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

Ghost bikes.  Painted white, adorned with plastic flowers and teddy bears. Chained in situ where people who ride bikes come to a fatal end. A sobering reminder to others to drive carefully. Ghost pedestrians. Cut out 2-D manikins shaped like the walking figure on crosswalk signals. Reminders of the risk people who walk face everyday in a transportation environment skewed to favour people who drive cars. Another sobering reminder of how close death stalks everybody who dares walk in the motor-age. These memorials upset some people. Clutter, some say.  Hazards, say some. Creepy, opine others. Valuable reminders, chorus some. Hide … Continue reading Ghosts in the Transportation System

I got several inquiries about the pathways proposed for LeBreton Flats. Some of this is due to the mess during the temporary transitway shift over to Albert Street, which blocks the popular Albert multi-user path )MUP). And the aqueduct path was removed about two years ago for soil remediation north of the aqueduct. And the closure of Booth going to Gatineau left some users upset. So let’s review the current plans for pathways in the Flats and around Pimisi Station, now under construction. This plan comes to me via LS, a regular reader: now revised and updated (16 April):   … Continue reading Pathways of the Slippery Eel

  Ahh, spring thaw. And the puddles are here. Primarily located at crosswalks of course. They are of much less value elsewhere. The picture above isn’t unusual. And here is a cheap plastic post used to separate people who drive at high speeds from people walking to the transit stops at the temporarily relocated LeBreton transit Station: Salt and mud spray is the dejour fashion in Ottawa. I wonder if Nordstrom’s knows this cardinal rule of life in Canada’s Capital? Presumably those cheap posts separating people who walk from people who drive were of some value, since many of them … Continue reading Pedestrians, dumb as posts

With all the hoopla about exciting new developments on the west side of downtown Ottawa, we’ve lost some focus on the ongoing work in progress. Yes, the Phase I project by the NCC-Claridge partnership. Recall that the NCC and City chose the heights and courtyard arrangements; the NCC chose the materials and colour scheme and modern style; Claridge came up with the buildable designs. Not exactly beloved by drive-by architecture critics, there is now a substantial number of homes built and we are about 30% into the tripartite agreed-upon plan. But I gather it’s now nap time for Phase I … Continue reading Nap time on LeBreton Flats

I was standing on a Carlington area sidewalk when I felt a drip on my hat. Then another. I looked down and noticed I was standing on a damp spot on an otherwise dry sidewalk, far from any building to drip on me. Looking up — way way up — I spotted this lovely icicle dripping on me. A sapcicle. Ahh, late signs of spring. Continue reading Drip drip drip

The popular and over-crowded O-Train service became the N(o)-Train — again — on Friday. I’m beginning to think of this train service more in terms of “I wonder if it is running today” rather than than just suffering the occasional disappointment when it doesn’t. I can’t imagine life for those who want to use it every day, and depended on its presence when they made their choice of where to live or where to work and how to commute. I’m sure the unreliable service contributes to OC Transpo’s increased ridership numbers. It must be even more frustrating — when it … Continue reading N(o)-Train — why?

There is an app out there called Walk Score ,  which rates locations by accessibility by foot, transit, and bike. Their algorithm does take into account actual walking routes or walkable streets as opposed to simply drawing a radius around a point, since a radius may have unwalkable segments due to geography, large land uses, freeways, or most probably, a for-people-who-drive-only maze of traffic calming crescents and cul de sacs. A few days ago we saw how developers market their projects in Seattle, using transit advertising to grab transit users:   This sign is also from Seattle. It is a sidewalk … Continue reading Walk score

  What elements would make up Eric’s ideal bus stop? This one will get us nicely started.    It has a distinctive shape and colouring suitable for the place.   It doesn’t have glass walls, but in this location it didn’t need them much. In Ottawa, we’d need glass side walls. The roof provides sun and rain shelter. There’s a bench.  Off to the right, a working, clean water fountain, albeit without a doggy bowl at its base. Nice, decorative floor paving helps celebrate the sense of place. There’s a sturdy bulletin board and schedule display. A decorative (not chain link) … Continue reading Bus stop, bus stop (part ii)

Does it matter whether we have bus shelters or purpose built indoor transit station buildings along the LRT? When reporting here earlier about the extension of OTrain service to the Airport, I questioned the lack of “nice” stations along the route. The Confederation Line will have expensive-but-not-fancy stations; the Trillium line gets bus shelters. Will the quality of the stations influence users, for example, to choose Carleton vs Ottawa U for an education? Whether to wait for a train or take a cab to the airport? If given a list of transit service features, nice stations aren’t likely to be … Continue reading Bus stop Bus stop