Ottawa has many defining characteristics. Some nice, some not so nice. This site has railed before on the abundance of signs festooning our streets. Even if there is just one parking spot in a bay, our fair city puts a sign up at each end, sometimes one in the middle, and puts up not one, but two bollards just in case the parked motorist mistakes the parking bay for a through lane. When redoing Somerset Street, each block has upwards of sixty signs ! Here’s a single-bay parking space on Somerset with X’s painted for the signs at each end, … Continue reading Winter Park, the city that doesn’t nag

I was curious about the residential “neighborhoods” that abut the thriving Winter park main street, so I spent a few hours walking up and down the residential streets. There were a lot of apartments, but not in highrises. Many were condos in the four to six storey range. Prices for waterfront condos start in the $200,000’s and go up. A three bedroom waterfront condo in a newish building was $350,000. There are numerous lakes in Winter Park, and the really big houses face the lake. ( The lake was really rough, which accounts for the angle of the picture) But … Continue reading Infill in Winter Park

Today a new website focussed on the history of Dalhousie Ward was launched: www.HistoricDalhousieWard.wordpress.com.  And yes, there is a Historic Dalhousie committee keeners can participate in. If interested, email me EricDarwin1@gmail.com. It will focus on the built history, the people who built it, and how we celebrate it, mourn it, or live it today. History is not old dead stuff. Or just about disappearing (or disappeared) buildings. It’s about people, what they built, and how that influences how the neighbourhood works and functions today. And much of the history in Dalhousie Ward is not that old. In the coming stories we will … Continue reading New Dalhousie website launched

Our streetcorners are frequently habitat to brightly coloured metal boxes dispensing a variety of advertising media and sometimes even purchased media. Sometimes I think the colour splat enlivens the city, particularly our spectacularly dull downtown. From time to time, someone tries to impose some order on the jumble of boxes by requiring users to rent box space from a standardized dispenser. This three pack doesn’t take up much room, but I question its architectural style (although the hoods may serve to make robbing the coin box more difficult):   Or this super-sized mono-box I saw in Toronto last year, which manages to … Continue reading Newspaper boxes

For sale signs proliferate in our residential areas. Typically, we think nothing of the signs. But they are big, blocky advertising signs helping to clutter our streets. I wonder if Ottawa regulates their size or placement? above: Does Chad Clost really need his name up there twice, and in different fonts? Are Ottawa home buyers so dumb they can’t recognize a bungalow from the street? I was surprised to find these, ah, more discreet signs while out of town: And no, that pic has not been photo-shopped. The sign really is that small. And it wasn’t just in one locality. I … Continue reading For Sale Signs

  Hole digging for a pedestrian tunnel entrance is well under way  as shown in the above picture. A large excavator has an extended arm on it to reach deep into the hole for the subterranean pedestrian passage. Notice the heavy steel pilings used to buttress the side walls of the hole, and cross braces so the sides won’t collapse inward onto the construction workers. This tunnel will be 800′ long, and costs 82 million dollars. All of which will be recovered by a user charge levied on passengers. Payback may be as short as three years. The private  consortium is building and … Continue reading Tunnel Construction well underway this week

Last month I expressed some concern about the change from the “as requested” design of the downtown stations to the “per the winning bid” design. See the post here: https://www.westsideaction.ca/confederation-matters-i/ I won’t repeat the pictures or the story here, as  you can briefly review the previous post. What prompts this review are some pictures taken last week at the Park Street MBTA station in Boston. This is on the red line (hint: red train,  red wall tiles and décor . They have renovated the station to add a glass window-enclosed elevator, and a similar-style guard station just out of the picture view, … Continue reading Confederation Matters – v