When car parking becomes bike parking

A couple weeks ago, I was asked on Mastodon (the only social media where I'm active any more) for photos of car parking spaces converted to bike parking corrals. I figured I'd compile them into a blog post, as it's the kind of thing I used to blog about.

Post by @ellie@ellieayla.net

View on Mastodon

As it turns out, most of the examples I know of in Ottawa are actually onstreet car parking space conversions, and most of the photos I have of them will be in a large unsorted digital pile of photos. But I have two examples that fit the bill closely, and a bunch of other interesting examples:

Wellington Street Part 7: Dawn of "Modern" Transportation Planning in Ottawa

Part 7: Dawn of "Modern" Transportation Planning in Ottawa

   [Show/Hide Contents]

• 1955 Traffic and Transportation Plan for Ottawa
• Wellington intersection recommendations
• Wellington-Sparks-Fleet-Commissioner
• Wellington-Broad-Albert-Rochester
• 1949-1953 Collision Statistics
• First Advanced Green signals in town
• What came of it?
• Also on Wellington
• References

If A.E.K. Bunnell's 1946 report covered in Part 5 recommended a few tweaks to the road network, and the 1949 Gréber report we looked at in Part 6 reimagined large swathes of the City's buildings and transportation network, a January 1955 report report on traffic and transportaion in Ottawa by consultants Wilbur Smith & Associates came in somewhere in the middle. No renamings or disconnections of Wellington Street in this installment, this time we're going on full traffic nerd mode.

This 245-page report¹ took a detailed snapshot of traffic in Ottawa, and made a number of specific recommendations, many of which involved Wellington Street. In today's part of the Wellington Street blog series, we'll dive into this report and see what it had to say about traffic in general, and Wellington in particular, in the mid-1950s.

Wellington Street Part 6: Postwar traffic on Wellington

Part 6: Postwar traffic on Wellington

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• Jacques Gréber's Downtown plan, 1939
• Gréber's 1949 Plan for Canada's Capital
• The main connection to the west end
• The public weighs in on Wellington
• End of Part 6
• References

Back in January 2020, we left off with Part 5, in which we watched traffic get heavier on Wellington Street from the 1910s to the 1940s. After a hiatus to do more research and life getting in the way, we're now back to look at government interventions in and around Wellington Street in the ten years following the end of World War II.

The biggest change for the City of Ottawa was on January 1, 1950,¹ when Ottawa annexed nearly all nearby developed area, including Westboro, Ottawa West, Hampton Park, Highland Park, Woodroffe, Laurentian View, McKellar, Britannia, etc. Thich comprised 7,420 acres (3,000 hectares or 30 square kilometres) of Nepean and Gloucester Townships,² as seen in the two large sections on the map below.³ Much of this was burgeoning suburban development which fed a daily stream of workers into downtown Ottawa.

Although Richmond Road was thus brought into the City limits, it retained its name west of Western Avenue, where Wellington ends.⁴ Since there were no major physical changes to Wellington Street specifically in this period, today's post will look at traffic in general on Ottawa's Wellington Street.

Wellington Street Part 5: Tinkering with traffic (1910s to 1940s)

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• Viaduct makes Wellington an artery for the 1910s
• Speeding and slowing traffic on Wellington in the '20s
• West End pedestrian woes in the '30s and '40s
• Toronto traffic consultant pays Ottawa a visit
• End of Part 5
• References

Let's continue with our journey exploring Wellington Street as the street was extended, renamed, and rerouted over its 200-year history. In today's post, we'll look at the many little clues that give us an idea of what traffic was like on Wellington Street from the 1910s to the mid 1940s.

During this time, Wellington street wasn't extended or curtailed, but traffic in the city got busier as more people drove automobiles and the City's response to this traffic problem had to mature to cope with it. To set the scene, here's LeBreton Flats from around 1930, with Wellington Street coming in from the left and winding up through to downtown:¹

Summer sunset

After my summer hiatus, I started with a post from the north-west corner of Centretown. As the summer comes to an end itself, it seems fitting to post this photo of the opposite corner, looking south-west from the Museum of Nature's east parking lot. Aside from the very pretty pink clouds, the skyline is populated by 467 Elgin, the Ottawa Police headquarters at 474 Elgin, and the small office building at 100 Argyle.

This past Monday, the Museum of Nature had a meeting about the future of its west parking lot. I'm composing this before the meeting, but presumably they are presenting the latest iteration of their plan to renege on their promise to reinstate the west lawn as a public park. They promise to post the latest plans to nature.ca/west.

By the way, you can see my three-part tour of the Museum of Nature as it appeared on the day it reopened after years of construction. Start your tour with part 1.

P.S.: Speaking of sunsets, don't forget about the second edition of Nuit Blanche Ottawa Gatineau tomorrow night, 6:21pm to 4:22am!

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

Movie fans visiting World Exchange Theatre tonight

The World Exchange Centre is a shopping centre/office/parking complex that covers the entire block surrounded by Albert, Metcalfe, Queen and O'Connor streets. The complex includes two office towers (TD tower, built in 1991, and 100 Queen, built in 2001), a rooftop clock, a shopping centre (The World Exchange Plaza, also built in 1991, in which is the NCC's infocentre kiosk), a five-storey underground parking garage and a public plaza on the Metcalfe end:

The Plaza also contains Ottawa's last first-run downtown movie theatre, now that the cinemas are closed at the Rideau Centre. With Empire getting out of the cinema business, a new operator is being sought, with uncertain prospects. (More on this further down)

Tonight, people who want to see the theatre stay open are being encouraged to join a Fill The Theatre event to see the 6:30pm screening of the film "The Family" starring Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer. They also have a Facebook group to promote the cause.


Anyhow, back to the building...

Peds on Weds: Sidewalks for drivers

While attending the opening of the new O-Train pathway two weeks ago, Walk Ottawa co-chair John Woodhouse alerted me to a sidewalk issue on Young Street , the end of which was hosting the pathway opening ceremonies.

It seems that when the City switched from parking meters to Pay & Display machines a couple years ago, they repaved the sidewalk west of Preston on the north side of Young Street with asphalt, and put in pads at the road level for the P&D machines:

As John demonstrates here, you can't really get past that on a wheelchair. Not only isn't it wide enough, but it's so slanted he'd fall right into the machine.

Not that the sidewalk is good for anything but the car parkers. It ends before getting to the cul-de-sac, with a sheer curb..

Since it's the parking/traffic department that created this problem, we'll be following up with them to fix it.

More on the O-Train pathway is available on Eric Darwin's West Side Action, and on my blog series on the Somerset Street West reconstruction, starting with this instalment.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]

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.

Two minutes in the snow

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

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.

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

Tim capsule

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!

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

Post-and-ring bike rack update

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.)

(Subsequent edit: In October 2012, many more bike racks were installed in Centretown, including 60 or so along Gladstone, which didn't have parking meters to begin with! Apparently the comments I had submitted a year or so earlier were consulted.)

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