infill2 Comments

Moving Toward Goal-oriented Infill (part iii)

Westsideaction

In the first part of this series, we looked at the current model of infill and intensification. By emphasizing compatibility and incremental change, it is supposed to mollify the neighbours. If there are few infills in a neighborhood, this might work (ie, the rest of the neighborhood is economical to keep as it is). In other neighborhoods, with the passage of time, and by dint of many infills and evolution, the finished result is a changed neighborhood that has lots of minimally useful side yards, mostly paved and definitely un-green back “yards”, and too often lots of front yard parking too. Cars dominate … Continue reading Moving Toward Goal-oriented Infill (part iii)

infill, intensificatioin, Uncategorized5 Comments

Moving beyond compatible intensification and infill (part ii)

Westsideaction

Neighborhoods come and go in trendiness. A trendy location in Copenhagen is the “potato fields” area, Kartoffelraekkerne. The former working housing, consisting of three storey flats, is now very popular with those whom Richard Florida would label the “creative class” (including architects, professors, planners). Of course, 1880’s worker housing doesn’t meet modern needs, so the creative types have kit bashed the three flats per building into three storey townhouses. While this is 1880’s style, and not what we expect to find in Ottawa, I am impressed by the attractiveness of the long uniform rows along the streets. There are no garages or … Continue reading Moving beyond compatible intensification and infill (part ii)

design, infill, intensificatioin12 Comments

Moving Beyond Compatible Infill and Intensification (part i)

Westsideaction

“It’s just not compatible with this neighborhood !” — so goes the cry heard every day in our fair city. It goes up whether the proposal is for a single infill house, or worse a semi, or even worse, a townhouse cluster or innovative pod of housing units. And then it becomes a banshee wail when the intensification is for an apartment building. Strangely enough, the cries are usually preceded by a faux-conciliatory “I’m all in favour of intensification but …”  We all have no doubt that the objections have nothing to do with the purely coincidental proximity of the project to the … Continue reading Moving Beyond Compatible Infill and Intensification (part i)

parking, pedestrians

How shoppers get to Preston Street

Westsideaction

A few days ago, I posted some info from the Wellington West BIA about how people get to their shops. The results were interesting to readers, including some city planners who contacted me on how to get the source info. A reader sends me this quote: [and note that at this point the street had undergone but not totally finished three years of muck and mud and noise of reconstruction, including reconstructing the sidewalks][and note also that this is a survey of local area residents, not of all the people found on the street, as was the WWBIA survey, which will account … Continue reading How shoppers get to Preston Street

design10 Comments

Cow Plats in the Pasture

Westsideaction

So, PWGSC held the long-awaited open house to reveal the two schemes for the cubicle farm at Tunney’s Pasture. It would be hard to imagine a worse letdown. First, the event site was unmarked from the outside; the sidewalk along Tunney’s Drive was scattered with people wondering where the event was. Once up the incredibly hostile “entry” to the Jean Talon building, with its angular steps, brutal walls, and concealed floral beds; it was into a very unwelcoming dark lobby. Have these guys ever taken energy saving to the hilt — please, someone, buy them some lightbulbs! The display room was similarly … Continue reading Cow Plats in the Pasture

Chinatown, little Italy, Richmond road, somerset street, west wellington9 Comments

Main street’s modal split

Westsideaction

Annie Hillis of the West Wellington BIA (WWBIA) sent me the following data. They conducted a four-day survey in June, asking 830 people found along their typical older-city main street how they came to the street, their post code, and their shopping habits. The WWBIA main street runs roughly from Bayswater westwards along Somerset & West Wellington to Island Park. The modal split numbers surprised me.  Forty six percent of those found along the street got there by walking; 26% by car; 13% by bike; twelve percent by bus (numbers throughout this story are rounded off). Only 26% by car? That’s pretty low. And … Continue reading Main street’s modal split

801 Albert, pedestrians11 Comments

Free advice, worth every penny

Westsideaction

On Tuesday I spoke to Planning Committee about the 801 Albert project. Here is what I said:  My name is Eric Darwin and I am here on behalf of the local Dalhousie Community Association. I want to draw your attention to how we access the building. In the past, most tall buildings were downtown; pedestrians used the existing sidewalks; motorists used the existing roads. Outside the downtown, new developments had a traffic impact study that focused on road traffic, as most people came and went by car. This traffic impact study looked at accessing the site and at impacts several … Continue reading Free advice, worth every penny

DOTT, LRT, O-Train, oc Transpo, OLRT16 Comments

Shake the planning etch-a-sketch: Build that LRT to Orleans, and charge them for it

Westsideaction

Let’s shake the planning etch-a-sketch by building that LRT out to Orleans right now.  And charging them for it. The Sinkhole Incident on Hwy 174 has high lighted the lack of access to the former St Joseph d’Orleans. And its not just the lack of road access, it’s the lack of alternatives. If the sink hole happened on the road to Kanata, there are more alternative routes. The higher road capacity pushes off the breakeven point for extending LRT to Kanata. And remember, the nearest point of Kanata is further away than the farthest point in Orleans*. In this road shortage situation, Orleans … Continue reading Shake the planning etch-a-sketch: Build that LRT to Orleans, and charge them for it

801 Albert, OLRT, pedestrians, sidewalks8 Comments

Will Council give equal space to pedestrians?

Westsideaction

The City engineers have  voluminous tables of how much space to allocate to motorists. They use these all the time, requiring developers to provide turn lanes, traffic signals, and road widenings, at the developer’s expense, as a required part of the building approval process. Yet we are seeing more and more new buildings with minimal parking, which means lots of dependence on pedestrian access to the building. These people have to move to and from the building on the sidewalks. Yet I don’t recall the approvals of the new high rises on Parkdale, or Preston, or Carling, or anywhere else, getting into the … Continue reading Will Council give equal space to pedestrians?

cycling in Ottawa6 Comments

Cyclists don’t shop, I guess

Westsideaction

I’ve had occasion to cycle up to the Rideau Centre several times in the last two weeks. I noticed that there is exactly one small bike rack, on the south side, by DND. It’s not attractive for me to use because a)it’s already full, b) it’s on the far south of the street, and the bike lane is in the middle, so I’d have to cross the bus lanes, park, then cross both sets of lanes again. This is long and boring and slightly dangerous. On the north side, close by the mall: nothing. And this is on a busy … Continue reading Cyclists don’t shop, I guess

cycling in Ottawa, O-Train4 Comments

Update on the OTrain MUP

Westsideaction

What has happened in the  two weeks since worked started on the new multi-user path (aka MUP, or bike path) running from the Macdonald Parkway by the Prince of Wales Railway Bridge south to Bayview Station, behind City Centre Building, to the new underpass under Somerset Street? (First post can be read at http://westsideaction.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/construction-on-new-west-side-bike-path-begins/ ). From the Macdonald Parkway viewpoint by the Ottawa River, not much has changed in two weeks. Most of the work has been going on south of the Parkway, towards Bayview Station. The contractor graded an alignment for the path, here seen looking north from Bayview Station towards the River: Most of … Continue reading Update on the OTrain MUP

bike path, cycling in Ottawa

California Dreamin’: Palo Alto bike boulevards

Westsideaction

The City of Palo Alto is not far from San Francisco, in Silicon Valley. It is a university and hi tech town, with lots of cycling and cyclists. There are a number of factors that make it attractive to cycle: short-ish distances, a dappled shade on the streets from the overhead tree canopy [to be contrasted in a few posts with the San Jose non-canopy], and their bike boulevards. Bike boulevards or neighborhood greenways are rather different from Ottawa designated bike routes. In Ottawa, the green sign goes up, and most of the time, nothing else changes. It’s merely a recommended route. As … Continue reading California Dreamin’: Palo Alto bike boulevards

Uncategorized1 Comment

Waste not, want not

Westsideaction

Andy Haydon park has a nice kids waterplay feature, a leftover from the Nepean days, the sort of admirable and interactive play structure Ottawa’s park planners love to avoid. I suspect that as bits wear out they won’t be replaced with like, but the play structure will diminish until it ceases to exist. It’s called maintenance. Adjacent the structure is a public washroom building. It has outside showers, presumably to hose off the little tykes who get their pants loaded with wet sand from the play structure. The showers have been running full tilt, for quite some time /for months /all summer, with muddy soggy … Continue reading Waste not, want not

Chinatown, somerset street, streetscaping4 Comments

Just look down: Adventures in the Chinese Zodiac

Westsideaction

Pedestrians on the newly redone bit of Somerset in Chinatown between Booth and Preston are in for a real treat. The sidewalk is paved in blocky precast concrete squares with a textured surface finish. For some time, walkers may have noticed some squares marked out like this: These red dots marked where a few blocks were to be removed and replaced by a same size granite square inscribed with a shallow bas relief of a stylized Asian zodiac animal. These make the street great fun to walk with kids, and amusing for adults too. The zodiac is repeated four times: twice on the … Continue reading Just look down: Adventures in the Chinese Zodiac

Nature6 Comments

Paying Attention to Benjamin / Franklin

Westsideaction

Innocently cycling along the Macdonald Parkway pathway, I came across this: Upon closer inspection, s/he proved to be alive, kicking, and ready to move. As s/he was headed towards the Macdonald Commuter Expressway, I took it instead down the slope to the shoreline and left it a few feet from the water. For those gentle readers suffering from pathetic fallacy * , do not read on. “Rescuing” Benjamin (or Franklin, depending in which language you read kids books) made up a bit for something that has bothered me for months. Driving on the freeway out of Boston, we saw a giant turtle on … Continue reading Paying Attention to Benjamin / Franklin

Uncategorized3 Comments

Construction on new west-side bike path begins

Westsideaction

Survey crews were out in force on Monday marking the route of the new north-south multi-user path (MUP in planner jargon; bike path to the rest of us mortals). The path parallels the OTrain corridor on its east side. It starts at the Macdonald Parkway (aka Ottawa River Commuter Expressway) by the historic Prince of Wales railway bridge and runs south through Bayview Station, through the new tunnel under the Somerset Street viaduct, and further south to cross Gladstone. The section from Gladstone to Young runs behind the St Anthony Soccer Club parking lot and under the Queensway, where construction work … Continue reading Construction on new west-side bike path begins

parking2 Comments

A new-look turfstone

Westsideaction

Back in the 80’s a hot landscaping approach was turfstone. Originated in Germany, it used perforated concrete paver blocks, rather like egg cartons, to provide both a driveable surface and one that would be green with grass growing up through it. The experiment had mixed results. The City insisted that since these were drivable surfaces, they had to go on gravel road bed and the spaces in the grid filled with gravel. Grass was then supposed to grow on this road base. The concrete pavers exposed a lot of top surface to the sun and air, which wicked the moisture … Continue reading A new-look turfstone

cycling in Ottawa, pedestrians, Preston street4 Comments

Lazy Parker

Westsideaction

etc The utter selfishness and laziness of people continues to astound me. We have previously seen pic on this blog of people who park on the sidewalk in front of their destination instead of parking a few feet further on in a vacant legal parking space. In the case shown above, there are several vacant parking spaces in front of the subject vehicle. Nonetheless, (s)he parked with tail end sticking out onto the street. And then turned on the car flashers to alert everyone that the vehicle was where it shouldn’t have been. Fortunately, a traffic officer went by in the … Continue reading Lazy Parker

cycling in Ottawa, downtown, Laurier Ave1 Comment

Digging up the Laurier SBL

Westsideaction

Cyclists on the Laurier separated bike lane (SBL) should have noticed some discrete trenching going on in the lane. Apparently using a saw blade, a narrow trench is being cut along the curb that separates the lane from other traffic: The work is being done at night, so trench itself constitutes the evidence. Every so often, there is another cut at right angles, going towards an adjacent building. To keep debris out of the trench until the cables can be installed, a plastic cap is put on: The  fibre optics cable that is being installed by Globility (Primus) and they have pretty much  finished their work on Laurier … Continue reading Digging up the Laurier SBL

condos, design, hintonburg, intensificatioin, LeBreton Flats, LRT, OLRT, ottawa river, Richmond road, Toronto1 Comment

Distilling Our Lady of the Condos – part ii

Westsideaction

Last winter, Domtar knocked down an elderly mill building on the Islands in the Ottawa River. Great consternation arose, as they did it Without Consulting the Bureaucrats. Priceless heritage lost! Like a dog with a bone, the media and planning pundits worried about the lost potential for a vibrant outdoorsy urban waterfront à la Granville Island or The Distillery in Toronto. Few people seemed to notice that Victoria Island is one of the windiest, coldest, bleakest spots in Ottawa, a far remove from sunny* Granville Island or the spirits factory in Toronto. Numerous calls were made for the Distillery Folks to come to … Continue reading Distilling Our Lady of the Condos – part ii

Bank Street, condos, design, downtown, intensificatioin9 Comments

When condos replace offices …

Westsideaction

Vancouver has been “enjoying” a condo tower boom for some years. Early on in the boom, the demand for condos was so hot that existing office buildings were converted to condos. For example, the iconic BC Hydro building (the highrise with no ground floor) was converted. Critics began to speculate that residences would drive commercial uses right off the prime peninsula space, an interesting reversal of the usual community activist nightmare of expanding commercial uses driving out the residential uses around the core. Apartment towers differ from townhouse developments in Barrhaven and Riverside South in that the towers stick up in … Continue reading When condos replace offices …