Vacation rental apps are popular these days. Even techno laggards like me are in on the scene. We rented an apartment in Venice last fall. Then one in Milan. Then an agriturismo in Piano di Sorrento. We arranged these from … Continue reading The Friday Traveller: a vacation rental in Venice
There is still more to be gleaned from the City’s revealled plans for the reconstruction of Queen Street. What’s in it for cyclists? Queen will not have much in the way of specific cycling infrastructure — no bike lanes, no bike … Continue reading Queen Street wrap-up : for cyclists
The raison d’etre for the Queen Street reconstruction and streetscaping is to enlarge the sidewalks enough to carry all the people walking to and from the new subway entrances. All the entrances are on one street, the originally planned ones on other streets were value engineered out of existence. That there is some access from other streets is strictly courtesy of private-property access: through the Clarica Buildings lobby from Albert Street, or the underground concourse at Place de Ville (but not 240 Sparks or Constitution Square or Minto Place). A principle Lyon Station entrance is through the Podium Building, shown below. The … Continue reading Queen Street wrap-up : for people who walk
The Monday House will be a 14 part series on renovating a typical west side house. We will start with the “before” pictures. The house was constructed in approx 1902, so it is 114 years old. A typical brick (veneer) … Continue reading The Monday House, part i – Before
Road diets refer to over-sized streets being right-sized to a more fit form. At the Queen Street streetscaping plan unveiling last week, Queen was referred to going from four lanes to two. A first glance at some drawings confirms this: … Continue reading Did Queen Street really go on a diet?
Here’s the Lyon Street main Confed line station entrance in the Podium Building, which is sandwiched between Tower C Transport Canada and the Marriott Hotel. The building may still have the old movie theatres locked in its core. It also … Continue reading What Queen Street tells us of the Confed Line Stations
The City unveiled the final streetscaping plan for several blocks of Queen Street around the two downtown Confederation Line stations (Lyon, and Parliament). One detail I noticed was the graphic logo for the Stations, consisting of a bright red circle (donut?) on a stick. Here’s the one at Lyon Station: and another at Parliament Station by the old Zellers: and again at the link between the two towers of the Clarica /Sunlife Centre: Of course we need a graphic logo that can (eventually) instantly identify where the Station entrances are for locals and tourists alike. On the existing transitway, the bright … Continue reading New graphic identity for Confederation line?
The Trinity Developments proposal for 900 Albert calls the three 55 storey towers and retail podium “phase 1” of their plan. It is a stand alone proposal, not dependent on approval for a phase 2. The expanded phase 2 project … Continue reading 900 Albert, air rights over the OTrain
Trinity Developments is bringing forth proposals for 900 Albert St, the site right across the street from Bayview Station. They proposing 3 to 4 residential towers, each 55 stories high. And as much retail space as the Rideau Centre has. … Continue reading Trinity’s 900 Albert Development: western gateway
From time to time strange artefacts of earlier emails creep into the ‘final’ version. I confess to the occasional (your opinion may vary) convoluted or incomprehensible thought due to editing out something but leaving a related bit in the story, where it then makes no sense. So I had to smile when I got some reply material from the city this morning. In the middle of the para, written in typical bureaucratic impersonal, noun free form, was this: .. . I say we just ignore this until it gets brought up again. By that point, it will be [too late]. Continue reading Just ignore them …
Every time there is a new Liberal government in Ottawa, VIA Rail appears, exactly on schedule, to promote spending money investing on a dedicated passenger rail network in The Corridor (Windsor-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City, or some subset thereof). While the “solution” is always … Continue reading VIA Rail, Climate Change, and Naiomi on a streetcar
Leap year offers an opportunity that seldom comes to look backwards a bit. I’ve been blogging here for 7 years or so. There’s been 2000 articles. Daily readership of about 400. Originally I chose to focus on the west side of downtown Ottawa for a number of reasons: it was (and often still is) a skip-over area. There’s downtown extending over to Bronson, and then the world resumes somewhere west in mid-Hintonburg. Just ask Bookmark the Core. the entire neighbourhood has no accepted name. Realtors call it centretown west. As do some city maps. The community association prefers Dalhousie, as it … Continue reading WestSideAction: time for a change?
On roads, one seldom interacts directly with other people. Sure, your car might sniff the tail end of another car. But people-to-people interaction is extraordinarily brief. It’s different on a pathway. Eye contact with other people walking, with people cycling, … Continue reading Snowboarding on the MUP
There is something I find very appealing to heated sidewalks, especially at transit stations. Maybe it is the magical aspect of it – it snows … I walk with dry feet … I ride in a vehicle sans 2″ of … Continue reading Snow removal at new LRT Stations
Am I alone in feeling that the bigger Ottawa gets the worse basic services are? Even keeping the sidewalk plowed AT A MAJOR TRANSIT STATION at morning rush hour seemed beyond the City’s ability. See these pic at LeBreton Station … Continue reading Modern snow removal
If it weren’t for the private building owners of Constitution Square, Minto Place, and others, the downtown sidewalks would have been worse — totally impassable — during the recent snowfall. Many larger buildings have small tractors and dispatched their maintenance … Continue reading Better snow removal
I visited another Santiago Calatrava bridge, this time in Venice, but this time I was looking for it. The ped bridge crosses the Grand Canal at the main bus terminal, a bit southwest of the train station. The neighbourhood around it is … Continue reading Ped Bridge at Venice bus terminal
The City has decided that the architecturally-significant design for a bridge over the Canal at Fifth Avenue should be “value engineered” to a simpler, cheaper design. Fewer things to go wrong, etc. Which prompts me to recall seeing a Calatrava … Continue reading On Pedestrian bridges
This deceptively simple picture shows just how easy real traffic calming can be accomplished. The concrete planter / bollard on the right holds the traffic calming sign, reminding motorists the maximum speed limit is 30. But that doesn’t mean you are entitled to do 30 kmh. The speed limit sign and its pedestal take up half the traffic lane. In the distance (double click picture to enlarge) are concrete planters smack dab in the middle of the traffic lanes. It is necessary to fully move over into the oncoming traffic lane in order to pass, as does the traffic coming … Continue reading Traffic calming with meaning
From time to time community groups advocate for road traffic changes. These are often to reduce through traffic (ie, people going from “not here” to somewhere else that also is “not here”. Or at least perceived to be by and … Continue reading Ignoring the Evidence is bliss
So, we have two development proposals for the remaining bits of the LeBreton Flats site. There’s been lots of public debate and discussion about which one is better, which one you prefer. There’s been no discussion of financial viability, as … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (xi) Which proposal will win?
Guest story from Richard Eade; excerpted from a longer on-line conversation. Just pretend you are coming onto a conversation that has been going on for bit, so you have to figure out just what is being discussed: I’ll point out … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (x) programming the site
The two current LeBreton Flats proposals are not on islands — they abut existing or proposed city spaces on all sides. How well do the proposals play with their neighbours? To the North, the Zibi plans are approved and under … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (ix) No Development site is an Island
It would be nice, but naive, to think that the two proponents for redevelopment of the remaining portion of LeBreton Flats simply put out their best proposals and the NCC gets to choose Eeny vs Meeny (Miny and Mo having … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (viii) on the role of lobbyists
There is lots of coverage about what is in the two proposals to rebuild LeBreton Flats. The Citizen, for example, offers good photo spreads and text. If you prefer original sources, here are the links to the two proposals. My … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (vii) see the details
