Scott, seems pretty iffy to me. Here’s an instructional sign, from another city. It’s a tad ambiguous, since it shows the cyclist at right angles to the line, when in fact your bike should be both tires on top of the line… Continue reading Will your bike make the traffic signal change?