The skinny on sidewalk design in Ottawa

Thanks to the Ottawa Lookout, I learned that today at the City's Transportation Committee meeting, Councillor Shawn Menard has a motion in relation to an ongoing review of sidewalk designs.

Since I currently have a cold, I can't present in person, so instead I wrote out a presentation to Transportation Committee. I'm reformatting it here, as a more concise rewrite of my 2014 blog series about Ramp style sidewalks (or "Toronto-style sidewalks", as they were called then).

Wellington Street Part 1: Ottawa's earliest roads and their namesakes (1800-1826)

   [Show/Hide Contents]

• The first European settlers
• The earliest roads
• Eponyms of the earliest roads
• Establishing Wellington Street and Bytown
• References

To go beyond a simplified summary and conduct a thorough review of the history of changes to all the roads in Ottawa called "Wellington Street", we need to go back to Ottawa's earliest days as a settlement and where that all came from.

It's easy enough to say "Richmond Road was named after the Duke of Richmond and Wellington Street was named after the Duke of Wellington", but that doesn't answer the questions of who those people are and what relation they bore to Ottawa and to the people who built its first roads. So let's get into that.

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Chinatown double-flyover

I found this well-timed photo as I was catching up on sorting my significant backlog of photos. Looking up at the corner of Somerset Street West and Booth Street, the sky is divided by the traffic signal arms. In the left quadrant is a gull, and in the right quadrant is a low-flying Air Canada jet:

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

How the Corktown Footbridge got its name

I know I just posted a blog post about the Corktown Footbridge, and I've previously covered the opening, but in honour of St. Patrick's Day—and my just-over-one-eighth Irish heritage—I'm reprinting the article I wrote in this month's issue of the Centretown Buzz, telling the story of my time on the naming committee for what is now the Corktown Footbridge.

An urban gas station in Centretown

The Petro Canada at Bronson and Somerset quietly reopened this past Friday after about six months of construction, which started shortly after the reopening of newly reconstructed Bronson Avenue. It comes complete with a convenience store at the corner, seen best at night in HDR.

Even though about three-quarters of Centretown residents walk, bus and bike as part of their regular commute to work and school, the car ownership rate in Centretown is about 1.3 cars per household. So when residents of Centretown, Chinatown and Dalhousie eventually have to fill their tanks, they have to go somewhere. After the closure of the Shell station at Gloucester, this station just on the far side of Centretown's Bronson border is one of the closest to downtown. (I'm not saying I regret the closure of the gas stations that used to pepper Centretown much more heavily!)

But just because a gas station is a car-oriented business, it doesn't mean it can't also fit into the fabric of a walkable urban neighbourhood. Before the construction photos, let's look at how the station used to look:

Peds on Weds: Toronto-style sidewalks part 3 - the downsides

There has been a fair amount of criticism of the Toronto-style sidewalk design since it was made the standard in the City of Ottawa in 2006, just as there have been various challenges implementing it. As with any standard, you can't please all of the people all of the time, especially in a constrained physical environment like Delaware Avenue, below:

In the first part of this series, I described what "Toronto-style" sidewalks are and how they're supposed to work. In the second part, I detailed the rather technical history of how this sidewalk design, also known as "ramp-style vehicle access crossing", became standard, following through minutes from post-amalgamation City of Ottawa through to 2006.

Feedback about the design started as soon as the sidewalks on Delaware (pictured above) and Holland Avenue were installed for the pilot project. Since then, the design has also received its share of criticism from various sources. Today I'll be discussing these criticisms, and other issues the standard has encountered. I'll finish the series next week with a review of alternatives, starting with how Ottawa's sidewalks have been designed through the ages.

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:

The stones don't fall far from the Hill

The Confederation building (1927) and Justice building (1935) on Wellington Street just west of Parliament Hill nicely frame the original Bank of Canada building (1937) on the south side of the street when you look south from Vittoria Street.

In this space used to be a number of stone carvings from the parliament buildings, including these two top-pieces from the stonework along Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill. The photo above and the two below were taken on Victoria Day, 2009:

3D Thursday: China Doll, karaoke queen

Shanghai restaurant on Somerset Street West near Bronson is home to China Doll, the infamous Ottawa drag performer who hosts karaoke every week and every New Year's Eve—each time in a different, outrageously fun outfit.

I caught up with China Doll during the Chinatown Craft Sale earlier in December, wearing something that was screaming for a 3D photo:

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

Of course I'm referring to the hair...

While I'm on the topic, here's China Doll at New Year's a couple of years ago, with a balloon dopplegänger drawn by Chinatown artist Julie Cruikshank:

In fact, China Doll is so famous, the Bytown Museum included some of China Doll's accessories in their 2010 "Evocative Objects" exhibit:

I also ran into China Doll at Bluesfest this past July in advance of the Björk concert. A friend of mine described the ensemble to me and it sounded pretty strange until I met up with her and realized she had been describing China Doll. Though I suppose it can be a bit much for the uninitiated:

Anyhow, whatever your plans are, have a happy new year!

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images. 3D FAQ]

Chinatown's other panda

On Monday, I posted about a panda-based artwork in Chinatown. However, there is another painted panda on a Chinatown storefront which has become iconic of Chinatown:

This is in the entryway of the vacant storefront that had previously been Manphat Grocery, at the corner of Somerset and Booth. Here's the rest of the window:

As with the other panda, this was done as part of the storefront mural project that runs throughout Chinatown.

The storefront of 800 Somerset Street West wasn't particularly attractive, even before the store closed down in 2008. The Booth Street wall was painted with a mural to brighten it up:

After the store closed, it was papered up from the inside. For a number of years it made the corner pretty dead, and it has only been used for storage for one of the nearby businesses. I've heard it speculated that this unsightly building contributed to the failure of the Chi Developments' 288 Booth condo project diagonally across the street, which was an attempt by an amateur developer to rebuild on the lot left vacant by a fire took in August 2007.

In early June, the mural was still in its early stages. White flowers on their own represent death, which—while perhaps reflective of the level of activity of this space—doesn't contribute to the goals of livening up the street with murals.

With a few blue and bright pink flowers as highlights, the mural has been a welcome splash of colour since it was finished (and retouched after a graffiti attack).

The flowers are just scenery; the real surprise is when you're walking down the sidewalk and the panda pops out at you!

I encourage you to head down to Chinatown to check out the artwork on the many doors, walls and storefronts on Somerset Street between Bay Street and Preston Street. Leigh and Karen from Highjinx have added seasonal decorations to many of the store windows, and the Somerset Chinatown BIA has installed red and white Christmas lights to many of the buildings.

A great place for a Christmas lunch or dinner for your office, family and friends!

Panda prints in Chinatown

In the alleyway between the Chinese restaurant, Ju Xiang Juan, and the Somerset travel agency, is one of the Chinatown murals. This one is of a panda, though not the panda mural that has become iconic of Ottawa's Chinatown (that's a blog post for another day... maybe tomorrow):

(note: I've tweaked the above photo with Photoshop's lens distortion utility. What a versatile and useful tool!)

The mural on the side of the travel agency building is a colourful stencil print of a panda in bright colours. But look closer: those dots are themselves little pandas, each a set of three looking left, centre, and right. Each row of pandas is standing on the edge of a piece of the building's otherwise drab beige siding:

The other side of the alley had a certain je ne sais quoi to it that also caught my eye. The rough brick has an authentic quality to it, obviously having seen many iterations of graffiti, painting over, and sandblasting away. The mural project on Somerset had a dual purpose of livening up the place and deterring graffiti.

You can't see these types of angles while walking by on the sidewalk. If the panda prints hadn't drawn me in to the alley, I wouldn't have caught this view either!

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:

3D Thursday: Darkness

Back in mid-May, before the finishing touches were done on the O-Train pathway, I swung by at night and took some photos. I had my tripod with me and some time, so I thought I'd see if I could get the right shots for some 3D photos. I think they turned out pretty well.

This one is of the stairs leading down to Louisa Street off the pathway. The railing had just been installed: (click on the image to see it larger, you can even make out the depth of the blades of grass!)

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

When you're using one camera to take two exposures for a 3D shot, it's difficult enough in the daytime. The colours or lighting levels don't always match, you need to make sure the subject is stationary, and that the camera location is moved enough to have an effect, but not too much to spoil it. At nighttime, it's even harder. Night photos all but demand a tripod, and my point-and-shoot cameras aren't always consistent in producing the same settings for the same shot.

At the time, they were making rapid progress on installing the ramp in the sidewalk along the Somerset Street viaduct where the pathway comes uphill to meet it, so that cyclists could safely cross the sidewalk. They had left it for the night with the rebar installed and a fence segment laid over it, for safety I guess. This provides a great contrast of depths that works really well in 3D photos.

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

While I wanted to come back to take a 3D photo the next day, I knew that there was a good chance they'd have poured the concrete, so I went ahead and poked my camera through the construction fence, held it still as best as I could, and took a photo. Then I poked it through the next hole over and did it again. And it turned out pretty good!

As it happened, I had to go by there anyway the next day, and they hadn't yet poured the concrete! But it was a good thing I had taken the photo the night before as I was in a hurry and could only snap a quick photo or two from across the street:

I hope you're enjoying the O-Train pathway, especially now that the O-Train is back in service!

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images. 3D FAQ]

Bronson and Somerset still closed

Construction on Bronson Avenue resumed a while ago, with the Somerset and Bronson intersection closed from the beginning of April to the end of May. Other work has also been going on, such as the finishing touches of the segment south of Somerset, in particular the sidewalks and landscaping between MacLaren and Gladstone (which Eric Darwin has recently blogged about). The impact on Chinatown can be expressed in this single photo:

This next picture gives a bit of an idea of why the intersection has to be closed for so long. There's a mess of stuff underneath that needs to be replaced. It's a three-dimensional soup of cables, wires, pipes, drains, and sewers (much of the latter were installed late last year and over the winter).

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:

Peds on Weds: Taxiscaping

Taxis can get in on the vanscaping action, too. Park on the sidewalk to let cars go by unobstructed, while leaving no room for this pedestrian to pass.

You might be thinking that the taxi driver is annoying his or her own potential customers by doing that, but has that ever influenced your decision to take a taxi, to give a tip, or to tell the driver that, as a customer, you don't appreciate that?
[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]
[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Chinese New Year Dragon Parade 2012

Today's post follows the theme of last week's 3D photo of the Chinatown Gateway Arch, in that the Lunar New Year is around this time of year.

Every year, there is a dragon dance through Chinatown down Somerset Street. Last year, I made a point of checking it out, and I got some great photos. The parade is physically short, only a handful of floats, but the performances and audience interaction stretches out the time of the parade.

The parade stretches twice as far if you count these four #2 buses that slipped by in a gap after being held up behind the dancers:

3D Thursday: Chinatown Gateway Arch

I've already written a number of posts on Ottawa Chinatown's Royal Gateway Arch, and I've assigned them the label Paifang to distinguish them from the rest of the Chinatown blog posts. But none were in 3D, so get your blue and red glasses out for this one! (Click to view larger for better 3D effect)

Source photos for the 3D images: Left, Right

This Sunday, February 10, 2013, is Chinese New Year (Snake).

[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]

Peds on Weds: Bench with a view?

The next Walk Ottawa meeting is this coming Monday, November 19, 2012 at 7pm at City Hall in the Honeywell Room. There is much to discuss since a Steering Committee was appointed at the September meeting. If you missed the group's October tour of the City's Traffic Operations Division building, you can relive the experience from a three part blog tour posted after a similar tour of the building in 2009.

Today's pedestrian content involves a curious discovery I made while having lunch this past summer at Burgers on Main. When Somerset Street was rebuilt between Elgin and Kent around 2006, the streetscaping in Somerset Village (the block of old houses-turned-restaurants on Somerset between O'Connor and Bank) included this bench:

The bench seems rather deliberately placed in front of that grey box, which doesn't make for very good viewing (nor does the partially-demolished Somerset House). However there is a lock on the box and it looks like there are doors that open. Maybe there is some sort of video screen inside intended as a forgotten piece of public art?

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