I surprised and pleased to hear Hizzoner Jim Watson actually mention the Prince of Wales railway bridge on Thursday. And in the same breath, to mention rail transit on it. Of course, you and I and everyone else knows it … Continue reading Watson lets Prince of Wales slip his tongue
I continue to be curious about how much / little parking a stadium or arena can get away with. The shuttle parking at Lansdowne seems to work well, although I dunno if it runs for non-sport events. And that large … Continue reading Stadium / Arena parking revisited
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
IF one of the proponents in the NCC’s current game of Who Can Build the Flats constructs an Arena or similar multi-function space, could it be 100% accessed only by transit? It would of course be quite a risk to … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (v) – How Quickly can you Drain the Sens Arena?
Both submissions to rebuild the last portion of LeBreton Flats include sport arenas, and I expect both will include a new central library. This is both for marketing purposes, ie broadening the appeal of the project to cover both stereotypical … Continue reading LeBetter Flats countown (iii) – libraries and “culture”
Just over a week to go before the NCC unveils its latest master plan(s) for the LeBreton Flats area. I’ve lost count how many trial balloons, concept plans, master plans, and other schemes have come and gone over the decades. Here’s a 1973 one with sunken freeway, two subways, bus platforms, a megabuilding (including space marked library) over top, and a forest of looming highrises in the core:. Over the years, this website has had a number of articles on LeBreton Flats. Some are worth reviewing. Last January, we compared Portland’s South Waterfront redevelopment area to LeBreton: South Waterfront is … Continue reading LeBetter Flats countown (i)
The temporary LeBreton transit station requires many transferring people and station walk-ins to cross one or more intersections. Some of the crossings, or repeated crossings, are because the city was too cheap to provide sidewalks even paved shoulders on both … Continue reading Contempt for Pedestrians at Transit Station and some Unworthy thoughts as to how it came to be that way
Fences, fences, everywhere a fence ! IF it’s not a song yet, it should be ! But I’m not sitting on one, there is no doubt in my mind that these fences are trouble. It is truly amazing the City (or is it RTG) spending so heavily on fences along Albert and Scott. These ones, along Scott, are wooden … … to keep the salt and slush from splashing on the houses when the 2500 buses a day go crusin’ by. They will also block some of the residential views of the bus lanes, albeit at the price of a … Continue reading Fences Fences Everywhere a Fence
People who drive westwards from the downtown using Albert and then Scott have big flashing traffic signs, painted arrows, and scrupulously scraped bare pavement. While the lane markings are new, the learning curve should be short. My only bugbear on this so far is the sudden merge of the two westbound traffic lanes around Brickhill Street (just before Good Companions). People who cycle and people who walk face some more challenges. To RTG’s credit a few small ped directional signs have appeared near Bayview Station. So maybe it is worthwhile to follow the route for people who walk or cycle … Continue reading Navigating Albert-Scott (westbound)
The City has decided some time ago not to engage transit users for feedback on the design and use of its new LRT vehicles and stations. Instead, users are stuck until they can “try out” a PR model of the new trains, or watch PR Videos cheerleading the project. At Lansdowne Park, a mock-up LRT vehicle reveals numerous shortcomings, from entanglement points, very hard seats, to the lack of footroom at some seats that will make winter riding uncomfortable and exiting the window seats acrobatic enough to challenge cirque de soleil performers. It’s a shame these details are coming … Continue reading Ottawa’s LRT: Sifting Commercials for Info
The Cleary Avenue end of the western LRT and motor expressway corridor is shown here: The westbound trains enter the picture from the right, along the orange line. Cleary Station is shown in dark blue. The Unitarian Church and apartment building is shown a bit further west (left). The underground track alignment swings gently under the Unitarian parking lot to get out towards its (under) Richmond Road alignment. The swing out to Richmond will occur under a car repair shop and/or Kristy’s restaurant. These businesses will not remain in place during construction. Since dig-the-ditch-and-cover construction won’t start until 2017 … Continue reading Westward Ho ! (part iii) the curse of stations and transit users
Seattle appeared to have local bus services (blue) as well as express ones (red) that ran with more limited stops between neighbourhoods. These Rapid routes made it easier to go long distances in a very spread out city (remember, most of its growth has been in the automobile era, and thus is sprawly). The Rapid routes had their own bus stops, with distinctive red branding. Electronic boards informed passengers when the next buses would arrive, and their destinations. The yellow box on the post is a fare card reader. In Ottawa, we buy a certain amount of time on the … Continue reading Bus stop; Bus stop, part iv: Seattle rapid transit bus stops
Readers of yesterday’s story might get the impression I was unenthused about the design of the Preston extension and LeBreton temporary transit station. You’d be right. Now we all know it snows in Ottawa. Sometimes a lot. So I am sure the planning boffins ran their fingers over the paved road shoulder “sidewalks” and the platforms at LeBreton Station and the walking required to get from platform to platform, or neighbourhood to platform. And then imagined how they could be plowed. And then coordinated with the snow plow folks to ensure the stations and their access were plowed early, plowed … Continue reading Rare unplanned-for-event at the transit station …
Yesterday, we looked at the car-first infrastructure at the Lyon LRT station entrance. Money appears to be available to spend on cars, but not pedestrians, even when building transit infrastructure. This save-a-penny attitude, when it comes to pedestrians, prevails in the city’s rail implementation office. Down on the Flats, Preston was recently extended out to the War Museum. The extension is temporary. It is wise to be frugal when building throw-away infrastructure, as this road will be rolled up and trashed in two years. But the penny pinching didn’t include narrower car lanes. No siree, they are full width, and the … Continue reading Temporary transit station puts cars first, part 2
Too often I cringe in dismay at the 99% motorist-focus of our planning and engineering staff. Do [m]any of the staff and consultants working on the LRT stations actually use transit? I have been known to cause moments of embarrassment by asking at an OTrain planning meeting if any staff present have actually ridden the train. [answer: rarely]. It’s quite easy to tell the station planners don’t walk to stations. Ever. Or take transit to work anywhere else, for that matter. Here’s a small example of how even when building and designing a state-of-the-art rapid transit system (ie, the Confederation … Continue reading Fostering transit by catering to cars (part 1)
The South Waterfront neighbourhood is very well landscaped. Intensively landscaped, with interesting bits of planters, plants, gardens, courtyards, and squares tucked into the smallest corners. The contrast to Ottawa’s LeBreton Flats couldn’t be stronger. Some of this may be due to a milder climate in Oregon. Or a project that has had vegetation in the ground and growing for longer. Or maybe a much more generous budget for greenery. The Flats look good on paper, and on the ground the “right elements” are laid out, but the execution makes me wince and thus far is poorly maintained. The City has … Continue reading Building a Better LeBreton, part 9, Walking Portland’s SouthWaterfront streets
Portland, Oregon, is often referred to as a city that has gone further with “Smart Growth” than other cities. It promotes transit by train, streetcar, bike, and aerial tram. It has numerous award winning downtown parks and redevelopment sites. IMO, its planning reputation and branding sometimes exceeds its delivery. One site in particular is comparable to LeBreton Flats in terms of location (just outside the downtown core, on former industrial lands), although Portland’s South Waterfront is twice the area (402 acres vs NCC’s <200 acres). Portland’s has room to expand as it takes over adjacent industrial users; the NCC’s site … Continue reading Building LeBetter Flats, part 7, the view from Portland
If all that overindulgence in food and sweets still permits, recall the story a short while ago about the Senators moving to LeBreton Flats. https://www.westsideaction.ca/lebetter-flats-part-3-senators-go-marching/ As I pointed out then, it makes much more sense for a new hockey palace to go west of Preston rather than close to Booth. Reasons? It would be adjacent the major station (Bayview) where the east-west Confederation Line crosses the north-south Trillium line (formerly known as the OTrain). The Prince of Wales former railway bridge over to Gatineau is supposed to have a cantilevered bike and ped path on it by 2018, according to our … Continue reading Building LeBetter Flats, part 6, The Sens again, with Plan B
The projected build out of Albert and Chaudiere Islands * starts with the material already at hand, ie the existing buildings. The former brick and stone mill buildings will be converted to commercial uses, starting in 2015. These offer the quickest revenue opportunity for the developer, Windmill, and I imagine it is much easier to attract firms rather than condo residents. Particularly hi-tech-y firms which show a propensity to edgy industrial sites in other cities in part due to their often young employee age group and non-conventional self-image. The first buildings to be converted will most likely be on Albert … Continue reading Building LeBetter Flats, part 5, The Isles
That the general public’s view of the current LeBreton build out is less than unenthusiastic is beyond dispute. What is unsetting is how uninformed those views are since they are the too often the product of drive-by planning. As shown in Part 1 of Building LeBetter Flats, actually walking the site, even with landscaping only partially done, yields a much better experience. More amazing is the quick public grab onto the proposed project by Windmill Developments for the adjacent islands in the Ottawa River and the Gatineau shoreline. It will be wonderful *, more like the magic Distillery District in … Continue reading Building LeBetter Flats, part 4, Distillery & the Isles
I hear that the NCC’s proposal call for the next phase of building the Flats was carefully worded to not exclude a major stadium as a land use*. While we may think the current Canadian Tire Place is still “new”, it is ageing. Apparently major arenas and rinks often only have a 30 year or so lifespan before they are functionally obsolete suboptimal. Built in 1993 as the Palladium, it will be 30 years old in 2023. So its not too soon (according to stadium aficionados) to be investigating a new stadium. And that requires a site. The Flats are … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (part 3): when the Senators go marching in …
The existing development of the Flats now underway, could have been better. Today, let’s look at a number of obvious “misses”. Then, in subsequent days, we’ll look at Windmill’s The Isles.ca project; then what could go on the next phase of the Flats; and then what another city, somewhat renowed for its planning, did with their urban industrial conversion to new urbanist mecca (with lots of pictures….). The NCC and City actually get along, sometimes. Other times, they are competitive. Even spiteful. The City was not in a good mood when it hammered out a development deal with the NCC … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (part 2) Some obvious misses …
The NCC’s current LeBreton Flats project comes in for a lot of criticism. I think it’s mostly drive-by criticism, with all the scatter gun impreciseness and alienation implied by the term. For some time now I ask people criticizing the yellow brick buildings on the Flats if they have actually walked around them. Naah. Couldn’t bother. We even had a prominent real estate developer criticize them at at community planning meeting and He hadn’t actually been out there. Talk about shoot from the lip. Here’s some pictures that show the buildings from the street and the grounds, but not from … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (part 1) Yellow, Brown … silver too
Last night the NCC held an open house to unveil 3 concepts for landscaping the Beirut Bagdad Syrian war zone post-apocalyptic landscape in downtown Ottawa on the south side of the Parkway between Vimy Private (the War Museum entrance road) and Claridge’s condos on LeBreton Flats. It has long been a puzzle to WSA regulars as to why bureaucrats think people would rush to buy homes with such dismal surroundings. So the new NCC, with new Leadership, responding to criticism (not least of which came from their bosses up on the Hill) of the desolate lands, announced a few weeks ago … Continue reading Three temporary landscapes on the Flats
While trotting out to Bayview Station recently I noticed these tread tracks in the snow, leading out toward the Macdonald Commuter Expressway. Barely visible in the distance is one of those soil sample hole drillers that we have seen so frequently in past years along the LRT route. These aren’t cheap engineering exercises, which lead me to wonder what someone might be planning out there beside the popular new OTrain bike path. Continue reading Planning for something
