Wellington Street Part 12: 50 Years of Rapid Transit in Ottawa

Part 12: 50 Years of Rapid Transit in Ottawa

   [Show/Hide Contents]

• NCC Boost and Interprovincial Bus Loop
• Regional studies lead to first bus lanes
• Preston Street Extension
• What of the Albert-Wellington spaghetti?
• Context for rapid transit
• References

I wanted to pick up the narrative of Wellington Street to line up with an important milestone in Ottawa transit history: the 50th anniversary of bus lanes in Ottawa. It doesn't involve much in the way of the theme of this blog series—the connections, disconnections, and renamings of Wellington Street—but there is a dash of that. Alas, I missed the 50th anniversary for this blog post (by over a year!) but I did get a September 2023 article on the topic published in the Centretown BUZZ newspaper.

In the previous post in the series, we left off with the 1974 opening of the Portage Bridge, connecting the west end of Wellington Street, at the Ottawa River Parkway, to Hull, and severing Wellington Street from itself in LeBreton Flats. Today, we'll rewind a couple of years to look at how rapid transit in Ottawa began to reshape traffic patterns on the various Wellington Streets, such as here on the Ottawa River Parkway:¹

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

   [Show/Hide Contents]

• 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

Wellington Street Part 4: As the City grows, so does Wellington (1880-1912)

   [Show/Hide Contents]

• 1880 Renaming of George Street, Victoria Terrace, and Richmond Road
• Railway Crossings
• Great big fires
• 1908 Renaming of Richmond Road through Hintonburg
• Wellington Street Vidauct
• Wellington widening and paving through Hintonburg
• Clearing up the 'middle section' of Wellington
• 1912 Re-renaming of George Street and Victoria Terrace
• References

Before our foray into the east end of Wellington Street in the previous post, we were talking in Part 2 about the first roads in Ottawa and how the fledgling town's road network began to develop in the new neighbourhood that would one day be called LeBreton Flats.

In this post we'll look at the period from about 1880 to 1912, during which time rail lines cross over Wellington at grade, fires ravage the western part of the street, Ottawa absorbs various suburbs, and an excessive number of bylaws authorize the renaming, widening, and paving of Wellington Street. To set the scene, here's what it looked like to walk in the middle of Wellington Street in 1898:¹

Jane's Walk Ottawa 2014 this weekend

This weekend (May 3-4, 2014) is the annual Jane's Walk Ottawa series of free urbanist walking tours, and as with last year, I'm publishing a list of walks in Somerset Ward.

I mentioned two of the walks I went on last year in my blog posts The Lonely Elm (Dennis van Staalduinen's walk on Wellington Street, who this year is giving a walk in Champlain Park) and The stones don't fall far from the hill (Quentin Gall's talk on Ottawa's Building and Monument Stones), both of which seem to have been one-offs.

Here's the rundown of Jane's Walks in Centretown for this year:

3D Thursday: Frosted Preston

It's been a while since I did a straight-up residential photo for my 3D Thursday series. Here's a nice shot of some trees on Preston Street on the first snowfall of the season, which happened to be on Saturday, November 9, the day of the Plant Pool Recreation Association's annual Dessert Party.

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

The PPRA raises funds to allow children to participate in recreational programming who might not otherwise be able to afford to.

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

Jane's Walks this weekend!

In case you haven't heard, Jane's Walk Ottawa happens this weekend. I haven't given any since the Rescue Bronson Jane's Walk I gave two years ago. It was fun, but a lot of work. So instead I'll try to go out on a couple of other people's walks. Here are some I'm looking at that are within Somerset Ward, with the description on the Jane's Walk Ottawa website linked to the headings:

Apt613 Blog Walk of Somerset
Saturday, May 4, 2013, 2pm-3:30pm
Meet at Dundonald Park, Somerset and Bay

Staying on the Bronson theme of my 2011 walk, Apartment 613 is holding a walk in Chinatown, whose businesses are suffering from the closure of the Bronson/Somerset intersection. This one has a neat format, where they'll interview some of the business owners in the same way they do interviews for their blog entries, only it'll be live and you'll be there!

Local Confectionaries
Saturday, May 4, 2013, 4pm-5pm
Meet at Somerset and Preston

A great segue from the Apt613 walk, local cartoonist/illustrator Colin White is giving a tour of the corner stores which feature often in his drawings. I don't think I've met him in person, but I like his depictions of familiar hyperlocal landmarks.

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:

Vertical mess, Preston and Albert

There's something about massive amounts of utility wires on a streetpost that compels me to photograph them, so indulge me for a moment on this one. Backed by a clear blue sky, the wires, while numerous, are clean and tidy, and clearly was installed relatively recently (as was the still-green wooden pole they're suspended on).

Three corners of the foreground are occupied by an OC Transpo bus flag for the #16, a Preston street name sign, and a Little Italy-style pedestrian lantern. These provide a sense of place to the photo, identifying the corner as that of Preston and Albert. The fourth quadrant is filled in by a street light and a traffic control signal post, providing some balance. Lastly, the green of the leaves on the right provide some reassurance that this isn't some desolate concrete jungle but a place where a long presence has allowed the trees to grow high.

That photo was taken back in October when a group of DCA members went on a walkabout with City traffic engineers as part of Public Advisory Committee (PAC) discussions on pedestrian safety for the redesign of Albert Street (to be implemented only after LRT is complete in 2108). From the same set is this shot of the group itself.

Since I'm already being a bit poetic on the photo descriptions today, I'm including this next one for a reason, too. The literal description is that the group is standing on the south sidewalk of Albert Street at the pathway connecting to Walnut Court, about a block west of the photo above, taken on the same PAC walkabout.

The curiosity here is more of a tongue-in-cheek metaphor. Note that everyone in the group is circled around Eric Darwin, the voluminous blogger behind the popular blog, West Side Action. Eric is facing the City engineers, and the community members are standing behind him (and I'm in the middle of the road behind a camera—which could also be interpreted metaphorically a few ways, ha!). This arrangement is almost like a literal illustration of how the community consultation process often seems to pass, as described by Eric himself via David Reevely's blog. Of course Eric isn't the centre of discussions at all PAC meetings, but being retired, he has a lot of time to come up with ideas and share them, and if by sheer volume there are enough good ones that people often listen.

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

Peds on Weds: street trees as eye candy

Street trees/urban trees improve the urban fabric and increase property values. The shade they provide in the summer softens the pedestrian experience.

These ideas are generally taken for granted among urban planney-types. It is these positive associations that get trees sprinkled into architectural drawings such as this one for the building under construction at 150 Elgin:

This little stand on Preston and Louisa, even without the blooms Eric found, make a pretty solid aesthetic case for landscaping over vanscaping.

More often, however, they go in looking like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, like these three installed on Metcalfe back in 2010:

When the Garden of the Provinces and Territories was built in the early '60s, it too had tiny trees, as seen in this photo via Urbsite

Half a century on, these trees have grown considerably, giving the park a much different (though not necessarily worse) feel. The canopy provides a low green ceiling to the park, making it a more private and reflective space to appreciate the grass and water features.

Street trees have a harder time than those in parks or front yards, due to the smaller area of land for rain to fall into and the increased exposure to salt, but they do sometimes make it. This row is on the north side of Place Bell, 160 Elgin at Gloucester. At the far left you can just make out Grant House (Friday's) and the construction site for the 150 Elgin office tower, mentioned above. The tree canopy has grown higher than the artificial canopy surrounding the building, but there is still much light coming through.

Closer to Elgin, the trees are noticeably shorter. There may be many reasons for this, but I suspect the tower of 160 Elgin blocks a lot of sunlight, stunting their growth. (Indeed, you can see in Google Street View that the one at the Elgin end, which would get more morning sun, is taller)

On the Nepean Street side of Place Bell looking west toward Metcalfe, the story is a bit different. The condo towers at 18 and 22 Nepean Street block out much of the light that would fall on the North sidewalk, the awning blocks out the sky immediately above, and the tree canopy blocks out the sliver of sky that remains. At eye level, there's little sunlight, and nothing but concrete, bare glass, and tree trunk to look at. The view on the North side will soon resemble this as 150 Elgin climbs toward the sky.

While we can't remove the buildings that are already there, we can make sure that as new towers are built there is sufficient space between them to let light through. The 27-storey tower approved for 91 Nepean and its identical siblings at 70 Gloucester and 96 Nepean, were approved by City Council on lots barely wider than the towers themselves. That sets a nasty trend: if the lots next door are allowed to be built the same way, we'll have a wall of building as dark as the one across from Place Bell, only twice as tall and closer to the street. There are trees shown on the drawings for 96 Nepean, but this is mostly eye candy on the drawings; we (and the future residents of the building) would be lucky if anything green grows at all.

It's actually fairly impressive how well these rows of trees surrounding Place Bell have survived in what looks like such small plots of ground*. And that's not a bad thing—removing these trees would certainly make this scene even worse—but the trees were originally added to soften the view at eye level, and now that they have grown beyond that height, something else is needed to fill this role so that this stretch of sidewalk can be more hospitable again. Maybe not a Zen pond, but something.

For now, the trees on the opposite side of the street at 150 Elgin will probably have to suffice.

(*See the street tree-related posts in my series on the reconstruction projects for Bank Street and Somerset Street)

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

Bridgehead Roastery opens Tuesday!

Local fair-trade organice coffee chain Bridgehead's long-awaited new flagship roastery at Preston and Anderson will be opening tomorrow to the public. This will be the 15th shop Bridgehead has opened in 12 years. In addition to the on-site bean storage and offices, there is a coffeeshop, with all the familiar trimmings of Bridgehead stores, and more. Because I had bought a "Plant A Bean" card (a form of community-supported financing where my upfront payment is repaid in installments every six months on my Bridgehead card, with interest), I was invited to a special preview of the roastery yesterday morning.

The above panorama is a view from just inside the entrance, which is off of Anderson Street, only a few steps from Preston Street. You can see the coffeeshop in the foreground, the roasting equipment off to the left, and the second-floor offices at the back.

The building was constructed in 1921 as stables for the Bell telephone company. Its double-peaked roof with riveted steel trusses is unique in Ottawa.

More recently, it was the home of Preston & Lieff Glass. Here's a view from April 2011, looking from the corner of Preston and Anderson (two blocks south of Somerset, across from Plouffe Park):

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 15: Finale - decorations and art

After a couple of months and 15 posts, we have come to the final part in the 15-part series documenting the reconstruction of Somerset Street West from the O-Train tracks, to Preston Street, and onward up into Chinatown to Booth Street.

This final post looks at the decorative and artistic elements of the reconstruction, including the four different street lamp designs, the public art component, and a few other artistic flourishes. This is over and above the previous posts that looked at the design of the sidewalks through Chinatown and the trees and bike racks.

The artistic theme is fitting, since the annual Chinatown Remixed art festival, which displays artwork in many establishments along Somerset Street from May 12 to June 12. I'll start off with some guerilla art that was installed on a street post sometime late last year. Flattened food and drink cans were attached to the post, effectively plating it in pop-art metal:

Getting back to the officially-sanctioned art, here are the old Chinatown lanterns that were installed 15-25 years ago with federal funding. At certain points, like in front of the Wah Shing store at Rochester here, these three-lantern posts were used:

All the lanterns between Booth and Preston will be replaced with the new design that debuted at the Chinatown Gateway Arch, minus the spotlights shown here on the ones surrounding the arch:

Fire at Arlington Bed & Breakfast

[Last Wednesday's lengthy pedestrian pushbutton post was followed by a Walk Ottawa meeting in the evening, where all two hours were spent grilling two of the City's traffic operations managers about pedestrian signals, and I think we could use a break. So no Peds on Weds post today.]

On Monday night, the power went out in much of the south-west section of Centretown (roughly 417 to Gladstone, Bank to Bronson), which was the first indication to many that something was amiss. To my recollection, this is only the second time this section of Centretown has lost power in the six years I've lived on Gladstone.

After hearing fire trucks go by and checking the Twitter feeds of Ottawa Fire Services Public Information Officer Marc Messier and Ottawa Citizen reporter Meghan Hurley, I quickly learned that there was a raging fire at 511 Kent Street, the Arlington Avenue "Bed & Breakfast":

A big crowd of neighbours were out watching the flames still shooting from the roof, likely motivated by the power outage and Summer-like weather at sunset. Police closed off Kent Street and Arlington Avenue in the two blocks in either direction on both streets. Here a firefighter is near the top of Ladder 13, which is extended between 511 Kent and the next house up.

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 7: Trees & bike racks

We've had some very summer-like weather the last few days, and the bike counter on the Laurier segregated bike lane registered 1519 cyclists on Wednesday, 2/3 of the highest daily number ever counted at that location!

That makes a good opportunity to talk about the trees and bike racks in this installment of the 15-part series on the reconstruction of Somerset Street West. Previously, in part 6 the subject was poles and signals.

In the seventeen meetings of the design committee, great persistence by the community representatives and creative thinking all around enabled many more trees to be fit into the design. A particular challenge was getting trees on the viaduct/bridges by the City Centre building, because the drainage patterns make a challenging environment for trees' chance of survival. The solution is described in the next post in the series, part 8*, but this preliminary diagram gives an idea of how many more new trees (the dark green circles) will be added to join the old ones (lighter green circles):

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 3: Wider sidewalks

Here in the third part of the 15-part series on the 2011 reconstruction of Somerset Street West, we'll follow up on the Previous post about sidewalks by marching up the hill in Chinatown. On foot, of course.

In December, the curbs at Booth Street were being laid for the new sidewalks outside Nasa Food Centre. Behind them, the old sidewalks were still in place. You can see how much more room pedestrians have been afforded on the sidewalks.

In September, the work at Rochester Street was still only a few weeks in. The sidewalks were dug up pretty badly.

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 2: West of Preston

This is the second in a 15-part series on the 2011 reconstruction of Somerset Street West. The previous entry included an overview and part 1 of the series.

In this part, we'll look at the section of Somerset Street west of Preston Street, before the hill up to the bridge over the O-Train tracks.

In this early rendering, superimposed over an aerial view of the existing intersectionyou can see that the design has been modified to bring Somerset down to two lanes, with a short left turn lane at the intersection of Preston. By removing a lane, pedestrians have more space to wait at the corners, and are exposed to less traffic thanks to a shorter crossing distance between the curbs. Preston Street was also reduced from four lanes to three in its reconstruction in the last two years, though the aerial view predates it.

Here's the view on the ground, looking west in June 2010. The intersection is paved with nice smooth asphalt from the recent reconstruction of Preston Street that ran through it. May's Chinese restaurant is at the northwest corner, on the right. Despite that, this section isn't in Chinatown but instead is part of the Preston Street (Little Italy) Business Improvement Area (BIA), whose offices are above the Chinese restaurant. In the design process, a "Marco Polo"/"East meets West" feature was considered for this intersection of the two BIAs, but this idea never took hold.

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 1: Introduction/Overview

Last year, Somerset Street West was dug up between Booth Street and the far side of the bridge over the O-Train tracks (Just as Bronson will be this year north of the Queensway. There's an open house tonight at McNabb Community Centre at 6:30pm to talk about the construction phasing for Bronson). This is the first in a 15-post series detailing the reconstruction, from someone who was involved in the reconstruction from the very first committee meeting of a long, involved process. Shown here is one of the public open houses at the Plant Bath:

After sorting through hundreds of my photos from this construction project, I'm proud to present this saga in rich detail. I'll be posting one or two entries per week. Here's the roadmap:

Show/hide list of posts in this series

• Part 1 (below): Introduction and overview
• Part 2: West of Preston
• Part 3: Wider sidewalks with unit pavers
• Part 4: Under Chinatown (Booth to Preston)
• Part 5: Aside — Rochester/Spruce sidewalk
• Part 6: Poles & signals
• Part 7: Trees & bike racks
• Part 8: Bridge sidewalks A
• Part 9: Bridge sidewalks B
• Part 10: City Centre
• Part 11: O-Train pathway — planning
• Part 12: O-Train pathway — tunnel construction
• Part 13: O-Train pathway — cantilevered boardwalk
• Part 14: Bridge railings
• Part 15: Finale - decorations and art

There were many other great photos and topics that didn't fit into the series that I intend to draw from subsequently. I did a similar series on the Bank Street reconstruction in 2009, though I wasn't involved in the planning part of that project. Other multi-part series can be found under the label Tours.

Now let's get this series started!

Part 1: Overview

Officially, this total reconstruction of Somerset Street consisted of phases 3 and 4 of the Wellington Street West reconstruction, which involved the reconstruction of Hintonburg's main street in the previous few years. Since Chinatown east of Booth was done a decade or so ago, these were the final sections in the reconstruction of the century-old water mains and sewers along Somerset and Wellington all the way from Elgin to Westboro.

333 Preston (ex-Xerox building)

The blue-and-white building on the left of the Queensway in the above photo is actually on Rochester street, but formally it's part of Preston Square at 333 Preston. I knew it as the "Xerox" building, because of the large red logo on both sides of the building. I have memories of seeing it out the window of the school bus on the way to McNabb; our bus would come down this ramp and turn up Bronson:

In the last few years, the building was "Xerox"ed, and its twin was put up, seen here. Other buildings have also been put up at Preston Square, including the one along Preston with restaurants and food stores at the ground level.

More recently, the "Xerox" title was replaced with that of Sun Life Financial. In August, the building owners sought permission for a third sign on the building on the North side, and the Dalhousie Community Association chose not to oppose the request.

That third sign is currently being installed. It reads, "RBC Dominion Securities". Not very catchy from a distance.

Wednesday: Open House on Somerset St W reconstruction

Somerset Street West is being reconstructed this year, from Wellington Street West, over the O-Train tracks, to Preston. This is essentially "Phase III" of the Wellington Street West resonstruction, to overhaul the many underground services that have outlived their useful life.

The Dalhousie Community Association (on whose board I sit, along with Eric Darwin) learned about this reconstruction at its December 2009 meeting/annual dinner, and we were rather surprised at the very short notice. All the planning would have to be compressed into a few short months, culminating in tomorrow's Public Open House. A map of the existing conditions was presented at the meeting for all to discuss.

In the months since, the Public Advisory Committee (PAC) met on a regular basis, as often as twice per week. This Committee, comprised of community and business stakeholders in the area, discussed all aspects of the street design, from lamp designs, to parking configurations, to bike lanes, to landscaping, and so on. The consultant, Ron Clarke of Delcan, and the City's Project Engineer, Max Ross, did a good job of presenting analysis from the Technical Advisory Committee and bringing the PAC to a consensus on most of the issues in a tight timeframe.

I sat on the PAC as the cycling representative, and like Eric I'm pretty satisfied with the results.

I've also got a photo album of much of the project area at my Picasa web albums. Due to time constraints and wanting to give a bit of notice before the meeting, I couldn't geo-tag them as with the Bronson consultation photos, but I did include text tags describing what's in each photo. This should help to give an idea of the project area, at least the middle section over the bridge.

To learn more about the recommendations, come to the Public Open House tomorrow, details below (and for some reason not here).

Notice of Public Open House
Somerset Street West Reconstruction
The City of Ottawa is proceeding with the design and reconstruction of a portion of Somerset Street West during the 2010 construction season. The project limits are Somerset Street West between Spadina Avenue and Preston Street, and also includes a short section of Bayswater Avenue Between Wellington Street West and Somerset Street West.

Project Overview:
The work is required to replace sewers and services that have reached the end of their useful life. The roadway and sidewalks will also be reconstructed. The designs respond to the street’s “Traditional Mainstreet” designation and its various character areas. Some of the special features include:

• Wider sidewalks and shortened crosswalks, with distinctive surfaces
• On-road cycling facilities including both dedicated cycling lanes and wide shared lanes
• Street trees wherever possible
• Opportunities for public art

You are invited:
Public Open House
Wednesday March 24, 2010
6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Plant Recreation Centre, Preston Room
930 Somerset Street West (at Preston Street)

The Public Open House will provide an opportunity to review preliminary street designs and implications and to provide input. Members of the volunteer Street Design Committee, City staff and the consulting team will be available to discuss the designs and answer questions in a casual open house format. Comment forms will be provided for written comments, comments will be received until 02 April 2010. The project is being planned to meet the requirements of Ontario’s Municipal Class Environmental Assessment that may apply.

For further information contact the City’s Project Manager:
Max Ross, P. Eng.
Senior Engineer, Infrastructure Projects
Infrastructure Services Department
Design and Construction Municipal West Branch
City of Ottawa
100 Constellation Crescent, 6th Floor
Ottawa, ON K2G 6J8
Tel.: 613-580-2424 ext. 16011
Max.Ross @ ottawa.ca

The section from Preston to Booth will be reconstructed next year, and planning for that will be done over the Summer and Fall. It looks like work will not continue further East from Booth in the foreseeable future.

Bike rack blunders

They've started to install the bike racks on Preston where they've finished the reconstruction. (The art racks on Bank have yet to be installed, though triangular racks have been there since December). These will be very important as the City eventually replaces the parking meters with Pay & Display units.

Here's one of the new Ring & Post racks on Preston:

As any cyclist will plainly notice, there are a number of problems with the rack.

First and foremost, it's too close to the wall to accommodate more than one bike, even though the ring-and-post racks are designed for two bikes. The definitive guidelines on proper bike rack selection and installation is published by the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals in an easy-to-read 8-page PDF.

Second, it's made with fairly thin metal, and third, it's only bolted to the ground, as you can see in this shot:

I was easily able to shake it a bit loose by hand, which means these racks will stat to fall apart pretty quickly.

The sad thing is, the City knows better.

A number of years ago, when Bank Street was redeveloped in Old Ottawa South, they installed racks very similar to this one in front of the Mayfair:

They are no match for snowplows and drivers who inadvertently "park" their cars on the sidewalk.

In the Glebe, they tried embedding the posts into the pavers, with similar results.

When they rebuilt Richmond Road through Westboro, they tried something that has held out a lot better. A three-inch diameter bollard was embedded into the sidewalk on either side of every tree. The ones that weren't right next to a driveway were installed with a bike parking ring attached. The post was then filled with poured concrete.

Solid stuff. Here's one near Westboro Station:

So it's disappointing to see the City reverting to the worst design of the ones they've tried.

But at least they are installing bike racks. When you don't have enough bike parking to accommodate your patronage, you get problems like this cluster at the Bronson Centre:

You also have to install secure racks. This "wheelbender" kind makes it hard to lock anything other than the front wheel, an invitation to thieves, asone cyclist learned the hard way here:

(Hint: if you're trying to get management to upgrade wheelbender racks, point out that they have a low profile and are a tripping hazard in the dark. The ones at uOttawa were replaced very shortly after this was mentioned to the right decision-maker)

And even though you can secure your bike to the rack, you have to make sure the rack itself is secure. This one, installed at the Canal Royal Oak last summer, is only secured by a very flimsy chain. Since it's behind the building, it's entirely possible for someone to pull up a pickup truck, cut the chain, and take the rack and bikes together (and yes, this does happen).

In the meantime, bike--and park--safely!