A few small changes to the blog...

"Read More" links

I discovered Blogger has an easy-to-use way of putting a "Read More>>" link in a post to break it up, so I've decided to use it. (If you're wondering, just put "<!--more-->", without the quotes, in the html at the desired point)

This should make it easier to skim the main page and search results. I found on other blogs, really long posts with lots of photos made it hard to find what I was looking for because it was hard to tell posts apart.

I get to choose whether and where to put the break, so I'm only breaking up posts with four or more photos, with some exceptions (so, for example, all of the Single photo posts are unbroken). So far I've edited old posts back to the beginning of 2011.

The main goal here is to make the blog easier to read and use, not to drive up page views. I could also have the RSS feed only show content that comes before the break, but I've left to show the full post (so the full post will still show at Blogawa.ca.

Feel free to leave feedback on whether you like/dislike how I've implemented this.

Redirect to centretown.blogspot.ca

Blogger now automatically redirects from centretown.blogspot.com to centretown.blogspot.ca. I didn't do this, I don't like it, and I can't disable it.

The best you can do is add /ncr (no country redirect) after the ".com" when typing the address to prevent it for the current session. Searching for the "Singles" label would thus be "http://centretown.blogspot.com/ncr/search/label/Singles". More info on this change is on this blogger support page.

I don't plan to go back and edit every single link in every post to add the "/ncr", much as I wish to.

More frequent posts?

Now that I've started posting weekly pedestrian-themed posts with my Peds on Weds posts, and with the 15-part series on the reconstruction of Somerset Street West (technically outside Centretown!), I'm considering adding another regular posting day, though I'm not sure which.

The Monday-Wednesday-Friday thing started with the similar nine-part series on the reconstruction of the T&L building and stuck, even if it means many posts are fluffy Singles posts. Stay tuned, maybe I will!

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 5: Under Chinatown (Booth to Preston)

Last time, in part 4 of the series will take a short walk down the sidewalks of Rochester and Spruce. Previously, in part 3 of the 15-part series on the reconstruction of Somerset Street West, I showed the reconstruction of the sidewalks between Booth and Preston. This time, we stay on the east side of Preston Street for the reconstruction of the roadway itself.

The intersection of Somerset Street West and Booth Street is a heavy pedestrian area, and for historical reasons is very skewed. For both of these reasons, the crosswalks are painted with well-defined zebra stripes. As of June 2011, the work was just getting started on this phase of the work, which continues down the hill past Rochester to Preston Street.

Somerset Street Reconstruction Part 4: Contemporary sidewalk design, not on Rochester

I swapped parts 4 and 5 of this series so I could put this one in as a Peds On Weds Wednesday post.

The previous post of this 15-part series on the reconstruction of Somerset Street West showed the reconstruction of the sidewalks between Booth and Preston. Rochester is the street in between these two, and I figured we could take a little detour to talk about some sidewalk work in the area, and sidewalks in general.

While the roads, sidewalks and utilities underneath them were being dug up along Somerset Street West this past summer, the sidewalks were being replaced on Rochester Street and Spruce.

Not too far north of Somerset, the old sidewalks were dug up in early September, after the rest of the block was already prepared for concrete to be poured.

At the north end of the block, looking toward Somerset from Spruce, we can see the shape of the concrete forms creating the bulbouts (which are not new to this corner).

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.

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]

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.

Burgers on Main (on Somerset)

Last night I had dinner at Burgers on Main, a new restaurant at 343 Somerset Street West, just east of Bank Street in the Somerset Village BIA. The name derives from the original location in Manotick, in that village's Main Street. If you crossed a diner with a fine restaurant, you'd get Burgers on Main, which has the best of both. But first, a brief recent history of the location...

The building was briefly occupied by Friday's Roast Beef House following that restaurant's departure from Grant House on Elgin Street. I included this photo on the blog post about Grant House in late 2010:

According to Google Street View, it was previously a mediterranean restaurant called "Bocado". Street View took its photos in mid-Spring 2009, but I don't know how long Bocado was there.

I'm by no means a professional food critic, but I thought it worthwhile to share my impressions.