Images of Centretown

Thunder and snow

2012-01-30T12:00:00.004-05:00

Just over a decade ago, the National Aboriginal Veterans Monument was unveiled at Confederation Park, across from the Lord Elgin Hotel on Elgin Street. After a recent storm, snow covered the wings of the golden eagle, (representing the mythical Thunderbird).

I remember watching the monument being installed. For a number of months before the opening, the big square rock on which the statue is mounted sat on its own. Finally, a statue appeared and it made a lot more sense.

Snow also means winter, which in Ottawa means Winterlude. Confederation Park is one of the primary sites for Winterlude, and the Lord Elgin already has its banner up promoting the event. There's also a trailer for a vendor to set up a waffle tent during Winterlude. The timing couldn't be better, as local blog Apartment613 has been fuelling interest in local waffles.

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CfSC's winter parade

2012-01-27T12:00:00.001-05:00

This past Sunday, Citizens for Safe Cycling organized Ottawa's first winter bike parade. Many others have posted their photos and writeups already, and I've put links to those at the end of this post.

The cyclists gathered at the snowed-over community garden along Laurier at Percy Street. It was encouraging just getting there, as there were three other cyclists in the bike lane on Bay Street as I was heading up.

Dick Louch, who organized this year's Capital Vélo Fest, was there, with his helmet decorated with a spine of bright orange zip ties:

After some brief words by CfSC President Hans Moor, the group crossed the street and headed down the Laurier Segregated Bicycle Lanes. There were cyclists of all ages there.

The crowd was so big--40 to 50 people--that the traffic lights split us into two or three peletons. If you click on this photo and look at it full size, you can see another group of cyclists in the distance ahead of this group.

Because the bike lane is only 1.1 km long, we turned around at Elgin Street, most people diligently dismounting and walking their bike across the crosswalk.

This is no Critical Mass ride--everyone obeyed the rules of the road, and stopped at red lights. You can see one peleton ahead of Ken, here, of Bikeview.ca, and another even further in the distance. (Our cameras got the better of us and we were held back with the stragglers).

Then, at Bronson, we crossed the street again and headed back down. The leaders of the pack made a point of waiting for most people to cross before heading down the hill, giving me ample time to set up some good photos!

We ended at City Hall, took many group shots (including the one at the top of the post), then headed inside for cookies and apple cider, provided by CfSC and Councillors Hobbs, Wilkinson, and Fleury. There were also many brochures, including Cycling 365--with tips on winter cycling--and the new 2011/2012 Ottawa Cycling Map!

Dick Louch also had a poster up advertising the lineup for this summer's Capital Vélo Fest, the highlights of which were profiled Wednesday on the Citizen Cycle blog.

In the meantime, this doesn't need to be your bike in winter! Much of the time, the roads are dry and the cold is bearable! 50 Ottawa cyclists can't be wrong!

Other writeups of the parade are at the Urban Commuter blog, which is similar to the writeup on the CfSC website. CfSC has a Flickr photostream, and the Ottawa Citizen has also posted its own photos and a video.

Two minutes in the snow

2012-01-25T12:00:00.001-05:00

The day after a big snowstorm, the city's winter overnight parking restriction is lifted, but there's still lots of snow on the side streets that needs to be pushed aside. Already narrowed by the previous storm's snowbanks, parked cars make the streets awfully narrow. Gilmour, seen here just east of Bay Street, is a one-way street, but even on the two-way streets east of Elgin opposing cars have to pull over to allow each other to pass.

The snowplow above was already stopped when I got there at 2:46 p.m., and two minutes later, it was almost done manoeuvring around that first car. Despite the size of the machine, the grader operator delicately cleared the snow around the car.

Now he just needs to get past the rest of the cars on the block!

Uppertown Winter Walk

2012-01-23T12:00:00.001-05:00

On the same day I took photos of the Temporary Building, I took a lot of other photos, despite the frigid cold freezing my batteries. For all the talk of snow clearing on Laurier, this path (for pedestrians) between the Supreme Court and Library and Archives Canada was a lot clearer than many other sidewalks.

The Temporary building (a.k.a. the Justice Annex) is in the background on the left, with its white wooden siding removed.

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179 Waverley fire

2012-01-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

Last Monday as my lunch hour was running out, three fire trucks went past where I was eating on Elgin, and chatter on Twitter made it clear that there was a two-alarm fire on Waverley.

By the time I got down there, the fire was out and things were wrapping up.

Luckily there were no injuries in this two-alarm fire at 179 Waverley, though there is significant damage to the house. It would appear that the house next door, barely a foot away, was unscathed.

Power was still out on the block, and two Ottawa Hydro trucks at Cartier and Waverley were working on that.

It seems more common to hear firetrucks race by in the winter, but thankfully most of the incidents they're responding to aren't as severe as this one was. Be careful about how you keep your house warm, and make sure to check your fire alarm regularly!

Imminently, Temporary to be "formerly" permanently

2012-01-18T12:00:00.001-05:00

I figured a tongue-twister would be a good follow-up to the previous post on the subject of an eye-twister. The demolition order was issued last week, and work has begun with removal of the trim and siding.

Incidentally, this street is called "Vittoria", a name that long predates the current federal buildings surrounding it.

Links to more details on this building are in the post from last month, Temporary Eyetwister.

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Rideau Canal Skateway now open for the 2012 season!

2012-01-16T12:00:00.014-05:00

The Rideau Canal skateway opened at 10am on Sunday morning, with the NCC announcing it just an hour before. The rest area at Fifth Avenue/Holmwood is picture-perfect, with a fresh layer of snow on the evergreens. The ice is so glassy smooth that you can see the canal amenities reflected in it!

Of course, no NCC event would be complete without a hokey media event. Two of the official Winterlude mascots, the Ice Hogs, were out on the ice behind the speaker at the podium (as captured hugging adorably in a photo by CBC reporter Alistair Steele via Twitter). One of them climbed the stairs to raise the green flag, making the opening official. (Unfortunately my photo is from a bad angle to see the flag, again, but Steele got a good photo of that, too)

If it weren't for Twitter, I don't think anybody would get a chance to see this announcement, because in the Monday paper, photos of actual people skating does a much better job of conveying the message "the canal is open for public skating" than a photo of an NCC spokesperson saying as much. Case in point, there's no trace of the media event in the Ottawa Citizen's photoset. While waiting for the press spiel to start, this cameraman took the opportunity to take such footage.

The brunt of the hard work--duly acknowledged in the announcement--goes to the crews that work day and night preparing the ice for public use. Here's one crew near Immaculata High School flooding the ice last weekend:

The great thing about the canal is that it's open 24/7 (not including the chalets, bathrooms and vendors, which close at 10pm if I recall correctly). Obviously you can't skate on it when it's being flooded in the middle of the night, but even then they don't often flood the whole canal at once.

So conversely, the great thing about opening day is that nobody's been on it yet. With the weather having been at 20 below since Friday night, lots of neat things happen to the ice, like these crystals. I can't tell if these are snowflakes that fell and melted into the ice, or if they are crystals that grew from the moisture in the air freezing. Either way, they were pretty cool. They were about a centimetre across.

At -20C at ground level, I can only imagine how cold it must have been in this Sun balloon, despite the hot air:

One of the big new things this year is the set of new chalets, whose price tag has caused a bit of a hullabaloo. The previous chalets (which you can see in some of my previous posts with the canal label) were built over 40 years ago, dating from the early years of the canal being officially open as a skateway. These new ones, as with the old ones, need to be lifted from a crane and placed on trailers for transport to and from the canal twice a year. These have been designed to last at least 35 years with one million people passing through their doors each year. Only a few hours after the NCC sent out the word that the canal would be open today, the new chalets were already getting good use:

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, they need to leave visitors to Ottawa with a good impression. Many people look to stylish facilities in other cities as examples of how dull Ottawa is, and these new chalets are a nice push back at that notion. Because they are fully accessible, they can be enjoyed by everyone, with no fee to use them. Where the old chalets had a narrow band of windows at the top, these have a whole face of windows to watch what's going on out there when you're inside warming up.

There are seven chalets in total, four change chalets and three for washrooms (only the one is in the section of canal currently open). They were designed by the firm of Anthony Leaning, who came along for the opening ceremonies and posed for a photo.

The canal is open for a 2.2 km stretch from Pretoria Bridge down to the Bank Street bridge (not including Patterson Creek), and other sections should open up in the coming days as they are made thick enough and readied for use, with the full 7.8 kilometres likely to be open by Winterlude. As in previous years, the National Portrait Gallery has installed some pieces under the Bank Street bridge, but new this year is that they're up at the start of the skating season. All ten are themed on the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.

Skating on the Rideau Canal is a 42-year-old tradition that is the highlight of winter in Ottawa. So lace up your skates, bundle up, get out there, and have fun!

Ottawa pedestrian advocates, unite!

2012-01-11T12:00:00.002-05:00

This evening, pedestrian advocates from across the city will meet at City Hall to get a group for Ottawa pedestrians on its feet. In recent years, frustrations about walkability have grown in the absence of a common venue for people across the city to come together to draw attention to pedestrian issues or push for the implementation of the Ottawa Pedestrian Plan.

Somerset Ward Councillor Diane Holmes (note: I work in her office) has decided it's time to bring these people together so they can organize themselves into a group that will speak out in unison about the barriers to walkability across the city.

There are big problems and little problems all across the city, and systemic problems that transcend individual communities. One problem is illustrated above at the Corktown Footbridge (my favourite bridge): even though it was built specifically for pedestrian use, the steps are blocked off to actively prevent pedestrian use in the winter. Both functionally and aesthetically, the barricades--which clearly weren't part of the original concept--detract from the award-winning design of the bridge.

Following on the recent successes of the cycling community (including Citizens for Safe Cycling and the Ottawa Biking Problems website), Ottawa walking advocates have started a twitter account, @OttWalk, and a website for Ottawa Walking Problems, where you can submit reports of problems spots around the city and pin them to a map.

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Centretown midnight sun

2012-01-09T12:00:00.002-05:00

In the last few weeks, there has been a lot of filming going on in Centretown. This house at the corner of Elgin and McLeod was being used as a set back in December.

Unfortunately, when you work so close to the solstice at our latitude, you have to bring your own sunlight to shoot film for a full day!

Sorry for the lack of posts. Posting should be more regular when I'm done preparing a big series I've been working on for over a year!

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Floating Branch

2011-12-28T12:00:00.002-05:00

Back in the Summer, I was travelling through Commissioner Park between Dow's Lake and Carling Avenue and noticed this peculiar tree:

It looks like two boughs had grown closely together, so much so that the bark overlapped and fused them together. When the other bough was chopped off, it looks like part of it was left behind, still attached to the remaining limb.

Weird!

Bert and Ernie go to Lisgar Collegiate

2011-12-26T12:00:00.006-05:00

I bought this postcard at an antique show some years ago, a coloured print of Lisgar Collegiate Institute, the oldest school in Ottawa. While the date is hard to read, I think it says August 1918. Back then, the street continued straight past, and of course the 1960's south building hadn't been built yet.

This isn't an identical angle, but it's close enough to notice many changes to the roofline, not to mention the skyline behind it. Still, much of the building has survived well through many trials, including a fire in the 1890s and the major renovation in the 1970s.

But the kicker is the text of the postcard itself:

Dear Effie
[I] Was talking to Bert about Ernie & he says....

It was addressed to Mrs. E. S. Brown of Kirks Ferry, Quebec and stamped at a post office in Cascades, Quebec.

Fields of Asphalt

2011-12-23T12:00:00.007-05:00

Perhaps you've also stood at the corner of Elgin and Queen and marvelled at the geometry of the intersection. It's a large area dedicated to vehicles, smack dab in the middle of downtown Ottawa. If you're a cyclist, you've also probably cursed the potholes, too.

The entire length of Elgin Street was resurfaced this year, and this intersection was naturally repaved as part of that project.

With fresh smooth, black asphalt, not yet marked up with dashes, the intersection looks even more vast, and the blacktop continues down both sides of Confederation Boulevard.

The miniature street sweeper

2011-12-21T12:00:00.002-05:00

Back in October when the Occupy Ottawa protest was still well-established in Confederation Park, I went by a couple of times to see what there was to see. Someone with a generator, bucket, and various tools was at the NCC's miniature bronze map of downtown Ottawa-Gatineau. The more tourist-oriented streets appear to be brass, and this person was cleaning them with a Dremel and various abrasive sponges.

I didn't realize she wasn't with the protesters, as a gasoline generator and water jugs was the kind of thing the protesters would have with them. But it turns out she works for the firm of the original artist, which was hired by the NCC to do some cleaning and updating some features on the map (like adding the new Convention Centre and removing the Capital Infocentre).

I chatted with her briefly, but unfortunately it's been too long for me to remember any noteworthy details.

Click on the photos to view full-size. I think it's a neat throwback to the scale models used by Jacques Gréber to illustrate his plans for the capital (Such as #151 and others listed here)

Lansdowne Christmas Market

2011-12-18T09:00:00.002-05:00

The Ottawa Farmer's Market is having its final Christmas Market in the Aberdeen Pavillion today, from 9am to 3pm. I went to the previous one two weeks ago, and was surprised by the number of vendors:

I was told that many farmers couldn't make it because the December market dates were scheduled after they had planned their planting seasons. Nevertheless, there were nearly 100 vendors last time!

In related news, the Glebe's roadwork is finished for the season, and Kettleman's, the infamous Glebe bagel shop kitty-corner from Lansdowne Park, is back open after closing for renovations a few weeks ago. Be forewarned, though: walk, bike, or maybe bus there. The traffic on Bank Street (and, for that matter, inside Kettleman's) is quite heavy! Nevertheless, support local farmers, artisans, and businesses by making a quick trip to the nearest farmer's market to Centretown, and the last one at Lansdowne this year.

As always, admission is free to the Lansdowne Market, but parking is in effect. They will exchange your parking chit for a $5 voucher at the info table if you do manage to drive there.

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Central corridor

2011-12-16T12:00:00.001-05:00

The Central condominiums, at the site of the now-demolished Metropolitan Bible Church, are nearly done the first phase. It looks like people have started to move in, and if they haven't, it sure won't be long. (Modern Ottawa has had a number of posts on the construction of Central)

Recently, work started on phase two, the first public inklings of which were two years ago, and the plans for which have been approved virtually unchanged from the early pre-application renderings.

They've had to remove the Bank and McLeod bike cutout, and have installed some scaffolding to protect the pedestrian passage, which gives the impression that it goes on and disappears into nothing.

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Online maps in the fourth dimension

2011-12-14T12:00:00.003-05:00

One of the fun things about having an archive of hundreds of photos from each of many construction projects in Centretown is that you can use it to tell when a particular photo was taken by somebody else. I made a reference to it in this post about Tommy & Lefebvre's reconstruction, when I pointed out that if you look at the site in Google Street View from one street, it's at one point in the project, and from another street, the photos are from a few weeks on.

So it didn't take me long to figure out when Google's 45-degree aerial photos (click screenshot below) of Centretown were taken. My Mondrian construction photos were a bust, but this big hole on the next block of Bank Street...

...was a dead ringer for this scene, taken as little as a few hours apart, from July 7, 2008:

Microsoft Live ("Bing") Maps introduced this view earlier than Google did (and with more promotion of it), and lets you look from four different perpendicular directions. Microsoft uses photos that are a bit older, also from 2008, but from before Bank Street was dug up that year (click to go to the page on Bing Maps):

And from my photo collection of the Mondrian, I can tell it was taken not long (maybe a few days) before this photo from mid-May 2008:

Cross-referencing it against my photos of Hudson Park at Kent and Lisgar, I can tell it was taken between May 10th and May 15th (the two closest days for which I have photos of that project), which I already knew.

So then I got my Picasa software to chronologically sort all my photos in all my folders (just search for a term that's in a common folder name, and click on the "search results for..." link at the top of the left bar), and found some photos I'd taken on the evening of May 14, 2008 of the sidewalk/pathway/ambiguous-travel-surface along Albert Street in Lebreton Flats:

And the photos from Bing Maps shows the concrete sidewalk forms, which are empty in the above photo, filled with wet/drying cement.

Assuming the photos were all taken on the same day (which the shadows seem to suggest), badda-Bing badda-boom, they must have been taken at some point on May 15, 2008!

Temporary eyetwister

2011-12-12T12:00:00.003-05:00

The last temporary building, a.k.a the "Justice Annex", is slated for imminent demolition. The federal office building, built during World War II to house federal workers, was last occupied in 1998--the same year it received federal heritage designation.

These are its side doors. I have other photos of this building, some of which were used by URBSite in its posts about the building and about the temporary buildings more generally.

Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), the agency responsible for maintaining federal buildings, has decided that it is too expensive to repair this building, and instead will demolish it. This reminds me of some quips made earlier this year that it would be cheaper to demolish and replace 24 Sussex Drive than the estimates to repair it (thankfully, I no longer find any such references).

The CCCA has written to Public Works and MP Paul Dewar to oppose the demolition of this building, as has Heritage Ottawa in a letter supporting the CCCA's position. This is the last of the wartime buildings, and its loss will remove a reminder of the enormous effort that went into fighting the war--even on the home front by the civil servants who worked in these buildings. It is inevitable that veterans will eventually die, but buildings can be repaired and maintained. It is quite a disappointment that we will lose this heritage.

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Truck Pie

2011-12-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Centropolis condo building under construction has had its share of controversy. Settling that has rendered the neighbouring building uninhabitable has been the most controversial, but I've been frequently frustrated by the debris, dirt, mud, gravel, and other obustructions strewn through the neighbourhood.

So with all that, I just had to laugh when I saw this.

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It only takes one

2011-12-05T12:00:00.002-05:00

The City of Ottawa made a big ballyhoo in December 2009 about our official population reaching 900,000. They made a media event when they rolled out the new population signs announcing it. I was even lucky enough to see the City's sign shop making the numbers for these signs.

Alas, the temporary wood frame that was used for the sign on Booth Street in Lebreton Flats, for people entering Ottawa from Gatineau, was never replaced with a permanent structure. Parts of the sign have fallen off, and the sign itself has been literally pushed aside, oriented so that few will actually see it.

I hope it gets fixed soon.

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Tim capsule

2011-11-30T12:00:00.001-05:00

Here's looking inside a brick wall being built at 151 Bay Street:

In late June the local media covered the conflict among the residents. As I recall (I can't find any articles online), the parking garage had to be repaired, and there wasn't enough money for the condo board to completely reinstate the gardens above them, which were the only greenspace of such a size right in the downtown core, particularly for a condo. I tweeted a photo of the gardens after they'd been marked for demolition back in July.

Well, they've cleared out the gardens, done the various repairs, and are starting to rebuild the brickwork, including some four- to five-foot high walls that demarcate the pedestrian access to the building. The walls are thick, but evidently hollow. The wide stones to cap them off hadn't been installed on this section when I went by.

If you've ever wondered what was inside those walls, now you know!

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Bronson Avenue Open House audio and transcript

2011-11-28T10:00:00.006-05:00

Last Thursday was the City's public open house for the reconstruction of Bronson Avenue. Well over 100 people attended, but information is wanting for people who couldn't attend. The project website is supposed to have information up today (Edit Tuesday: RescueBronson.ca has posted the English slides), but even so, they say they want comments in by Thursday, so that they can issue an RFP in three weeks, and begin construction as early as February 2012. Clearly, there are little or no plans to change the scope of the project based on the "consultation".

So Rescue Bronson—again—is picking up the slack. We've published a collection of links to coverage of the Bronson open house, which includes some information on the project plans itself. Eric Darwin features in much of it, and his dedication is much appreciated.

I also recorded the entire staff presentation and Q&A session of the open house, and you can download the mp3 here (99 MB) (Edit: sorry, the upload wasn't working. It's an hour and 48 minutes long, and a very large file; hopefully someone can find a way to embed or stream it so you don't have to wait to download the whole thing.

I've also typed up a transcript that you can access as a Google Doc, or view it below. It isn't verbatim, and there is some interpretation, but gives a good idea of most of the discussion. There are timestamps so you can skip to the part of the mp3 that you want to hear.

The first person to speak in the Q&A session asked people to raise their hands if they've ever been hit or nearly hit on Bronson Avenue. I took a picture (there were more standing out of view of the camera):

I should note as a disclaimer that I work in Councillor Diane Holmes' office, and I am a board member of the CCCA and DCA, which with the CCOC are the four partners in Rescue Bronson Avenue. All are opposed to the widening of Bronson Avenue and have been fighting hard to get some improvements for the community as part of this reconstruction project.

If you haven't yet done so, please sign the Rescue Bronson Avenue online petition.

Skateboard Lane

2011-11-21T12:00:00.001-05:00

Someone spray-painted this in the Laurier Segregated Bike Lane.

I knew the cycling lobby was getting ahead, but the skateboarders too now? (Uphill, no less) The pedestrians really ought to catch up soon!

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Bronson reconstruction public open house Thurs Nov 24, 6:30pm at Centennial

2011-11-17T13:00:00.001-05:00

After a handful of meetings of the Public Advisory Committee (PAC) for the imminent Bronson Avenue reconstruction, the city's project managers and engineers will be presenting their plans to the public next Thursday evening at Centennial public school, 6:30 pm. All are welcome to come and share their feedback. More details are here on the City's website.

Much has been done behind the scenes by community representatives on the PAC to squeeze out every last bit of improvement in the plans, and you can help increase the pressure by signing the Rescue Bronson Avenue petition.

As you will recall, community groups united under the banner of Rescue Bronson Avenue to fight back at the engineers' assumption that the road should go back exactly as it is, except with wider lanes.

Rescue Bronson is made up of representatives from the CCCA, DCA, CCOC and Diane Holmes (I'm formally involved with all but the CCOC), and was previously pushing for the more northerly parts of Bronson to be put on a "Road Diet". North of Gladstone Avenue, the traffic volumes drop considerably, and again at Somerset. By reclaiming some space for pedestrians on Bronson, there would be shorter crossing distances, a less hostile walking environment, slower (though not necessarily less) traffic, and shorter crossing distances--altogether a safer street. In the last week or so, Scott Street got such treatment:

Alas this was not to be, and the Rescue Bronson crew went back to the root of the concern: improving the pedestrian atmosphere. Despite losing the Road Diet battle, the current plans are much improved over what was presented at the frist PAC meeting as an all but done deal.

For example, Gladstone and Bronson was originally drawn almost exactly as it looks now--albeit with even wider crossing distances--and the caption proclaimed "Enhanced Pedestrian Facilities" (the image below is from one of the Rescue Bronson walking tour posters from this past May):

But after a year of reminders of how horrible it is to cross this intersection, the drawings have shown improvement. At the top left of the picture below (click to view full size), you can see that the grey line indicating the outer edge of existing sidewalk is now where the inner edge of the sidewalk is, resulting in a reduced crossing distance and a slightly less askew crosswalk.

We're still trying to remove the left turn lanes so that there's more room for pedestrians at the north-west corner (bottom left of the picture), but the engineers are terrified of the prospect. We've been told that the four lanes drawn on Gladstone are a typo, and they're not planning on adding to the current three.

Another battle we're still fighting is the widening of Bronson's lanes themselves. The traffic engineers, referencing their manuals and technical guidelines, say that Bronson will be safer by widening the lanes. However, the manuals define "safer" as "motorists save a few seconds during peak traffic periods". The problem is that this encourages faster speeds at non-peak hours--and collisions on Bronson involving pedestrians are 3.7 times more common when traffic is ligher than during peak hours (when adjusted for per-hour and traffic volumes). These figures are from 2006-2010, so they don't include the many high-profile collisions on Bronson (many at Somerset) from this year.

By widening the lanes, you encourage faster traffic, which will only make things less safe for pedestrians. Cyclists don't fare much better, due to a counterintuitive argument I won't get into (but I've written about other cycling aspects in this post).

Faring the worst from the lane widening is the landscaping. While two feet might not sound like a lot, the front doors on Bronson Avenue can be just a couple metres from the road edge, with a 1.8m sidewalk taking most of that space. Most of the concrete steps, such as Peace Tower Church (formerly Erskine Presbyterian), will have to be rebuilt because the sidewalks (pushed outward by the widened roadway) will overlap with where they are now.

And this row of ten or so trees--which took decades to get to this size--will be removed because they are in the middle of where the sidewalk will be.

When we asked why the road can't simply be shifted a foot or two to the west to let these trees rest in place, the engineers stressed that Bronson's curbs wouldn't line up on either side of Somerset! Like they line up on Gladstone (above) or Somerset?

One wonders how much experience, if any, these particular engineers have with rebuilding century-old downtown streets on narrow rights of way. The road has existed for 50 years with its current roadway width, yet somehow it would be chaos if it weren't two feet wider because a technical guide based on ideal hypothetical situations says so.

Another target of Rescue Bronson is to get a signalized crossing at Arlington. You'll note that it's the only calm street that crosses Bronson north of the 417, making it ideal as a cycling and pedestrian route. I talked about it in the Bronson and Cycling post which I repackaged into a slideshow for the talk to Citizens for Safe Cycling's AGM this fall.

Unfortunately, the 15-year-old traffic count found that there weren't enough pedestrians crossing at Arlington to meet the city's standards (called "warrants") for putting in a signal. They did another count last week (using an automated system involving a camera at the top of the white pole in the photo above) to see if things have changed.

The engineers are also concerned Arlington's proximity to Catherine, despite signals at the same crossings of Kent, the same distance apart. The engineers would prefer to see a signal at Flora--it looks great on a map, halfway between Gladstone and Catherine--but I don't see how detouring one block north from Arlington (to Flora) will be much more attractive than detouring one block south (to Catherine). Or worse, cyclists will cross at Flora and ride on the sidewalk to Arlington. One of the top complaints from pedestrians at Diane Holmes' Sidewalk Summit last week was sidewalk cycling.

The owner of the building that houses Auntie Loo's treats remembers the intersection well. When he was growing up, his father owned the building at the corner of Bronson and Arlington that's now the newest location of Papa Joe's Pizzeria. He says that on three occasions in decades past, the building was struck by a car, sometimes badly enough that the structure needed to be rebuilt.

On a lighter note, there has been some discussion on the public art component to the reconstruction. Chinatown's own Adrian Göllner has been hired by the project team to identify art opportunities along the route. Rather than a series of smaller items like Preston Street's Postcards from the Piazza or Wellington West's marble fire hydrants, the concept for Bronson is to have two or three larger (and not necessarily related) art pieces.

I won't spoil the details before the open house, but I think it's safe to say that it won't be at this corner of Bronson and Somerset, where there's barely any room for to wait for the bus without blocking others walking by.

But the more things change, the more things stay the same. The public circulation notice indicates that the block east of Bronson on both Laurier and Gladstone are included in this work, but the PAC hasn't had a chance to give input on these sections, much less seen any drawings.

Despite an opportunity to coordinate the work on the Laurier block with the Segregated Bicycle Lane project, the Bronson team said had no plans to change Laurier's configuration, only to redo the stuff underground--which is exactly where we started on Bronson a year ago!

Act Now!

There's still work to do, and not much time to do it in: the work is scheduled to begin in February 2012, meaning the plans must be finalized and the contracts tendered awfully soon (and although the work will be split in two, it'll be bundled into one contract for the entire Laurier-to-Arlington stretch).

Please sign the Rescue Bronson petition if you haven't already, and come out to the public open house next Thursday, November 24, 2011, at 6:30pm at Centennial Public School (Gloucester/Bay/Percy) and voice your opinion, and send in your comments.

Bronson is an ugly, cold, unfriendly, divisive traffic gutter... but it doesn't have to be!

A little to the left

2011-11-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a sign in Chinatown on Somerset West just east of Booth Street. I think it had a companion that has been removed. The post itself is metal. It looks like it might be an old streetcar post.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Monument to Canadian Fallen in Korean War

2011-11-11T12:00:00.003-05:00

It's quite easy to walk all around Centretown and not pass by this monument on the Mackenzie-King Bridge to Canada's fallen in the Korea between 1950 and 1957. On the front of the statue is written "We will never forget you brave sons of Canada," and inscribed around it are the names of the 516 Canadians who died in that conflict.

The monument was opened in September 2003 by then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Korean ambassador Chang Hi-Ko. It was designed by Vincent R. Courtenay, a Canadian Korean War veteran, and sculpted by Yoo Young Mun.

In front of the monument is a plaque describing the significance of the imagery (click to view full size). The children are carrying maple leaves (symbolizing Canada) and roses of Sharon, the national flower of Korea.

The edges of the plaque and the monument are connected by two rows of pavers that meet at a point. According to the plaque, the resulting angle points in the direction of Busan, South Korea, where an identical monument sits at the site of a United Nations memorial cemetary that contains the graves of 378 Canadians.

The names wrap around to the back of the monument, where additional relief repeats the English moto banded around the front, and an inscription on the stone indicates that the Korean Granite plinth was provided by the Government of the Republic of Korea.

A Sidewalk Too Far

2011-11-07T12:00:00.006-05:00

You'd think it would be easy enough to get from point A to point B, but sometimes in Ottawa you have to go through point C to get there.

I don't mean this metaphorically, but literally. In the diagram below, desire lines (a.k.a. "cowpaths") indicate that pedestrians want to get from A to B, but the sidewalk directs them to go from A to C to B. It's actually worse than this, which is why I'm showcasing it as an example for Diane Holmes' Sidewalk Summit, this Tuesday at 7pm at City Hall.

The story starts at Tom Brown arena in Hintonburg, where Albert and Scott Streets meet on the west side of the O-Train tracks. Last Tuesday, Citizens for Safe Cycling had its Annual General Meeting there and bike parking was at a premium (many had already left by the time I took this photo. At one point, every bench, tree, and signpost had a bike locked to it).

The connection here is that Ottawa's cyclists have had a tremendous amount of success in recent years getting attention and funds for problems that need fixing in order to make cycling safer, easier, and more accessible. Pedestrians haven't had an organized group of their own complaining about the obstacles faced by people on two feet, and this is reflected in the City's spending.

When a pedestrian gets hit and killed on a dangerous road (as many do on Bronson Avenue), there is no group in Ottawa to speak out about it. No group to spread awareness of the problems faced by pedestrians, or even to identify them.

Which takes us back to Tom Brown. Here we are standing at point "A" in the above diagram. To the left is the sidewalk leading to point "C" (where the City wants you to go), and to the right is a well-beaten path heading off in a very different direction toward "B" (called a "desire line" because it shows where people want to go). The street was rebuilt last year as part of a multimillion-dollar project to replace the aging underground infrastructure. Yet the official route to point "B" via point "C" is 360m, more than twice the 150m to get there in a straight line.

On resurfacing-only projects (like last year's on Lyon Street or this year's on Elgin), you can make repairs to the sidewalks, but there is very limited opportunity to change where they go.

Reconstruction projects (also called Integrated Water, Road, and Sewer projects) provide a much broader canvas to work with. Bank Street is a good example: everything was taken out, so curbs and lanes could be redesigned tabula rasa.

Not that this was done here. As we continue along the cowpath, we can see it connect to the bridge over the O-Train tracks.

The embankment is a barrier for sure, but not a show-stopper for most pedestrians. This guy has successfully made it over the rail and was making his way down one of the many paths along the hill.

As Eric Darwin recently observed in a post last week on the same topic over at Spacing, there is considerable erosion to this embankment.

Relatedly, I discovered the reason for the many paths: once the grass wears out, the slope is very slippery, even with dry dirt.

Even, this doesn't stop the pedestrians, they attach a rope to the rail and pull themselves up with it.

So if soil erosion--and even winter--won't stop the pedestrians, it's somewhat amusing that the City thinks these signs will. There's one of these "Private Property" signs here at the top of the hill (point "B" in our diagram), and another at the bottom, not far from the football goal posts (surely for private football games).

In the far distance, you can make out the cowpath leading from point "A", just to the left of the apartment tower.

(The language of the sign is also interesting. The small text in English says "this is not a public pathway," suggesting it's not a pathway at all, but an embankment. The French text says "this pathway is not a public pathway," suggesting that it is a pathway after all.)

The next photo is looking down the bridge from point "B" west to point "C" at the corner of Scott and Bayview, which is so far away you can't even see it. Past the first lamppost, the guide rail posts are shorter, which is another likely reason for there being so many paths down the hill.

And even for those who don't climb over the guard rail, as soon as it ends, they just walk right over the grass. (This is not to suggest that these sidewalks are useless, only that there is a major connection missed)

Here's a shot taken from point "C", at the intersection. While it may look like a fish-eye photo, it's just the way the sidewalk curves. Point "A" is down at the right far beyond sight, and point "B" is up at the left, also beyond sight. You can also see where an extraneous merge lane was filled in with grass. A missed opportunity to plant trees, but a nice gesture nonetheless.

So what is the solution to this dangerous path up the hill? Well, signs telling people they're not allowed to go there don't exactly get to the root of the problem. A safer way for pedestrians to walk through the field and get up the hill (including in wet weather), now that would be a solution.

Pedestrians can succeed at getting results, as was shown in the recent case of the NCC's locked gate at the "Preston Extension," which was reopened following a deluge of complaints to the City and the NCC.

So be part of the solution. Come to the Sidewalk Summit on Tuesday, and work with others toward getting the City to put its best foot forward on pedestrian issues. Help identify locations across the city where pedestrians are an afterthought in road design.

For those livetweeting the event, I suggest using the hashtag #ottwalk. If you can't make it, feel free to send your comments, suggestions, and trouble spots to Councillor Holmes at Diane.Holmes@ottawa.ca, and follow along on Twitter.

Ottawa's Chinatown Arch Lights Up

2011-11-04T12:00:00.002-04:00

Reminder: The central Ottawa budget 2012 consultation is this afternoon, 4-6pm at City Hall.

Pedestrian advocates: Diane Holmes' Sidewalk Summit is on Tuesday, November 8, 2011, 7-9pm at City Hall (Colonel By Room). Help pedestrians repeat the successes of the cycling community by getting the city to fix problems with walking infrastructure across the city!

A bit over a year ago, the Chinatown Gateway Arch was officially opened, and around that time I wrote a post chronicling the construction process for the arch.

Since then, there has been a bit more change.

In early Spring 2011, four new lampposts were installed around the arch. These will eventually run all the way along Chinatown's sidewalks, replacing the old ones which are getting, well, old (despite being painted red from the former green)

These four lampposts, however, are slightly different in that they each has two spotlights attached to it to illuminate the arch at nighttime:

As recently as late October 2011, they were still adjusting the spotlights to get the maximum effect on the gateway.

Looks pretty good!

The lampposts will first be installed here and in the section of Somerset currently under construction, between Booth and Preston. When Bronson is rebuilt in the next year or so, the ones near Somerset and Bronson will be replaced also.

Ottawa City Hall: my new haunt

2011-10-31T12:00:00.002-04:00

Mayor Watson decorated City Hall's heritage building (which is the part of City Hall that houses his office) for Hallowe'en, and it looked great! It appears that I only have one previous Hallowe'en-themed post, which also included a photo of City Hall, back from the first year of this blog.

Sorry for the gap in posts; I've been busy at a conference, and getting settled in to my new job. In case you hadn't heard the news (or the Buzz), I stepped down last month as president of the Centretown Citizens Community Association to take a job in the office of Councillor Diane Holmes.

Two weeks ago I was busy at a conference and didn't have time to prepare any blog posts for last week, which was my first week at the new one. A complicating factor is that I'll be part-time at both, and the transition is a bit time-consuming.

Nevertheless, I already enjoy being back on Elgin Street, after my office moved away last year. Commuting to City Hall will give me a chance to cross the neighbourhood a few times a week to keep an eye on things, and keep my camera on them too. Similarly, commuting to my West office will have me crossing Bronson Avenue a couple of times a week and keeping an eye on Chinatown, Little Italy, and the rest of the former Dalhousie ward.

It's a lot to handle, but keeping all those balls in the air is a challenge I'll enjoy.

Happy Hallowe'en!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Happy (Centre)Town

2011-10-17T12:00:00.002-04:00

You've perhaps walked by the little fenced- and hedged-off lot at the corner of Florence and Lyon and never given it a second thought. It's next to the little Ottawa Hydro transformer station on Lyon just North of Bay.

Through the trees, though, is a great little piece of fun:

I'm out of town this week, so blogging may be spotty this week too.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Sidewalk shadows and Pedestrian Degradations

2011-10-12T12:00:00.005-04:00

While the bike racks on Bank Street see a lot of use for cyclists, there were mixed responses to the City's one-percent-for-art policy went to street furniture instead of standalone art.

Thanks to sunlight, these racks take on a second life casting shadow images on the sidewalk. And even though it's only fleeting art, it will never wear off the pavement like paint or inlaid pavers would.

It brings up an interesting issue. They tried widening the sidewalks on Bank Street in the '70s (they even closed off some cross streets, like Lewis), but the space reclaimed from the roads was filled in with trees and rock gardens. So when it was brought back to the state that preceded the 2006-2010 reconstruction, it was a no-man's-land that could be used to relieve traffic, not a space stolen from pedestrians to feed the traffic monster.

This is one of the problems faced by the percent-for-art programme in downtown road reconstruction projects. By adding art to the streetscape, you take away walking space that is often quite scarce. Many other items, like garbage bins and newspaper boxes, already compete for sidewalk space, and efforts to moderate their collective impact have not gone far. One reaction is to incorporate the artwork into these inevitable fixtures, like the bike racks on Bank, or the streetlamp art proposed for Somerset Street West.

Pedestrians aren't entirely forgotten; they are thrown the occasional bone. There are many good things said in the Ottawa Pedestrian Plan, and in addition to the Plan itself, some sidewalks get repaired or improved as part of multimillion-dollar road reconstruction projects (like those on Bank, Preston, and Somerset). But this won't address most pedestrian problems in a reasonable timeframe. Just like the trend in cycling (until very recently), the City doesn't put much money toward pedestrian-specific repairs to fill in the missing links that aren't part of these major reconstruction projects. With all the new condos residents moving in downtown—most not owning a car—the pedestrian network needs to be able to support and attract people who use their feet.

Degredations

Then there are the things that don't even stay the same. Fences were recently installed along the sidewalks on Albert and Slater, redirecting pedestrians' natural flow (a problem faced by suburbs also). When the Laurier Segregated Bike Lane was installed this summer, pedestrians lost their dedicated advance signal at Bank Street (and pedestrians outnumber all other modes at that intersection) and the new left-turn arrow at Elgin for motorists coming off the Laurier bridge puts a convoy of vehicles in the path of pedestrians trying to cross. More recently, the NCC blocked off a pathway connecting Preston and Lebreton Flats residents to the Ottawa River.

Now that I'm working in Councillor Holmes' office, these pedestrian facility degradations are one of the things I'll be looking at. And while I know of some of them in Centretown, your help is needed to identify other degradations across the city.

So pedestrian advocates, please tell me: where has it gotten harder to walk recently in Ottawa?

Leave a comment in the box below, or e-mail me at centretown.ottawa at gmail dot com.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

O'Connor and Kent: Cross with care

2011-10-05T12:00:00.000-04:00

It feels like I took this photo just a few weeks ago, but it was actually June 2010. The street we're looking down is Lewis (my favourite stretch along my now-famous shortcut), and the cross street is O'Connor.

Like Kent Street, the one-way traffic on O'Connor travels pretty darn fast when it gets the green light. Both O'Connor and Kent were widened decades ago to be very close to the buildings, leaving little room to see around the corner when you're at the stop sign on the cross street.

I didn't see the collision, but I suspect this is what happened to the unfortunate driver of this sedan: he looked as far as he could up O'Connor for a gap in traffic to cross at Lewis, and was slammed by the SUV coming down O'Connor far enough away but going fast enough (not necessarily speeding) to not be visible from the side street.

This was a common occurrence on Lyon Street before the speed humps were installed on it. The traffic engineers were up in arms at the thought of speed humps on an arterial road, but so many cars had crashed into the house at the south-west corner of Lyon and MacLaren that the community had had enough and political will overruled the engineers. Now Lyon still carries lots of traffic, but that traffic is calm enough for a bike lane to run alongside.

The Centretown Community Design Plan suggests looking at converting Metcalfe and O'Connor back to two-way traffic. The plan's consultants have suggested this (as well as the rest of the transportation aspects of the CDP) be investigated as part of the Downtown Ottawa Mobility Overlay, a.k.a. Downtown Moves. Now that the DOMO and its terms of reference are out, we see that Centretown isn't part of the core study area. We'll see how many resources, if any, go toward looking at the one-way streets.

In the meantime, when you're crossing Kent and O'Connor on a side street, either on a bike or in a car, be careful!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Post-and-ring bike rack update

2011-10-03T12:00:00.001-04:00

Before I start, you may have heard the news that I've stepped down as President of the CCCA to work in the office of Somerset Ward Councillor Diane Holmes. I sent a message to the CCCA's members and followers on Wednesday night. If you're wondering, yes I'll still be blogging, yes I'll still be involved in community activities (perhaps even moreso), and yes I'll still be tweeting. I still want you to join and get involved with the CCCA, and to attend the AGM on October 25, 2011, at 7pm at the Beaver Barracks (464 Metcalfe, at Catherine). I won't be working regularly at City Hall until the last week of October.

With that out of the way...

I've written many posts about the City's insufficient provision of secure bicycle parking, particularly in the removal of parking meters. About a year ago, I gave the example of Elgin Street, which went from having many parking meters per block, per side, to one or two post-and-ring racks for both sides.

Back before they even started, I'd reviewed the City's list of where to put the bike racks that were left after removing most of them. In addition to noting locations where it was recommended not to replace parking meters, I also pointed out that bicycle parking shouldn't be limited to commercial areas and big condo buildings. I've often arrived at someone's place in Centretown to find that there was nothing in sight to lock my bike to, not even a street sign.

That's for short-term parking. It's even worse for many apartment-dwellers, like the ones along Frank street whose bikes were parked in the video in this post, and who don't have space in or outside their building to keep their bikes.

There is often a bike locked to this signpost on James Street at Kent, just across from St. Barnabas church:

What I suspect happened here is that someone unbolted the sign and lifted the bike over the post. Another related trick thieves use is to find a post that can be lifted out of the ground, so make sure to immobilize your wheel (i.e. don't just lock the frame to the post), and check to make sure whatever you lock your bike to is securely attached to the ground.

The number of bikes in town has grown significantly, even since last year, and these people need places to park their bikes. I've been told that a second round of post-and-ring racks is being installed soon (perfect timing given the imminent removal of the blue Velocity bike racks for the winter), and that Elgin is one of the streets that will receive them, after its recent resurfacing.

Whether this will include residential areas, I'm doubtful, but if there are people or stores you normally visit that have no secure place to lock your bike, please leave a comment!

(PS: As part of the Rescue Bronson Avenue project, I'll be meeting with the consultants on the Bronosn Avenue reconstruction to tell them where they can stick their bike racks.)

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Metcalfe stop, park, don't pass

2011-09-28T12:00:00.000-04:00

The Transitway stop at Metcalfe Street on Albert Street is under construction, so a temporary one was installed on the West side of Albert Street, outside the World Exchange Centre. A waiting platform was built out into the curb lane with asphalt and temporary curbs.

What really struck me in this picture, though, was the little sign on the far right. It's a "no passing" sign, necessary due to the lane restrictions (in fact, I'm surprised parking is still allowed in the left lane). This photo was taken during mid-day, but I can guess that that sign wouldn't be visible to its intended audience--presumably, people in the lane that's on the left of the bus lane. If there isn't a truck parked in front of the sign, the rush-hour bus convoy will certainly block it.

What's more, it looks like this sign was installed specifically for this temporary bus stop, as it doesn't show up on Google Street View (photo below links to the location on Google Street View) from when the lanes were in their regular configuration:

Weird, eh?

Scratch that

2011-09-26T12:00:00.002-04:00

A week or so ago, I was heading down Bank Street in the Glebe, taking some photos of the construction, when out of the corner of my eye I saw this kid tap the recently-poured curb with his skateboard. I figured he was trying to tell if it was hard enough for him to step on it to get to his friends. Then he picked up a piece of gravel, which I figured he was going to toss, as boys do.

Instead, he bent down and started scratching something into the not-yet-hardened curb. Since I was taking photos anyway, I conspicuously aimed my camera at him and took his photo (as you can tell, I've blurred his face). That got him to stop, and hopefully he's learned his lesson and won't do it again.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Centretown flyover

2011-09-23T12:00:00.001-04:00

Small planes over Centretown aren't that uncommon; there is a regular route by a historic biplane that does tours from the Aviation museum and for $100 they'll take you all the way downtown (I'll have to try that myself some day).

This one was flying behind the crane at the demolition site of the Lorne building on Elgin street.

I wrote a post on the context and history of the Lorne Building in October 2009.

There are also three articles on the Lorne Building at URBSite:

Renderings of the proposed building
History of the development of the Lorne building (the one being demolished, and its predecessors)
The Lorne building's opening, early photos of it after opening, and related architecture

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

A safer crossing for pedestrians on Somerset

2011-09-21T12:00:00.002-04:00

Well, the City of Ottawa has been on a roll, fixing up a number of problems that have been on my list for a while, including fixing the potholes on Lewis and the sign at McLeod and Bank, as I blogged recently.

Those were both nuisance issues, but one true safety problem has been fixed: the lack of crosswalk lines at Somerset Street West and The Driveway.

To recap, this was perhaps the only stop sign in Centretown that wasn't accompanied by a stop bar and crosswalk lines, depriving motorists of an important cue to give right-of-way to cross traffic (including pedestrians and cyclists). I'd been nearly hit on my bike by a motorist who stopped at the stop sign, but blindly started again without registering that I had the right of way along Somerset (thanks to my yell, he braked hard and his bumper just tapped my front fork).

In this photo, it looks more like a laneway to motorists coming from the right.

I'd noticed this past spring that the lines at the nearby intersection of the Queen Elizabeth Driveway and Somerset West were faded, suggesting that the city would be repainting soon. A prime opportunity to add crosswalk lines to The Driveway (the near intersection in the photo below). And this was the gist of my April post on the subject, which I forwarded to City Hall.

I was a bit surprised to see in early August that the lines at the Corktown footbridge had been repainted, but no lines at The Driveway. The motorist at the target intersection is behaving like many others do, blocking the unpainted pedestrian crossing (though there weren't any pedestrians this time). The first photo in this post was taken the same day as this one:

I e-mailed the person at the City who had previously informed me that these paint markings would be added to the city's list. She replied, again assuring me that it was on the list and would be done when they get to it. (The roads department works in mysterious ways...)

So I waited, and after seeing a new crosswalk painted near my office last week, I booted out to this location and, sure enough, it was there! There was now a clearly demarcated pedestrian crossing linking Somerset Street West to the Rideau Canal Pathway and the Corktown Footbridge.

Here's the motorist's perspective (roughly). It's much clearer where the intersection starts, and who has priority.

Don't forget to attend tonight's All-Candidates meeting for the provincial election at 7pm at the Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre on Kent at Florence. Liberal, Conservative, NDP and Green candidates have all confirmed they will attend.

Reflections on the Crowne

2011-09-16T12:00:00.001-04:00

Both URBSite and West Side Action covered the renovations to the entrance to the Delta Ottawa City Centre hotel (previously the Crowne Plaza hotel and originally the Skyline), on September 5 and 7, respectively. WSA also has a post from February showing renderings of the new entrance displayed in the lobby.

Well, I've taken a few photos of the hotel over the years myself, and a couple days after the other two did, I went down to get my own shots of the renovations. I tried to get some angles that weren't covered in the other blogs, like this one of the hotel reflected in the glass of Constitution Square:

You can sorta make it out in that picture, but it's much clearer in this crop of a photo from August: the door on the 24th floor coming out the side of the building, which Eric refers to in one of his above-referenced WSA posts. As he mentions, it was used to access the inside of a former illuminated sign on the side of the building, in order to replace the bulbs without having to hoist a crane.

Now here's a shot of the full front of the building, taken in early August 2011, after the Delta had bought the building and renamed it Delta Ottawa City Centre, but before much work got underway on the renovations:

As for the renovations, yes, I got some photos of that too. Here's how things were on the 9th of September--a couple of days after WSA and URBSite had their takes on the reno. Note the double-decker entrance: the lower one for pedestrians, and the upper one, essentially, for motorists.

And here's a closer look at the former ramp. This ramp went northbound--i.e. accessed from Albert street--while Lyon Street right in front of it goes southbound. You can also see that even back in May 2011 there was something going on underneath it. It's plain to see how the old entrance wasn't very inviting to pedestrians: they could climb up the car-infested ramp, or they could climb into the hidden entrance under the ramp.

Back a few more months--in October 2010, shortly after the the bike lanes were painted on the newly-resurfaced Lyon Street--you can see the ramp decked out in its full Crowne Plaza livery. The boxes at the top of the railing were overflowing with flowers, and two more giant pots at sidewalk level held more plants. The flag joining the US and Canadian flags was that of Ontario, rather than that of the Delta hotel chain which replaced it.

And then three more months back, while photographing the painting going on next door at Place de Ville Phase II, I managed to catch a glancing shot of the Crowne Plaza in its old colours. I also had the good sense to tag the photo with Crowne Plaza so it popped up when I searched for photos of the hotel on my computer.

When I cropped the above photo for this blog post, I kept in the signpost for the other Delta Ottawa hotel kitty-corner to the Crowne Plaza, now the Delta Ottawa City Centre. And closing this post the way I opened it, the Crowne Plaza is reflected again in Constitution Square.

Reflect on that!

Centretown Events and Updates for September 2011

2011-09-12T12:00:00.008-04:00

Zoning By-law Map – R4- Residential Mixed Use changed to R4- Fourth
Density
Land Use Plan
Gladstone west of Bank and portions of Somerset changed from Residential
Mixed Use to Secondary Traditional Mainstreet
Some reductions in the Apartment Neighbourhood along the southern
boundary, west of Bank Street
Residential Mixed Use gained an asterisk to note that the designation was still under review with regard to whether limited mixed use should be allowed throughout this designation.
Bronson removed from the Land Use Plan
Bank Street added to Pedestrian Priority Streets

Section 37 policy delayed again: Community groups were asked to rush their comments in May so that the City's guidelines for implementation of Section 37 of the Ontario Planning Act could go to Council in June, 2011. (The CCCA's backgrounder on Section 37 is at http://centretowncitizens.ca/?page_id=21) Since then, we were told the policy would be delayed until August due to comments from the development industry, and it is still missing-in-action now in mid-September.

While Section 37 applies to the negotiation of community benefits in re-zoning applications and requires community consultation, the city has in the meantime been conducting similar negotiations as part of site plan agreements, usually without any community input and with tenuous reporting of these agreements in reports to Council. With the barrage of planning applications not slowing down, this policy needs to be in place sooner, not later! Please e-mail your councillor (diane.holmes@ottawa.ca) and Planning Committee chair Peter Hume (peter.hume@ottawa.ca) and ask them to get this policy out there!

346 Gloucester rezoning later this fall: As mentioned previously, the
Committee of Adjustment rejected a minor variance application for 346 Gloucester to increase the permitted height of their property at Bay/Nepean/Gloucester, because the height increase was not "minor". Subsequently, the developer has filed for a rezoning. Unfortunately, since the City's Section 37 policy is not in place and the site plan for this site has already been approved (see previous item), the city will be unable to seek community benefits for this rezoning as it did for the one at the other end of the block (224 Lyon).

150 Elgin procedural questions unanswered: We are meeting with the
developer's consultants to review the plans for 150 Elgin (a 21-storey office building along the North side of Gloucester, formerly planned to house the concert hall), but many questions remain for city staff to answer. When the CCCA was notified of the site plan application, the notice said that it would not be approved until conflicts are resolved between the proposal and an existing development agreement with the city for the site to include public parking and residential units. We asked what process would be used to amend this agreement, and what public input would be sought, but have received no response.

"South on Bank" - a 15 or 19 storey tower at Bank and Catherine: As we expected, the proposed rezoning of the Greyhound bus terminal (first item in this e-mail) has been followed by a proposal for a 15-storey building at 203 Catherine (we've heard conflicting reports that it is 15 or 19 storeys), at the north-east corner of Bank. We're told that "the footprint is an inverted T-shape fronting on Catherine Street, stepping back and tapering up to the top". A re-zoning application has not yet been filed, and we're looking to meet with the developer to learn more about the proposal.

Committee of Adjustment decisions on 604 Gilmour and 732 Cooper: We have not yet heard of the Committee of Adjustment's decision on these two applications. A representative of the 604 Gilmour site shared the CCCA renderings of the proposed building, and it is sympathetic to the heritage character of the neighbourhood.

City Miscommunication: Earlier this year, there were some problems with the CCCA not getting complete and timely notification of development application proposals from the city's planning department and the Committee of Adjustment. We raised some of these concerns with the mayor when we met with him earlier this year. This has improved somewhat, and we were told to regularly check the City's development applications website at ottawa.ca/devapps for a complete listing of current projects as a back-up. The website also contains additional documents pertaining to the applications. Unfortunately, we've found that some applications (including some above) are not listed on the website.

OTHER CURRENT NEWS:

New CCCA website launched: The CCCA's Communications Committee has been hard at work transferring information to a new website that will be easier to maintain. The new website also lets you join the CCCA online with
secure online payment! Check it out at http://www.centretowncitizens.ca and send any feedback to ccca@centretowncitizens.ca

September Buzz comes out this week: Keep an eye out for the September issue of the Centretown Buzz, hitting the stands later this week. We're always looking for people to help deliver the paper, so contact distribution@centretownbuzz.com if you're willing to help out with this for an hour a month.

Games tables at Minto Park: The CCCA's Seniors Committee wants to know if you'd like to see permanent games tables (chess/checkers, backgammon, cards, etc) at Minto Park, similar to the longstanding ones at Dundonald Park and those being installed at Piazza Dante. A quick two-question survey is on the CCCA's website (http://www.centretowncitizens.ca) until September 12, following which the Seniors Committee will review the results to discuss at next week's CCCA Board meeting.

Elgin Street being resurfaced: You've probably noticed the work well
underway on Elgin street, with the resurfacing of the entire street and the replacement and repair of some sidewalks. If you'd like to see more bike parking along Elgin when the post-and-ring racks are reinstalled, make yourself heard by e-mailing 311@ottawa.ca and ccing ccca@centretowncitizens.ca!

Downtown Ottawa Mobility Overlay study: We are waiting to hear back on the status of this project to review traffic patterns in the downtown core and surrounding areas (including Centretown) as they will function after the transit tunnel is built.
http://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/mobility_overlay/index_en.html

New Mural in the Village: The Village Initiative has installed a mural on the side of 367 Bank Street, at Gilmour, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the "We Demand" protest on Parliament Hill for gay rights. Capital Xtra published a feature story on the event in its July 2011 issue, here: http://www.xtra.ca/public/Ottawa/The_first_gay_protest_in_Canada-10442.aspx

Rescue Bronson Avenue gearing up for the fall: The Rescue Bronson Avenue project (http://www.RescueBronson.ca), a collaboration of the CCCA, Dalhousie Community Association, CCOC and councillor Holmes' office, is
gearing up for more activity this fall. The city has scheduled a Public/Business Advisory Committee meeting later this month, possibly in an attempt to wrap things up--even though many issues are not yet finalized. Rescue Bronson Avenue is still looking for the City to pilot the reconfigured Bronson Avenue in 2012 with painted lines and bollards, to demonstrate with certainty whether a 3-lane Bronson Avenue will flow more smoothly than the current configuration.

Separately, the city is beginning discussions on public art for Bronson Avenue, as part of the city's One Percent for Art program.

COMING UP IN OCTOBER:
Here are some more events to mark on your calendar:

City Culture Plan Open House, October 3, 6:30-9pm: Get a copy of the draft of the City of Ottawa's next 5-year Action Plan for Culture, hear how it was developed, and provide feedback. City Hall, Jean Pigott Hall (Main floor)

Ontario Election, October 6: Visit http://www.wemakevotingeasy.ca for helpful information on voting.

Heritage forum for Ottawa communities, October 15, 1-5pm: Heritage Ottawa and the New Edinburgh Community Alliance are teaming up to provide a forum for community heritage committees and similarly-oriented individuals to learn from each other's experiences in maintaining local heritage assets. Contact the CCCA if you'd like to represent us!

CCCA's Annual General Meeting, Tuesday, October 25: Time and location are to be confirmed. The CCCA's Annual General Meeting is where CCCA members elect the President and Board of Directors to serve for the next year. This year there are six two-year terms on the Board and one one-year term, plus the position of President which is elected annually. If you're interested in running for one of these positions, please contact the CCCA's Corporate Secretary, Toria Laine, at secretary@centretowncitizens.ca. You might also want to attend the September 2011 board meeting (see above) to get a sense of what goes on. There are also many committees to get involved with, even if you don't want to join the Board.

That's all for now!

There's a lot happening in our community and your participation helps us stay on top of things, so thank you for being involved in Centretown issues by subscribing to the CCCA's e-mails. In between them, you can also visit our newly-revamped website at http://www.centretowncitizens.ca and follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/CentretownCCA (@CentretownCCA)

Remember that CCCA memberships expire at the AGM, so don't forget to renew--it's only $5! If you're not yet a member of the CCCA but live, work, or own property in Centretown, head to http://www.centretowncitizens.ca today to join and/or donate. You can now do it directly online!

Cheers,

Charles Akben-Marchand
President
Centretown Citizens Community Association (CCCA)
www.CentretownCitizens.ca

Top of the Rideau '77

2011-09-09T12:00:00.001-04:00

While visiting family overseas at the end of August*, I digitally scanned the photo albums so I could have a copy. Since my grandparents had been stationed in Ottawa in the mid 1970s, some prominent Ottawa landmarks made their way into the background of some of the photos.

This small set of photos depicts a boat parade on the Rideau Canal in May of 1977, presumably for the tulip festival. The photos were taken from alongside the Rideau Canal by the NAC, looking across the canal to the east side. Here, for example, is Union Station (now the Government Conference Centre):

A less prominent building was also photographed that day: Canada Post's Ottawa Station A (Station B is at Sparks & Elgin), located on a part of Besserer Street that's now buried under the Rideau Centre:

I haven't done any research beyond pulling up a couple of relevant incidental mentions from URBSite. The second photo in this URBSite post identifies the building with the following photo and caption:

"Here's a brief update on the Corry Block - from the CNR photo collection at the Museum of Science and Technology a view of Corry's back, the tip of the triangle. The building to the right of the smoke stack is Postal Station B (Cecil Burgess, 1933) which was demolished for the Rideau Centre."

While the skyline in that photo looks filled with buildings, I was surprised by this one from my family's set showing a big gap looking North ("North-East" on Ottawa's street grid) between the Union Station building and the former postal terminal. You can also see that an unadorned three-floor addition was slapped onto the back of the building since the CNR photo was taken.

At the left of the gap you can see in the distance the top of the Union of Canada Life Insurance building, and in front of that you can just make out the cornice of a building. Based on the sightlines, I suspect it's J.R. Booth's Transportation Building, though the cornice doesn't look right compared to other photos of that corner. This URBSite post on the Corry block includes an aerial view that shows the building, and the former road configuration at the West end of Besserer, though it doesn't give any definitive clues on the cornice.

The photographer was paying attention to the parade and not the buildings behind it, but fortunately for us, these clowns drew the lens up to give us an excellent view of the top of the building.

*Having been out of town for a couple of weeks, I've fallen behind organizing my photos of Ottawa, as well as the many I've taken upon my return to catch up on progress on various sites. As a result, I'm behind in my blogging, so pardon the occasional missed post while I catch up on things. I might have to grab another '70s family album photo or two to fill in the gaps here and there.

Give me a sign

2011-09-05T12:00:00.004-04:00

In my September 2009 post about bike cutouts at traffic diverters, I finished the post with a description of the then-incomplete bike cutout on McLeod at Bank.

In February 2010 it was still incomplete because the space was needed for the cranes to temporarily remove the facade of the Metropolitan Bible Church:

In May 2010 the island was added to allow cyclists to go straight or left while diverting motorists to the right. The church's facade is behind, being stored temporarily in the pit.

A sign was erected on the sidewalk side noting the intersection restrictions...

And then in July a "tigertail" sign was added to the island to avoid people bumping into it in poor visibility conditions.

When they cut out the hole for the island, I noticed that the clearance was only 1.2 metres. In road projects where I've been more closely involved, 1.8 metres is given as the minimum width for a sidewalk plow to get through to clear snow from the bike cutouts. I complained about this, but it was too far along to do anything. As a result, the cutout is covered in snow during the winter:

In January 2011, the construction of the Central Phase 1 was far enough along to move the Metropolitan Bible Church facade back into place. Various street furniture, including lampposts and the signs for the diverter/cutout, were removed to allow clearance for the cranes.

Following this, the signs were placed on a temporary, movable wooden signpost. On multiple occasions, it was blocking the bike cutout and I had to put it back on the island.

When I pointed this out to the City (and the project manager for the Bank Street reconstruction), I didn't expect a prompt response. After all, it took a year and a half to get a response on the Lewis Street potholes. But to my surprise, just a week after I had sent in my e-mail, the signs had been installed on a new permanent signpost on the traffic island.

I suppose they forgot about the tigertail, though to be honest I did too until I prepared this post. It's unfortunate that the precast concrete paver crosswalk was installed too low (or the island and sidewalk too high) requiring the city to pave a layer of asphalt over it.

Anyhow, one less thing in the way of a cycling route!

The Shape of Fog

2011-09-02T12:00:00.000-04:00

Hey weather geeks! Remember when we had that stretch of rain in the middle of last winter? (I know, I wish I didn't either) It left us with lots of big puddles in the street, like this one in front of 307 Lisgar. I'm not usually so precise, but this photo was taken at 16:34

I mention the time because a mere 57 seconds later, a cloud of fog is pushing between the previously-visible Esplanade Laurier twin white towers. (I tweeted a similar photo taken from my Blackberry, though it's too old to show up in my Twitter photo archives.)

Normally when I think of fog in the city, it's just around. This image really shows that fog isn't necessarily shapeless.

And in case you're thinking I might have had a cloudy smudge on my lens, this one seals it, taken two and a half minutes on. The left tower now looks cloudy and the right one clear, suggesting the fog didn't expand much after passing through the gap between the buildings. In other words, whichever side I'm standing on, the nearer tower is clear and the further tower is obscured by the wall of fog. You can also (not) see the Mondrian at Bank and Laurier at the left.

It was quite serendipitous that I saw that house and decided to take a photo of it, because I obviously didn't realize the fog would roll in just a few seconds later. I was intrigued by the stark contrast of this little residential house sitting in the middle of parking lots, highrises and apartment buildings.

By the way... as I write up this post in early August, I don't know when I'll post it. Hopefully it's a hot day, and the reminder of the miserable winter helps you appreciate the heat.

Lewis Street potholes fixed after 18 months

2011-08-31T14:00:00.000-04:00

Do you remember back in March 2011 when I complained about the potholes on Lewis Street between O'Connor and Bank?

As a refresher, this is what the potholes looked like in March of the previous year after a cold patch was applied:

And this is what they looked like in March of 2011. The water had flushed the patches clean out of the holes, which were back and bigger than before.

Well, good news! I'd forwarded a link to that blog entry to some folks at City Hall, and though I didn't get any reply to those e-mails, we've finally gotten some results. As I had suggested, the City scraped off a chunk of asphalt and laid a good solid strip down where these potholes were.

This method worked at the Bank Street end of the block (as I had suggested they do when putting the final layer of asphalt on the Somerset to Arlington stretch of the Bank Street reconstruction in 2010), and has survived seamlessly through the winter since.

Now I don't have to worry so much when I lean my bike to turn onto Lewis from O'Connor! O'Connor-Lewis-Bank-James-Lyon is a very convenient bike route for going south-west through Centretown, because it has low traffic and few red lights.

Andrew S. Haydon Hall

2011-08-29T12:00:00.004-04:00

City Council hasn't met for a couple of months, as City Hall for the most part goes on summer holidays. It'll be back in September, which is just around the corner!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Kent Street Quadruplets

2011-08-26T12:00:00.001-04:00

I generally avoid Kent Street, as it's not a very people-friendly place ever since they widened it and cut down the trees for the introduction of trolley-buses.

The downside of this is that I miss little gems like this foursome of old houses between Somerset and Cooper. It looks like they were all built as exact duplicates of each other, and many of the original features have survived, despite each house taking on its own unique identity.

The Centretown Traffic Calming Plan (an electronic copy of which apparently does not exist) has made Kent a bit more hospitable to use, the little bulbouts and dying trees aren't enough to make it actually look nice.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Downstairs coupling

2011-08-24T12:00:00.003-04:00

Seen back in April, under the Plaza Bridge, on the stairs connecting the canal level by the Union Station to the upper level by Major's Hill Park.

The channel running down the middle of the stairs is to make it easier for people to walk their bikes up and down stairs. Being in the middle of the stairs allows you to choose to push your bike from the right or left, acccording to your preference.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

A Percy Street pleasure for pedestrians

2011-08-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

If you walk up or down Percy Street, you probably recognize this house at the corner of MacLaren. It has addresses at 607 MacLaren and 141A Percy. It's notable by the turret coming out of the corner of the second floor, which is one of those features that makes Centretown so interesting to walk and bike around in.

It was renovated in the last year or so. Between the photo above, from April 2010, and the one below, from July 2011, you can see that the turret has been renovated.

Even more interesting, in this photo from May 2009, there's a grey spot at the corner of the house. I have no way to tell for sure, but it looks about the right size for a "PERCY" street sign:

Google Street View, whose vehicles would have gone by just a couple months before the above photo, in March or April 2009, doesn't garner any more clues:

But that's still not the neat thing that prompted me to blog about this building: It's the sidewalk. When they redid the landscaping, they re-graded the lawn and added two rows of paving stones along the entire sidewalk--all the way around the corner.

As I noticed while passing another pedestrian in the opposite direction, this effectively widens the sidewalk about a foot. A nice treat for pedestrians!

Ladder 11

2011-08-19T12:00:00.000-04:00

Ladder 11 is a fire truck from Fire Station #11 on Preston at Eccles (one block south of Somerset West). It's in Little Italy and just around the corner from Chinatown. They've therefore decorated the ladder with an Italian flag design with a Chinese dragon.

Here, Ladder 11 and a number of other fire trucks were responding to an alley fire at Lyon and Cooper on Canada Day 2011. I don't think there was significant damage or injury, as the fire didn't make it to any of the papers. I also tweeted a couple of photos at the time from my Twitter account, @Centretowner

Some, but not all, other stations decorate their ladders as well. A couple more were on hand for the opening of the Ottawa Firefighters Memorial back in 2009.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Fall Down Bike Jam

2011-08-17T12:00:00.004-04:00

Here is 286-288 Bank Street, containing The Source (i.e. Radio Shack), Fall Down Gallery, and Tae E Lee Taekwondo. When I took the picture, there were an awful lot of people tyring to walk their bicycle along the sidewalk looking to park or unpark it. The two Bank Street decorative bike racks are not nearly enough to handle the capacity, it would seem.

For a few years, this space was occupied by the gallery of artist Daniel Richards. This closed in February:

Previously, it was an internet cafe that was shut down in 2007 by the police after it was revealed to be habitually used for illegal activities.

The building sits at one of the most active intersections in Centretown, just a few metres away from Bank and Somerset. The intersection has had a lot thrown at it in the last few years, including two seasons of road reconstruction (since the sections were divided at Somerset), two fires in the building across the street in 2008, and the collapse at Somerset House kitty-corner to it, which remains unresolved.

The bicycle congestion at 288 Bank, and at the much higher-capacity bike racks in front of Hartman's, is a good sign. It suggests businesses have a lot of customers who like to shop locally within Centretown.

Studio Argyle sidewalk repair

2011-08-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

As I was walking around 255 Argyle earlier this summer to get a different view of the demolition of the Medical Building at 340 McLeod, I stumbled on this bad patch of sidewalk:

255 Argyle, by the way, is called "Studio Argyle". It's just east of Bank Street. The website (which refers to Centretown as "Center Town") says it was built in 2000 by Domicile and has 40 units.

I e-mailed 311 about the sidewalks (though looking at the first photo, the white arrows suggest it was already on the replacement list). Someone from the City called me to tell me it was on the list, and they just needed to coordinate with the condo so they can repair the sidewalk without disrupting the only parking entrance.

It was repaired by the end of July:

I'm glad they did. I'm pretty sure-footed, and even I tripped on that sidewalk!

City of Ottawa steps forward

2011-08-12T12:00:00.002-04:00

Car ads on buses are a bugaboo of mine, so back in May it was a nice surprise to be stuck behind a bus to see this ad for the iwalkibike.ca campaign by the City of Ottawa and Province of Ontario:

It reads "Reason #74 - a social time on the way to class". This ad at a bus stop on Gladstone has the same message:

It's a refreshing change from the days just a couple of years ago where the City allocated barely enough money for barebones staff for ped/bike initiatives, with no money to implement any of the initiatives to be carried out.

I first realized the absence of pro walking/biking ads in Ottawa when I was in London, Ontario a few years ago and saw this giant billboard ad paid for by the local government promoting carpooling.

This is no replacement for safety campaigns, but I nevertheless hope they keep up this program beyond the warm months.

Refreshing Piazza Dante

2011-08-10T12:00:00.003-04:00

Across from St. Anthony's Church at Gladstone and Booth is Piazza Dante, one of those public spaces that can be hidden in plain sight, even from those who reside in and frequent Little Italy. The name is derived from Dante Alighieri via St. Anthony's School, kitty-corner from the piazza, which was originally called Dante Academy (as described in this blog entry about a nearby school).

A November 2000 article in Il Postino explains that Piazza Dante was built in 1967 and was "funded and constructed by the provincial and municipal governments together with the Italian Canadian Business and Professional Men’s Association led by Mr. Italo Tiezzi. It was one of the projects dedicated to celebrate Canada’s 100th birthday."

You may have seen it while passing by on Gladstone, but the large intersection island separated by the Gladstone-to-Booth right-turn lane directs both traffic and attention away from it.

On the South and West sides, it's bounded by a brick wall, on the other side of which is affordable housing built as part of "urban renewal," mostly in the 1960s. Behind that you can see the roof of Adult High School. On the near sides is a wide strip of lawn with trees. The piazza is perhaps best known for its concrete fountain, reflecting the style of the times.

Compared with the above photo from October of 2010, Piazza Dante is virtually unchanged from when this Centretown News cover photo was taken in 1972, except for the larger trees.

Today, most people refer to it as a park, and complain that it doesn't serve this function very well. This is nothing new, and Mr. G. Pelletier wrote to the Centretown News on behalf of the Rochester Heights Community Association in a letter published in the same issue.

An admirer of the fountain and the piazza, Pelletier aimed to set things straight, and revealed some interesting details of how community politics worked back then. Back in the '70s, each City ward had two Aldermen, and it seems from this letter that Dalhousie Ward aldermen Capogreco and Kerwin didn't see eye to eye. The intersection of Gladstone and Booth is painted as death trap for pedestrians where motorists often disobey the red lights.

Pelletier also speculates that the latter's framing of the piazza as a failed park may be to "keep us from inquiring too closely into plans for nearby empty land perhaps more suitable for a tot lot."

On that note, last year the community got together to build a new playground for Rochester Heights, as documented by Eric Darwin at West Side Action. A commenter on that post repeats the criticism of Dante as a failed concrete park:

It would be nice to see the “park” in this community re-imagined next. The one at the corner of Gladstone and Booth, I believe. It’s such a dreary, concrete pad. Right across from St Anthony’s church, it could probably be very nice with a bit of greenery.

There is, in fact, quite a bit of greenery, just not in the centre. This reflects that the piazza was intended as a place to hold events.

Nevertheless, outside the summer, the park does deserve the "dreary" label Heather gives it. Most of my photos are from the Fall and Winter, and the atmosphere of the park does change with the season.

As the pedestrian desire line shows, it does get some use by pedestrians, who not only get a shortcut, but get to avoid the car-focused intersection where, by 2011, motorists have finally learned to stop at red lights.

Of course, the centrepiece of Piazza Dante, both metaphorically and literally, is the fountain. Since I'd only given it close attention in the off season, I was disappointed to learn this past June that the flowing water didn't make the fountain look any cleaner or livelier.

The fountain carries a plaque dedicating the plaza in three languages to the Italian contributions to Canada's first century.

The fountain isn't the only attraction, though. On the south wall is an undated statue which looks to be more recent.

It was built by the Ottawa chapter of the National Alpine Association in memory of all fallen soldiers of all wars.

Rounding out the tour, the West edge of the piazza is unadorned but for benches, and is screened by a brick wall.

There are a few trees on the far side of the wall, and gated gaps between the walls help to open up the the space while restricting access to the street side.

Reconstruction

In May of 2009, the Italian community won approval to overhaul the piazza, and following approval from Ottawa City Hall two years later, work has finally begun.

All of the central elements have been removed, but the perimeter walls and the trees are being retained.

The fountain was removed in late July 2011, but the memorial statue was wrapped and left in place.

You can see some of the feeding pipes for the fountain in the concrete base at its edge. These will be retained for the splash pad that will replace it. An orange square spray-painted in the dirt at the Gladstone entrance outlines the space where the bust of Dante will be featured. Currently, the statue of the Piazza's namesake isn't even in the Piazza, but in front of the church.

Here's the full schematic of how it will all come together. As mentioned above, a splash pad will replace the fountain at the centre of the piazza, in the middle of a decorative paving feature to highlight it. This will allow the entire space to be used for events once the water is turned off. According to the summary of comments, some wanted to retain the original fountain and move it off to the side as a sculpture. That isn't shown on this plan, suggesting this idea won't be carried out. Other additions include completing the perimeter with a decorative fence, an arbour shade structure, lighting, and more seating. (Additional renderings are available on this Il Postino article).

There will also be new permanent tables installed at the park with game boards designed into the tops. Such tables are already in use at Dundonald Park, and the CCCA's Trees & Greenspace Committee is looking to get some installed in Minto Park.

Given that the Dalhousie neighbourhood has the lowest amount of parkspace per capita in the city, hopefully this refresh will make Piazza Dante more attractive and useful to the residents and workers in the area.

Weekend Photo Binge

2011-08-08T12:00:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, I made a list of all the current and future construction sites in and near Centretown, and visited almost all of them to take photos. In addition to the photos that I took, my camera decided to take a couple on its own while I was parking my bike on Somerset Street West.

This one shows 989 Somerset Street West, which has had a few iterations of similar stores, currently an antique store.

My list had over 30 sites to visit, and there were others I snapped along the way, about 800 inall. This blurry image nicely represents how lately I've been spending more time in the bike saddle taking photos than actually reviewing and sorting, compiling and posting them.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Accessible Upgrades at City Hall

2011-08-05T12:00:00.004-04:00

Over at OpenFile, there's a thread on accessibility; specifically, spaces that aren't designed with all users in mind. This comment reminded me of a recent renovation to Ottawa City Hall's information desk in the rotunda, seen here during an art exhibit in mid-June:

For reference, here's a December 2009 file photo showing what the info desk used to look like:

In May, I saw workers installing a countertop. Once I clued in to the gap cut into the counter, I realized it was to allow wheelchair users to communicate with the person behind the desk.

Since I'm a tall person (I took some of these photos from the second floor--I'm not that tall!), this accessibility obstacle hadn't occurred to me until I saw them fixing it.

It's good to see it occurred to someone. And it didn't require a whole new desk, either. Just some small modifications.

Wooden inuksuit on Flora

2011-08-03T12:00:00.001-04:00

A couple months ago, I snapped these two sidewalk dwellers on Flora. A cute and creative way to get rid of scrap wood!

This isn't the first time. Back in 2008, someone had made an inuksuk from displaced paving stones.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Colonel By Day in Ottawa

2011-08-01T12:00:00.002-04:00

Here's a photo from April of the Rideau Canal locks at the Ottawa River. In the background are the Bytown Museum (housed in the oldest building in Ottawa), the Canadian Museum of Civilization behind it on the other side of the river, and the Alexandra Bridge connecting Ottawa and Gatineau. Walking across the uppermost lock is a wedding party.

You can celebrate too today: in Ottawa, the first Monday in August is Colonel By Day. There are events going on at the Bytown Museum, and at Confederation Park. It's named for Coloney John By, who was the engineer in charge of the construction of the canal in the 1820s-1830s. Bytown, later renamed Ottawa, was named after him.

Not visible in this photo, but at the bottom of the locks, is a stone Celtic Cross monument honouring the (mostly Irish) workers and their families (as many as a thousand) who died in the construction of the Rideau Canal.

The Corktown Footbridge is also named to honour the many Irish immigrants who built the bridge. They lived in an encampment along the canal which they called "Corktown," named for County Cork in Ireland, where many of them were from. I was on the naming committee for the bridge, and one of the striking aspects of the name is that it isn't named for a single powerful individual, but the everyday people who were just as instrumental for the accomplishment of great projects (it also balances the nationalities of the Laurier and Mackenzie-King bridges crossing the canal in downtown Ottawa). The Corktown Bridge restored some of this balance that was lost when the Sappers and Miners Bridges were merged and renamed the Plaza Bridge.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Pigeons

2011-07-29T12:00:00.000-04:00

This pair of pigeons at a house on Flora were almost posing for a painting, mirroring each other's position on the third-floor windowsill. Though I think the symmetry was a coincidence.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Bixiiiii

2011-07-27T12:00:00.002-04:00

This photo is from back in April, on the bidirectional pathway along Mackenzie Avenue toward the Alexandra Bridge. I took it on my foray up to Nepean Point. This was very shortly after the launch of the Capital Bixi program: I saw five people on Bixis coming along, and managed to catch them all in the same shot on my first (and only) try:

Parliament Hill is in the background, but I had neglected to consider its appearance in the photo.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Follow the yellow line

2011-07-25T12:00:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the absence. I was busy running the bicycle parking at Bluesfest 2011, which is a 100-hour-a-week volunteer gig. You'll be happy to hear that I've got over two weeks of posts pre-scheduled, so there won't be another gap for at least as long!

Most of the time, when a pathway in the national capital region splits, the yellow line will follow the direction where the pathway continues in whatever direction. For example, if you're trying to navigate the pathways under the Portage Bridge to get westward from behind the Parliament buildings, following the yellow line will help you get back to the pathway along the Ottawa River.

Many cyclists don't realize this, but they do get it at an unconscious level. Take here for example:

This is just under the Laurier bridge heading North toward the convention centre and Byward Market, on the pathway that runs along Colonel By Drive. This is a notoriously difficult place to navigate because it's not clear at all how to get from here to the other side of Rideau/Sussex.

Unfortunately, when I stopped to watch for a bit, I saw most cyclists followed the yellow line up to the abutment of the Laurier Bridge, which led them to a dead end and a hard curb along Colonel By Drive. They, as I had done just before them, ended up going down the steep cobbled footings of the bridge to get back to the pathway along the Rideau Canal and continue toward Union Station.

Unfortunately, even if this line gets fixed (which it might, there was still some construction going on when I took this photo in May 2011), there's not much place for people to go once they pass the bridge, it's still every cyclist to him- or herself to navigate Colonel By, Sussex, and the rest.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Happy Canada Day from Ottawa! #ottbike

2011-07-01T12:00:00.001-04:00

Happy Canada Day! Here's a photo of my bike decked out in red and white Christmas lights at Capital Vélo Fest.

Mine was one of the many HPVOoO bikes on the June 4, 2011 night ride. There are more photos linked from the HPVOoO 2011 events Gallery and on the Capital Vélo Fest website

I'll be busy at the Bluesfest Bicycle Parking for Citizens for Safe Cycling the next couple weeks, so I might miss a few posts. See previous posts with the Bluesfest label.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

CCOC Housing Pays Off

2011-06-29T12:00:00.002-04:00

This 1975 issue of the Centretown News reported on the very first building purchased by what would grow to become the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, which owns nearly 50 properties worth over $80 Million, providing affordable housing to over 2000 people.

As their history page explains (though I think it's a bit out of date), the CCOC started as an offshoot of one of the two groups that later merged into the CCCA. Irving Greenberg (of Minto development fame and brother of former Ottawa mayor Lorry Greenberg) was president of the CCOC at the time that they got their first grant and loan to buy and repair the rowhouse at 530-540 McLeod (at Percy).

35 years later, that loan is now paid off and the CCOC can now use the rental income from this property to invest in more affordable housing for Ottawa. The CCOC celebrated their first "Mortgage Burning Party" yesterday:

542-544 McLeod, right next door, was purchased soon after, and the mortgage for that one was paid off recently as well. Here's a photo I took of it in summer 2009, when the front balcony was being replaced:

Google Street View, whose cars went around Ottawa in Spring 2009, gives a recent-past look at the old balcony:

I printed out a copy of the newspaper page above and brought it to the party, and it was a very welcome surprise! Unfortunately, I had another engagement to get to, so I literally had just enough time to say hello and leave. And snap one quick photo:

Over the years, the CCOC has continued buying properties and building their own. The newest is the Beaver Barracks complex. Of the five buildings under construction, two are already complete. A number of us bloggers were invited to come out to take photos of the new digs. Mine are still in the sorting pile, but others have posted photos, Eric Darwin of West Side Action perhaps chief among them.

The affordable housing provided by CCOC is one of the reasons Centretown's population is so diverse, and its non-profit, volunteer-driven nature is one of the reasons that Centretown residents are so engaged in making this a liveable neighbourhood.

Centretown Community Design Plan Open House this Wednesday!

2011-06-27T12:00:00.001-04:00

Sorry, no time to post photos today. Among other things, I'm preparing for the Centretown Community Design Plan open house this Wednesday from 5:30pm to 8:30pm at the Museum of Nature (which, if you read the draft report, you'd think was centre of the universe). You've probably seen the yellow posters the CCCA has plastered about town.

This is an important document, especially if you live in Centretown between Kent and Bronson, or in the Golden Triangle east of Elgin. That's because this plan was conceived as the "Mid-Centretown Community Design Plan" and was to only cover Elgin to Kent. So people and groups outside of this area were not notified and were not consulted until this last open house.

Wherever you live in Centretown, this will be an important document to direct where growth is going to go. It's not just a Community Design Plan: the consultation process underway will also lead to changes to the zoning by-law, and possibly even the Centretown Secondary Plan, which is enshrined in the City's Official Plan.

It's important that Centretown residents come out to hear what is being proposed for the future of your neighbourhood. You can also read the draft plan online.

The Centretown Community Design Plan
Community Open House

Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Canadian Museum of Nature, The Salon Room
240 McLeod Street
Open House: 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Presentation: 6:30 p.m.

Please join us to discuss the draft Community Design Plan (CDP) for Centretown. This is your opportunity to learn more about the CDP's plans to:

More effectively respond to Centretown's development pressures

Negotiate new community benefits in exchange for allowing developments that exceed existing height and density limits

Upgrade existing parks, identify locations for new ones and introduce smaller open spaces

Introduce guidelines ensuring new development is compatible with the existing neighbourhood and to help create a positive sense of place.

Join us to share your ideas and help shape Centretown's future

Visit the City's Website and community blog to read what others are saying and share your thoughts.

For more information, contact:
Bob Spicer, Planner III
Planning and Growth Management Department
City of Ottawa
110 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, ON K1P 1J1
tel. 613-580-2424 ext. 13858
e-mail: midcentretown@ottawa.ca
blog : midcentretowntomorrow.com

Ottawa Earthquake anniversary. Where was I?

2011-06-23T12:00:00.003-04:00

Special Thursday post: Today is the one-year anniversary of the magnitude 5 earthquake that rocked the Ottawa area on June 23, 2010. This morning I woke to many messages about where people were during an earthquake in my Twitter feed, and since Twitter reads reverse-chronologically, I'd thought I'd slept through an earthquake this morning until I saw the original question from the Ottawa Citizen's twitter account asking people where they were last year.

I was on a private tour of the former OBE Media Centre on Bronson just south of the 417(the "Bronson Shops"). During the earthquake, we were on the lower roof. Since the building is right next to the queensway, a couple of us thought there were just some big trucks driving by. Centretown's northern skyline (beyond the lowrise zones) is visible beyond the Queensway.

But Jack Corry, the OCDSB's area supervisor was with us on the tour and told us that it was in fact an earthquake. We got to hear the live updates from schools across the city over his radio, including schools closing in the western suburbs and pleas from the head office for schools to stop asking for how to proceed while they figure out a plan.

I'd organized the tour (which consisted of Jennifer McKenzie, OCDSB trustee for Somerset and Kitchissippi and now Chair of the school board, Jack, my friend Richard Guy Briggs and me) because of the Ontario Ministry of Transportation's plans to buy it and demolish it to straighten the 417 Bronson offramp (currently cars continuing straight must jog south at Bronson and wait to turn left, which backs up traffic all the way to Gladstone). When I was attending McNabb public school, every day I'd see the building as the school bus came off that ramp and turned north on Bronson, so I was always curious what was inside.

I took hundreds of photos of the inside and plan to post them in a series sometime, but I wanted to get something up for the quake anniversary. Richard posted some photos on his site, and URBSite has a post on the history of the building.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Gladstone Sun

2011-06-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

Last week as I was checking out the progress on the Centropolis condos, there was an Ottawa Sun balloon floating to the south. The red-and-white colours match the signs of Gladstone Auto Repair just underneath it!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

The City Hall link

2011-06-20T12:00:00.001-04:00

One of the reasons I have so many photos of Ottawa City Hall, aside from being there a lot on community association business, is that it has lots of interesting architectural features.

Take, for example, the second floor connection between the main building and the Heritage building. It looks great at night (this photo is from before they redid the floors in 2009):

It's also arched to mimic the windows on the heritage building:

But a detail I didn't notice until this year was the extra two little pieces of metal to turn this semi-circular vent grill into two pointed arches:

The Birdcage in the Village

2011-06-17T12:00:00.001-04:00

Last night on my way home, I happened upon The Village's 4th annual film screening and street social, showing the Birdcage with Nathan Lane and Robin Williams.

This was on Gilmour just West of Bank Street, near Wilde's. This is a bit of a non-profit niche: You can see the 415 MacLaren tower on the right (owned by Ottawa Community Housing), CCOC's headquarters in front of it, and on the right of the shot, the 7-storey Options Bytown building at 379 Gilmour (which this wishlist PDF says was built in 1992 and houses 50 tenants).

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

340 McLeod demolition

2011-06-15T12:00:00.002-04:00

We've known for a long time that the former "Medical Building" at 340 McLeod (near Bank) would likely be demolished for Phase 3 of the Central condos at Bank and McLeod (Phase 1 is currently under construction, with the Metropolitan Bible Church façade). This was recently confirmed at City Hall, where the rezoning application was approved with adjustments made based on CCCA feedback.

Most people see the building from Bank Street (like at Tommy & Lefebvre), but here's another view looking across the block from Argyle, here in late May...

And again just this past weekend, where they have begun demolition. While 340 McLeod goes down for Central Phase 3, Central Phase 1 is well on its way up behind it.

I haven't been by there since the weekend so I don't know how far along the progress is on demolition. If you know, please leave a comment.

520 Bronson rooftop garden

2011-06-13T12:00:00.004-04:00

Here's a photo of 520 Bronson, across from Flora, which is a 7-storey apartment building owned by the CCOC. (This photo was in the Images of Bronson photoset I linked to here)

The last time Google's eye in the sky took a photo of the building, 520 Bronson didn't have a rooftop garden, and I assume it still didn't until recently.

[Edit: The City of Ottawa's eMap application, which has higher-resolution aerial photos, shows that there is some greenery on the roof, though not covering it entirely.]

The building has a lot of wheelchair users, which is unfortunate because the sidewalks aren't wide enough to be cleared of snow in the winter.

In late May, the garden was replanted for the season.

Late last week, there were some workers sitting on a dumpster full of dirt next to the building. What were they doing with it?

I do believe they were installing a green roof and/or rooftop garden, which is a common sight for CCOC apartment buildings, including its latest development, Beaver Barracks.

[Edit: Ray from CCOC notes in the comments that they are actually taking down the old green roof to add solar panels, after which they will restore the greenery and garden plots]

Pretty cool, eh? As for the building itself, I hear the tenants on the back side of the building tend to stay longer than those whose windows and balconies face Bronson Avenue. No wonder the CCOC is one of the partners of Rescue Bronson Avenue!

Conventional Stairs

2011-06-10T12:00:00.002-04:00

While I will miss looking at the spiral staircase coming down from the Mackenzie-King Bridge, I can't say I'll miss going up or down them. When the Ottawa Congress Centre was demolished and replaced with the recently-opened Convention Centre, they installed new public stairs that are straight and more, shall we say, conventional. Nevertheless, the wide stairs are faced with an angular metal covering on the street side, echoing the glass surface of the centre.

It also looks like a public elevator was installed as well (not yet operational), and bicycle parking was located underneath, sheltered from the elements by the stairs. If you haven't been to this area, the NCC have really spruced it up. There's a really nice canalside plaza where it's very pleasant to sit on the benches and enjoy a snack while watching tourists go by. I took a bunch of photos and will post them after the work is finished.

At time of writing, this post is in a string of posts on the non-Centretown side of the Rideau Canal. If I haven't filled in Centretown-related posts in between, I hope to get back to them soon!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Centretown Events and Updates for June 2011

2011-06-09T12:00:00.003-04:00

The following message was sent to the CCCA's e-mail announcement early this morning, announcing upcoming events. Contact ccca@centretowncitizens.ca to be among the first to receive CCCA e-mail updates a couple times per month.

Dear CCCA members and followers,

Here are your Centretown events for the coming month. Enjoy your summer!

Mid-Centretown Community Design Plan
Ottawa.ca/midcentretown (project website)
midcentretowntomorrow.com (project blog)

The Mid-Centretown CDP is a planning document that outlines where new
buildings in Centretown should be focused, and what Centretown should look
like, in terms of parks, streets, and cityscape. Have a look at the draft
plan, which will be presented at a *public open house at the Museum of
Nature on Wednesday, June 29, 2011, 5:30-8:30*. The plan is in accessible
language and well-illustrated.

Monday, June 13, 2011, 5:00pm (note earlier time)
CCCA Planning & Development Review Committee
City Hall (Billings Room)

The CCCA's PDR Committee held an extra meeting last week to help deal with
the heavy workload. The regular meeting will catch up on the remaining
items. There are many upcoming items that the CCCA must respond to as
developers try to get their projects approved before City Hall goes on its
summer break. Some of them are listed below, but you can also search for
"somerset" at ottawa.ca/devapps to see projects in Somerset Ward.
Also look for the black and white signs you see around town. If you like a
proposal or have objections, be sure to make them known! In addition to
contacting the CCCA, make sure to send your comments to the contact person
listed on the application. The more comments the City receives, the more
attention they will get.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 5:30pm
CCCA Transportation Committee
Location to be confirmed (City Hall or Bridgehead on Elgin)

The CCCA's Transportation Committee meets regularly to discuss
transportation projects and recommend action for the CCCA to take. There
will be a presentation on the status of Ottawa's Light Rail Transit project
from a member of the City's light rail office, and discussion of other
transportation issues, including the segregated bicycle lane on Laurier,
traffic calming, and transportation component of the Mid-Centretown
Community Design Plan (see above)

Saturday, June 18, 2011, 8:00am -3:00pm (BBQ from 11am-2pm)
Minto Park Sale & CCCA BBQ/Plant Sale
Minto Park (Elgin/Gilmour/Lewis/Cartier)

Come out for a community yard sale in the park, and support the CCCA at our
third annual BBQ and plant sale. Proceeds from the table rentals go to the
Centretown Emergency Food Centre, and the CCCA's BBQ proceeds are split with
them as well. The plant sale helps fund the activities of the CCCA's Trees &
Greenspace Committee. Come to browse and shop, munch on a veggie or beef
dog, or just volunteer to help us out! To register a table, contact
mintoparksale@ottawa.ca, and to volunteer for the CCCA events, contact
ccca@centretowncitizens.ca

Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 7:00pm
CCCA regular meeting
Ottawa City Hall (Honeywell Room)

The CCCA's Board of Directors meets monthly, and everyone is welcome to come
and participate. As always, the agenda will be circulated and posted two
days before the meeting. If there aren't any urgent matters in July and
August, this will be the last meeting until September, but we do plan to
have social events in the summer (let us know if you'd like to help organize
these events).

Late June 2011
Tired of pedestrians concerns being stomped?

Councillor Holmes is planning to organize a meeting of interested
pedestrians who want the City to pay more attention to pedestrian issues.
Ottawa's 2011 budget had only one pedestrian project this year, when there
are so many problems that need to be fixed. Ottawa has been without a
pedestrian advocacy group since Gottawalk fizzled out a few years ago.

Online until June 24, 2011
Public consultations on the concept plans for the Greenbelt
http://canadascapital.gc.ca/greenbeltconcepts

The National Capital Commission (NCC) is in the process of reviewing the
Greenbelt Master Plan, which will guide the management of the Greenbelt
through to 2060. The public open houses have passed, but you can still go
online and answer their survey, or submit comments to the NCC between now
and June 24th.

City of Ottawa Section 37 Guidelines

After giving community associations a 9-day window to submit comments on the
guidelines for the implementation of Section 37 of the Ontario Planning Act
in order to get the guidelines approved in June, the city's planning
department bowed to a request from the development industry to postpone it.
These guidelines have been on the shelf for years and the CCCA has been
pushing for months for them to be approved in order to start using this
planning tool in upcoming development applications. A draft version of the
comments we submitted are in the agenda to the CCCA's May 2011 meeting, and
the PDR Committee's reports to previous Board meetings contain many other
details on the process to get these guidelines approved. Other Section 37 resources are available here on the CCCA website

Recent & Upcoming Development Applications

Here is a summary of recent and upcoming development applications:

- Christ Church/Cathedral Hill: This development was approved as presented
to the Planning Committee, including the removal of the heritage overlay in
order to build a 23-storey condo tower and a 12-storey office tower. The
silver lining of this news is that community benefits were secured for the
development for heritage preservation of the existing church, and the
developers are working with Habitat for Humanity to use one or more of the
units for their next project. The approved plan was much improved from the
first draft, which considered moving Roper House, the last intact Bronson
Avenue lumber baron estate, in order to build on its lawns.

- 70 Gloucester: The CCCA went to the city's Planning Committee to oppose
the 27-storey twin of 89-91 Nepean Street, which nearly fills the lot. Many
members of planning committee echoed our concern that the small site was
being filled from lot line to lot line. If the other sites on this block
were developed similarly, we'd have a 27 storey tall block of condos with no
space between them for light and air to circulate. Nevertheless, the project
was approved at Committee and Council with a requirement that community
benefits be provided before the new zoning takes effect. The CCCA is
considering an appeal of the height decision to the Ontario Municipal Board,
which will require a significant fundraising effort to sustain.

- 340 McLeod: The CCCA's concerns were heard for this site, Central Phase 3
(currently the vacant "Medical Building" at Bank and McLeod), and the design as amended to step down and further back from the lot line, allowing light to continue to reach the windows of the seniors' apartments next door. This was a condition of the CCCA's support for the site, and we're glad to see it come through with a building that enhances Centretown as a residential neighbourhood.

- 224 Lyon at Gloucester: A Toronto developer has applied for a rezoning of
this collection of lots to permit an increase in height from 12 to 17
storeys to build a condo building. The building includes many
environmentally-friendly features, including a green roof and ground floor
bicycle lockers, and the first floor units are townhouse-style units with
entrances on the street, which will help to animate the street.
Nevertheless, residents to the north are perturbed that their condos would
be shaded by this 17-storey building after they had done careful research to
make sure they would get sun if a building was constructed within the
existing 12-storey zoning. This rezoning application goes to Planning
Committee on Tuesday, June 14 (9:30am), which is the last opportunity to
have input into this application.

- 346 Gloucester Street: The lot at Bay/Nepean/Gloucester has long been a
sore spot in Centretown, with the vacant houses being allowed to run down to
the point of hazard. The developer had previously applied successfully to
the Committee of Adjustment for two minor variances from 12 to 14 storeys,
and then to 16 storeys. This past month, the developer tried for another go
to 18 storeys. Following concerns from the CCCA, the Committee of Adjustment
rejected this application, as it had done the last time the developer made
the same request. This series of minor variance requests would exceed the
request at the other end of the block (224 Lyon, above) that is going
through the more thorough rezoning process.

- 365 Catherine (Greyhound): Apparently our notification for this project
was lost in the mail, so the CCCA had to hustle to submit our comments on
this rezoning request. While the property owner hopes to keep the bus
terminal at this location, he has no control over whether they leave, and if
they do he wants to have a plan B. This plan B is a mixed-use development
that features midrise condos along Arlington and two point towers up to 23
storeys tall at the southern corners of the block above commercial/office
podiums. The buildings will be separated by pedestrian walkways with a court
inside. Some in the development industry feel that the "Catherine Street
corridor" is ripe for development, and this building would set a good tone
for how this development should play out. The CCCA submitted comments in
support of the rezoning application as it was presented to us in December
with 15 and 19 storey towers and a shorter building along Arlington. Of
course, we want the bus terminal to stay there, and we expressed this too!

- Centretown Planning Links: If you're interested in more planning
resources, our attention was brought to this page summarizing links to
relevant plans affecting Centretown:
http://manifestomultilinko.blogspot.com/2011/05/centretown-planning-links.html

Thank You!

The CCCA's communications committee has been pruning the CCCA website and
preparing communications materials for this year's membership campaigns.
Keep an eye out for them, or contact the CCCA to help out with them!

I hope to see you at one or more of these events, and to see you around
town. Please talk to your neighbours about these activities and encourage
them to join the CCCA and get involved in the community. The membership form (PDF) is available for download from the CCCA website

Thank you for your contributions to making Centretown a great place to live!

Cheers,

Charles Akben-Marchand
President
Centretown Citizens Community Association (CCCA)
www.CentretownCitizens.ca

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

One Hundred Foot Line

2011-06-08T23:58:00.002-04:00

[Somehow Blogger set this to post at 11:58pm (midnight) instead of 12:00pm (noon). Sorry about the delay.]

As promised in the post about Nepean Point, here is a photo of the controversial sculpture One Hundred Foot Line by New York artist Roxy Paine. Part of the controversy, aside from the regular complaining about the National Gallery of Canada spending money on art by non-Canadian artists, was a series of complaints by a certain Ottawa Citizen columnist that At 10 storeys, it screams and distracts from the star structures of that area, the Parliament Buildings. It is completely out of context.

However, As I mentioned in a photo in the previous post, about the only place you can see both the Paine sculpture and the Parliament buildings is from Nepean Point, and even then they're in opposite directions.

As for "out of context", nearly any photo of the Line from Nepean Point shows a number of other vertical interventions far less attractive (though admittedly less expensive) than the sculpture:

Just to give you an example of how obtrusive they are, I had to put my camera on a timer and stick it out as far as I could reach on my tripod just to get the Line and the National Art Gallery atrium in the same shot without a post or lamp in the way. You can just make out the tip of the restroom facility on the right at the base of the hill in both photos.

I think it looks pretty good, actually. It pretty much dominates the skyline but there's nothing else of visual interest in this direction from which it might distract. At any other angle (i.e. at ground level), the only thing you can see beyond it is trees and sky. And on a day like this one, it quite effectively disappears into the sky as though it went all the way up to the clouds.

Astrolabe Theatre on Nepean Point

2011-06-06T12:00:00.002-04:00

Despite growing up in Ottawa, I realized I'd never been to Nepean Point when the Citizen reported that the NCC would be taking down the theatre there. In fact, I didn't even know there was an amphitheatre at Nepean Point. So on a half-decent Saturday last month I went up there to check it out (if you follow me on Twitter or just the photos), you'd have seen some of the photos I took with my phone at the time.

Nepean Point is characterized by the statue of Samuel de Champlain, who is portrayed holding up an astrolabe (when instead it should be suspended). The statue of the Anishinabe scout used to be on a plinth at the base of Champlain's statue, until it was removed for good taste. You can see the plinth in the photo below right under Place du Portage in the background.

Even with the empty amphitheatre, it's still a tourist draw because of just how much you can see from the point. I hopped onto the empty plinth to take a look around. While I was scouting out camera angles, I squatted with one knee lowered in a visual pun paying homage to the scout.

As for the amphitheatre, the centennial-era space was designed by John Leaning, then chief architect at the NCC but known in Centretown for instigating the public process that led to the Centretown Plan. The Citizen article explains that it will have to be demolished as it is frought with mold and asbestos. The artist changerooms are underneath the seating, and the modernist restrooms (in the first picture of this post and in the middle of the one below) all must be removed.

The amphitheatre has been in disuse in recent years. Given that, Leaning isn't bothered by the removal of the amphitheatre so long as the hill remains. There have been many other changes to this part of town since the days of the elephant and python fountain.

Among the things you can see in this one angle alone are: The National Gallery of Canada, the U.S. Embassy, the Connaught building, the Chateau Laurier, and even Ottawa City Hall's green carillon. In the foreground are Major's Hill Park and the approach to the Alexandra bridge.

Off screen to the right are the Parliament buildings and the Bytown Museum. To the left is the controversial sculpture One Hundred Foot Line by New York artist Roxy Paine. I'll show that one in another post, but it suffices to say that there was quite the outcry by some that the tall stainless-steel sculpture would spoil the view. If anything, the black metal posts on the march up to Nepean Point spoil the view of One Hundred Foot Line!

There's another vertically-oriented installation at Nepean Point, this monument that used to be a boundary marker of the 45th parallel between Canada and the United States.

Specifically, there are two plaques on the base of the monument, which read: "This monument was erected by the Women's Canadian Historical Society of Ottawa, Mrs. Thomas Ahearn, President, November 1914." and

This is one of the monuments erected in 1845 to mark the international boundary along the 45th parallel, between the province of Quebec and the state of New York, as determined in the Ashburton-Webster Treaty signed at Washington in 1842. The International Boundary Commission replaced the badly deteriorated original monuments with granite posts in 1902, and this original was presented to the City of Ottawa.

These are just a few of the views you can see from Nepean Point. I highly recommend you check it out if you've never been. Get there before the NCC closes it!

Art four the record

2011-06-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

A little artpice of four 45 rpm records hung in a mobile on a porch on Somerset Street West between Kent and Lyon.

Simple and clever!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Dundonald Glow

2011-06-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a shot of Dundonald Park I took while riding by on MacLaren on a rare break from the cloudy and rainy days of late. Dundonald Park is maintained by a group of volunteers, mostly who live around the park, called the Friends of Dundonald Park. The Centretown Buzz has an article in its latest issue on how this group began with the initiative of Susan Kerr.

A great way to meet your neighbours and start getting involved in community activities is by delivering the Centretown Buzz newspaper, which is co-owned by the Centretown Citizens and Dalhousie community associations. We particularly need people in Lebreton Flats and south of Gladstone. The Buzz the only newspaper in Centretown that is written by and for other Centretowners (all volunteer except for the managing editor), and it is financially supported entirely by its advertisers.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Doors Open: Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat

2011-05-31T12:00:00.009-04:00

(Oops, I meant to schedule this to go up yesterday. Sorry!)

It's that time - Doors Open Ottawa is back for its tenth anniversary in Ottawa. In what has become a bit of a tradition (more links are at the bottom of this post), I'm posting photos from one of the buildings I saw last year, the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, the Agha Khan foundation's fancy building at 199 Sussex.

The building was lauded when it opened for the quality of construction and the design of the spaces. Chief among them was the "crystal", a glass enclosure at the centre of the buliding.

On the same August 2009 weekend that I toured 111 Sussex, I took some exterior photos of the building. I was rather disappointed that, other than the "crystal", the building is mostly a white box in a field. A well-built white box, but a white box nonetheless.

At Doors Open 2010, I got to check out the interior. Going in the rear entrance (where could be found the nearest bike rack substitute), you walk through a glass passageway into the open courtyard. The glass is patterned with geometric patterns, a theme common in Islamic art and architecture, which generally frowns on iconic imagery.

The courtyard provides a nice gathering space for events, though it didn't escape the strong winds that day. Framing the courtyard are two wings of the building, which have frequent tall, narrow windows (the proportions of the blinds are pretty amusing).

As we enter the main part of the building, note the exit sign above the door. It sits perfectly flush with the wall, having been built into it instead of being a crude accessory. These are the types of details that polished the critical acclaim of the building.

Inside there is a grand vestibule, underneath the "crystal". The inlaid floor, while subtle, is very elaborate. Various types of screens temper the light to keep it from getting too bright, or too hot. There are also skywalks connecting the second floor rooms and offices at the rear and front of the building.

You can see the elaborate patterns of the screen from the second storey. They're metal screens with two relatively simple patterns superimposed. I suspect they let more light through when the sun is at a shallower angle (i.e. in the colder months) than when it's at a steeper one.

The screen is suspended above the ground level, keeping it open while still separated from the other uses to the side. There is also an undulating blanket of triangular fabric screens above, creating a contrast to the patterns in the glass panels of the crystal.

Close up, these screens are made of fabric with a rather complicated mechanism of frame supports.

At the edge of the main room are various uses. There are various rooms with educational functions (including a small theatre and a resource centre). At the edge of the glass on this side, there is a little rest area in unobtrusive colours. It reminds me of the lounges for Porter Airlines.

Heading to the back of the building, two wings contain offices of various types. (You can also see how the light comes into the hallway through those narrow courtyard windows)

Surprisingly, many of the offices were empty despite the building being open for two years. They are for swing space to be used by various temporary initiatives, or visiting groups from other parts of the foundation's network.

The humble design aesthetic is visible in the functional parts of the building, too. The labels for the women's washroom, electrical room, and fire extinguisher cabinet look like they were designed in Cupertino. (Actually, in the event of a fire, I seriously wonder whether anyone would be able to find the fire extinguisher)

This was also evident in the thoughtful arrangement of the exit sign, public address speaker, and vents. It's like the whole building was designed to calm you. (I wonder if this extends to nighttime, wintertime, and overcast days)

So there's the building. It's easy to tell that a lot of thought and effort went into the design and construction, even if the result looks plain at first glance.

The 2011 season of Doors Open Ottawa has 20 new buildings in addition to the dozens returning from previous years. The additions include two in Somerset Ward: the must-see Chaudiere Falls No. 2 Generating Station and the CCOC's new Beaver Barracks development.

Last year I shared the Horticulture Building at Lansdowne Park and the previous year I posted Old City Hall at 111 Sussex, neither of which (nor the Delegation featured in this post) appear to be on the roster this year. See also the label for other tours and multi-post series.

All of them are free, so there's no excuse not to go!

Stonecliffe Bare

2011-05-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a shot of the Stonecliffe apartments at Bronson and Laurier. I've posted photos of them before, but only from afar and above. I believe the off-blog photoset of mine I linked to from the post Images of Bronson includes a good one.

All that to say that I had aunts and uncles living there whom I visited dozens of times as a child, and I've passed by it a fair number of times in my adulthood, but never noticed until the day I took this photo that there was a flagpole there. (The balconies are under repair, hence the lack of railings)

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

The Bell Machine

2011-05-25T12:00:00.002-04:00

As a cyclist, I'd never had a reason to enter the parkade at Place Bell (160 Elgin) until recently. Even though its 10 floors are shorter than a regular one (since it's just exposed concrete), it's still dwarfed by the 27-storey Place Bell. This is looking from the roof of the parkade to the top of Place Bell.

In addition to learning the parkade's height, I also discovered that the parkade is square. If I understand correctly, they needed to build it above-ground because of the soft soil underneath the site.

Claridge is building four more towers of the same height next door to this parkade--two across Nepean as part of the 187 Metcalfe development (the one that Council sped through the approvals on the promise of a portrait gallery--since changed to a grocery store), and two more at 89-91 Nepean. 70 Gloucester, the twin of 89-91 Nepean, went to Planning Committee on Tuesday.

When the Centretown Plan was developed, it went up to Gloucester Street, except for a notch to exclude Place Bell due to its obvious incongruence with the neighbourhood. It's a shame, then, that Claridge got away with using 1960s buildings to justify heights far above those in the development plans for the neighbourhood.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Mixing the fish in Chinatown

2011-05-23T12:00:00.001-04:00

Chinatown Remixed is back again this year, and for the third year in a row local artists and shops on Somerset West are promoting each other's fare in a celebration of art and culture. In other words, most of the restaurants in Chinatown have work from different artists hanging on their walls. The restaurant owners generally don't mind if you come in just to check out the art, so long as it's not a very busy time of day.

The launch party was last Sunday, and among the festivities was this sidewalk chalk drawing of two koi chasing each other's tails. Brian Smith (in hat on the left) and his daughter Mika drew the fish, and people walking by throughout the day filled in the scales.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Intermission

2011-05-20T12:00:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, but you can get your fix of Centretown updates and photos by following me on Twitter (@Centretowner). This week I've tweeted many photos of the new Bixi stations, among other things. See just my Twitter posts with photos here. Since those are mostly photos I take with my Blackberry, I usually take another copy with my regular camera. Since some of those make it onto Images of Centretown, following me on twitter is like a sneak preview!

The Centretown Citizens Community Association is also on Twitter: @CentretownCCA

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Capital Bixi opens Wednesday

2011-05-16T12:00:00.002-04:00

The NCC has announced that the Bixi bike-sharing program is coming to the Capital. Well, coming back, that is. There was an NCC-led four-station pilot of the programme in 2009, with two stations in Ottawa and two in Gatineau. One of the stations was across from Confederation Square (not to be confused by the building, school or park of the same name), next to the National Arts Centre and within view of the Chateau Laurier:

They planned to have it back in 2010, but there were no bids to the RFP. The NCC planned to team up with the Cities of Gatineau and Ottawa to have a 50 station, 500 bike system this year, but neither city wanted to put the money towards it. Ottawa instead decided to put the money toward a pathway tunnel under Somerset, a decision I supported, though it would of course have been nice to fund both. If you follow me on Twitter, You'd have seen my photo from Saturday of where the tunnel will go (I plan to do a proper write-up of it eventually). Anyway, here's a photo of the other 2009 station on this side of the River, in the Byward Market.

This post is really just an excuse to post my photos of the 2009 Bixi project, since there seems to be a dearth of them, like everyone forgot about it. My alternate goal is to get a quick post up since I'm so pressed for time. I hate to say it, but the trees are in the way of this shot of the Bixis within view of the Peace Tower, Parliament Hill and Confederation Square.

Since the budget is a third of the full buildout, there will only be ten stations this year. Three will be on the Gatineau side and seven on the Ottawa side. As of writing, the locations aren't yet posted to the Capital Bixi website, though they are selling subscriptions to the true believers. With only ten stations, they'll all have to be downtown, so they likely won't be used for commuting but instead for circulation during the day and maybe for tourists visiting downtown.

As you may know, I run the hugely popular bike parking compound at Bluesfest, and in 2009 two people parked their Bixis with us for the duration of their show. Because the system is designed for short trips, the pricing on the rentals grows by bigger chunks the longer you have them out. So these two must have paid a fortune to park with us! (Wouldn't have been a problem if there were a Bixi stand at Bluesfest!)

I'm not exactly sure how the economics of it works. Like, is the price of the contract just to provide the service for one year, and the same size system will cost the same next year? Or will the same investment allow us to order 10 more stations next year, now that we've already gotten 10?

If it's the first kind, the subscription model, then the City's decision to invest in a capital project is definitely the better one, since the tunnel (and the pathway they'll build next year to connect with it) will be around for many years.

The 2009 system had "Ottawa-Gatineau" printed on the chainstays of the bikes. Given the branding of the website, I wouldn't be surprised if this were changed to "Capital" this year. In Montreal, it says--no surprise here--"Montréal". See my post on Bixis and Bike Parking in Montreal from my trip there last year.

It feels as though it were just a couple years ago when Paris hit the news with its revolutionary bikeshare idea. Montréal's Bixi is a major contender, with a massive presence in Montréal and the company winning contracts to provide the service in cities around the world. But looking back to the late 1800s, the proliferation of streetcars from the first city to nearly all cities happened just as fast. It just goes to show that sometimes a fad is just a good idea.

Red Apron's New Digs

2011-05-11T12:00:00.004-04:00

On Monday, May 2, 2011, Red Apron opened the doors to its new, expanded location across the street from its first storefront on Gladstone Avenue. Here Jo-Ann Laverty poses in front of the new fridges for single-serving dishes in the new space:

If you haven't already, check out my previous post in February on the previous tenant of 564 Gladstone, C.C.B. Electric, which moved there after nearly a century on Bank street. The day I posted that entry in February, the C.C.B. signs were flipped inside out.

Work continued behind closed doors--and paper-covered glass--sometimes late into the night.

Then, in the last week of April, changes were much more prominent on the outside. Everyone really went all-out with the Red Apron theme. Here some painters are painting the blue stripe red, while standing on red ladders. In front of them, a red dump truck is unloading materials for the parking lot in the rear. A worker in a red hard hat gives the camera a look.

Everything was kept under wraps until opening day, when the fruits of all that work came to light and invited everyone in. There is much more space for customers than the old one, which was just large enough to walk into. These three wooden tables can be extended and chairs placed around them to seat groups of up to 30 people. Jo-Ann enthusiastically told me of their plans to hold dinner events every now and then after hours. (I think this would make a great community association outing!)

In the back of the store(which is much narrower than the front), a team of employees perform all manner of tasks to fulfill Red Apron's orders of scrumptious locally-made and locally-sourced food. I just finished a shepherd's pie made with braised beef from Fitzroy Harbour (my beef producer of choice, they're at the Ottawa Farmer's Market) and Quebec cheddar. It was hands down the best shepherd's pie I've ever eaten.

Red Apron is open Monday to Friday 9am-6pm; an hour later on Wednesdays and Thursdays. They have new and seasonal dishes regularly and also a number of options for delivery and pick-ups.

Go on and try it!

[Edit June 20, 2011: See the blog entry on Red Apron's re-opening party by Ottawa Citizen's foot critic Ron Eade, referenced in this blog entry by David Reevely.]

Rescue Bronson Avenue walking tour and posters

2011-05-09T12:00:00.001-04:00

Today's Jane's Walk for the Rescue Bronson Avenue initiative went really well. It was right on time and we had about 35-45 people on each of the two parts of the tour (breaking it up into two parts worked really well, and some people joined us at noon for the second part). See yesterday's post promoting this walk here

Here are the volunteers who led the walk, from left to right: Will and Josée, who helped keep order and time; and moi, who gave the tour. We're standing at what the NCC calls "Bronson Park" at the top of Bronson overlooking Lebreton Flats, and across the street from Roper House on the Christ Church site.

Here's a shot I took near the end of the tour of the attendees on the second part of the tour as we ducked in to Florence Street for a respite from all that heavy traffic along Bronson:

I made eight different location-specific posters to illustrate the walk at the following locations, copied below (click on them to see full-size ~1.5MB ea). I left them up so you should be able to still see some of them and compare with what's there in person until they're inevitably taken down.

Here are all eight. I'm just listing the names of the posters, which don't have current pictures of the sites because they're intended to be seen in situ. I could make this post insanely long with additional photos and text, but I need some sleep after a long and successful day at the Jane's Walk and the wrap party at the Lieutenant's Pump (which was recently renovated).

Cathedral Hill/Christ Church (at Sparks/Queen):

The Escarpment area (roughly Bronson/Albert/Slater/Commissioner)

Bronson and Laurier (including the segregated bike lane)

Bronson and Primrose (i.e. the Bronson Centre)

Bronson and Somerset, near the Chinatown Arch

Fake Trees and Wide Lanes (MacLaren/Gilmour)

Bronson and Gladstone

Bronson and Arlington (including bike route options)

Among the things not included on the posters (because it was something you could see on the walk) were how narrow the sidewalks are, especially south of Somerset on the West side (see Eric's post at, appropriately enough, West Side Action).

The tour ended at Arlington, where I want the city to install signals to improve the pedestrian/cycling routes crossing Bronson. Since the Bronson reconstruction project's engineers say that not enough pedestrians cross Bronson at the unsignalized Arlington intersection (no wonder why!), many in the group bravely crossed Bronson to show the engineers that pedestrians really do cross here!

I hope those of you who were on the walk enjoyed it, and those who couldn't make it enjoy the posters here and on site. I encourage you to follow @RescueBronson on Twitter, and to sign our petition at RescueBronson.ca to help make Bronson a healthy street.

Sunday 11am and noon: Rescue Bronson Avenue walking tour

2011-05-07T21:00:00.001-04:00

This ain't your mother's Mother's Day Jane's Walk. Unless your mother lived on Bronson before they widened it in the '50s.

Sunday, May 8, 2011, at 11am, head on over to Bronson and Queen for a really exciting Jane's Walk on Bronson Avenue. If you're not the morning type, you can meet up with us at the Chinatown Arch/Raw Sugar where we'll get to the second half of the walk at noon.

This will be an illustrated walk. The photo below shows an historical photo of Bronson and Somerset. There are eight different location-specific posters of behind-the-scenes happenings along Bronson that you can't see while standing on location. I'll post copies of these posters on the blog on Monday, and hopefully the posters will stay up a while.

In honour of the occasion, the Mayor proclaimed Thursday May 7, 2011, Jane Jacobs Day in Ottawa:

Thursday evening, there was an event at Raw Sugar café called "Jane's Talk", where three urban planners, including Alain Miguelez (who wrote A Theatre Near You), spoke about human-scale urban planning. The wide shot below is to illustrate the deficit of bike parking spaces on the south side of Somerset at this corner.

There is parking on the North side of Somerset, including a couple unused ribbon racks hidden behind the fence in the parking lot by the Arch. The blue Velocity rack had room for more bikes, but cyclists don't like the idea of crossing Somerset here and prefer to lock their bikes to whatever they can muster on the South side. I warned of this when the city removed parking meters and replaced only a small fraction of them with ring-and-post bike racks.

Anyhoo, it was standing room only when I got there, with over 50 people crammed into the eclectic space.

There will also be a wrap party starting at 4pm at the Lieutenant's Pump for everyone who gave, helped with, or attended a Jane's Walk this weekend, and people who couldn't get out to a walk are welcome to come too!

Sunday, May 8, 2011, 11am
Jane's Walk Ottawa--Rescue Bronson Avenue
Bronson and Sparks 11am, Chinatown Arch 12pm

The Jane's Walk for Rescue Bronson Avenue on May 8 is confirmed! I'll be leading a behind-the-scenes tour of Bronson Avenue through Centretown, including upcoming road and building developments, highlighting problems and opportunities for fixing them highlighted by the Rescue Bronson Avenue campaign, and looking at some of the heritage and history on the street. We will meet at 11am at Bronson and Sparks and head down Bronson to the Chinatown Arch, where we will break until leaving for the second leg south to Arlington at noon. You can come to either or both sections. If you can't make the walk, please still sign the Rescue Bronson petition!

Jane's Walks, named for the late New York/Toronto urbanist Jane Jacobs, are an annual series of free walking tours of all different parts of the city. Ottawa's Jane's Walk is in its fourth year and the CCCA has participated in the past through the Trees & Greenspace Committee. See details for this tour at http://www.rescuebronson.ca/ and see a listing of all 2011 Jane's Walks in Ottawa at http://www.janeswalkottawa.ca/

Kenniston Apartments, Elgin Court, and the Lieutenant's Pump

2011-05-04T12:00:00.002-04:00

[Reminder: Public meeting on Section 37 at City Hall tomorrow at 5pm. Rescue Bronson Avenue walking tour for Janes Walk Ottawa on Sunday. Details of these and other upcoming events in Centretown.]

Here are the Kenniston Apartments at 341-359 Elgin, spanning Waverley to Frank. The building is over a century old (a Library & Archives Canada photo dates from 1909) and contains residential apartments surrounding a court.

At Waverley, the Lieutenant's Pump occupies the split lower level of the building, which comes right out to both streets.

Between the side streets, the building sits further back, creating a courtyard with half-basement retail, and residences and balconies above. In addition to the Pump, the court includes Booster Juice, Kochu Sushi, Oz Café, and Pancho Villa.

The sunken retail is a relatively new feature, added in the mid 1980s; previously the court was a raised lawn with four large trees (replaced in these renovations with the four younger trees there now). The building and Elgin Court is described in the October 1983 Heritage Ottawa newsletter (PDF),

"The building as it now stands is red brick with wrought iron balcony railings, and in a faintly European manner curves around one of the few remaining grass lawns on Elgin Street. Four huge old maple trees grace the yard, which is raised about two feet up from the sidewalk.
"According to the artist's sketch on the sign out front, the plan is to cram 9,600 sq. ft. of glass, greenhouse-type shops on a lower level, beneath the apartments. This necessitates removing the entire lawn and all but one of the graceful old trees." (p3/4)

Until even more recently, the Lieutenant's Pump had a patio out front at sidewalk level, around which you walked to get to the pub's entrance in the back corner of the court. Here's how it looked in June 2010:

Last fall, the fences were dismantled and workers were removing the other elements of the patio. Scaffolding was being erected for some work.

By mid-November, the patio had been removed and a hole was excavated. The hole came dangerously close to the roots of one of the trees, and we'll see if it comes back to life in the Spring.

In early December, some framing was assembled for a new structure:

Throughout the winter, work continued behind an orange tarp, leaving the final design as a surprise.

In late March 2011, the work was revealed--a new street-side entrance for the Pump, with darkly-stained wood and glass doors and brickwork echoing that of the original building, including the cornice at the top of Kenniston Apartments. Work continued on the courtyard.

Not long after, the new entrance was opened up and the was patio complete, with brickwork highlighting the tree. At night, the new entrance glows bright, much more invitingly than the old one.

A bench and some barrels has been added to animate the streetscape, as was a canopy and a pair of lanterns. The renovations look to be a big success! Lots of people were out this past weekend and passersby stopped to chat with people eating on the patio. Cyclists, however, found that bicycle parking was in short supply.

To top it all off, a cast iron mailbox was installed.

In contrast to the damage done to the building's heritage features by the "greenhouse" retail courtyard in the 1980s, this latest renovation added an element that, I think, enhances the building's heritage characteristics, while improving the pedestrian appeal of the Pump. This stretch is now so popular that there is pedestrian congestion. If only there were room to widen the sidewalks!

The writing on the walk says to vote

2011-05-02T12:00:00.001-04:00

Just like for the advance polls, some youth drew chalk lines in the blocks surrounding Jack Purcell Community Centre directing people there to vote today in the Canadian federal election. I happened upon a group of them in action yesterday as they were drawing lines at Elgin and Gilmour:

I was relieved to see they had a tool for the lines; when I first saw the lines I wondered about back pain from drawing that many lines!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Elgin Promenade

2011-04-29T12:00:00.000-04:00

Parallel to Elgin Street, just a few metres East, there's a wide pathway that connects Laurier to Lisgar, going past the Universal Declaration of Human Rights memorial, City Hall's Heritage Building (the former Ottawa Normal School), and the Ontario Courthouse.

It's great in concept, except I don't think it really works. The sidewalk along Elgin there is as narrow as it can be to make this walkway as wide as possible, and as a result there's not enough room for people to stand as they wait for the bus.

Not that there would be a pedestrian crossing so close to the intersection, but even if there were the promenade couldn't continue north of Laurier or south of Lisgar: to the north is Confederation Park, whose layout isn't really compatible with this vista; and to the south is Knox Presbyterian Church's third location. It's previous location, further up Elgin Street, "was expropriated for the widening of Elgin approach to the proposed Confederation Square. Granted a new lot at Elgin and Lisgar in compensation, the church is in possession of a letter from Prime Minister WL Mackenzie King promising that they would never be moved again." (from URBSite).

Even though it's not along the path of a pedestrian going along Elgin, it's still a reassuring example of space reserved for pedestrians instead of being swallowed up by parking and turning lanes.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Ottawa-Centre all-candidates meeting April 28 and other Spring 2011 CCCA Events

2011-04-27T12:00:00.003-04:00

The following message was sent to the e-mail list of the Centretown Citizens Community Association early this morning. Join the CCCA and get on the e-mail list to receive 2-3 updates per month from the CCCA. Note that Images of Centretown is my personal blog and not a blog of the CCCA.

Dear CCCA members/followers,

We have a lot of exciting news about upcoming events and opportunities for you to get involved in the future of our neighbourhood. I know you'll be itching for things to do once the election is over!

Thursday, April 28, 2011, 6-8pm
Ottawa-Centre All-Candidates Event
*volunteers needed!*
St. Paul University (223 Main Street), Guiges Hall, Auditorium

The Old Ottawa East Community Association and the CCCA teamed up with OpenFile Ottawa to organize an all-candidates meeting for people living in Ottawa-Centre. The focus will be driven by you! Questions will be selected through the audience or beforehand through ottawa.openfile.ca. OpenFile is a collaborative local news site. Visit ottawa.openfile.ca and your ideas will help power the event (here's the link http://bit.ly/i29ptt). Spread the word!

A few volunteers will be needed to help direct people to the entrance and to promote the CCCA to potential members. If you can help out on site at the event or by putting up posters in Centretown before the meeting, please contact canning dot martin at gmail.com.

Thursday, May 5, 2011, 5-7pm
Centretown Public Meeting on Rezonings, Community Benefits, and Section 37
Ottawa City Hall (room to be posted on the CCCA website)

The CCCA and Councillor Holmes' office are holding a meeting about Section 37 and Centretown. Section 37 of the Ontario Planning Act allows municipalities to negotiate for community benefits from developers when developers seek to rezone a property with increased height or density. Toronto has been using this provision for over a decade to get nearly $300 million worth of facilities in this type of agreement, but Ottawa has only just started--with Centretown leading the way.

The goal of this meeting is to bring Centretown residents together to introduce the concept, review the City's draft policy, share the list of proposed benefits (including those used in Toronto, those proposed by Ottawa, and those sought by the CCCA based on feedback so far), and get feedback from the community to send to the Planning Department. The CCCA has submitted a list of facilities needed in Centretown, and many of these facilities could be negotiated in a Section 37 agreement. See page 3 of the February 2011 meeting minutes for the initial list. Additional items were added in March (see items 6.4.7 and 6.4.8 of the March minutes).

The meeting will be held in one of the Committee rooms on the second floor of City Hall, and as soon as we find out which one it's in we'll post it to our website.

Sunday, May 8, 2011, 11am
Jane's Walk Ottawa--Rescue Bronson Avenue
Bronson and Sparks 11am, Chinatown Arch 12pm

The Jane's Walk for Rescue Bronson Avenue on May 8 is confirmed! I'll be leading a behind-the-scenes tour of Bronson Avenue through Centretown, including upcoming road and building developments, highlighting problems and opportunities for fixing them highlighted by the Rescue Bronson Avenue campaign, and looking at some of the heritage and history on the street. We will meet at 11am at Bronson and Sparks and head down Bronson to the Chinatown Arch, where we will break until leaving for the second leg south to Arlington at noon. You can come to either or both sections.

Jane's Walks, named for the late New York/Toronto urbanist Jane Jacobs, are an annual series of free walking tours of all different parts of the city. Ottawa's Jane's Walk is in its fourth year and the CCCA has participated in the past through the Trees & Greenspace Committee. See details for this tour at http://www.rescuebronson.ca/ and see a listing of all 2011 Jane's Walks in Ottawa at http://www.janeswalkottawa.ca/

CCCA is now on Facebook and Twitter!
You can now "like" the CCCA on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Centretown-Citizens-Community-Association/196341200402514) and follow us on Twitter (@CentretownCCA). The CCCA's Communications and Membership Committee has been doing some great work to raise the CCCA's profile and give us a more professional web and physical presence. Keep an eye out for more of their work!

Monday, May 9, 2011, 5:30pm
CCCA Planning & Development Review Committee
Ottawa City Hall (Room TBA)

The PDR Committee heard an interesting presentation from Windmill Developments on their revised plans for the Christ Church/Cathedral Hill redevelopment at its April regular meeting. (See the planning applications at http://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans/appDetails.jsf?lang=en&appId=__7F453W and some background at http://centretown.blogspot.com/2011/03/walk-around-christ-church.html). The CCCA has already submitted comments on the proposal in January. It is expected to go to the City's Planning Committee on May 10, 2011, and subsequently to Council.

We were disappointed to learn that we never received the City's notice in the mail about the rezoning for the Greyhound bus terminal site--despite being told in March that it was coming and to expect it. While the architect had presented the proposal to our December meeting, we wanted to see what was actually being proposed so we could respond to the specifics (for example, we were told in December that the towers in the corners of the site would be 15 and 19 storeys, but the proposal apparently had them much taller). The promised letter never came to us, and our feedback will now have much less impact on the planning process than it could have had.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 5:30pm
CCCA Transportation Committee
Meet at Bridgehead on Elgin at MacLaren (and go elsewhere if there isn't room)

The CCCA's Transportation Committee meets regularly on the second Tuesday of the month. Please let us know if you're interested in coming so we can let you know if there is a change to the time or date of the meeting.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 7pm
CCCA Regular Meeting
Ottawa City Hall (Room TBC)

The CCCA's next monthly Board meeting is on May 17. Thanks to everyone who came out to the April meeting and contributed to the lively discussions. (Did someone leave some black cotton gloves?).

Saturday, June 18, 2011, 8am-2pm
Minto Park Sale and BBQ
*volunteers needed*
Minto Park, Elgin and Gilmour

For the third year in a row, the CCCA will be participating in the Minto Park Sale (formerly the "No-Yard Yard Sale"): our Trees & Greenspace Committee will have its annual plant sale and I'll be back behind the grill for the annual fundraiser barbecue. Proceeds from table rentals at the Minto Park Sale and a portion of the proceeds from the BBQ will go to the Centretown Emergency Food Centre. If you would like to book a table or would like to help organize, promote, or set up the sale, please contact 613-580-2484 or mintoparksale@ottawa.ca

As always, please share this message with people who will be interested in it, and encourage your friends and neighbours to join the CCCA to support our efforts. For your convenience, a downloadable membership form is on the CCCA website at http://www.centretowncitizens.ca/

Thank you for your contributions to making Centretown a great place to live!

Cheers,

Charles Akben-Marchand
President
Centretown Citizens Community Association (CCCA)
http://www.centretowncitizens.ca/