Saving the day on Cooper Street

During warm/wet spells like the one we got a couple weekends ago, I bring a sidewalk scraper around with me to clear away some of the more persistent ice banks that were blocking drains around the neighbourhood. Oftentimes it only takes a minute or two to clear a small path and gravity does the rest, the water widening its channel as more of it passes through. It's important to have cleared away these puddles while it's warm so they don't turn into skating rinks on days like today, where it's minus 15 Celsius!

On Cooper Street at Metcalfe there was a big one, stretching across the sidewalk and most of the way across the roadway. This one would be a challenge!!

You can often find a catchbasin in the sidewalk which is blocked by some snow/ice, or at least the yellow "T" on the centreline of the road points to the nearest drain on the edge of the sidewalk. But this stretch of Cooper still has its rectangular grates in the road, and even if Cooper had the yellow Ts, the water was too deep to see them!

Normally at this point I'd just call it in to 3-1-1 and let the City crews figure it out. I did that for a couple of spots on Florence where the ice banks were required too much effort to hack a channel through, and on Christie Street where an even bigger puddle than the one on Cooper wouldn't drain at all despite reaching the drains.

In addition to heavy equipment, City crews have calcium chloride, a strong salt that they dump into the catchbasin, melting whatever snow is clogging the drain. This is the same stuff they spread on the roads, too.

But this puddle was too odd. I whipped out my phone and pulled up the location in Google Street View (a stripped-down version accessible quickly via the City's GeoOttawa map):

I had already moved down the street on my phone in search for another catchbasin when I took this photo, but alas the only one was between two driveways. You can see it below, where it came up incidentally in this November 2011 shot which I tagged in my photo collection with "vanscaping":

Being between two adjacent driveways, the sidewalk was dipped horribly down and therefore engulfed in water. It was in line with the fence that runs between the two laneways, which was a helpful landmark, but my feet would be completely underwater if I went in (I'd left my rainboots at home!).

Luckily, leaning against the fence was a bedframe that someone was throwing out. After removing the casters, I was able to use this—very carefully—as a bit of a raft to give me drier footing to just barely reach the catchbasin.

I chipped away at the submerged ice in the approximate location of the catchbasin until I heard and felt the distinct "plunk" that meant that I had reached the catchbasin! That is, I had cleared the ice off of one of the twelve little rectangles of the grate. I stepped back and tried to look for signs that the puddle was draining. Between the wind and passing cars, the floating surface ice seemed to be gyrating, but I wasn't sure if this was because it was draining, or just currents from the wind and passing cars (or, given the size of the puddle, tides!).

But sure enough, the next day on my way to work, the puddle was gone!

So the next mystery was, was it my intervention that did the trick? Well, looking at the scene, there wasn't any obvious signs of the City coming by to clear it with machinery. Presumably if a crew had come by, they would have waited until it was all drained, in which case they wouldn't have left it covered with snow and slush like it is. It's also possible that time and the warmish weather helped erode the ice blockage.

Needing to satisfy my curiosity, I sent an e-mail to 3-1-1 asking if they had received any calls from anyone else. They replied a few days later to say that, no, they hadn't received any requests for that location, so the credit for clearing the pond was all mine!

I'll share the credit with gravity, of course :)

Mayflower Pub, 1979-2013

As has been reported, the Mayflower Pub and restaurant—an Ottawa fixture—is closing this month.

As says the sign above the pub's entrance, the place has been around since 1979:

On the busy corner of Elgin and Cooper:

As the signboard says, for a limited time only.

Cheers.

Bronson reopens for the last time

After two years of construction, Bronson Avenue reopens to through traffic today, whereas it had been closed between Laurier and Somerset (the headline of the linked PSA wrongly states Gladstone). I thought I'd post some snapshots to summarize the progress.

As with last year, the reopening isn't necessarily something to celebrate, as Bronson will no doubt return to its status as a traffic sewer for hasty drivers with little or no connection to Centretown, the roadway is the same width as before the reconstruction (despite the Community's strong desire to get it rebuilt otherwise), but without all the potholes to slow them down. There will hopefully be some degree of relief on the side streets which have been host to cut-through traffic when Bronson was closed.

Recall how disruptive the closure was to road users of all modes. Not only did it disrupt the patterns of people who were just passing through, but when the intersection of Somerset and Bronson was closed, bus riders had quite a walk to get to the nearest bus stop. Customer traffic to the businesses along Bronson slowed to a trickle when Gladstone was closed. There were some attempts to maintain temporary sidewalks for pedestrians also, as seen here in the muddy mess of a street, looking north along the former east sidewalk:

Special CCCA Board meeting on Tuesday

After last week's community meeting to discuss the Centretown CDP, the CCCA's Board of Directors will meet tomorrow evening, Tuesday, April 30, at 7pm at City Hall (Billings Room*) to discuss the community response, and as always these meetings are open to the public.

There will also be a public presentation from the City tomorrow (April 30) afternoon at 1:30 at City Hall, where they will reveal their reaciton to the requests made by developers and community association when the CDP was endorsed by the City's Planning Committee on March 26. (This staff presentation was initially to be to some key stakeholders, including the CCCA, but was opened up to the public as consolation for City staff not attending the CCCA's public meeting.)

As discussed last week, the community consultation was to discuss a deal between the CCCA's board and the development community to go to the City seeking changes to the latest draft of the Centretown CDP. The most controversial portion has to do with tall buildings in Mid-Centretown, the area roughly bounded by Cooper, Elgin, Kent and Argyle, whose zoning would increase the height limit to 9 storeys from the current 4 1/2 (Elgin would remain at around 5 storeys). The residents of this area dominated the audience at last week's public meeting.

The latest draft of the City's plan, responding to concerns from the development industry, introduced a provision for "Landmark Buildings". These could be much, much taller than 9 storeys (potentially 30 to 50 storeys), if they met a sizeable list of strict requirements. Such requirements incldue 40% of the area devoted to greenspace or a public amenity, and that each such property must border on three streets, one of which must be Kent, Metcalfe or O'Connor.

The CCCA-Developer agreement proposes an alternative called "Small Moments" which would essentially loosen the criteria for buildings that exceed 9 storeys, but would limit the amount to which they could grow. So there would no longer be a requirement for a site to front on more than one street, and such properties could also be on Bank Street or Elgin Street. In exchange, the development must include a "small moment" of a public amenity, such as a parkette.

There are other elements to the CCCA-Developer proposal, and many other aspects of the community design plan which have been part of the three years of consultation. It has generally been agreed that taller buildings (up to 27 storeys) should remain at the north (north of Cooper) and south (along Catherine) edges of Centretown. However, many people at the meeting were not familiar with the prior stages of consultation, and they expressed frustration that the discussion had such a narrow focus, not mentioning affordable housing, for example.

Nevertheless, the audience was asked for their opinion. The video below shows their response to the four options (the cards are color-coded by area of residence: pink for west of Kent, green for Kent to Elgin, and orange for east of Elgin, although some developers voted also). The options were:
(1) Support the CCCA-Developer agreement (i.e. Small Moments)
(2) Support the latest draft of the City plan (i.e. Landmark Buildings)
(3) Support neither of the above
(4) I don't know

The biggest response was the third option, support for neither. Smaller responses were received for the CCCA-Developer agreement (which included votes by the non-resident developers) and the latest draft of the City plans.

On Tuesday, the CCCA's Board will take the input from this meeting, as well as what it learns about the Staff recommendation earlier that afternoon, and decide whether or not to re-approve the deal with the developers.

Then, a week and a half later, on Wednesday, May 8, 2013, City Council will consider the CDP, and any recommendations from Staff (i.e. the recommendations which staff will present tomorrow afternoon). Council will likely approve the CDP, though it remains to be seen how it will be amended.

As I wrote in last week's blog entry, I do not like the agreement and I voted against it at the CCCA's Board meeting in March. I also do not like the Landmark Buildings provision, but I feel that the Small Moments just makes it worse, with meagre tokens that do little to provide useful amenities to Centretown. The CDP originated because the existing zoning limits were unclear, contradictory and confusing. Nine storeys in mid-Centretown would fix this; however Landmark Buildings and Small Moments would re-introduce the ambiguity that the CDP was supposed to fix. The Landmark Buildings, because they are much more restricted geographically, are the lesser of the two evils. (Disclosure: I work in the office of Councllor Diane Holmes, however this blog post and the opinions therein are my own)

The CCCA's agreement with the development community, as well as a bunch of other CDP-related resources, are available on the CCCA's website.

I hope you can make it to one or both of the meetings tomorrow, as this is such an important issue that will affect Centretown for decades to come.
(*The Billings room can barely handle the amount of people who come out to a regular board meeting, and I suspect a larger one will be needed to accommodate the potential turnout for this one.)

Bixi's back for 2013

As of today, Capital Bixi is back in action! For subscribers like me, that means my key should work for the remainder of my one-year subscription (which I bought last June). And for you readers of my blog, that means I'm going to blog about it!

I never got around to blogging my Bixi photos last year (and the year before, my season-opener blog post used photos from the 2009 pilot), so I get to include some of those with this post. For example, the one above was taken last June at the Museum of Nature's east lawn, at Elgin and McLeod. On Saturday night, the bikes had been re-installed, though it was decidedly snowier:

3D Thursday: 201 Cooper Street

Older buildings, especially stone ones, tend to make good subjects for 3D photos because they tend to have more parts sticking out in front of others than more modern buildings. Being mostly grey, stone buildings are also more colour-balanced (important since red or blue objects tend to be bright in one eye and dark in the other due to the filters), though this applies to Brutalist concrete buildings too.

201 Cooper was one of the three stone buildings in this photo.

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

Infamous local heritage expert David Jeanes provided some background on the building in a 2010 e-mail:

"There were many stone mansions built during the 19th century for wealthy Ottawa businessmen, but by the date 201 Cooper was built (1888-9), stone was becoming quite rare and most mansions were of brick. I noted that there are no heritage designated stone residences in Centretown, and I am not aware of any others that are as large or as close to original condition as 201 Cooper.

"The architect of 201 Cooper is not known, but it is similar in general plan, architectural style, and construction details to Italianate mansions designed by Henry Horsey, architect of the Nicholas Street Jail in 1860. He was 57 when 201 Cooper was built."

In 2010, the CCCA's Heritage Committee (which is now dormant) expressed concern about the level of heritage protection afforded to this building. As this Centretown News article documents, City heritage staff are adamant that the Heritage Conservation District is sufficient protection. Luckily, it doesn't look like the new Centretown Community Design Plan touches the District, though it does little to reinforce it, either.

Given that there are plenty of eligible buildings—with no heritage protection at all—vying for scant City funds for the research necessary for heritage designation, the District will probably suffice for now.

So let's just sit back and enjoy this nice stone building—in 3D!

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images]
[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Infill development: Where will all the dogs go?

Maybe you've seen these containers pop up here and there around town. They look like garbage receptacles with a plastic bag dispenser. This one's behind the new condos on LeBreton Flats, along the tailrace:

The building manager of the Gladstone Sports and Health Centre first brought this to my attention. Since the giant Bell Street Apartments are surrounded by concrete and asphalt all around, the residents of that building let their dogs go on the GSHC lawns. The owners tend to leave the dogs' leavings where the dogs left them, with disgusting results come springtime:

Confronted with this infiltration of defecation, the building manager asked how to get enforcement of the stoop-and-scoop by-laws. These regulations are posted on signs around the city, usually in public parks.

Dominion-Chalmers in 3D

There's no Peds on Weds post today, as my list of pedestrian topics is full with complaints and problems, and I'd like to identify some more positive ones to balance it out.

Instead, I'd like to share another 3D image. I've refined my skills from the previous 3D image, showing a scene from the Bronson Avenue reconstruction, by taking better source photos and being more careful when processing them into something that looks good with red-blue glasses. This one's of the Dominion-Chalmers United Church on O'Connor Street between Cooper and Lisgar:

As with the previous 3D image I'm sharing the source images too. If you don't have 3D glasses you can theoretically "wiggle" quickly between these two images to approximate a 3D effect, though they would need some cropping before that would work well.

Unlike the previous one, I've made it full colour by retaining the green channel in this image (the two views were taken too far apart in the previous view, and when I tried to add the green channel it makes your eyes hurt to try to see the 3D). Since most of the 3D images I've seen growing up were red-and-blue line drawings, I didn't even know you could do this until I saw the instructions I followed. The way this still works, I suspect, is that one eye sees the blue and green channels, which are bold enough to tell your brain that this is what the object looks like, and the other eye sees the red channel, which the brain uses to add dimension to what it sees in the other eye. The three colours mix together as they would if they were all identical, creating the full colour. Photos with lots of bright primary colours don't do well with this because there isn't enough information for the two eyes to compare what they see.


Since I'm taking photos with a single camera, it's a bit harder for me to get the second shot to match the first (with two identical cameras you can simply take the photos from two different angles at the same time to capture live images). What I've found works reasonably well is to pay attention to the nearest object in the image (for the church photo, this would be the nearest corner of the garden curb) and where it is in the frame. Then pay attention to reference points on the four edges of the frame (For example making sure the door on the right isn't cut off and that the camera sees the far corner of the curb along the roadside at Cooper). There aren't many up/down cues to work with, which is evident from the discrepancy between the two shots, but it's not really a problem because I can just crop out the parts that don't overlap.

Another trick I learned is to look through the glasses the 'wrong' way when creating the 3D photo. My eyes don't see 3D images too well, so sometimes I'm unsure if I've successfully created the 3D image. If you accidentally filter out the colours in the reverse order, your brain can't simply compensate, but when you flip the glasses the image pops right out and the cursor floats above it. Unfortunately, in the GIMP, once you filter out the colour channels, you can't add them back in, so you have to start over if you make this mistake.

I've got other 3D photos in production for future blog posts, and I'm also looking into where you can get some cheap red-blue 3D glasses locally. I also have a second camera, which I might start carrying with me...

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

Peds on Weds: Waiting for the bus

On Elgin street, at 3pm in winter: at least seven people are waiting for one of three northbound bus routes that serve the stop at Elgin and Cooper. They're crowded on a busy sidewalk that is barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. If you've ever tried to walk into the front doors of the Mayflower a few minutes after the last bus arrived, you probably have had to move aside some people waiting for the bus to do so.

The City's Downtown Moves study has recommendations for measuring pedestrian levels of service. This is a first for pedestrians in Ottawa, but is used rigorously by the City's traffic department for ensuring motor traffic moves smoothly to the detriment of all other road users.

The chart shown for pedestrians, as well as others in the documents (which I don't think are online) talk about pedestrian levels of service in terms of flow of pedestrians, as well as how many of them bunch up at corners waiting to cross in one direction while others are trying to get through in the other direction. I didn't see anything about pedestrians bunched together waiting for the bus.

Not that it's a surprise, but the pedestrian levels of service are obviously designed so conservatively that no sidewalk, except maybe in the middle of the downtown core, will every be considered to have a "failed" level of service and therefore require widening. Not to mention that this is a planning document intended for discussion, not an engineering standard to which the traffic engineers are so faithfully wedded.

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

Cooper Street jump

These are two houses on Cooper Street, between Lyon and Bay. The house on the right is Whelan Funeral Home at 515 Cooper. The house on the left is a house numbered 611 Cooper. Across the street, 514 Cooper and 610 Cooper are also neighbours.

While many people lament the inconsistency of Centretown's house numbering from block to block (at least there's a reason for that—namely, that some streets start at the Canal or Elgin, while others start at Bank), this big jump in numbers must surely cause some confusion for people searching for these addresses. It probably doesn't help that Cooper is one way in descending numerical order.

The direcitons that Whelan Funeral Home gives on its website avoid mention of the numbering, and probably for good reason (though they may want to adjust their suggested route now that Bronson is closed for construction).

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

Kent Street Quadruplets

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]

Ladder 11

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]

Centretown's polite pedestrians

Centretown's got some pretty nice people. When somebody found keys at the corner of Elgin and Cooper a while back, they took the time to put up a poster with a photo of the keys. I've seen other "found" signs around Centretown for other things, too. Perhaps even more than "lost" signs. I'd say that's a pretty decent thing to do.

I hope the keys eventually got reunited with their owner!

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

256 Bank Street

At Cooper Street. There's an awful lot going on here at the corner of Bank and Cooper, which recently spawned rainbow flags. At this building alone, there are five stores each on each floor. Behind the building on Cooper is the infamous Turning Point record shop.

This building also used to housed Exile Infoshop, an alternative bookstore and community space, and So Go Chinese restaurant. At the far right in the background, you can see the relatively recent Mondrian condo building.

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

Freezing trees

Yesterday we received a lot of cold rain. As it ran down this tree, it froze, enshrouding the tree on Cooper street in a layer of ice.

I hope to have more time to prepare longer blog posts after today's meeting of the CCCA's Planning & Development Review Committee at 5pm at City Hall. The packed agenda includes three presentations on upcoming proposed developments, including the Greyhound bus station site and the 27-storey tower proposed for Nepean Street. I encourage you to come.

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

Stone's throw

I noticed this view in early February, which shows three stone buildings on Elgin Street: the former Normal School (Teacher's College) that is now the Heritage Building wing of City Hall, Knox Church at Lisgar, and the stone house (now rental apartments) behind the stores on Elgin at Cooper, the name of which escapes me.

The Fairmont Château Laurier is also in the background of the photo.

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

Kenson Building entrance

Maybe I've been spending too much time hanging out with the Midcentury Modernist or watching Mad Men, but I've started to actually appreciate some '60s modernist architecture. My photo collection has grown lately by photos of things like this entrance to the Kenson building on Metcalfe at Cooper:


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

Bank Street Phase III, Part 6: Bike racks

[This post is part of a series on Bank Street's new look. See the introduction and part I here.]

Last time, I talked about the surfaces on Bank Street. Today's post is on my favourite topic--the bike racks.

As described in this panel from the March 2008 consultation, there isn't enough room on Bank for separate artworks as part of the Percent for Art program. So the decision was made to combine art with function by having bike racks with artistic designs.

A mainstay of bike parking in Ottawa are these blue advertising-supported Velocity racks. There are other designs too, not all of which are successful. Unfortunately, as these little stickers reminded us this week, most of the blue racks are removed for the winter:

The most secure year-round place to lock your bike to is parking meters. However, this has two problems for Bank Street. For one, parking meters will be phased out for Pay & Display over the next few years. But they also don't support the bike at two points, as recommended in the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals' Bicycle Parking Guidelines, this unfortunate Bank Street cyclist's bike is a case in point: it's fallen and the front wheel may get hit by a car, and passers-by may think it abandoned, inviting tripping, vandalism, and other damage.

At a few of the side-street bulbouts, these ring-and-post racks were installed. There are a couple other shots of these in Part 4 of the series, benches. Ring-and-post is one of the better types of racks, though many of the ones on Bank Street were located far from where cyclists wanted to park.

Here's one of the ring-and-post racks removed during construction, next to the Scotiabank at Gloucester. You can see the clump of concrete at the base of the post that served as an anchor for the bike rack in the sidewalk.

North of Laurier, a ring-and-post variant, designed by a Montreal company, were installed, and are kept in place throughout the year. They certainly have a different aesthetic to them. I've heard complaints from some cyclists that these racks don't allow you to use the central post for locking a U-lock, which limits your options for securing your bike. I've noticed myself that there are too few of them around when you want to have a meeting at the Bridgehead at Bank and Albert and the committee members all got there by bike.

As part of the reconstruction for phases II and III, these triangular Cora racks were installed at many corners (this one at Bank and Cooper, North-East) for higher capacity bike parking, to take overflow when the racks along the street are full. They're also better for longer-term parking than the parking meters or the artistic racks, because there's less pedestrian traffic going by to bump into your bike.

They were particularly useful over the past winter, because the new artistic bike racks weren't installed until this year. They eventually came, and here are two of them installed in front of the Rogers Plus store at Bank and Gilmour. Their panels haven't been installed yet.

Here are some more at Bank and Flora, looking South toward the Queensway underpass at the European Glass and Paint store.

Normally bike parking is in high demand at Herb & Spice on Bank at Lewis, but on the day I took this photo, two dogs were all that was parked on the rack:

To install the racks, these cylindrical cores were cut out of the sidewalk down to the gravel, and the new racks are secured to strong foundations underneath. This one, of course, is at Bank and Gloucester looking North toward Laurier.

The racks are outfitted with these fingers which hold the steel panels. The horizontal piece will also double as another place to wrap your lock around.

The steel panels were laser-cut and delivered separately on pallets. There are 90 racks in all, featuring 30 different designs.

There was an official unveiling ceremony for the racks, held November 4, 2009 at Café Suprème at Bank and Cooper. Here we see one of the artists, Howie Tsui, describing the inspiration for his design to the crowd inside the coffeeshop.

All the designs were on display at the event, and each design was accompanied by a description of the design written by its artist.

And the official unveiling! This rack was designed by Roy Lumagbas, who is standing at the far left. (Photo courtesy of Councillor Holmes' office)

Finally, the completed designs are installed all down Bank Street. I quite like this stylistic representation of a cyclist.

And what's Bank Street without pigeons!

Café Suprème serves an ideal backdrop for this design. Can you see what it is*?

Be sure to check out my previous two posts on bicycle parking and design, as well as my other posts on cycling.

Tune in again in a few days for the next, and possibly last, installment of this series.

*It's a frog.

Bank Street Phase III, Part 5: Surfaces

[This post is part of a series on Bank Street's new look. See the introduction and part I here.]

Last time, I shared some photos of the benches on Bank Street. Incidentally, they've removed the new benches South of Somerset, too. I think they were just doing a dry fit before removing them for the Winter.

Today it's surfaces. Lots of the more interesting aspects of the Bank Street redesign is the new, broader sidewalks and the various pieces of street furniture on them, but the surfaces that stretch between the sidewalks--i.e. the roads and crosswalks--have enough going on to merit their own post.

Here's a photo looking South down Bank at Lisgar from July 2007 on the Phase II portion of Bank Street, from Laurier to Somerset, in case you've forgotten how lumpy and bumpy Bank Street used to be. I believe they were drilling some core samples to get an idea of exactly what's underneath Bank Street in preparation for the following year's digging up of the century-old infrastructure. At the right is a newspaper box for Transcontinental Media's short-lived downtown weekly paper, the Ottawa City Journal:

After the underground work was complete, they paved a layer of asphalt in July to contain things. Here are some of the paving machines at Gilmour in front of the Rogers Plus store, at the end of a block-long carpet of asphalt. It doesn't go all the way to the curbs, because there was still more finishing to do on them.

South of McLeod, partial access to Bank Street was maintained so that people could get into and out of the mid-block parking lots on Bank. In late June, this alley of asphalt was laid to give drivers something more reasonable to drive on. The paving workers were very precise, following the string guide line to the inch:

In the final preparations for opening of the block, a pair of layers of asphalt were laid, stretching from curb to curb. This was taken in Phase II (looking North at Cooper) on November 14, 2008, with two more weeks of preparations before the street reopened.

By contrast, the second layer of asphalt went on this year's segment at the end of September, as seen here looking North up Bank from Gladstone. They've refined their techniques and were able, and by November 14 this year, Bank Street was already back open!

It seems more often than not that they pave asphalt right on or before a rainy day. You can see the water beading up on the surface of the asphalt. These bags of calcium chloride flakes were stacked outside Herb & Spice at Bank and Lewis. When applied, it looks like someone dropped piles of styrofoam pellets over the dusty gravel, apparently to control dust.

Once the second layer of asphalt was paved, the street looked nearly ready to go. Since the streets were still closed to cars, they became a de facto pedestrian space. These folks animated the street with a street hockey game between Gilmour and MacLaren streets, using construction pylons as goalposts. Others used the closed (or open, depending on how you look at it) road to practise their skateboarding tricks.

Before the street could be re-opened, these asphalt berms had to be installed along the edges of the streets to smooth out the lip on the edge of the sidewalks. I'm not entirely sure what the lips are for, as they come and go. For example, across the street in this photo, in front of the Staples store at Bank and Waverley, you notice that the berm (and the lip it covers) stops at the lamppost, and the sidewalk continues with no lip. I suspect the lip is drainage-related. (Photo taken last week)

Next to come are the crosswalk markings. Guide lines were spray-painted on the crossing of Lewis so that the stop line and crosswalk lines could be drawn precisely.

The following day, the lines were painted. Because the closed roads prevent cars driving over them, these lines at MacLaren were still shiny when I photographed them on Thursday night:

Most of the above describes the work done on Phase III, the section under construction this year. Last year, the majority of this same work was on Phase II, between Laurier and Somerset. Finishing touches for Phase II were done this year, and similar finishing touches will be done on Phase III next year.

In this photo, taken in mid-August 2009, they've dug up one of the manhole covers at Bank and Somerset (the first photo in this post shows this being done at Bank and Cooper), and applied a temporary cold patch around it. The four holes, which were frightening to cycle over, allowed drainage and a leverage point to re-extract the manhole cover more easily. They'll need to raise it up with a spacer when they pave the final layer of asphalt. This also explains the height discrepency at the curb requiring the temporary berm--You can see the berm that was installed last year coming down off the lip at the edge of the curb.

About a week after they dug up the manholes, the final layer of asphalt had been laid (although the ones at the intersection of Bank and Somerset would remain for a number of weeks). Here's a shot looking South at Lisgar again--much nicer than in the photo above from two years ago! The crosswalks have been painted, and marks made for the yellow centre line to be painted.

On the cross-streets (in this case, Lisgar again), they needed to scrape off some of the old asphalt to give a straight cut for the asphalt to cover over smoothly. If you click the photo to zoom in, you can see the four holes around the manhole cover. The old crosswalk paint will simply be paved over.

The final asphalt makes for a smooth transition on the cross streets. In this case, Nepean Street.

In mid-September, these paint marks outlined the location of crosswalks. You'll note that they line up well with the border of the concrete sidewalk.

The lines guide a slice through the asphalt and crosswalk pavers are installed over a bed of sand:

The precast paver crosswalks help to define the crosswalk as a pedestrian zone and continuation of the sidewalk. Looks pretty good, if you ask me.

Tune in in a couple days for my Part 6: Bike Racks (my favourite).

Note also the upcoming CCCA meeting on Tuesday night, 7pm in the Honeywell Room at City Hall.