Welcome Signs of Spring

Spring is coming to Centretown. There are signs of it everywhere.

For one, the patio at Bridgehead has been set up. Here's a shot of the truck delivering the chairs and tables earlier this month:

Don't worry, I'm not missing the wonderful weather today. My new laptop battery lets me enjoy the sun as I compose this post on Bridgehead's patio.

Pure Gelato has also been preparing for the nicer weather by rebuilding their front entrance:

On my way over today, I found the many benches installed on Bank Street between Laurier and Somerset. They're all very well used at all times of the day, which really livens up the street. And thankfully, they aren't those ghastly cafeteria chairs that were tested last fall.

The artistic bicycle racks promised for Bank Street haven't yet been installed, but the omnipresent blue bicycle racks were installed on Elgin this past week while I was enjoying an after-work drink at Bridgehead:

I caught a shot of the workers installing the racks and their van outside Boushey's:

The windows at the government building at 333 Laurier (department of the half-beast?) got a good cleaning by workers with very, very long poles:

Neither a sign of spring, nor a welcome sign, but a sign of the times: the Ottawa Citizen has removed many of its newspaper boxes, leaving only a few in the central core. At this rate, the multi-unit newspaper boxes may become unnecessary.

And the best sign of spring is the annual Eco-Stewardship Fair at the RA Centre. Among the many displays was one of the City of Ottawa booths advertising the green bins that are coming in 2010. They were giving out paper leaf-and-yard-waste bags advertising this announcement. A sample green bin was on hand, which was the first time I got an inkling of how big these things will be (the answer: not very):

The company building the processing facilities for this organic waste also had a booth. Apparently they're starting out with the capacity for 200,000 tons of material per year from the City of Ottawa, but will eventually grow their operations to accommodate 200,000 tons. Private companies, like condo buildings and restaurants, will also be able to dispose of their waste there. The facility will be funded by a combination of dumping fees and sales of the processed material to farmers.

If you ask me, 2010 isn't soon enough to start diverting this stuff from landfills!

Happy spring!