Peds on Weds: Toronto-style sidewalks part 1

For quite some time now, I've wanted to do a thorough writeup on what in Ottawa traffic-geek circles is referred to a "Toronto-style" sidewalk design. People love them and hate them, for reasons that I'll discuss over the next three weekly pedestrian-themed "Peds on Weds" posts, starting here.

The sidewalk seen below is an outstanding example of what people I know call a "Toronto-style sidewalk". I've no idea what people in Toronto call them, and for all I know the title might be apocryphal. The term refers to is a wide, flat surface for pedestrians, and the crosspath is ramped only to the minimum extent required for motor vehicles to get up to the height. This example is on the east side of Bronson looking north from Somerset to Cooper Street in August 2013, not long after it was installed. Pardon the spray paint markings:

The benefit is for pedestrians, but this is anathema to the car-centric roadbuilders who install them, as Eric Darwin described in a West Side Action post about the installation of the sidewalks on Bronson:

"I talked to the project / concrete foreman on the site [Bronson west side, north of Gladstone]. I complimented him on keeping so much of the walkway level. He, however, was much more interested in pointing out how gentle the motorists’ slopes were, so there wouldn’t be much of  bump for them."

The ramp is what gives the design its official name in the City of Ottawa, which has been the official standard in the City of Ottawa since June 2006: the "Ramp Style Vehicle Access Crossing" (being a traffic department term, naturally the title refers to its relationship to vehicles rather than to pedestrians or sidewalks). There is a gradual 2% grade over the flat part of the sidewalk to drain water away from the road (2% is not as steep as depicted here) which must be at least 1.05 m wide, and the ramp is 75 cm wide, assuming a curb height of 12.5 cm:

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:

Autumn in Centretown

The brown-tinged leaves of the ginkgo tree are one of the signs of fall.

As you could probably tell, though, this photo isn't from the current season, with the tower crane for the Centropolis condos in the background. It's from mid-October 2011, so we still have some time to enjoy a touch of good weather here or there. And even in mid-October, the flower shop/café had its patio chairs set out.

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

Yellow again

It's been a couple years since I last posted photos of yellow houses in Centretown, but this little one on Gilmour just east of Salisbury Place, in the Golden Triangle, is just so adorable, with its green trim:

It's a bit dominated by the also-well-kept house next to it, not to mention the highrise of 20 Driveway looming behind it.

Over in the west part of Centretown, on Florence Street, is another yellow house that had escaped my 2010 inventory:

I recently noticed on Holmwood in the Glebe a house that bears a striking resemblance to the first yellow house I blogged about, which was on Arlington. Perhaps this one on Holmwood is what the house on Arlington could have looked like in an alternate universe.

Another yellow-ish house in Centretown is the Embassy of Armenia at Delaware and Robert, which is also notable as it's part of Doors Open Ottawa 2013.

I likely won't get around to a standalone Doors Open post this year, so this will have to do. Find all the info you need at ottawa.ca/doorsopen, or get a hard copy of the guide at your local Bridgehead. Doors Open 2013 will be this Saturday and Sunday, June 1-2, 2013.

One last (hopefully) blast of winter

The weather forecast suggests that we'll be getting another 20-centimetre blast of snow in the next couple of days. This might be my last chance this year to get some of my winter-related photos out before trying to forget that season and focus on spring and summer. So here goes.

Here's an inuksuk I built outside Bridgehead on Elgin after a snowstorm in December. It was one of those ones with really sticky snow. A couple of days after falling, that sticky snow had hardened into snow you could cut chunks from.

That was actually from the storm pictured below on Gladstone, where the snow 'flakes' were the size of frosted mini wheats. I hope this week's storm doesn't bring us this heavy stuff:

Peds on Weds: Ice away!

Even when no snow has fallen in a while, the City's road crews are still hard at work. This is something I've noticed a lot of this year that I don't recall seeing in previous years. The sidewalk plows are out in full force to clear built up snow and ice from the sidewalks and lay down salt on icy parts of sidewalks, especially at the corners. Not just the main streets, but side streets like Florence Street here have gotten this treatment—important when half of Centretown residents walk to work.

This is good news for pedestrians. There are plenty of things for pedestrians to complain about, but it's equally important to point out when good things happen to pedestrians. Please send me your ideas for positive pedestrian stories to include in my weekly Peds on Weds posts!

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

Truck Pie

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.

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

Happy (Centre)Town

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]

Snowshoe sidewalks

[Bonus post this week! I said I'd post this on Wednesday, but needed to make room in the publishing schedule for an exciting time-sensitive series so it's going up on Tuesday instead. Enjoy!]

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we had some intense weather on the weekend, with a snowfall, then heavy rain, then another snowfall. We're lucky it was on the weekend, when traffic was lighter and most trips can be postponed. Those who did venture out had great difficulty getting around on foot. Since 48% of Centretown residents commute on foot, and many others walk through Centretown, unusable sidewalks is a significant setback.

Here's a snowbank at a mid-block bus stop on Gladstone. How are the passengers supposed to get to the bus? Able-bodied people might be okay, so long as they're not carrying too much with them, but anyone else would have a challenge. At the bus stop on the corner of Gladstone and Elgin, the snowbank was so wide and high that I could see no footprints between the shelter and the road (I wish I'd taken a photo). People just didn't use the bus.

It's not just for bus passengers. In front of the Central phase I construction site on Gladstone, large snowbanks prevent parkers from getting to the sidewalk except by walking in the middle of traffic to the end of the block. The entire stretch is also blocked off by the cross-braces on the posts. I seem to recall there being some gaps here, but there aren't any now.

This next one's pretty sneaky. The site office trailer for the Centropolis condos under construction at Gladstone and Kent is at the corner of Florence and Kent. In mid-January, my photos showed lots of room for a sidewalk plow to clear a path for pedestrians between the trailer and the tree on the bulbout:

Walking home along Florence on Saturday night, the plowed section of the sidewalk just stopped before the trailer. Foot tracks went along the curb edge to create a makeshift path (which was common on Saturday night, since many of the sidewalks had puddles, as mentioned last post). I wasn't quite sure where the sidewalk was under all the snow.

It wasn't until I got home and looked at my old photos that I realized they'd moved the trailer over top of the sidewalk!

Everyone's slowed down in the bad weather, but for some people bad weather means having to stay at home. For example, I can easily navigate this snow-narrowed sidewalk on Bronson, but someone with a wheelchair, walker, or stroller would have to backtrack and use the road. This isn't something that's done easily on Bronson Avenue.

The CCOC apartment building at 520 Bronson on the right in this photo has a fair number of wheelchair users. Thanks to whatever plow driver left this pile of snow on the sidewalk, those people won't be able to get anywhere safely.

Pedestrians shouldn't have to be second-class road users. These examples show where the needs of pedestrians aren't being considered.

Note: I prepared this post before Eric Darwin's guest post on a related topic: Good Neighbours on Snowy Sidewalks.

Lake Florence

During last week's February thaw, I decided to go out clearing some storm drains to let the puddles drain before things froze up again. There were a couple on Florence that weren't draining, though, like this one:

The result was a puddle on the sidewalk, which didn't make for good walking conditions, now or when it freezes into solid ice.

There's another one that's so bad you can't even see it under the puddle. The grate is behind that car that's sticking out:

When the water doesn't drain, it can freeze into ice when the mercury drops. This is a hazard for pedestrians and vehicles, but it also seeps into the pavement and expands, creating potholes. That's why it's best to clear the snow and slush away from the drain when it's warm.

80 Florence - Chinese Community Building, part 3

Welcome to the big reveal--the final part in the series on the renovations to the exterior of the apartment building at 80 Florence, the Chinese Community Building.

In the previous two parts, I covered the former look and construction progress of the tower and of the ground level.

In this post, I've got a bunch of before-and-after angles, and some other views of the new look. Here's the view in mid-construction with the now-closed Stinson & Son/Main Garage in the foreground at Kent and Gladstone, in mid-October:

And here's a similar angle last week: the exterior uses two different shades of beige and light red brick to add variety to the view. The beige is contrasted by vertical stripes of blue-green window fixtures.

80 Florence - Chinese Community Building, part 2

This is the second post of three covering the renovations to the Chinese Community Building at 80 Florence (at Kent). In the previous post, I gave some background on the building and the site, and showed photos of the progress of work on the eight-storey tower part of the building, shown below in April 2010. Today I'll be discussing the details of the lower part of the apartment building.

On Kent Street, mid-block to Gladstone, the building steps down to what used to be a gymnasium, but is being converted to miscellaneous commercial uses. By the brickwork in this late-August 2010 photo, you can see that the upper levels are already pretty far along.

80 Florence - Chinese Community Building, part 1

If you've gone by the corner of Gladstone and Kent over the last year, this would be a fairly familiar view to the north-west. The eight-storey apartment building with the scaffolding is at 80 Florence. In a three-part post, I'll share photos of the exterior renovations.

In this post, I'll go over some of the building's past, and how the top of the building used to look and progress of its renovation. In the next post, I'll take a closer look at the building's former ground-level architecture and streetscaping. In the third and final post, the big reveal of how the renovated building looks, with many before-and-after angles.

Lyon Street Repaved - Cyclists get their sharrows?

Two years ago, in July 2008, I wrote a post on the terrible surface conditions on Lyon Street at the time.

Since then, a number of patches were put down on Lyon, which replaced a road covered in holes to a road covered in small bumps. This past March (2010), more patches were added. Most of them were about a foot in diameter.

More interestingly, they were numbered. In this photo at James (an intersection I hesitantly included in my commute) we see numbers 10, 11 and 12 in the foreground, with number 37 and others in the background. They went all the way up to the 50s.

It was evident that someone in the road department was making the same case I was: no more band-aids for Lyon, we need an overhaul!

At the start of June 2010, the long-awaited overhaul came. Here they're peeling off the first layer of asphalt along Lyon near Gladstone Avenue.

They're back...

The Bank Street Bike Racks, that is! This shot was taken this morning at the empty lot on Bank at Florence:

As mentioned at the end of this post from March:

Also on the topic of disappearing furniture, the bike racks on Bank Street have been removed for refurbishment. Apparently they weren't properly weather-sealed and were starting to rust. The manufacturer will re-paint them and reinstall them at no cost to the City.

I just hope they make sure to put them in the right locations.

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

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.

Bank Street Phase III, Part 4: Benches

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

Last time, I discussed the installation of trees on Bank Street.

Today's post is on the benches. Here's one of the beautiful benches installed as part of Phase I of the Bank Street reconstruction between Wellington and Laurier in June 2007:

As for Phase II and III, the old seating was nothing to sneeze at; shown here with some of the old bike racks in the foregound, they were rings of metal grate seating around a circular tree planter. They were uncomfortable to sit on, and very antisocial--you couldn't easily talk with more than one other person while sitting on them. (Photo taken August 2004)

In a March 2008 open house on the look of Phase II of the Bank Street project (Laurier to Somerset), this design charette described some possible designs for benches. The one on the top was designed to allow two people to sit together and have a conversation, while preventing someone from sleeping on the bench. (Not a goal I value highly)

As posted in last year's post on Bank Street reconstruction, this ugly cafeteria chair was the closest they could come to that design. Luckily, it was only put there for evaluation purposes, and thankfully the evaluation failed.

For reference, here's a shot of the two ring-and-post bike racks that used to be on that bulbout, as well as the concrete sidewalk design. This corner now contains a higher-capacity bike rack. Bike racks will be the subjecdt of Part 6 in this series.

It's hard to take photos of the benches, because I don't like taking photos of people without their permission, yet the benches are almost always occupied. Even before construction finished, this is a signal of a great pedestrian space. This photo is about the closest I could come, at Bank and Lisgar, looking at the Wallack's store and the Invisible Cinema, in mid-September 2008:

More benches were installed next to the Scotiabank at Bank and Gloucester, across from the Royal Oak. Here in April 2009 you can see that the two benches face each other:

Whereas in late September 2009, the benches have ben reconfigured, and a bunch of spray paint violates the relatively new decorative surface elements. The spray paint indicates the location of underground traffic signal wires:

In early November 2009, the benches were installed on the section of Bank under construction this year, from Somerset to Arlington. Here's one freshly installed outside Quizno's at Bank and MacLaren:

Here's another one kitty-corner from the previous photo, behind Hartman's. The protective styrofoam packaging is still on the arms of the benches.

At the March 2008 open house (where the design charette above was on display), I had a discussion with the designer of the benches about the middle arm. Obviously designed to keep people from sleeping on the benches (it seems we can't fight that sentiment any more), but the arm's location in the middle of the bench made it hard to use. I mentioned that each half of the bench could only really hold one-and-a-half people, reducing its overall capacity. A mother and her son would have to sit on opposite halves of the bench.

I suggested to the designer that the arm be moved to one side, so that you could fit three people on the bench. Furthermore, elderly people would be able to use both arms to lift themselves if they sit on the narrower part of the bench. The architect argued that it broke the symmetry, but I was delighted to see that someone eventually agreed with my point (imagine consultation actually yielding results!). Behold the design of the benches installed south of Somerset, including this one at Florence:

The really confusing bit was that the same week the new benches were installed south of Somerset, the benches from Laurier to Somerset were removed. You can still see the shadows where two benches had been installed on the South-East corner of Bank and Nepean. Why were they removed?!?

Tune in on Monday for Part 5: Surfaces