infill, Primrose2 Comments

Lego build a house …

Westsideaction

This house looks like it is being built with Lego blocks. Located by the stairs connecting Primrose (lower) with Primrose (upper) and Upper Lorne Place, the infill lot is about eight feet above the Primrose street level. The house will be four stories high. The bottom floor, two stories down from Upper Lorne but “at grade” at Primrose, with be a studio — bedroom, room, kitchenette, bath — with its own exit on the Primrose side. The second floor will be bedrooms. The third floor, to be at grade with Lorne Street, will have the entry and a garage (yup, you park your car … Continue reading Lego build a house …

Booth St

Parallel paths in life and death

Westsideaction

  The two memorials shown are in Beechwood cemetery. Booth and Rochester were powerful early families in the city. The streets named after them are parallel, one block apart, on the city’s west side. The Booth tombstone is a list of children who died young. Wealth was no guarantor of life. Nor was wealth a guarantor that one’s tombstone would be maintained: the head is missing from the Rochester statue. Continue reading Parallel paths in life and death

Bronson7 Comments

Citizen’s take on Bronson

Westsideaction

Put Bronson on ‘road diet,’ city told Community groups spot chance to fix street in coming roadworks By Neco Cockburn, The Ottawa Citizen November 10, 2010 7:38 AM OTTAWA — Community advocates want the city to make Bronson Avenue safer and better-looking after it’s torn up to replace old sewers and water mains. The city’s most important north-south artery is jammed at rush hour, and often at other times, too. There’s not much room to widen it. And even if the city could, the extra traffic and noise and pollution would be bad news for pedestrians and nearby residents. Starting … Continue reading Citizen’s take on Bronson

Bronson6 Comments

Bronson vid

Westsideaction

Over on Spacing Ottawa they reprised the traffic video of Bronson at rush hour. Well worth watching the one minute video: http://spacingottawa.ca/2010/11/08/great-divide-the-reprise/ Trying to make a Better Bronson is not just the nefarious scheme of the radical wooly leftist elitist glebe-wanna-be’s, as some MSM might want you to believe. Look at the picture below. Recall that Bronson is supposed to be a typical mainstreet. You know, mix of houses, apartments, small businesses, useful to the community. Part of the house shown above was converted to doctor’s offices a few years ago. This city apparently didn’t notice. Oops, now they do. And there is … Continue reading Bronson vid

Bronson3 Comments

Generous sidewalks

Westsideaction

If the city is really serious about promoting pedestrian movement, there have to be decent and attractive sidewalks to move along. Providing feeble excuses for a sidewalk system; providing deteriorated, unpleasant concrete curb extensions, does not a sidewalk system make. In the photo above, the sidewalk only appears to be sacrificed for a utility pole and driveway … but in reality, the squeeze was caused by adding in another lane on the adjacent street. The car lane does not get narrowed. The above location is too narrow for the sidewalk plow in winter. It goes around, on the street, leaving a packed … Continue reading Generous sidewalks

Bronson, Uncategorized3 Comments

Bronson road diet idea heats up

Westsideaction

The idea of a road diet for Bronson is generating lots of interest around the city. Here’s a story from today’s Ottawa Sun story by Scott Taylor: http://www.ottawasun.com/news/ottawa/2010/11/07/16021031.html: “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, a community activist says, to do a makeover on Bronson Ave. that will appeal to motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. With the city planning to completely rebuild the major artery next spring, the time will never be better to beautify it. The problem Eric Darwin sees, though, is that nobody is really listening. “You take streets like Preston. It used to be four lanes and now it’s … Continue reading Bronson road diet idea heats up

Albert St, City Living

Mysterious construction

Westsideaction

Travellers along Albert west of Booth can justifiably be mystified by the construction project in front* of the Ottawa Community Housing project. The new wood fence constructed a year or two ago has been demolished and the gardens dug up. No ped detour is necessary, it seems. According to OCH, the problem is that the brick wall is on a concrete foundation. It isn’t very far out from the building foundations. Moisture gets trapped in the soil, saturates it, and cause leaks and mold in the housing. The amount and repetitiveness of repairs to these units has astounded me for … Continue reading Mysterious construction

Laurier Ave, streetscaping

A tree grows … on Laurier

Westsideaction

  While trees all around Ottawa are turning colours and dropping leaves, this paper birch in front of the Laurier Ave public library remains bright green and possessing all its leaves. For a few feet this bit of sidewalk seems to time travel back to summer time. Must be an alternate fantasy universe. I wish more landscape architects could find trees like this. We could extend the feel of summer until global warming finally gets here. Continue reading A tree grows … on Laurier

bike path, bikewest, cycling in Ottawa, cyclopiste de preston, Laurier Ave, Uncategorized4 Comments

Cycling routes – part of roads? or sidewalks? or all on their own?

Westsideaction

Timo Perala spoke at the CFSC agm on Tuesday evening. One point he made about cycling infrastructure in Oulu, Finland, got me thinking again about how cycling infrastructure should be regarded. In Copenhagen, cycling tracks are adjacent the curb, with parking lanes out closer to the traffic lanes. Cyclists cross intersections in two stages, like pedestrians, rather than in one left-turn movement like cars. This is the model Bedard liked after his trip to Copenhagen, and I earlier blogged about how I thought Vivi Chi liked this one too as it can be implemented consistently throughout an urban area. Although how she could fit this onto the freshly … Continue reading Cycling routes – part of roads? or sidewalks? or all on their own?

Preston street, streetscaping, Uncategorized, west wellington

Tidy peastone vs au naturel

Westsideaction

A number of cities keep peastone beds around trees in the sidewalk neat and tidy. Ottawa is not among them. Toronto and Vancouver are. The peastone shown above is glued down to a porous mat which is cut to shape for the tree well. Moisture runs in; weeds do not grow out. The stones stay in place. Wheelchairs and strollers roll right over them. Little boys are frustrated. Dogs continue to pee on them. Smokers find one less spot to dump their butts. These mats are commonly available at stores for use as a foot mat on your front doorstop. On the other hand, while … Continue reading Tidy peastone vs au naturel

Bronson, cycling in Ottawa, pedestrians, roads, sidewalks, streetscaping, Transit, Trees8 Comments

Public gets chance to Rescue Bronson

Westsideaction

  This flyer is making the rounds of the west side neighborhoods abutting Bronson Avenue. The above photoshopped illustration shows just ONE potential way to improve Bronson so that it meets the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, transit users, adjacent businesses and residents, as well as motorists and commuters. There are alternative ways to improve Bronson so that it makes more people happy. Anyone who travels on or across that blighted street knows that the 1950’s thinking that gave us the current “four lane” urban arterial didn’t work. Yet Ottawa seems on the way to fifty more years of a disfunctional … Continue reading Public gets chance to Rescue Bronson

sidewalks, streetscaping2 Comments

From Ugly Utility to Street Art

Westsideaction

Have you noticed the growing proliferation of utility boxes on our sidewalks? Our engineers call them street furniture, but they are truly obstructions that they don’t dare put on the roadways. Utility functions that used to be down a personhole are more and more often mounted on posts. Those little yellow boxes that used to hold traffic signal controls are now big gray cabinets 6′ high and 3-9 feet wide. And they are always put in the primest locations, at corners, in front of commercial storefronts, etc. I had the opportunity to look inside several utility boxes this summer. The giant gray ones along Preston … Continue reading From Ugly Utility to Street Art

design, intensificatioin4 Comments

Doppelganger

Westsideaction

  The suburbs get a bad rap for having endless rows of simlar houses. In fact, many streets in older areas such as the west side of the downtown also have clusters of similar if not identical houses in a row. But after 60 to 100 years, variety creeps in. I especially like spotting two or more identical/mirror image houses that have evolved very differently. Here’s a pair that tell tales about the socio-economic status of the inhabitants. Continue reading Doppelganger

Bronson, cycling in Ottawa, parking, sidewalks, Uncategorized17 Comments

Toronto road diet

Westsideaction

Christie Street in Toronto is painted in different configurations. The southern section is a typical urban arterial, like Bronson: four lanes squeezed into a tight right of way, traffic jostling for position and obviously unattractive to adjacent businesses and residents. The more northerly section has been repainted into a different configuration. There is a painted bike lane between the parking and the travelled road surface. The bike lane is tight up to cars, raising concerns about “the door prize”. Traffic flowed much more smoothly too, with no passing and less stress driving the street. Above: north of Davenport,  Christie is painted with two … Continue reading Toronto road diet

bike path, parking1 Comment

Unofficial signs that need to be official …

Westsideaction

If it was a “real” sign it would be mounted eight feet up in the air, pointed along the curb rather than parallel to it, and would be difficult and expensive to get installed. Instead, this private sign is conveniently mounted 3-4′ above the sidewalk, directly facing the car that might park illegally on the bike lane. In short, it’s actually useful. In this particular instance, there is a curb side bike lane and a popular restuarant adjacent. Legal on-street parking commences just a few metres further west, so motorists must try to “squeeze in” one last car and then block … Continue reading Unofficial signs that need to be official …

condos, infill, intensificatioin, Richmond road, Uncategorized, west wellington5 Comments

Our Lady of the Condos, more Archly

Westsideaction

The redevelopment of the Soeurs de la Visitation site on Richmond Road is a great opportunity for infill development and intensification. The City had the chance to buy the site for a park, and passed on it. An eight to twelve storey building along Richmond and 4-6 storey buildings behind it is appropriate. Some aspects of the current design are not my first choice, but then I am not building it. Previous posts featured the Rowe’s Wharf project in Boston. See  http://westsideaction.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/our-lady-of-the-condos-archly/ I thought it was a good inspiration for the Richmond facade of the project here in Ottawa. I like the idea of keeping the convent “cloistered”, ie … Continue reading Our Lady of the Condos, more Archly

condos, intensificatioin, streetscaping, Uncategorized

Elegant sidewalk treatment

Westsideaction

The sidewalk treatment shown above is in front of the two Hudson condo towers by Charlesfort. In the foreground the smooth concrete band marks the public sidewalk. The brick paver area may be private property, or may be public (note the lamppost) but in any case it provides a pleasant widening on the corner. The pattern is simple yet dynamic and intriguing. The eye follows the curving lines to the edge of the installation and tries to extend it beyond. The pattern must also work when seen from above, as the condo towers are about 18 stories high. This bit of … Continue reading Elegant sidewalk treatment

parks, plant recreation centre, Plouffe Park2 Comments

Pruning thoughts

Westsideaction

City maintenance crews have been busy in our west side neighborhood. This is the pruning done on the west side of Plouffe Park, behind the Plant recreation complex. I am always alarmed at the “shave it off at the ground level” style of pruning. It just seems an awful lot of green material to hack off and toss away. A similar pruning took place around the Plant Bath building itself, but not so close cut. Yesterday, the crews were gathering huge heaps of green branches into piles at Primrose Park. Continue reading Pruning thoughts