Archives /// January, 2012
November 11th, 2009
Art form, bike function: Bank Street bike racks
By Kate Wetherow // 4 Comments
I stood near the corner of Bank and Somerset one day, puzzled, as I watched a woman struggle to lock her bike to a fence that protected one of the newly planted ash trees, while a brand new bike rack stood vacant, less than 4 feet away, with no bike to call it’s own.
This year I have watched with interest at the discovery and use of the new Bank Street bike racks and wondered how long it will take to for people to really make the connection.
Public engagement with new community art is always a slow process.
Last year the City of Ottawa put out a call to local artists to submit graphic drawings that would be used as templates for steel bicycle racks. This was part of the long overdue Bank Street North rehabilitation project between Laurier Avenue and the Queensway. It is one of many public art commissions the City currently has underway along central neighbourhood streets, such as Preston and Wellington.
November 14th, 2009
Counting down for safer crossings
By Kalle Hakala // 5 Comments
Perhaps you have noticed that you now have to beat the clock when crossing at some intersections around Ottawa. These are countdown timers, and they are starting to crop up at intersections throughout the city. Often counting down from the number 10, they can have the connotation of a NASA launch or a MacGyver-style bomb defusing, at least for some users who appear to be a little anxious the first time they encounter the new signals.
The signals consist of a digital display showing the number of seconds left to cross the street, and accompany the familiar “flashing orange hand” that is supposed to mean not to start crossing or to finish crossing if you have already started to do so. Although already in widespread use in many other cities, including on the Gatineau side of the Ottawa River, pedestrian countdown timers are new to Ottawa, with the first only appearing in 2009. According to the City of Ottawa, these devices will be installed progressively over the next 10 years starting with priority locations, such as near schools and seniors homes, wide and busy streets, and during street reconstruction projects.
November 17th, 2009
Is Corktown a bridge too far?
By David McClelland // 1 Comment
[videofile width="600" height="516"]http://homepage.mac.com/evan.thornton/Sites/corktown/soundslider.swf[/videofile][videofile][/videofile][videofile width="600" height="516"][/videofile]
Spanning conflict: from Kettle Island to Big Joe Mufferaw
By Tonya Davidson // 1 Comment
Three years ago, the City of Ottawa held a christening ceremony for a long-awaited piece of civil engineering. The Corktown Bridge was named in honour of a 1830s-era settlement of Irish canal-diggers. This pedestrian bridge crossing the canal and joining Somerset Street in Sandy Hill to Somerset Street in Upper Town is of such design strength it won an urban design award presented by the associations of Canadian architects, urban planners and landscape architects. Corktown was the name of the region near the canal where many canal workers – navvies – lived. Most of them hailed from County Cork, and in remembering them, the bridge is a recognition of Ottawa’s labour history and the estimated one thousand canal builders that died of malaria when building the canal.
November 18th, 2009
Opinion: Lansdowne is a key city-building project
By Alain Miguelez // 13 Comments
What better topic to kick off Spacing Ottawa than with Lansdowne Park? It has attracted a great deal of controversy and misinformation, but in looking at the future of this important municipal asset, I have sought to steer clear of the rhetoric and asked myself a few basic questions about what the city ought to consider as it ponders Lansdowne’s future. The answers I give here are my own, as a citizen of Ottawa and one who is ambitious about the evolution of this city.
What should Ottawa seek to achieve at Lansdowne?
Lansdowne was never intended as a park in the strict sense of the word. It has always been, and should continue to be, a magnet for people and a place of intense activity revolving around sports and commerce.
November 20th, 2009
Public Space and Private Gain: What’s ours is yours, for a price
By Michel Frojmovic // 1 Comment
The “public-ness” of public space is a loose concept. Public sidewalks are – in principle – meant to be accessible to and enjoyed by members of the public. That’s pretty simple. However, we are less likely to appreciate that the public right-of-way extends well beyond the edge of paved roads and sidewalks. A good portion of your front lawn is probably not exactly “yours”.
Municipalities put in place carefully-worded by-laws and regulations to minimize or prevent the obstruction or privatization of sidewalks. Yet, in a higher-density, inner-city commercial mainstreet environment, these rules seem to create as much tension as they resolve.
Public space is regularly used for commercial gain. For-profit places of business regularly “use” public property, both restricting its use to paying customers, as well as profiting from the use of property it does not own. At the same time, the result is often a lively animation of the street and a general enhancement of the overall street experience.
A tour of Wellington Street West illustrates the variation in the use of public space.
Placing a couple of tables and a few chairs on the sidewalk is a relatively innocuous use of public space. The absence of a railing or permanent patio and the obvious transitory nature of this use make it quite benign. In this sense, it is a simple and harmless way of enhancing the street and adding to the level of public interaction. However, without the appropriate permissions and fees, it is also an illegal encroachment of pedestrian access to sidewalk space, and an unfair commercial gain at the expense of public property. It is worth regulating this type of use?
November 23rd, 2009
JOHN LORINC: Paul Goldberger on why architecture matters
By John Lorinc // No Comments
In an era pre-occupied by "starchitecture" and the dominance of global cities, New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger makes a persuasive case for the importance of workaday structures and the limitations of urban planning.
"I don't buy the notion that you can draw a clear line between great architecture and ordinary buildings," he said Friday during the Canadian Urban Institute's Designing Cities symposium. "Each structure has something to say about the culture that built it."
Goldberger has just released a new book entitled, "Why Architecture Matters" (Yale), in which he sets out to mine the meaning of Winston Churchill's famous aphorism, "We shape our buildings and thereafter they shape us."
Architecture, observed the Roman builder and engineer Vitruvius, encompasses "commodity, firmness and delight," and Goldberger, a Pulitzer Prize winner, cites this enduring definition to point out the paradox at the core of the most visible of all art forms. A building has to be "both useful and the opposite of useful," he says. "It makes sense to think of architecture as both great masterpieces and daily experiences... Sometimes, it is the average [building] that tell us the most."
The current recession, he said during an interview with me on Friday (the full conversation will be available on Spacing Radio on the December 7th episode), has dampened demand for good design. "In the very short term, we're going to struggle to have architecture at all."
Looking beyond the recovery, however, Goldberger feels the next wave of architecture will focus on the need for highly flexible design that recognizes the changing nature of family life. He also predicts that sustainable design "will become so taken for granted that we'll stop talking about it."
Goldberger further argues that bold experiments such as New York's High Line, Broadway's new "piazza" and the West Toronto RailPath mark a distinct trend in the way cities are thinking about the purpose of open space. "We've viewed public space as being about stasis — it's where you sit and don't move."
With cities lacking both money and space to create new Central Parks, they are looking instead to linear parks as a means of re-claiming waterfronts or aging infrastructure. "Cities are about movement and circulation as much as anything else," he observes. "We're looking at places of movement as being public spaces."
November 24th, 2009
Prime time busking in the market
By John Carroll // 4 Comments
Not surprisingly, one of the very best spots for Ottawa busking is in the Byward Market.
It's at the corner of George and William, in front of the patios of what used to be Oregano's and what is now the Aulde Dubliner. It has a large space for building a crowd, and a pretty steady traffic flow, especially in the evenings. Another advantage is that the people on the patio are usually quite appreciative of the "free" entertainment, and will often tip generously.
This spot is the favourite of itinerant buskers from other parts of Canada and the world, especially those doing "circle" shows, which are the types of shows where the performer does acrobatics, juggling, magic, fire-breathing etc. etc., and rather than getting tipped from people walking by, they build a crowd and then "pass the hat" at the end of their performance.
November 25th, 2009
Six steps to better memory: Lansdowne digest by Apartment 613
By Apartment613 // 1 Comment
-Editors note: Our colleagues at Apartment 613 will be guest blogging on Spacing Ottawa every Wednesday; the following is the first post in this series.
As guest bloggers for Spacing once a week, we thought that it would be prudent, given what has transpired with a certain large piece of city-owned land lately, to compile the observations our writers have made on the debate that has polarized viewpoints across the region.
Lansdowne Park is the spark that has lit up a Hindenburg-sized blimp of public opinion on how choices about the city are made and who should decide these outcomes. From power-driven city councilors, to concerned citizens, to sports fans, to eager developers (and everyone in between), it is clear that the people of the City of Ottawa are craving something new and exciting to revamp, revitalize and reclaim an area of our beautiful city centre.
Video: Spacing Launch at Cube Gallery
By Evan Thornton // 1 Comment
[vimeo width="600" height="450"]http://www.vimeo.com/7815938[/vimeo]
Our friends at Dawghaus Studios were at the Cube last week to cover our launch and we are thrilled that they were; these guys are masters at capturing the energy in a room, and as you'll see there was plenty of that to go around. If you need to show someone what Spacing Ottawa is all about, this video is a great place to start!
World Wide Wednesday: Transit fares, bridges and Dallas’ newest park
By Matthew Blackett // 1 Comment
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Dallas, Texas, long-known for a lack of green space and an overabundance of parking lots, is taking bold action to change its reputation and transform its downtown. Last week, ...
November 26th, 2009
Street furniture for smokers: an Ottawa success story?
By Evan Thornton // 5 Comments
They are the least-thought out public spaces in Ottawa and yet they are used hundreds of thousands of times in a day. Many people spend more time in and around them them per day than they do with their families. The spaces are all improvised on a case-by-case basis yet every building has one, and no two are the exactly same.
They are, of course, the smoking areas. Arising as a necessity from mid-90s legislation that first banned smokers from federal government buildings and later from any workplace in Ontario, they cropped up in front of and behind buildings across Ottawa.
Butt-filled and foul smelling, not too many even thought about the demands the improvised spaces put on the public sphere.
How would a National Housing Strategy impact our cities?
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
by Emma Feltes, cross-posted from Spacing Atlantic
HALIFAX — National Housing Day was first marked on the calendar by a team of Toronto housing advocates on Nov 22, 1998. But this year, more than a decade later, it was infused with new meaning.
Housing is back on the national agenda, with proposed Bill C-304 calling for the development of a national housing strategy designed to ensure safe, adequate, accessible, affordable housing to all Canadians. The Bill, seconded by Halifax MP Megan Leslie, has deep implications for Canadian cities, and the diversity of housing challenges they face. “Housing impacts the health of communities," says Leslie, who is the NDP critic for housing and homelessness. "It’s not just about putting a roof over someone’s head, it is about the health of a community general — the physical health, the mental health, the economic health of a community.”
The need for a national strategy was made amply clear at yesterday's National Housing Day events in Halifax. Gathered at St. Matthew's United Church, a crowd of over 100 marked the opening of the Out of the Cold emergency shelter for a second winter. A collaborative community initiative by the Metro Non-Profit Housing Association, Community Action on Homelessness (CAH), St. Matthew's, and a dedicated team of volunteers, the shelter provides 15 beds for men and women.
A panel consisting of members of the organizing committee, housing advocates, and community members shared stories on why initiatives such as this one are so important in a city like Halifax, wrought with its own unique set of housing challenges. However, the grassroots, community-based strategy provokes conflicted feelings for many of those involved.
November 27th, 2009
Week in review: the headlines
By Patty Barrera // No Comments
URBAN & CITY DESIGN
• Ottawa in the year 2050, Architects, designers share their vision of Canada’s capital (Ottawa Citizen)
• Development 'is not a bad thing' Reflect on process, urban-issues critic (Ottawa Citizen)
COUNCIL WATCH
• Committee Rejects Donation Ban (CFRA.com)
• You're stuck with it: Budget news goes from bad to worse (Ottawa Citizen)
• City Government for the people (Ottawa Citizen)
• City Council approves LRT as Ottawa’s rail technology choice (OttawaStart.com)
• Why they voted the way they did on Lansdowne (Ottawa Citizen)
photo by Jonathan Crowe
SPACING: come to our Toronto release party
By Matthew Blackett // 1 Comment
WHAT: release party for winter 2009-2010 issue of Spacing
WHEN: Wednesday, December 9, 2009
WHERE: Toronto Reference Library, The Appel Salon, 789 Yonge Street
HOW MUCH: $10 (includes copy of mag), $5 for subscribers
ATTENDING?: RSVP to our Facebook event
If you're in Toronto, make your way to the Toronto Reference Library (7pm-midnight) on Wed. Dec. 9th, to take part in Spacing's 16th issue release party and holiday party. We'll have some games and activities, plus the music to dance to thanks to our resident DJs Track Meet.
Come check out the Reference Library's new event space The Appel ...
November 30th, 2009
Angels in the City
By Tonya Davidson // 1 Comment
Walking around Ottawa, with eyes directed only towards the city’s 70-plus statues and monuments the heroism of Canada, can seem overwhelming. A knight, Sir Galahad, welcomes visitors at the gates of Parliament Hill while countless Fathers of Confederation populate the lawn. Twenty-two figures of gallant bravery charge through the arch of the National War Memorial, while just down Sussex Drive, three more contemporary soldiers stand (and kneel) on the Peacekeepers’ Memorial.
What is striking about this parade of heroes is its unquestionable masculinity. Sure, there is a woman in the Peacekeepers’ Memorial despite the protests of the Department of National Defense who argued, at the time of its designing, that no woman had performed that role making the design not historically accurate. There are also two female nurses at the end of the charge of soldiers through the National War Memorial. However, what is celebrated in Ottawa are male leaders and heroes, though there are a few women celebrated in Ottawa: the Famous Five, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, and Laura Secord. However, women more commonly are featured as allegorical figures representing a virtue or the nation.
December 1st, 2009
Public access to waterfront in Port of Spain, Trinidad
By Michel Frojmovic // 2 Comments
Become a fan of Spacing Ottawa on Facebook
By Matthew Blackett // 1 Comment
Spacing Ottawa has created a fan page on Facebook. If you're already a Facebooker, you should consider becoming a fan so that we can make you aware of our upcoming events and you can see some of the stuff we're writing about. Any notices we send out will be sporadic, so don't worry about us filling up your inbox.
December 2nd, 2009
Beyond the urban horizon
By Apartment613 // 2 Comments
Back when there were only two licensed restaurants in all of Ottawa (in the 1960s, or so the old-timers tell us ) a cabinet minister from Quebec used to fulminate that the "only good thing about living in Ottawa was the 5.00 PM train to Montreal". There would be no shortage of proud Ottawans to dispute that kind of slander today, but contained within his snide bon mot was the germ of something true, not just for Ottawa but for any city. Part of urban life is contingent on what is close by; that which we can experience without feeling that we are roaming to0 far from our home base.
One advantage of urban life in the nation's capital is that things don’t always actually have to be so urban. Ottawa is situated cheek-by-jowl to farmland, small towns, rivers, campgrounds and parks. For the new resident who fancies local produce and Saturday-morning-only small-town charm, Ottawa’s location can come as revelation. Fifteen or twenty minutes in a car can bring many of us deep into the sort of natural splendour residents of Toronto or Montreal are an hour or more from even getting close to.
For Apartment613's guest blog this week, we want to highlight some of our favourites from this unique zone of proximity, and reflect on what lies just beyond the urban core.
World Wide Wednesday: Las Vegas, Dubai and Mecca
By Matthew Blackett // 1 Comment
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• CityCenter, Las Vegas' newest mega-project, debuts to the public next week. Designed by 8 notable architects to function as a city in-itself, the $8.5 billion, 67-acre, glass-and-steel structure is home ...
December 3rd, 2009
Photo of the day: Byward
By Editor // 1 Comment
Interior, Byward Market Square.
photo by Justin van Leeuwen
December 4th, 2009
The sign of the fish: Ottawa sewer grates
By Evan Thornton // 3 Comments
Are the patterned openings to these storm sewer grates trying to tell us something? Some people look at them and see an odd jumble, others think a man's necktie is being evoked for some strange reason, and still others see a fish in the middle of the pattern right away.
Of course, once the fish is pointed out, most people will see it that way from then on. Then the next mystery is why? Again, it's a head-scratcher for some, while some intuit the reason right away. The fish symbol alerts us to the fact that however murky the flow of water below us might look through these grates, the ultimate point of outflow is directly into our rivers, either the Ottawa or the Rideau.
So the symbol is trying to tell us something. But does the City of Ottawa itself ever explain the meaning of its lovely fish grates?
Week in review: the headlines
By Patty Barrera // No Comments
COUNCIL WATCH
• 'Everybody loses’ in bus strike with city’s tally put at $5.9M (Ottawa Citizen)
• Let's end parochial municipal politics (Centretown News)
• City Government for the people (Ottawa Citizen)
• Luxury Spending (Ottawa Citizen)
DESIGN & PUBLIC SPACE
• City hears plea to buy former school (Ottawa Citizen)
• Tim and Pat Murray: From Alcan to the Pope (Ottawa Citizen)
ENVIRONMENT
• The green bin mile (Ottawa Citizen)
• Clean river a costly proposition (Ottawa Citizen)
• Ottawa Columnist Argues HOV lanes Hurt the Environment (CityCaucus Blog)
photo by ...
December 7th, 2009
Urbanist’s diary: when mainstreet comes to our backyard
By Chris Henschel // 1 Comment
This is the first of a multi-part series that will follow environmentalists Chris Henschel and Allegra Newman as they share their first-hand experiences dealing with an intensification project directly affecting their own residence near Island Park Drive.
I live with my wife and baby daughter in West Wellington. We got rid of our car when we moved into the our house last year and we love to walk to all that this wonderful neighbourhood has to offer. Neighbourhoods like this are being encouraged in Ottawa through planning guidelines aimed at creating ‘traditional mainstreets,’ which the City defines as:
mainstreets developed primarily before 1945. They generally present a tightly knit urban fabric, with buildings that are often small-scale, with narrow frontages and set close to and addressing the street. This results in a strong pedestrian orientation and transitfriendly environment. Land uses are often mixed, with commercial uses at the street level and residential uses on the upper levels. [http://ottawa.ca/residents/planning/design_plan_guidelines/completed/traditional_mainstreets/traditional_mainstreets_en.pdf]
Development and intensification are integral parts of creating traditional mainstreets, and we support this.
This support in principle is now being challenged in practice. We live directly behind 1451 Wellington Street, the corner lot at Island Park Drive - current home to Pro-Shine car wash and subject to a condo development proposal by Springcress Properties.
The proposal for the condo presents a list of concerns for us: a winter-long shadow on our house; increased traffic and a parking entrance off our dead-end street; a proposed parking lot and underground garage along our backyard; and, a loss of privacy for our home described by all visitors as a piece of country in the city.
December 8th, 2009
Places we like: three blogs about buildings and streets
By Evan Thornton // 2 Comments
A supportive ecology is crucial to any organism, and Spacing Ottawa is no different. But whereas in many cities in North America our recent splash landing in the middle of the local blogosphere could have seen us washed us up on some very barren shores indeed, in Ottawa we were blessed to find ourselves surrounded by a rich variety of like-minded blogs from across the city.
The water is warm here; we pan to bob along with the current and share what we see along the way. For this first passage through Ottawa's blogging archipelago, we want to highlight three sites that get right down to street level, and revel in what they find.
Charles Akben-Marchand is a Centretown resident, neighbourhood activist, and superb observer of change in downtown Ottawa. His "Images of Centretown" blog is focused on the way memory attaches itself to buildings and other elements of our streetscape, and he carefully documents those moments of transition when a street changes forever, one iteration of a particular address or streetcorner giving way to the next. Here's Charles himself on what he does:
December 9th, 2009
Ottawa’s architectural gems – from this weekend’s Apartment613
By Apartment613 // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="320" caption="Photo courtesy of Qardash on Flickr. "][/caption]
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="259" caption="Courtesy of Spotmaticfanatic on Flickr. "][/caption]
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="261" caption="Courtesy of amydawnrose on Flickr. "][/caption]
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="260" caption="Courtesy of fieldtripp on Flickr."][/caption]
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="320" caption="Courtesy of matthew palmer on Flickr. "]...
December 10th, 2009
Seventeen years and counting for abandoned Ogilvy’s
By Chris Warden // 9 Comments
Getting off the bus on Rideau Street located in front of the Rideau Centre you are confronted with the former Ogilvy's department store. The five story buff brick building sits as it has been for the past 17 years, empty, deteriorating, while still distinctly marking the corner at Rideau and Nicholas. How did it reach this point, and what is possible in the future?
Ogilvy’s is important both from a historic perspective and an urbanistic perspective. The building in its current incarnation started life in 1907 when Charles Ogilvy constructed a modest three story story structure on the site extending halfway through the block with architect W.E. Noffke. As business improved the building more than doubled in size filling out the remainder of the block now occupying the site from Rideau to Besserer; again designed by Noffke in 1917. The building was further expanded, receiving the fourth story in 1931 and the fifth and final story in 1934. With the fifth story it became one of Ottawa’s largest department stores; the square footage was a clear indication of the success that Ogilvy's enjoyed during the first half of the twentieth century.
December 11th, 2009
Week in review: the headlines
By Patty Barrera // No Comments
CLIMATE CHANGE
• Our Cities Are Hotbeds of Climate Action (TheTyeee.ca)
COUNCIL WATCH
• City Council Environmental Report Card (Ecology Ottawa)
• City of Ottawa plans cut to buy-local program (CBC)
HOUSING
• Ottawa, provinces huddle to get housing cash spent (Ottawa Citizen)
MUNICIPAL PARTIES
• Parties can pump new blood into city politics (Ottawa Citizen)
URBAN DESIGN & LANSDOWNE
• Seven members of Ottawa's design review panel resign (Ottawa Citizen)
• Frustrated architects dump panel: Hope en masse resignation will ‘humiliate’ City Hall into designing a better Ottawa (Ottawa Citizen)
• Councillors debate weight of public feedback on Lansdowne Park decision (EMC ...
December 12th, 2009
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• Public space activists in Toronto cheered this week as City Council voted to implement a new bylaw and tax on commercial billboards.
• Spacing Toronto's Shawn Micallef writes about the "overwhelming" experience of visiting Richard Serra's hidden and mysterious "Shift" sculpture unusually ...
December 14th, 2009
Urbanist’s diary, Week 2: lobbying in two places at once
By Chris Henschel // No Comments
Spacing Radio 013: Albino Squrriels, Paul Goldberger, and Transit Investment
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
CHECK OUT THIS WEEK'S SPACING RADIO PODCAST: To coincide with the release of Spacing magazine’s new issue on urban animals, Spacing Radio sent our producer Mieke Anderson on a quest to find Toronto’s elusive albino squirrel (who is also the star of the magazine’s cover) with Jane Farrow (an albino squirrel know-it-all). Spacing’s contributing editor John Lorinc sat down with noted architecture critic Paul Goldberger to discuss the outlook on building cities in a difficult economic climate. We also sent our new contributor Sarah Bridge to an international transit conference to find ...
December 16th, 2009
View from the Hill: it’s a jumble out there
By Tonya Davidson // 8 Comments
I was walking with my out-of-town friend around Ottawa, when, at Parliament Hill my friend remarked that while the Parliament buildings were nice, Ottawa as a city had no sense of cohesion. I was shocked and defensive at first, but he gestured towards the cityscape in front of us and I had to swallow my civic pride. The south side of Wellington is a jumble of architectural styles. Snuggled together is the Second Empire style 1880s Langevin Building, a contemporary National Capital Commission INFOcentre, the 1930s neo-Classical Bank of Canada, enlarged with 1970s glass towers, and peaking out behind these buildings is the Ottawa Marriot with Ottawa’s one revolving restaurant.
Certainly, this skyline is influenced by policies beginning in 1910 that prevented buildings in a designated distance from Parliament to exceed the height of Parliament’s Peace Tower. Policies didn’t however regulate for architectural consistency.
World Wide Wednesday: Streetcars, Subways and Bikes
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• An ongoing bike-lane-battle in Brooklyn New York just got more heated as two "vigilante" cyclists were arrested for repainting lane lines that had only days before been sandblasted away by the ...
December 17th, 2009
After the thaw: could this be a farm by next spring?
By Kalle Hakala // No Comments
As an apartment dweller living in close quarters, sometimes I appreciate open or unused spaces simply for the fact that they are not built upon. But in other cases, I lament upon what seems like wasted space around an office or apartment building, or even an extra-deep front yard. Perhaps it is the fact that I have no yard of my own that makes me yearn to make use of some underused land for my own personal garden.
At least one other Ottawan feels similarly. Urban farmer Jesse Boynton Payne has started a new type of Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) initiative that partners with homeowners to use their yards to grow organic vegetables and fruit. Instead of looking out at a yard that you have to mow, or planting a garden that you really don’t have time to weed, you can partner with Jesse's service --The Vegetable Patch -- and he will cultivate your yard for you. Similar services exist in many U.S cities; closer to home another variation is Toronto's Young Urban Farmers.
In payment for use of your land, you get periodic vegetable baskets throughout the growing season, from both your own and other gardens around the city. It's this "in-kind" payment of free produce that makes Jesse's service different from traditional CSA models, where the customer buys a share in the harvest before the season starts. But like a traditional CSA, Jesse's customers are aware of what he intends to plant early in the year, and the actual produce that is delivered depends on the season and the success of the crop. The users of the service are participating in the risk of agriculture; if there is a bad weather season, or a pest infestation of a certain crop, the harvest – and the food box – suffer. Equally, in a good year, there is extra for all.
December 18th, 2009
Where in Ottawa?
By Chris Warden // 1 Comment
Spacing's motto is "understanding the urban landscape". Buildings and streets are major components of that landscape; they are the big picture. Within their frame, often specific elements will come to the fore and become the common image associated with a structure or specific location; the Peace Tower standing for all of Parliament Hill, or the frozen canal under the arch of the Laurier Avenue bridge becoming the default image for the 200 kilometer length of the Rideau Waterway. But this process of forming a collective mental picture often crowds out other important details to ...
December 21st, 2009
Suburban home: a place for poets?
By Trevor Tucker // 1 Comment
A previous version of this article appeared in e-architect.co.uk/
They say of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Romantic poet and famous opium addict, that he was prone to digress into his illustrations. He had a far-searching mind that just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Defining sustainable community would have given him hours of fun.
Renewable energy. Ten percent of Germany’s roofs now green. Ten-thousand solar rooftops in LA. Stockholm suburban houses that one can heat with a hair dryer. Leed-certified box stores. Most of the press on the subject suggests that sustainable homes mean technologically savvy and energy efficient. But the marketing and attention given to eco-gadgetry overlooks a couple vital human needs.
Every day I drive through the vinyl sea that was once a novel garden city en route to our little three-acre plot north of Kanata. I scan the streetscape for attempts at architectural beauty: gothic signifiers in a hotel fit for Batman; the preservation of the hundred-year-old March House (soon to be dwarfed by a box store neighbour); a stylish renovation to a bungalow now a dental clinic (with stonework outside that reminds me of crooked teeth in need of straightening). But, I have to look hard. Most of the time I think I could be on any suburban street in Toronto, Seattle, or Vancouver and not know the difference. I’m not a fan of suburbia.
But suburbia is where I grew up. My pastoral playground was the bungalow-ville of the seventies. Its developers, too, had paved over valuable farmland. My neighbourhood was far from the modern density ideal.
December 22nd, 2009
The Gréber plan: A ghost of Ottawa past
By David McClelland // 6 Comments
In the late-1940s, Ottawa was a vastly different place from the city we know today. In spite of being Canada's capital for 80 years, the city was still relatively small (just over 270,000 people on both sides of the river) and retained much of its industrial roots—especially its position as an important centre for the logging industry—and maintained a haphazard collection of poorly-built “temporary” office buildings to house a civil service that exploded in numbers during the war.
Several plans had been prepared throughout the first half of the 20th century to beautify Ottawa, but all wound up falling by the wayside, due to the First World War, Great Depression, and changes in the winds of political favour. It wasn't until 1950, after several years of study, that a plan that would ultimately lead to the transformation of Canada's capital would appear: the Plan for the National Capital General Report, more commonly known as the Gréber plan, after its chief architect, Jacques Gréber.
December 23rd, 2009
World Wide Wednesday: Buffalo, Los Angeles and Palma
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Construction of a major Canal side redevelopment plan in Buffalo could begin by June of next year according to Buffalo's Business First Magazine. The $300 million project (funded ...
December 25th, 2009
Tis the season…
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from the editors of Spacing.
photo by Dave Ripdaskull
December 26th, 2009
Chinatown Arch
By Editor // No Comments
Photoshopped representation of the new arch expected for Chinatown in March of 2010; thanks go to West Side Action for the update.
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• Spacing Toronto's John Lorinc assesses the candidates and the playing field in light of Toronto's upcoming mayoral election.
• The winning design for Toronto's Fort York Visitor Center was announced last week. Check Spacing Toronto's flickr page for photos of the winning design.
• ...
December 28th, 2009
More blogs about buildings and streets
By Evan Thornton // 3 Comments
A couple of weeks back we wrote about some excellent Ottawa blogs that take an urbanist point of view with them as they explore our city's streets and structures.
Today we've got three more that are well worth adding to your RSS reader; Spacing Ottawa checks these ones on a daily basis to see what new gems have been brought to light.
We'll start with the photoblog Wawtawa Life maintained by photographer Robin Kelsey. Robin tries to post one image every day, and though he's slowed off that pace a bit recently he still manages to be one of the most regular photobloggers around. Based near Somerset West, his eye for the telling detail is superb as he chronicles the fascinating streetscape of Chinatown and adjacent downtown districts. He's a clever man with his photoshop, but for our money he is at his very best when he employs composition or perspective to tell a story. One mild criticism; it would be great if Wawtawa included a thumbnail gallery to make navigating the site a bit simpler. Still, clicking on a text description instead of a thumbnail image does add to the surprise factor.
December 29th, 2009
Opinion: Transit Tunnel is no Turkey
By Eric Darwin // 11 Comments
Editor's note: the following article originally appeared in the author's own blog, West Side Action, on December 28. Comments and updates are viewable at that location.
The usual suspects are carping about the transit tunnel, again. Did the province provide funding? Apparently no good news is good enough -- they didn't provide 15-25% more than was asked for ... so it's disaster time. Ring-a-ling. Ding-a-ling. It's disaster time in the city ...
So what might happen if the tunnel portion was cancelled? Critics are quick to attach huge price tags to the tunnel portion. But these won't disappear if the tunnel is cancelled. After all the tunnel includes tracks (won't these be needed for the surface rail?); it includes stations and platforms (which will be needed at the surface too, and may have to be located on what is now private property that may have to be acquired by the city); signalling (which will be way more complex and expensive on the surface as it will have to accomodate private cars, trucks, and bus movements too), etc.
December 31st, 2009
Orleans Town Centre Cinema – A Possible Future?
By Dwight Williams // 1 Comment
[caption id="attachment_1373" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="The former home of Empire Theatres' Orleans theatre between St. Joseph and Centrum, now closed for business"][/caption]
Some east-enders may have noticed changes at the Orleans Town Centre this past week.
The six-screen multiplex that's been standing there for nearly twenty years is now shut down. Originally planned as the proposed third floor of the expansion plans for the Place d'Orléans Mall of the latter half of the 1980's, instead it somehow got built as the second floor of a separate building across the street and about a block away down Centrum Boulevard. It was initially owned by Cineplex Odeon and then passed on to Empire Theatres some years ago.
January 2nd, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• Alanah Heffez examines Montreal's various encounters with pedestrian only streets and the opportunities and challenges they bring. Her account begins in the Summer of 1970 when the city opened its first pedestrian mall on Mount Royal Avenue.
• A look through The Gazette's archives gives ...
January 6th, 2010
Ottawa Graffiti: A Photo Exposé
By Apartment613 // No Comments
Tattooed onto the concrete skin of the city, graffiti plays an ambivalent role in the aesthetic of the urban spaces. While the sprayed, drawn or painted markings often rise to the status of art form, adding life and color to dull gray surfaces, they can also make a street corner into a darker, less humane space. The difference may lie in the intentions of the creator. When graffiti is an act spontaneous self-expression or communication, their effect is to transform a generic structures into unique and meaningful landmarks. When graffiti is intended ...
World Wide Wednesday: parking garages, private streets and carbon-neutral cities
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• An ambitious plan from landscape architecture firm James Corner Field Operations aims to connect four distinct quadrants in the heart of downtown Cleavland to create one cohesive park. Currently ...
January 7th, 2010
Where in Ottawa? The answer…sort of
By Chris Warden // 3 Comments
We've had no correct answers to our first Where in Ottawa contest. even after two times of asking, so it's time to move on!
The building in question is the Former Bank of Montreal Building at the corner of O’Connor and Wellington (through to Sparks Street). This 1932 RAIC Gold Medal winning building was designed by Ernest Barott of Barott and Blackader out of Montreal in 1929. Barott is also known for designing the Aldred Building in Montreal on Place D’Armes which was designed during the same time as the Former Bank of Montreal.
Hartman’s slowly dissolves its brand & community
By Ian Capstick // 4 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="800" caption="Hartman's Piano Lounge in happier times"][/caption]
January 8th, 2010
Week in review: the headlines
By Patty Barrera // No Comments
CITY HALL
• Committee gives Ottawa South pedestrian bridge the go-ahead (ctv.ca)
• Green bin collection gets rolling (Ottawa Citizen)
2010 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS
• Cullen announces intention to vie for mayor’s chair (Ottawa Citizen)
• Gauthier joins race, will Watson follow?(Metronews.ca)
CYCLING
• City considers segregated bike lanes (cbc.ca)
• Doucet peddles new cycling plan for city (Ottawasun.com)
NCC
• Feds pour $35M into NCC for Ottawa-area facelifts (Metronews.ca)
photo by Simon Pulisifier
January 9th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• Suffering from ill-repair and chronic under-use, the future of the Quinpool Education Center (formally Halifax's St Patrick's High School) is in doubt. Jake Schabas muses on what could be done to invigorate the building which has been a Halifax landmark since it opened its doors to students in ...
January 12th, 2010
Abandoned bikes: where do they go?
By Kathryn Hunt // 9 Comments
On my way from the bus to the Rideau Centre doors one morning last month, just after the first real snowfall of the year, I passed a bike that had been left locked to the railing. It was up to the pedals in snow, half buried, and had clearly been there since before the snow came down. To me at least, it looked as though the basket still had some things in it – but then maybe it was just that passing pedestrians had been sticking coffee cups and flyers and other trash in the basket.
I had no way of knowing how long that bike had been there, but I kept an eye out for it, and when I passed a few days later, there it still was. And I started wondering. Whose bike was it? Why had it been left on the bridge? Why hadn’t its owner returned for it? How long had it been there, and how long was it going to stay there before someone removed it… and for that matter, whose responsibility was it to move the thing? What would happen to it?
January 13th, 2010
The Apartment613 Blogger Consultation on Budget 2010
By Apartment613 // No Comments
World Wide Wednesday: Virtual billboards, sprawling cities and the world’s tallest building
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• An art project in Columbus, Ohio, asks residents to consider the role of parking lots in the city's development. The piece, called Audio Dwelling, consists of two ...
January 14th, 2010
Swaps not squats: a blueprint for investing in the arts?
By Kate Wetherow // 5 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1024" caption="Former site of Goldstein's Supermarket on Elgin; still vacant"][/caption]
January 16th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• A look back into history reveals that the story of Montreal's Plaza Saint Hubert and "its distinctive glass awning" began almost 40 years ago "when the Saint Hubert Merchants Association wanted to convert the commercial street into the world's biggest shopping centre".
• Montreal’s City Council tabled the 2010 ...
January 18th, 2010
Urbanist’s diary: human scale and a ticking clock
By Chris Henschel // 5 Comments
[caption id="attachment_1643" align="alignnone" width="557" caption="Detail from "City of Ottawa Urban Design Guidelines for Development Along Traditional Mainstreets""][/caption]
This is the fifth of a multi-part series that will follow environmentalists Chris Henschel and Allegra Newman as they share their first-hand experiences dealing with an intensification project directly affecting their own residence near Island Park Drive.
This week gave birth to both rumours and official documentation of Springcress's plan for the condo. One of our neighbours heard some good news in a phone call to the City about the developer's parking plans; I'm still trying to confirm this before writing publicly about it.
The Developer also made a formal application for variance for the building. He is seeking three variances (italics added for explanation):
• To increase the building height limit from 18m to 22m above average grade (from 6 stories maximum to 7 stories maximum;
• To reduce the required front yard set-back from 2m, above 15m in height, to 0.5m (reducing the depth of the 'step-back' designed to reduce the 'canyon effect' of large buildings);
• To reduce the required corner side yard set-back from 3m to a height of 15m and 5 m above, to 0m (no setback from property line on the west side).
January 19th, 2010
Photo of the day: fire in the Glebe
By Editor // 2 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Yesterday's fire on Glebe Avenue as seen from Bronson and Carling"][/caption]
photo by Justin Van Leeuwen
Where in Ottawa? – Round 2
By Chris Warden // No Comments
First of all congratulations to Charles A-M aka Centretretowner for correctly identifying the former bank’s likeness in the central carved panel above the Wellington Street entrance. As you'll recall our first round was a two-part question:
I am a building, and I just may be the only one in the downtown core to include a depiction of myself on my exterior. Who am I, and where on me do I feature this image of me?
The first part of the question drew a blank from everyone, but once we named the building as a further clue, Charles found the depiction, located under the rays of “Thrift” up on the edge of a bluff ( see image below). It is a rather heroic likeness, but there is nothing wrong with a little artistic license now and then.
Spacing Radio returns for season three!
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
Spacing is happy to announce the launch of Season Three of our biweekly podcast Spacing Radio.
You can listen to the episode on the Spacing Radio web site or subscribe to the podcast (free!) through iTunes.
Episode 014 kicks things off with Marc Glassman (the owner of the now-defunct Pages Books) interviewing critically acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who discusses his decision to cast the oft-overlooked Toronto as itself in his latest film, Chloe. Will Alsop, the renowned British architect whose work (including the Ontario College of Art ...
January 20th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Hong Kong, Moscow and Port-au-Prince
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Since July of last year Petaluma California has been known as "the city without planners". The decision to dissolve the official planning department in favour ...
January 21st, 2010
Monumental Monuments
By Apartment613 // No Comments
[caption id="attachment_1694" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Courtesy of meaghan.walton"][/caption]
As the national capital, Ottawa is in the somewhat unique position of housing many of the country's significant and historical monuments. For the folks who live here it means that often our daily commutes or routines can end up including references to the country's history, falters, apologies and successes. In many ways we Ottawans are responsible for the nation's collective memory.
Today apartment613 is lucky to have a collection of photos from Meaghan Walton-Perreault exploring this theme. Take a look and let ...
A daytime date with Mr. Dark
By Evan Thornton // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Courtyard behind Sussex Drive"][/caption]
When you're getting to know someone you think might have prospects it often a good idea to spend some sunshine hours with them before moving on to dinner and a movie and whatever might come next. Going for a walk can be a great strategy. Let them choose the route, maybe end up somewhere for a coffee, and spend a while with them where you can get a sense of who they are before there are any expectations.
One person we thought Ottawa needs to go on a daytime stroll with and get to know of a little better is George Dark, chair of the Strategic Design Review and Advisory Panel. That's the panel charged with making sure the design of the new Lansdowne will do Ottawa proud. How important is that? Well, some argue that Lansdowne Live might be the biggest city-building project we've seen in decades. So this thing we've started with George might be very serious, indeed. But beyond getting paid for it, we wondered -- why should a Toronto landscape architect care what a long-neglected site 400 kilometers away from his office really ends up looking like? Why should we trust him to care about us?
January 23rd, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• Sidewalk sandwich boards--a creative tactic for small businesses to attract customers? A way to add vitality to city streets? Or commercial intrusion on public space? These are some of the questions being asked as Halifax's 2006 Temporary Sign By-law--a measure ...
January 24th, 2010
Urbanist’s diary: a side street “closed longer than anyone remembers”
By Chris Henschel // No Comments
This is the latest in a multi-part series that follows environmentalists Chris Henschel and Allegra Newman as they share their first-hand experiences dealing with an intensification project directly affecting their own residence near Island Park Drive.
Everyone in the neighbourhood received a letter from Ottawa's Committee of Adjustment this week to inform us that the Committee would be ruling on the developer's application for three variances on February 3. I went with a neighbour to check out the plans.
The plans confirm that the developer is now proposing vehicular access from Wellington Street (instead of our dead-end side street) and only underground parking (removing the need for an above-ground parking lot that would create all sorts of nuisance for us). Good news!
Except it seems the City may not yet be onside. The local councilor Christine Leadman has expressed support for a Wellington Street access, but the City staff may not agree. We've been told there will be a meeting with the developer this week to discuss this issue and that the City will likely request an adjournment of the Committee of Adjustment's hearing on the proposed variances as they consider the plans.
January 26th, 2010
The history of the Ottawa subway
By Alain Miguelez // 22 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Subway tunnels, Seattle-style. We've been talking about getting our own since 1915."][/caption]
As Ottawa takes decisive steps toward giving itself a downtown subway, it is fascinating to find that this is actually the fourth time that plans for grade-separated downtown transit have been proposed. This is typical of growing cities that have had to tackle such a major investment in transit. Montreal, for instance, first proposed a subway in 1910. It would be over half a century before the métro finally opened, in 1964. Likewise, Toronto’s first subway plan dates back to 1909. It took until 1954 to see the first trains roll. Even cities like Paris first discussed subways as early as 1854, and had to wait several decades until the first line was put in service in 1900.
In Ottawa, the first subway plan dates back to 1915. In a report to Parliament, the Holt Commission noted the severe congestion of Sparks Street and arteries leading up to it, including Bank and Elgin Streets. As the drawing below illustrates, it recommended placing streetcars in a subway between Bronson and Rideau Streets, with southbound lines on Bank and Elgin. The portals would’ve been at the escarpment on the western edge, the Rideau Street intersection with Sussex at the eastern edge, and at about Laurier Avenue for the southern edges of the Bank and Elgin lines.
January 27th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Portland, Detroit and Port-au-Prince
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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January 28th, 2010
Where in Ottawa, Round 2: time for the cheat sheet
By Chris Warden // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Canadian Museum of Nature: Victorian, haunted, under renovation, and *not* the answer"][/caption]
No one has correctly guessed the correct answer to last week's puzzler. To refresh memories, here it is again:
While I currently sit unassumingly at the base of the city, stripped down, but encased, I once played host to spectacles and even the Prime Minister. What structure am I?
So it's time to break out the cheat-sheet and make with the extra hints:
I am not the Musuem of Nature (Victoria Memorial Building)
I am located in the northern ...
January 29th, 2010
Week in review: the headlines
By Patty Barrera // 1 Comment
CITY HALL
• Council passes budget, 3.77% tax hike. Bus routes, tree trimming slated for cuts win reprieve, but at cost of higher transit fares (Ottawa Citizen)
• City seeks citizens' ideas for Lansdowne urban park (MetroNews Ottawa)
• Committee introduces new anti-poverty strategy (CBC Ottawa)
DESIGN
• Key Carleton landmarks circled for major facelift. Updated master plan urges replacement of Paterson Hall among other recommendations (Ottawa Citizen)
CYCLING
• More cyclists brave elements to commute year-round (Ottawa Citizen)
MUNICIPAL ELECTION
• Hume is the man to watch. If he runs for mayor, election will be ...
January 30th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• A redevelopment plan for downtown St. John's calls for the destruction of three buildings to make way for a new 15-story office tower. According to Spacing's Andrew Harvey, the destruction of the low-rise buildings (currently occupied by small businesses) would transform both ...
February 2nd, 2010
Mayoral Ottawa: from Fun Frank to Fisher’s Folly
By Tonya Davidson // 3 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="489" caption="Birkett Castle, now the Hungarian Embassy --photo by E. Thornton"][/caption]
When it was recently announced that Jim Watson would be joining the mayoral race, I began to think about mayors and their stamps of the city’s built environment. In a capital city that duly celebrates ‘nation-builders’ where can we find the ‘city-builders’? When I started to dig a little it turns out that Ottawa’s mayors — particularly those from the first half of the 20th century — haunt the city everywhere, in street signs, bridges and hospitals they advocated for, decadent ‘castles’ they lived in, and swimming pools.
Lyon Street is named for the mayor who had the honour of celebrating Confederation — Robert Lyon was the mayor in 1867 and was a serious man, most notable for having a family full of famous characters, and the longest beard in Ottawa’s mayoral history.
February 3rd, 2010
Opinion: a reborn Union Station could hold our history
By David McClelland // 10 Comments
Editor's note: an earlier version of this post appeared in Spacing Ottawa contributor Dave McClelland's Ottawa Project blog
Ottawa’s Union Station: it’s a majestic building, a half-scale replica of New York City’s old Penn Station, and painfully underused. Since 1966, when the National Capital Commission removed rail from downtown, the building has served as a government conference centre, rather than a hub for rail travelers. However, if mayor Larry O'Brien isn't just floating the idea for the fun it, it seems that trains might just return to Union Station, in the form of a downtown stop on the new light rail system—taking the place of the Rideau/Sussex station in the LRT proposal.
As its stands right now, the interior of Union Station is unknown to most Ottawans. An occasional conference centre for First Minister's meetings and other high-level discussions, its grand hall and spacious passageways are usually roped off to the citizens who walk past it each day. But as the main hall of a transit station, commuters would have cause to use the public space on a daily basis.
World Wide Wednesday: Moscow, Vancouver and America’s high-speed rail
By Kat Snukal // 1 Comment
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• A big transit news week as the Obama administration announced the benefactors of the $8 billion investment in high-speed rail. Time Magazine ran an in-depth piece on ...
February 4th, 2010
A river runs near it: re-orienting the Carleton quad
By Chris Warden // 3 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="The Rideau river near the Herzberg Building, Carleton University"][/caption]
Every five years or so, Carleton University revisits its master plan. The most recent draft edition was released in September 2009. Though the campus has long failed to take advantage of its spectacular setting, its administrators have always understood the power of the site, as most brochure shots of the institution are traditionally taken from the air. From this perspective you get a sense of the way Carleton relates to both the Rideau River and the Rideau Canal. On the ground the visual effect is much different. The site is heavily insulated with ring roads and parkways which separate the campus from its natural setting. There have been sporadic attempts to connect portions of the campus to the surrounding waterways, but in the end, the powers-that-be have always judged that the ring road was of more importance than, for example, allowing the Loeb Building to reach out to the banks of the Rideau River.
February 5th, 2010
Week in review: the headlines
By Patty Barrera // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Carleton O-Train station -- set to see more users soon?"][/caption]
2010 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS
Ottawa council needs new blood: advocacy group (CTV)
Watson officially enters Ottawa's mayoral race (Centretown News)
Peggy Feltmate retires (Ottawa Citizen)
URBAN DESIGN
The dukes are up (Ottawa Citizen)
TRANSIT
Student group hails transit pass plan (CBC)
LANSDOWNE
NCC not interested in buying Lansdowne (Ottawa Citizen)
Architects named for Lansdowne redesign (Ottawa Sun)
photo by Earl Andrew
February 8th, 2010
Intensification, Smart Growth and Density Bonusing
By Allegra Newman // 4 Comments
As condo after condo is planned in the Wellington West neighbourhood, intensification is seen as an inevitable by many local citizens. City of Ottawa planners and councilors promote intensification all the while musing on the increased tax base a new seven storey condo will provide. Citizens begrudgingly accept that the new condo development, whether in their backyard, on their street, or in their neighbourhood will increase traffic but they also hope that the new developments may encourage new businesses and increase public transit and community services. But what really is driving this move to intensify our cities?
The promotion of urban intensification, or densification or infill as it is otherwise known, can be attributed in part to the popularization of the urban planning theory of Smart Growth. Smart Growth theory promotes the construction and reconstruction of compact communities in the center of the city, as a more sustainable approach than continuing urban sprawl. Smart growth communities are transit oriented, bicycle and pedestrian friendly and promote local jobs and services.
February 9th, 2010
Machismo – the vital accessory for vehicular cycling?
By Kathryn Hunt // 2 Comments
Editor's note: As the video above will show, cycling the winter streets in Ottawa is clearly not for everyone. It helps to be young, male, and a little bit aggressive about claiming your space on the road. In fact, as this article from Scientific American suggests, those descriptors are associated with the majority of urban cyclists across North America, in any season. The article makes the case that if authorities wish to measure the success of safe cycling initiatives, they need only look to see if women make up an equal share of cyclists on the road. Female cyclists are "indicator species", it is argued, and when we see them represented equally we are looking at streets and pathways that are safer not only for women, but for everyone on two wheels.
With this context in mind, we join Spacing Ottawa contributor Kathyrn Hunt of the Incidental Cyclist blog as she discusses her experience going against the statistical trend to become a four-season "vehicular" cyclist.
A reader commented on a recent post on my blog, saying that danger spots like the Queen Elizabeth/Queen Elizabeth intersection — where the city path and NCC path don't meet — are what keeps her off her bike.
Awkwardness — that's what really bothers me about such intersections. There's a learning/acclimatization curve to urban biking. I grew up in rural New Brunswick. When I moved to Ottawa for college I brought my bike and I used it a lot — but only on the sidewalks. It was way too scary just trying to cross major intersections with the bike, let alone ride in the street. I slowly learned how to use the side streets, but I would do anything not to have to be on Bank Street dodging the #1 bus. And eventually I gave up on riding for the most part. The bike in question was lost in the shuffle when I moved out of the country for a couple of years.
February 10th, 2010
Apt613 Photo Essay: Lesser Known Buildings
By Apartment613 // No Comments
Ottawa-the national capital, often overshadows Ottawa-the place to live. This is particularly true in architecture, where institutions like parliament, the Museum of Civilization and the National Art Gallery of Canada grab all the attention. Today, Apartment613 is featuring a photo essay by photographer Steve McCullough that explores some of the structures that - while not national treasures - help to give the city its unique style.
Steve uses his camera to bring out the extraordinary in the everyday, even capturing the infamous City Center in an attractive light.
Frequently voted the ...
February 12th, 2010
If you love someone, buy them Spacing
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
Between now and Vanetine's Day on Sunday, you can buy the love of your life a discounted subscription to Spacing.
For only $25, the man or woman that loves Toronto as much as they love you can receive six issues mailed to their home for nearly 50% off of our newsstand price. This deal is also $4 off of our regular subscription rate.
photo from Toronto Archives: fonds 1257, series 1057, item 6980
“Where in Ottawa?”: a cinema, stripped bare
By Chris Warden // 2 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Popcorn and a Prime Minister: the old home of Place de Ville cinema"][/caption]
The answer to last week's quiz is the Podium Building at Place de Ville. It seems it was a tough one; we had no right answers.
Place de Ville was once home to the Place de Ville Cinemas operated by Famous Players. The theatre opened in 1971 and closed in 1996. It opened as one of the replacements for the Capitol Theatre, which once graced the corner of Bank and Queen, a short distance away.
The old cinemas are hidden behind office space which now encircles them. This allows the offices access to the natural light provided by the windows, while the cinemas are encased, an arrangement which reduces their perceived bulk. The Place de Ville Cinema is unique in the city as the cinemas are piggy-backed. Cinema II accessed from the ground floor had 437 seats and Cinema I had 751 seats. The primary feature of the multi-story foyer was a mural of images of the old Capitol Theatre which rose up next to the multi-level escalator.
Week in review: the headlines
By Patty Barrera // 1 Comment
CITY HALL
Winds of change in air for new council (Ottawa Citizen)
City gets $780Gs back for fuel it did not use (Ottawa Sun)
Expand Lansdowne jury, adviser urges (Ottawa Citizen)
CYCLING
More cyclists brave elements to commute year-round (Ottawa Citizen)
SCHOOL BOARD
Board again tackles alternative school issue (Ottawa Citizen)
URBAN ART
Cozy up to a lamppost and some urban art (MetroNews)
photo by Justin Van Leeuwen
February 13th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• The centrally located Halifax Commons has become a hub in the daily commute of many Halagonions. Making the Common cyclists friendly is thus essential to creating a bike-friendly city. ...
February 16th, 2010
Opinion: Lansdowne deadlines are illusory and artificial
By Tim Lash // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1024" caption="Winter at Lansdowne: the season to gather opinion"][/caption]
February 17th, 2010
The return of food
By Emily Sinclair // 1 Comment
Kalle Hakala’s December 17th post ("After the thaw: could this be a farm by next spring?") brought to mind the relationships between food production, consumption and urban landscapes. Community gardens, community-shared agriculture (CSA), farmers’ markets, patios, street vendors and even Ottawa’s new green bins are among just a few examples of the presence of food in public and private spaces of the city. The following post by Emily Sinclair is the first of series in which she will examine the impact of food issues on the experience of urban space.
Easily dismissed as an antithesis to modern city-building by planners and other urban administrators at the turn of the 19th century, issues of food production and consumption have helped shape the physical form and social content of the modern city. Activities relating to food production – the messiness of soil, pests and livestock; the rural nature of labour for food cultivation – contradicted the cleanliness and modern appeal of urban life. Through zoning and land development, food production was banished from city parks and lawns to the rural countryside where it was deemed a more “appropriate” use of land. On the other hand, activities relating to food consumption, and in particular the decidedly urban pursuit of food retailing, quickly became the realm of private enterprise. The regulation of food consumption was assumed almost entirely by private market forces and surfaced only as a social concern in the narrow contexts health and welfare agencies.
February 19th, 2010
Week in review: the headlines
By Patty Barrera // No Comments
CITY HALL
I'm no Marxist proposing living wage (Ottawa Citizen)
City to study living wage policy, East end councillors split on issue ( Orleans EMC)
LANSDOWNE
Ottawa residents have chance to weigh in on Lansdowne plans (Ottawa Citizen)
TRANSIT
Transit-riding parents set to fight for stroller space (Ottawa Citizen)
DEVELOPERS
Councillor seeks to revisit boundaries (Ottawa Citizen )
OTHER IDEAS/OTHER CITIES
Urban Food Strategy Unveiled (Globe and Mail)
photo by Kona Gallagher
February 20th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
Every Saturday, we highlight recent posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
• Jenn Casey examines the details of the recently approved five-year Metro Transit plan for downtown Halifax, including provisions for increased service to outlying areas, a streamlining of bus coverage in the core, and a year-round downtown shuttle.
• The Shannon Park military barracks in Dartmouth is a dilapidated eyesore with huge potential — as a new-thinking, sustainable neighbourhood, land for the the ...
February 22nd, 2010
Mayor’s race: “I’m not Larry” isn’t going to cut it
By Vicky Smallman // 1 Comment
Editor's note: Voting day is still eight months away, but with candidates such as Jim Watson and Alex Cullen already in the running for the mayor's chair and several long-time councilors announcing plans to leave office at the end of this term, interest in October's civic election has already started to build.
Spacing Ottawa is launching our commentary on the 2010 municipal election with this post from veteran blogger -- and former candidate for Kitchissippi Ward -- Vicky Smallman. Vicky will share our CityVote column with commentator and media consultant Ian Capstick.
What is it about a municipal election that makes the campaign seem so long? Well, it's not just a feeling; municipal elections are a drawn-out process. Candidates can register starting in early January, but nominations don't close until September 10. From a candidate's point of view, the jockeying for attention starts from the moment of their announcement, but most of the action (debates, canvassing, and media attention) occurs between the close of nominations and election day, which is October 25.
But that doesn't mean there's nothing to write about right now. Take the mayoral campaign. Nine candidates have registered so far, including veteran councilor Alex Cullen and former mayor Jim Watson, who resigned his position as Municipal Affairs minister and Member of Provincial Parliament to seek the mayoralty. Incumbent Larry O'Brien says he'll make up his mind in June. Homelessness advocate and 2006 candidate Jane Scharf is also running. As for the others, there is not a lot of information about them at this point in the campaign.
World Wide Wednesday: Vancouver, Lisboa, and Shanghai
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games will eventually end. The athletes and spectators will go home but the infrastructure built to accommodate them will remain. Fastcompany looks at the built-form ...
February 25th, 2010
Living on the street? Unfortunately, there’s a map for that.
By Evan Thornton // 5 Comments
For most of us economic conditions wax and wane with recession and boom, but for the past 20 years one indicator of social-economic well-being in urban centres has shown no improvement whatsoever. That is the number of homeless people living in our cities. in 2008, that number was estimated by social sector organizations to be in excess of 300,000.
To find out why, studies are commissioned and ignored and then other studies are initiated to study the previous studies for clues that may have been missed. However, for many Canadians of a certain age, the answer seems linked to a policy change in the early 90s. At that time the federal government withdrew support for the social housing sector, and within 18 months of that many of us started seeing people regularly "sleeping rough" on our streets for the first time in memory.
The response from various levels of government has been a patchwork of policy and small measures that have done little to even recognize the scope of the problem, never mind address it any meaningful way. The public has gotten used to the once-horrifying sight of people sleeping on the streets – it's the new normal, except that after two decades it's not even that new anymore.
February 27th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Every Saturday, we highlight recent posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
• A long-anticipated bike lane along Jarvis Street in Toronto has finally been given the go-ahead at City Hall. John Lornic looks at why mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi has decided to turn the proposal into a contentious election issue.
• Spacing's Sean Marshall looks at Disco Road--the road the city forgot. The a four-lane industrial road, contains signs never converted to metric....
March 1st, 2010
Soundscape: Market and Rideau Centre
By Evan Thornton // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="image by Google maps"][/caption]
As an experiment, this past weekend I brought an omni-directional microphone with me during a walk through the Byward Market and Rideau Centre. Starting beside the Highlander at the foot of the William Street Mall, I walked along seeing what sounds might leave a strong enough "audio footprint" to identify when I played the file back.
In the first segment I managed to pick out the sounds of Karen Carpenter thumping the life out of a tinny speaker outside a candy store, then the tuneless plucking ...
March 2nd, 2010
SPACING RADIO: City budgets, ferry rides and Olympic legacies
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
Spacing Radio 017 is on the air.
It's budget-time in Toronto and while City Hall is busy at work approving the final numbers, host David Michael Lamb sits down with Spacing contributing editor John Lorinc to talk about the pitfalls of having to pay the bills. Producer Mieke Anderson stows away with the crew of the Toronto Island Ferry Ongiara to discuss the realities of operating the ferry throughout the winter months and, in the process, discovers one of the city's best-kept secrets. Meanwhile, nearly 3,500 km away in Vancouver, reporter Pattie ...
March 3rd, 2010
World Wide Wedneday: Los Angeles, Denver and Mumbai
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• In 2004, the City if Denver committed $4.7 billion to an ambitious transit project called FasTracks, to be completed by 2017. Supported by thirty-two regional mayors, FasTacks included provisions ...
Needed: feet on the street
By Editor // 5 Comments
This week on Ottawa Morning the CBC's Julie Ireton is taking an in-depth look at Ottawa's dysfunctional Sparks Street mall, the national tourist attraction that doubles as an echo chamber from October through April.
In this segment she hears ideas on how to revitalize the street; the concepts include a dedicated vintage trolley system, on-street parking, and dropping in an "anchor store", or maybe even two.
With ideas to share like Kate Wetherow's on how to make vacant buildings come to life -- combined with some pot-shots at the federal bureaucracy -- Spacing's ...
March 6th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• Spacing Montreal’s Adam Bemma has produced an informative mini-doc on a contentious Montreal proposal that would see a bus corridor run through the city’s historic Griffintown neighborhood. Check out Spacing Montreal for the fascinating video where Bemma speaks with engineer ...
March 8th, 2010
Community collaboration: the real catalyst for change
By Ian Capstick // 3 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Reserved seating: commitment-phobes only?"][/caption]
Ottawa is a change-averse city. Or is it our elected leaders who are holding back change? Our current city council has been dragging their heals on fundamental debates and decisions about transit, infrastructure, and urban development for over a decade.
This on-again, off-again relationship with decision making has turned city council into the cliched commitment-phobic boyfriend. Just as you’re sure council is about to propose a great solution, one of them steps in to break up the near-deal and send debate careening off into committee hell for another six months.
When asked if we want change, citizens in Ottawa respond with a resounding “yes!” Until, that is, it’s time to actually vote. Then we return our incumbents to their squabbling and bickering.
March 9th, 2010
Trees and grass with that playground? Swap you for it.
By Allegra Newman // 4 Comments
View Larger Map
Listening to the repetitive clanging of machines boring through bedrock it can seem that the condo developments along Richmond and Wellington Roads are never-ending. But along with the noise and dust, urban infill can also mean exciting possibilities, and can be used as a creative opportunity for changes within a community. Most recently, development options are being proposed for the Soeurs de la Visitation convent at 114 Richmond Road. This large, cloistered, very green looking area stretches from Richmond Road to Byron Avenue and is a mystery to local residents who have only air photos and glances at buildings and hundred year old trees to identify the heritage and natural value of the site. Immediately adjacent to the site is Hilson Public School with its treeless schoolyard separated from busy Richmond Road by a chain link fence. These two properties, side by side, green space and concrete. According to the current proposal the green space will be developed and the concrete will continue to be a children’s playground. Imagine if this could be different.
March 10th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Exit signs, China’s golf obessesion and the decade’s most expensive transit projects
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Planning a bike trip using Google Maps is about to get much easier as the company is set to launch a new bike trip planner service in 150 US ...
March 13th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Every Saturday, we highlight recent posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
• Growing customer dissatisfaction with the with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the looming municipal election have led to earnest conversations on how the fledgling city agency can be overhauled. One idea on the table is to integrate the TTC into the larger regional transit organization Metrolinx. Spacing Toronto hosts a debate between contributors and transit experts, John Lorinc and Steve Munro, ...
March 16th, 2010
The ‘Last Good Year’: Revisiting the Centennial Craze
By Tonya Davidson // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Did Montréal get the best Centennial legacy of them all?"][/caption]
1967 was a good year— the “last good year” according to Pierre Berton. Canada’s centennial sparked centennial-project craze across the country.
I first started to think about the lingering legacies of Centennial celebrations on a visit to St. Paul, Alberta. I was on a little road trip checking out ‘big things on the side of the road’ and stopped in St. Paul to visit the town’s UFO landing pad. Reading the accompanying plaque I discovered that the UFO landing pad was a centennial project. For the citizens of this Albertan town, welcoming out-of-planet visitors was the perfect way to celebrate Canada’s birthday and Canadian hospitality. While countless arenas, community centers and parks were built in honour of the Centennial, Berton outlines other more extraordinary celebratory acts. Men grew ‘centennial beards,’ one man attempted (unsuccessfully) to lead a dog team from Tuktoyaktuk to Edmonton, and a team of paddlers embarked on a canoe trip/ race following the historic route of the Voyageurs from the North Saskatchewan River to Montreal, all in celebration of the nation’s birthday. Berton also noted this more anarchist style ‘centennial project’: “It almost seemed that every man and woman in the country was determined to mark the anniversary with a personal effort, even if to somebody it meant throwing a hammer through the window of the U.S. Consulate in Toronto. A note from the anonymous vandal attached to the hammer announced that this was his centennial project” (39).
Spacing Radio 018 is now on the air
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
This episode of Spacing Radio is all about rules. In support of Spacing magazine's upcoming issue, our contributors examine the dos and don'ts of the city. Host David Michael Lamb talks to publisher Matthew Blackett about how millions of Canadians were given permission to break all traffic laws when Sidney Crosby scored the overtime winner at the Winter Olympics. Monika Warzecha examines the drinking laws of Halifax and why the city is afraid to close downtown streets. And ...
March 17th, 2010
Streetcar elegy
By Spacing Ottawa // 7 Comments
Between Tonya Davidson's post on the Centennial year and the above video of Ottawa's old streetcar system, it seems it is History Week here at Spacing Ottawa. It was Eric Darwin from West Side Action that first drew our attention to this amazing colour video, mostly shot in the late 1950s, of streetcars plying Ottawa's roads and avenues. The segments are haphazardly joined together, but as you'll see, the route took the cars through Confederation square, along ...
March 18th, 2010
Canadian artists in the urban fabric
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
By Marcus Bowman, cross-posted from Spacing Toronto
An unprecedented collaborative report mapping the concentration of artists in Canadian cities was released last month. The study was a result of the collective effort of the cultural departments of the cities of Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Published by Hill Strategies, and based on data from the 2006 census, the report paints a fascinating picture into the make-up of Canada's artistic and creative communities.
Each city has its own trends in the way its artistic and creative communities have located. Vancouver had the highest overall percent of artists at 2.3% but has its artistic community spread widely throughout the city. Toronto has by far the largest artistic community; it is home to one in six Canadian artists. Toronto has also seen its artistic neighbourhoods shift slightly since to 2001 to different areas of concentration. Montreal has perhaps the most densely located artistic community and is home to three of the country's top five artistic employment postal codes. The Montreal neighbourhood of the H2T postal code (northward from avenue du Mont-Royal to avenue Van Horne between St-Denis and Jeanne-Mance) is the most artistic in Canada with artists accounting for 7.8% of its workers, ten times the national average. Ottawa and Calgary have artist concentrations closer to the national average, interestingly they also both have the largest income gaps between artists and the rest of the workforce and the largest percent of female artists. Maps of these trends are shown below.
March 20th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Every Saturday, we highlight recent posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
• As part of an ongoing collaboration with the NFB, Spacing Toronto has posted an Oscar-nominated animated short from 1966 entitled "What on Earth!". The short film, the work of Les Drew and Kaj Pindal, shows Earth through the eyes of visiting extraterrestrials who, confronted with automobiles everywhere they look "understandably assume they are the dominant race".
• Spacing contributor Marcus Bowman examines a ...
March 22nd, 2010
1% for public art on Ottawa streets
By Kate Wetherow // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Can "one percent" bring art to streets beyond the national gallery? "][/caption]
When you see public art projects on Ottawa streets, do you wonder how they get there? Who pays for it?
Many Ottawans don’t realize that every new Ottawa street re-vitalization project is subject to the City’s “1% for public art” policy. The idea of “percent-for-art” programs has been around for a while and is contingent on a mandated allocation from government (or corporate) initiatives. As it says on the City of Ottawa’s website: “One percent of funds for new municipal spaces is put aside for public art in order to beautify the space and make art accessible to everyone.”
For example, the Community Design Plan for the Wellington West road reconstruction has a $25+ million price tag for capital improvement. 1% of that budget, approx. $250,000, is intended for commissioned public art. Other such projects include Bank Street, Preston Street and in the future, streets like Sussex Drive.
Does the 1% always get directed to public art? No, but 1% initiatives are becoming more visible due to the strength and persistence of Ottawa’s vocal community groups who are starting to hold the City to its funding policy.
March 23rd, 2010
Learning from others
By Vicky Smallman // 2 Comments
As I write this, I'm enjoying a family holiday in Vancouver. Travelling always makes me feel a little wistful, especially when I come across great public spaces or city services we don't see much of in Ottawa. Sure, it's easy to be envious of the big things – great parks, great transit, and so on. But what gets me going are the little things. Like public washrooms in playgrounds... open ones! In March! Or fenced dog runs tucked into unexpected spaces. Or street signs that ...
March 24th, 2010
Hop on board with a deadman for another “Where in Ottawa”
By Chris Warden // 1 Comment
With last week's post on the old Ottawa streetcar system fresh in out minds, this edition of Where In Ottawa tests your knowledge of Ottawa transit history:
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Can you solve this week's streetcar puzzler on your own, or will you rely on the kindness of strangers?"][/caption]
I am looking at the area that once contained one of the trickiest one-two combinations in the city's streetcar network. You had to run the gauntlet and avoid becoming a deadman. Where am I?
As well as sending us your guess, you can also ...
March 27th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // 1 Comment
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• Toronto's Cabbagetown, known for it array of independent businesses, artistic community and Victorian homes has undergone a number of reincarnations over the years . Once one of Toronto's poorest neighbourhoods its been gentrifying steadily since the 1970s. Spacing’s Ryan Bolton looks at neighbourhood change ...
March 30th, 2010
Spacing Radio 019 is on the air!
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
The new episode of Spacing Radio continues with our look at the Rules of the city (to complement the release of our new magazine issue) as producer Mieke Anderson examines the arcane permit process in Toronto. Reporter Sarah Bridge sits down with internationally renown architect Jack Diamond to discuss the success and failures of renovating Toronto's Union Station. And Montreal correspondent Adam Bemma explores the Berri Square (see series of posts on SpacingMontreal.ca), one of the city's most socially ...
March 31st, 2010
Two zloty to ride the red rocket
By Evan Thornton // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="802" caption="click on image to launch full-size viewer"][/caption]
April 3rd, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing's blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• Carol Coletta, CEO of CEOs for Cities, recently spoke at a sold-out Halifax luncheon on "cities as engines of economic prosperity". Responding to Ms. Colett's emphasis on the importance of developing a Halifax brand, Emily Richardson ...
April 6th, 2010
Bread and circuses: ampitheatre a boon to summer in the city
By Kate Wetherow // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Even spectres congregate at World Exchange ampitheatre "][/caption]
It’s the time of year for renovations and construction projects, getting ready for the onset of the busy Ottawa tourism and “good weather” season.
One of the renovation projects I have been keeping an eye on is the World Exchange Plaza Ampitheatre.
In downtown Ottawa, the World Exchange is a well-utilized mixed-use facility. The property is managed by Bentall LP, known for their “responsible property management,” comprehensive green programs, and integrated approach to real estate.
Office towers above, a mall on the main floor and free public parking below, the Exchange is perhaps best known for the Empire Cinema at its heart. The cinema is busy throughout the year, drawing people from Centretown, Lowertown, the Glebe, Sandy Hill and users of the transitway.
Finding such “draws” is something that Spacing Ottawa has been actively talking about lately, especially on the issue of how to create that energy on nearby Sparks Street, where tumbleweeds have been seen rolling through the silent corridor at night.
World Exchange has been sprucing up its outdoor pedestrian garden and popular lunchtime seating area (bordering busy Metcalfe, Albert and Queen), and enhancing its outdoor performance space.
April 7th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Is smart growth the future of American cities?
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• According to a CNN report the American urban landscape is undergoing a transformation--sprawling suburbs are on their way out and sustainable, urban-centric development is on its way in. The ...
April 8th, 2010
Reclaiming common sense for our revolution
By Ian Capstick // 5 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="Sidewalk lake downtown: a taste of what pedestrians get for their taxes?"][/caption]
Common sense.
For a lot of people who live in Ontario, I suppose Mike Harris and his right-wing “Common Sense Revolution” ruined those words. But taking a page from progressive movements, I say let’s reclaim “common sense.”
It's the essential trait missing among the many elected people on city council who can’t see past the boundaries of their own ward. Perhaps it’s a leadership deficit, forced amalgamation or simple political rivalry that keeps these ...
April 9th, 2010
Playing hardball for the convent: power politics emerge from the cloister
By Chris Henschel // 6 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="598" caption="Crane looming over Byron: are there more to come?"][/caption]
Editor's note: the following article is cross-posted from Spacing Ottawa contributor Chris Henschel's personal blog, Bestboro, Best Wellington
My wife Allegra and I wrote a series of posts for SpacingOttawa.ca that chronicled our involvment in a condo development on Richmond Road, behind our house.
The project ended up falling through, but the experience of working with the developer was largely positive. Though I believe that the City's height restrictions are too liberal (especially for the north side of a 'traditional mainstreet'), the developer was more or less happy to stay within City bylaws, with minor variances. He was also a nice guy and was listening to what people were saying: we didn't like parking at the back, so he put it all underground; we didn't want an access off a dead-end sidestreet, so he proposed moving it to Wellington.
Economic concerns doomed the project. Residents were relieved. But our ongoing experience with the redevelopment of the Soeurs de la Visitation Convent currently being proposed by Ashcroft Homes inspires a more sober perspective: what might happen behind us if this style of developer comes knocking.
Ashcroft's proposal for the Convent site doubles the permitted density and height prescribed in the City's Official Plan and Secondary Plan. It crowds and overbears the historic convent building. It cuts a private access road through the Byron Linear Park. It has no useful public space and it threatens to gridlock traffic on Richmond Road (the City's figures show that the proposal would push the neighbourhood to within a breath of its 2031 density targets).
The residents on surrounding streets that were invited to pre-consultations on the proposal see no trace of their input. The developer has filed with the Ontario Superior Court to quash a recommendation for heritage designation of the whole property that could strengthen the City's hand when reviewing the plan.
April 10th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Spacing's Sean Marshall follows up a piece in the latest edition of the magazine, talking about Toronto's ubiquitous "12-8-8" yellow traffic lights and their negative aesthetic affects on the city's urban landscape. Pointing to examples of how lights are designed in other cities and even in some special areas throughout the GTA, Marshall discusses how to improve the aesthetic value of traffic signal while working with safety requirements and the Ontario Traffic Manual.
As part of the ongoing building stories exhibit at the Gladstone Hotel, David Wencer uses the old Canada Linseed Oil Mills building, abandoned since the late sixties, as a window into exploring the industrial history of the area along the CPR lines and into how the area has regenerated. While the site beside the building has been turned into a Park, the building itself remains fenced off, despite having been purchased by the city in 2000. Local residents hope to tap the building's potential to become a dynamic community space.
Alanah Heffez provides some background on the work of contributer Andrew Emond who along with Michael Cook was arrested this week while exploring the Garrison Creek sewer in Toronto. Emond has been featured on Spacing, amongst other media outlets, for his fascinating work on mapping and photographing some of the spectacular, yet unsung infrastructure at work beneath Montreal.
Inspired by thinking about other people view the same area of a city guest contributer Daniel Rotszain recalls the experience of walking through the Mile End neighbourhood with his father. To his surprise his father saw the neighbourhood not as the height of urbanity many consider today but as the inadequate slum it was to a generation of immigrants yearning for something better that it was during his father's childhood.
As part of the ongoing 'Spokes People' series, contributer Steve Bedard discusses the importance of building Halifax's crosstown connector bike lane from the perspective of someone with an education in nursing and has seen many of the increasing health ailments affecting people as a result of inactive transportation.
Inspired by the way many European cities integrate their historic monuments into the modern city to maintain functionality, Jake Schabas takes a look at Halifax's Citadel Hill and the potential to do some modernization on the site to make it less removed from the city.
April 13th, 2010
The Line of Parting: Ottawa’s Two Sublimes
By Daniel Velarde // 3 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="267" caption="Voice of Fire: the template for curatorial controversy since 1989"][/caption]
You might remember the ink spilled several months ago over Maria Cook's Ottawa Citizen article revealing plans for a 10-storey Roxy Paine sculpture, a kind of giant stalagmite atop Nepean Point. Online commentators quickly lashed the New York artist's Hundred Foot Line, and in the tradition of taxpayer critiques, ridiculed the commission as yet another foreign and aloof New York abstraction pushed onto the "suckers" at the National Art Gallery. Not to be outdone, the curatorial establishment rallied to defend the installation, apparently eager to assume the role of a cultural bastion desperately resisting the philistine masses. (A Mount Carmel complex which says a lot about the gallery's PR doctrine and its evolution since the early 90s, but let me concentrate for a moment on what seems vital.)
These art controversies may strike us as naive, foolish, or ridiculous, but I believe they present some otherwise unavailable clues or code outlining larger processes in Ottawa's historical development. More specifically, these public art installations are likely the latest phase in Ottawa's well-known spatial mutation, beginning in the 1950s, when the horizontal city — the "Edinburgh of the West" whose only towers were the spires on churches and on Parliament — burgeoned into the familiar vertical experience of glass and concrete, the stunted mockery of Toronto or New York. (With all that came packaged: wild architectures; kaleidoscopic visual stimulation, etc.)
April 14th, 2010
Spacing Radio 020 is on the air!
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
On this episode of Spacing Radio producer Mieke Andersen takes you on a walk with Cindy Rozeboom through the east end of Toronto, along the Danforth, to explore the potential of empty storefronts. In other cities, street food is a major component of public life, but in Toronto food vendors don't seem to get any respect from city hall, BIAs, and urban designers — reporter Pattie Phillips talks to Marianne Moroney of Toronto's Street Food Vendors Association. The release of the new book "Rediscovering the Wealth ...
World Wide Wednesday: Parks, bikes, and cable cars
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Luud Schimmelpinnink--one of the activists behind the 1965 White Bicycle Plan in Amsterdam--has envisioned the bike ...
The laneways of West Wellington
By Evan Thornton // 5 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption=" Laneway art installation in Melbourne, Australia"][/caption]
This week the Citizen's David Reevely ran an excellent post on Ottawa's neglected laneway system, which has largely been allowed to disappear via generations of encroachments, though it is still visible as a series of thin lines on certain old maps of the city. Reevely identified the West Wellington area as the "big kahuna" of the old back alley network, and I was reminded of a piece I wrote for a print publication several years ago about the West Wellington laneways. The following is that article, slightly edited. - Evan Thornton
It was a green dumpster plopped down in a patch of weeds; but something near to it had my friend acting weird. He was around the back, muttering; I heard phrases like “right through here” and “just where the map said it was”. Now he had me curious, and I tip-toed through the muck to join him. In front of us was a bizarre little structure sticking out of the back wall of the bowling alley like a carbuncle; imagine a plank-sided out-house grafted onto a cinderblock wall. A rich growth of weeds below almost convinced us it was an old privie; boarded-up, but still doing its bit to fertilize the soil below the cracked asphalt of this miniature urban wasteland.
April 19th, 2010
Idea-shy mayor’s race: playing for time, or putting us to sleep?
By Vicky Smallman // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="In lieu of fresh thinking, will candidates rely on the old stand-by?"][/caption]
It's true that elections are no time to debate policy – between the hot button-pressing and the sound bite speaking, no one seems to want to do any actual big-T Thinking. But municipal elections are slightly different than their provincial or federal counterparts. Candidates can register as early as ten months before election day, so they can start spending money and get their message out to prospective voters.
With six months to go, it's still early, so it's not too surprising we haven't seen much from the front-running mayoral candidates about their vision for Ottawa. But perhaps it's time they started throwing out some ideas. Six months is long enough to get people talking. By the time September rolls around, schedules become packed, the media starts paying more attention, and candidates have less control over the debate. So why not get ahead of the game and set the agenda while you still can?
April 21st, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: New York, Shanghai and Pajarito Mesa
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Good Magazine has devoted its newest issue entirely to neighbourhoods. Check it out online for tips on starting a community garden and strategies for throwing an amazing block ...
April 22nd, 2010
Turn left at the teapot: corporate sculpture in Ottawa
By Kate Wetherow // 8 Comments
In the dense forest of corporate buildings in downtown Ottawa, wouldn’t it be nice to distinguish one corner from another? Too many offer only the pre-requisite coffee shop or dry cleaner tucked inside a big glass wall.
One solution that enlivens urban centres is investment in corporate sculpture.
When I was young, I had the chance to go to Chicago on a school field trip. To an art student, downtown Chicago is the epitome of cool. It’s a city that appreciates art and urbanism. We took architecture walks down streets lined with architecture by the likes of Louis Sullivan and Mies van der Rohe and you couldn’t help but notice the large commissioned sculptures that proudly sit in front of many of the city’s big buildings.
It’s commonplace to give directions by saying: “Turn left at the big bat.” The “bat” being Batcolumn, a monumental grey skeleton of a baseball bat by pop artist Claes Oldenburg. Not only that, but people love the bat, gather and eat lunch in its shadow.
April 24th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
The saga of how to replace to the Turcott interchange got even more interesting this week as Devin Alfaro explains in a piece profiling the City of Montreal’s counter proposal to that proposed by the Provincial Ministry of Transportation. The City proposal involves a circular design, similar to one found in Shanghai, and dedicated bus lanes. Importantly the City’s proposal would actually take up less land, and prevent the proposed expropriation of demolishing of an existing neighbourhood.
In Halifax, Jake Schabas looks at what a bottlenecked pedestrian/cyclist passage says about the city’s transportation priorities. The bottleneck, which chokes an important passageway between the north and south parts of the city is causes merely by a chain link fence.
While many Atlantic Canadian cities have traditionally lacked the density to spawn infill housing projects, Halifax’s Wright Ave is an example of how effective dense infill housing can be at plugging holes in the urban fabric with attractive and efficient spaces.
Sean Micalleff explored the timely topic of the weather in his psychogeography column this week. Quoting Leanord Cohen’s famous lines about the obscenity of Spring as bare skin is revealed and the collective celebration of our winter survival, Micalleff discusses how attitudes this Spring reflect a maturing awareness about public space in Toronto, as a place where the revival of Spring truly plays out.
The question of how to bring effective public transit to the suburbs is as interesting as it is important. Spacing’s Sean Marshall travelled to his hometown of Brampton this week in a post highlighting some of the public transit changes that are coming to the city. The city’s new Zum high order bus service and the Hurontario/Main St LRT project are profiled and discussed.
April 27th, 2010
WWJJD? Centretown through Jane Jacobs’ eyes
By David McClelland // 3 Comments
Editor's note: How powerful is the written word? Sometimes to gauge the impact of a writer we have to imagine what our world would be like without their contribution; without Jane Jacobs it is possible to imagine that there might never have been an urbanist movement in North America. In New York there probably would have been a six lane road instead of Washington Square, in Toronto an expressway right through the Annex, and in Ottawa, perhaps a 17-lane freeway instead of Laurier Avenue, as was on the drawing books of our road planners in the mid-1960s (see above). That these neighbourhood–killing projects never came to pass is still in large part credited to a discourse that began with Jacobs' stinging critique of post-war urban planning.
Certainly without Jacobs there would be no Spacing Ottawa blog, and so to mark this week's launch of Ottawa's third season of Jane's Walks we asked contributor David McClelland to consider the Jane Jacobs legacy from the point of view of an Ottawa neighbourhood. He chose Downtown/Centretown.
When it comes to urban thinkers, there are few names that are quite so revered as Jane Jacobs. She's cited in nearly every passionate debate about urban issues in North America, and The Death and Life of Great American Cities, her 1961 attack on modern urban planning policies, is still required reading at countless universities around the world. And though she died in 2006, her legacy lives on: Jane's Walks are held around Canada and the United States, which celebrate urban life and her passionate, incredibly observant view of cities.
But in spite of all this, many people do not seem to be familiar with what exactly her ideas were. Many know the gist of what she writes about in Death and Life, but aren't as certain in their knowledge of the ideas that underpin them. And while it would be nearly impossible to summarize all of the ideas in the book (as, while very readable, it's also densely packed), one section of the book is on the four conditions that make for diverse neighborhoods. So to better understand the ideas of Jacobs, why not take a look at downtown Ottawa through the lens of these four conditions?
“1. The district, and indeed as many of its internal parts as possible, must serve more than one primary function; preferably more than two. These must insure the presence of people who go outdoors on different schedules and are in the place for different purposes, but who are able to use many facilities in common.”
To anyone interested in cities today, this seems obvious: a good neighborhood has mixed uses. But when Jacobs was writing in the 1950s and 60s, this seemed less obvious. It was widely believed that a healthy city was a segregated city—people should live in one place, work in another, and be entertained in a third, and so on. However, Jacobs didn't buy into this, realizing instead that the more services a place could offer, the more attractive it would be, both as a place to live and a place to visit. Simple, but revolutionary nevertheless.
Thankfully, downtown Ottawa generally features a good mix of uses. The very heart of the CBD is far too dominated by government offices, of course (and this has a great deal to do with why Sparks Street is so dead outside of the business lunch rush), but it is still surrounded by residences, condos, shops, bars, and so on. So while it could be better, it could be a lot worse—one only needs to look at Tunney's Pasture to see the effects of a strict, single-use area.
Spacing Radio 021 is on the air!
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
We begin this episode of the Spacing Radio podcast in Toronto’s Alexandra Park, where Spacing producer Todd Harrison speaks with Jane’s Walk executive director Jane Farrow about this weekend’s upcoming Jane’s Walks and how the event — and the discussions it inspires — has evolved both at home and abroad.
Up next, Spacing producer Mieke Anderson takes us to Cleveland, Ohio where she meets up with local newspaper critic Steven Litt, to discuss the drawbacks of the city’s Public ...
April 29th, 2010
Preview: Jane’s Walk this weekend
By Evan Thornton // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Jane's Walk 2009 in the Byward Market"][/caption]
With 35 captivating neighbourhood-based walks on the program, this year's edition of Jane's Walk promises to be the most deliciously diverse version of the festival yet.
We don't have the space to preview all of the tours on offer this weekend, but we do want to draw our readers' attention to several of the walks with a strong Spacing connection.
From the outset of this blog, the people behind Apartment 613 have been huge supporters of Spacing Ottawa and it is no surprise ...
May 1st, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Spacing's Jake Schabas takes readers to the campus of Dalhousie University for a tour of the school's relationship with its modernist architectural heritage. Schabas compares the buildings constructed during the boom of the 1960's and those built during the campus's recent boom times today. It is a comparison that finds some favour in the designs of the past, and presents a case for caring these concrete buildings into the future.
As G8 development minister convened on Halifax this past week, protesters took to the streets to shine light on Nova Scotia's problems with affordable housing. Emma Feltes discusses some of the startling comparisons the protesters made between the economic thinking of the G8 and the gentrification of Halifax's North End. As the province turns affordable housing projects over to the private sector questions are raised about who's interests are really being served.
Understanding how public transit and the broader issue of mobility truely affect a neighbourhood is a fascinating and critical part of the debate on how to get more transit built. Mile Thomas explores issues of mobility in the Montreal-Nord borough. Describing the area as exiled from the rest of the city, Thomas breaks down the real trials mobility presents to area residents and considers how such isolation has been allowed to happen in an advanced, developed country.
John Lorinc used his column this week to continue the evolving discussion over the future of the Transit City project, thrown into turmoil by the Provincial Government's decision to 'delay' funding. Lorinc explores the reactions of a spectrum of candidates for both the mayoral and Provincial elections, to seek there true intentions and speculate about the future of the project's funding.
The Hot Doc's documentary film festival kicked off this week. With so many films to choose from, Jaqueline Whyte Appleby offers a guide to the urbanist films being screened.
May 3rd, 2010
Opinion: tomorrow’s rapid transit will support today’s urban sprawl
By Chris Bradshaw // 8 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Prowling the depths: best left to auto traffic?"][/caption]
Chris Bradshaw is the co-founder of Vrtu-car, and was co-owner until 2006. He is also a co-founder and long-time (1988-2000) executive member of Ottawalk. He is now a member of the Ottawa Seniors Transportation Committee. Chris and his wife live car-lite in Sandy Hill.
Originally submitted as a comment, the following is Chris's response to an earlier Spacing Ottawa post ("The History of the Ottawa subway") wherein author Alain Miguelez outlined his reasons for supporting the City's plans to build a transit tunnel underneath downtown Ottawa.
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The history related by Alain Miguelez shows that the wonderful 'moment' we have today is partly thanks to the procrastination of previous generations of planners and politicians; otherwise, we would be stuck with yesterday's technology and problematique. It is sobering to consider whether the plan now waiting for funding and environmental assessment will suffer the same fate. I expect so.
I start with the premise that people belong at the surface of cities. Let vehicles with their power and speed use the subterranean spaces. For instance, downtown auto users are either passing through or destined for an underground parking garage. Why don't they go underground, instead of people? And the proposal's enormous number of very long escalators should simply be strung out horizontally for moving sidewalks to connect two super stations at either end of downtown, like Denver does (linked for decades by free electric buses on the surface).
May 5th, 2010
Spacing nominated for Best Single Issue in 2009
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
Spacing is happy to announce that the summer-fall 2009 issue of the magazine was nominated for Best Single Issue by the National Magazine Awards. This is the second year in a row that we've been nominated in this category. Many thanks to our cast of contributors who made this one of the 10 best issues in Canadian magazines in 2009. We'll find out June 4th just how good of an issue it was.
World Wide Wednesday: Greenways, maps, and a railway run by children
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• The National Council of Research in Rome is generating innovative ideas on city building by looking at the urban environment through the eyes of children. As explained on ...
May 6th, 2010
The burning city
By Evan Thornton // 2 Comments
This year it seems a week can't go by without another major fire in the news. The crowd-sourced echo chamber that is twitter no doubt adds to that perception that fire is all around us, as with Tuesday's blaze in Kanata -- captured here in a tweetphoto of such intensity it looks like the iPhone that took it is starting to melt --or last weekend's controversial blaze at a scrapyard on Sheffield Road, tweeted within minutes of breaking out. Of course when fire struck Merivale Road in February the news didn't need even need twitter to spread around quickly; CJOH losing its home of nearly four decades was instant headline news all by itself.
Fire seems to be a perfect subject for the immediacy of social media and the aftermath of a blaze seems an especially popular subject for Ottawa photo-bloggers.
Spacing Ottawa contributor Justin Van Leeuwen has the knack for being close the scene for the fires that seem to bedevil his West End district, and has recorded the destruction superbly in shots like this Chinatown panorama or the shattered windows of this dream home on St. Francis near Gladstone that recently caught on fire on the last day of construction. This pit of rubble is a burned-out convenience store not far from Bronson.
Spacing’s next stop: Carleton Place
By Spacing Ottawa // 1 Comment
This Friday Spacing Ottawa will be traveling to the banks of the Mississippi River in Carleton Place to test out a new commuter bus line that was launched earlier this week.
Unlike most commuter bus services in the Ottawa valley, Lanark Community Transit is offering a return service that will allow passengers to go "against the flow" and actually travel to an outlying town in the morning and return later in the afternoon. Other commuter lines typically disgorge their passenger load in downtown Ottawa in the a.m. and park the bus until the afternoon ...
May 8th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
How well a city invests in transit is reflected in the priority it places on public transportation. In Halifax, Dustin Vallen continues the 'City Unbuilt' series to showcase a graduate architecture project for a bold new bus shelter at a prominent corner in the city.
Halifax's Jane's Walk was a great success as a good crowd showed up to tour through some of the areas of downtown that are on the verge of some significant change. Spacing Atlantic this week featured a review of the walk, so that anyone can experience at least a little taste of what they may of missed.
As the dust settles on our 2009 tax returns, now is a good time to look at the significance of some of the numbers. Spacing's Alanah Heffez breaks some aspects of her return for readers and in doing so reveals a fantastic illustration of a fundamental problem with Canadian Federalism: the underfunding of municipal government.
Is Stephen Harper using the G8 summit to punish urban voters in Toronto? After reading Matt Blackett's summary of the Orwellian security measures that will be imposed on the city during and leading up to the summit, you may think so.
Toronto is a city defined by its undefinedness and has long had troubles properly marketing itself to the world. On the eve of a trip to Manchester, Spacing's Shawn Micallef reflects on that city's success at defining its image and compares its marketable attributes to our own, wondering why there has been such a difference, and what causes some city's to a clearer collective image of themselves than others.
May 10th, 2010
Opinion: time is right for teenage transit to grow up
By Alain Miguelez // 6 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Bumper-to-bumper on our BRT - growing pains on the way to adulthood?"][/caption]
Reading my friend Chris Bradshaw’s recent Spacing Ottawa opinion piece on rapid transit reminds me of the challenges of a growing family. Canada is a family of cities of various ages and therefore at various stages of maturity. Montreal and Toronto are the “older children”. They were the first ones to go through the growing pains of passing through the stages of development that children experience as they move through their teenage years and into adulthood. Because they are older, they always thought of themselves as the “bigger kids” and, like most first-borns and second-borns in large families, they were the ones who had to learn from mistakes, rather than benefit from the teachings of older siblings they never had.
Ottawa, on the other hand, is one of the family’s younger children. It was cuddled and sheltered more than its older siblings and, accordingly, was spared some of the mistakes made by its older brothers and sisters. It has more green space than its older siblings. It has fewer of the harmful effects of some of the more misguided urban interventions tried by their larger siblings. It has fewer scars as a result.
But just as we don’t imagine children growing from newborn to toddler to big kids while still drinking milk from a bottle or using diapers, so cities grow out of the more junior arrangements that come from the days when they were smaller. And children usually do resist, at first, things like potty training, picking up after themselves or doing their homework after school. It’s hard to grow up. It’s also unpleasant at first. And children aren’t equipped to see the richer life that awaits them once they learn new skills and take responsibility for themselves.
May 11th, 2010
Spacing Radio 022 is on the air!
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
In this episode of Spacing Radio — the last of season 3 — our cast of contributors explore the theme of how we get around cities. First up are a handful of clips from Jane's Walk, the yearly festival of walking tours in Toronto and over 60 other cities across North America. Then Spacing magazine's senior editor Shawn Micallef takes listeners to Yorkville to discuss the ethos behind his new book Stroll. Our new reporter Katie Harris examines the impact the ...
May 12th, 2010
Tripling the damage
By Evan Thornton // 1 Comment
It turns out it wasn't just our imagination; Ottawa is experience a mini-boom in fires. According to Ottawa Fire Services, there were 98 fires causing $50,000 or more in damage in 2006; by 2009 Ottawa experienced 143 fires in that category.
Definition of "structure working fires" = $ loss is equal to or greater than $50,000
Year # # of structure working fires
2006 ...
World Wide Wednesday: “Tesco Towns”, security cameras, and the world’s greenest buildings
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• What would a socially equitable city look like? The Polis Blog sheds some light on this complex question in a fascinating series entitled "The Just Metropolis". ...
May 14th, 2010
“Green corridor” takes you car-free to Carleton Place; NCC the only bump in the road
By Evan Thornton // 1 Comment
Last Friday I had the opportunity to try out the commuter bus line offering return service to downtown Carleton Place that was launched earlier this month. As I wrote in the preview post:
Unlike most commuter bus services in the Ottawa valley, Lanark Community Transit is offering a return service that will allow passengers to go "against the flow" and actually travel to an outlying town in the morning ...
May 15th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Community activism is changing in the information age and we are just beginning to see what can be accomplished by the trend of increasingly open access to public data. Emily Richardson profiles a number of initiatives and programs in place both in Atlantic Canada, and throughout North America.
Alanah Heffez talks about a new initiative by the STM to put green roofs on select bus shelters throughout the city as part of slick new marketing campaign. The campaign is a window into the broader green initiatives of Montreal's transit operator.
Shiny new streetcars are coming soon to the streets of Toronto and this week the TTC began preparing for their launch with a campaign to build excitement by eliciting rider input. Spacing Editor and TTC Customer Service Review Panel member, Matt Blackett talks about the initiative and gives some suggestions on how the names of the new cars can be used to sell them to riders.
In a very provocative piece, Nicole McIsaac speculates about a future of open source government and what it could mean for civic engagement. While other Cities are quickly hoping on this bandwagon by releasing their immense date basses to the public where the data can be organized according to need, and widely disseminated.
May 18th, 2010
CityVote takes a visual turn
By Ian Capstick // 2 Comments
This half of CityVote is taking a decidedly visual turn for the next little while. I’ll be blunt: I was having trouble breaking out of my “rant mode” with written text. It comes too easily. CityVote and this space needs to be a conversation and my role is to provoke that. I’ve had some amazing people ask me to help them tell their stories. I can’t think of a better way than to teach them how to do it themselves.
Making the invisible visible will be the theme of the audio/video project. My team at ...
May 19th, 2010
So, about that federal LRT funding…
By Spacing Ottawa // 3 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="579" caption="Is it all just pie in the sky without the feds?"][/caption]
Editor's note: the following article was written by Peter Raaymakers, Executive Director of Transit Ottawa. It originally appeared on the Public Transit in Ottawa website.
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The City of Ottawa is still waiting to hear the federal government announce their intentions to match (or hopefully exceed) the provincial $600M funding pledge for the city's $2.1B light-rail transit plan. Queen's Park made its pledge back in December, and the general understanding was that a similar announcement from Federal ...
World Wide Wednesday: London, Bangkok, and New Delhi
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Though still incomplete, New Delhi's subway system is already being hailed as "a runaway success". According to the The New York Times not only is the Delhi Metro "scrupulously ...
May 22nd, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // 1 Comment
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
In the Plateau neighbourhood, recently elected Project Montreal has put forward a new plan to deal with restaurant terraces on area sidewalks. The plan calls for terraces to be moved off of sidewalks and onto the street to improve pedestrian flow. Businesses in the area have taken a number of issues with the plan and threatening to close their terraces all sumer in protest.
Allanah Heffez reports on the sombre mood surrounding cyclists in Quebec following the recent tragic deaths of four cyclists on a rural highway. While silent vigil rides dubbed "tour de silence" are taking part across the province police in Montreal have fallen back on the classic blame the victim approach stepping enforcement on cyclists but not motorists.
The question of whether or not Toronto is really a world class city has finally been definitively answered. Thursday morning city officials gathered on the Waterfront to unveil Toronto's first public pay toilet, complete with friendly female voice, and soft waterfall music. Nicole McIsaac satisfied her curiosity about the new street furniture with a visit and shares her observations with readers.
Moving on from the disappointing failure of the University Ave bike lanes proposal, cycling advocates were out in front of Queen's Park this week to push for intelligent new safety laws requiring drivers to leave at least three feet of space when passing cyclists. The new law could help address the main barrier keeping more people from cycling: safety.
Responding to speculation that roundabouts may soon be coming to the streets of Halifax, Steve Bedard gives a ringing endorsement of the plan by reflecting on observations of how well the round arrangement works in Europe. Bedard notes in particular how well the French use roundabouts to manage traffic efficiently and promote shared roadways.
As St John kicks off the celebrations of its 225th birthday, Abad Khan reflects on the city's priorities as demonstrated by the two year closure of one its most important pedestrian routes to facilitate bridge construction. Would the city have closed a road as well?
May 25th, 2010
On LRTs and architecture
By David McClelland // 8 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Light well, Outrement Station, Montréal Metro"][/caption]
As rail-starved Ottawans wait for the latest attempt at light-rail transit to creep slowly towards completion, one question remains unanswered: who will design the stations? Admittedly, this has little to do with the actual nuts and bolts of the proposed system, or to do with the all-important dilemma that is funding its construction, but it is an important question nevertheless. After all, this system will be used by tens of thousands of people every day, so it seems only logical that stations should be pleasant and interesting places to wait for a train, right?
The current Transitway system seems to be the antithesis of this philosophy. Right now, stations range from dank and unpleasant (St. Laurent), to utilitarian (the majority, like Hurdman and Lincoln Fields), to mildly pleasing (Dominion comes to mind). Transitway stations betray their 80s heritage at a glance: concrete abounds, and the ubiquitous red tubing and glass that makes up nearly every shelter quickly becomes depressing and repetitive.
Commuting snapshots across the Spacing map
By Spacing Ottawa // 3 Comments
Source: Statistics Canada
By Emily Richardson – cross-posted from Spacing Atlantic
Despite dramatic differences in population, density, infrastructure, and growth, there is remarkable consistency between commuting patterns in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Halifax, particularly when it comes to traveling by car. And incidentally, when it comes to getting us out of them, we seem to find buses and bike lanes unconvincing. A closer look at our most recent census data raises some surprising – and some predictable – findings about the way we get to work and how preferences change as our cities grow.
First a few words on sources and statistics: All data in this article, with the exception of bike lane information, is based on the 2006 census of Halifax, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal's census metropolitan areas with trends from the 2001 census. I will be the first to concede two important shortcomings in the data. First, neither the number of cities nor the number of data points within each city is sufficient for any analysis to be statistically significant (in other words, proper analysis requires more, and more robust, data to hold up to scrutiny). Second, the data is a static snapshot in time, and it lacks any context that might explain why the upcoming 2011 census might paint a vastly different picture.
But despite these drawbacks, the census data does highlight some consistencies between cities and concerns about the economic, social, and environmental implications of our commuting habits. It remains to be seen whether erratic fuel prices, transit-pass tax incentives, and growing bike-lane networks over the past four years will meaningfully influence our commuting habits by 2011. In the meantime, comments and observations are welcomed in response to this anecdotal food for thought.
May 28th, 2010
Week in review: the headlines
By Spacing Ottawa // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="800" caption="Horticulture Building, Lansdowne: immovable object?"][/caption]
May 29th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
As the Place des festivales nears completion, Montrealers are getting a look at one of the most striking new public spaces in Canada. Spacing's Allanah Heffez reviews the new space bringing up both good and bad about the realized version of the square.
Setting the stage for future investments in public space, the council of the Plateau neighbourhood recently announced interesting plans to expand a park in an area lacking in green space by closing off a street that runs beside it. The street has already been closed to car traffic and will be use the space to establish a farmer's market.
Steve Bedard promotes the Halifax Open Street Party, happening this weekend in the city's North Commons. The event is hosted by the Halifax Cycling Coalition and The Bike Week Planning Council.
In his weekly column, John Lorinc finds some cause for optimism about the future of Transit City despite cries from the Mayor's Office that the province will not carry through with the plan. Lorinc examines the Mayor's claim that the Eglington line will run from Leaside to Forest Hill and contrasts it against the recent actions of Metrolinx and his forecast for the Province's political future.
In a call to action Hillary Best advocates the idea of 'Complete Streets' as was discussed during a recent conference held by the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation. Best shows that the more we understand the idea of complete streets, the more apparent becomes their necessity to the future vitality of the region.
June 1st, 2010
New blood versus same old faces: who should prevail?
By Vicky Smallman // 4 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Knowing the ropes: do voters give it too much weight?"][/caption]
Much has been written about the need for fresh faces on Ottawa's city council. From community coalition Our Ottawa to the high profile residents behind Fair Chance, from columnists like Randall Denley to bloggers like Blake Batson, the call for change at City Hall has been loud and clear.
There's no question that Ottawa's pattern of re-electing incumbents is not exactly healthy for our local democracy. But is a clean sweep what we need? What are the pros and cons of supporting incumbents versus voting in new faces and new voices?
Incumbents:
On the pro side, incumbents have no learning curve. They know the ropes, they know the rules of order, they have relationships with staff and know how to answer constituents' issues and resolve problems. There's no waiting while they set up an office and hire staff – they're ready to go as soon as they take office. They also know what to expect – they understand the pace of a councilor's lifestyle, so there's no adjustment period while they get used to the evening meetings, the event-after-event weekends, the reduced family time and the lack of privacy.
But incumbents get tired. They might get lazy, or take voters for granted. They may resist new ideas, or ignore some communities in favour of the constituents that voted them in. Some are quite parochial in their approach, focusing on the narrow interests of their ward instead of the city as a whole. Some get defensive when challenged by residents (Gord Hunter, for example, is notorious for his quick email trigger).
June 4th, 2010
City plans to widen Centretown’s great divide
By Evan Thornton // 7 Comments
The always-excellent West Side Action is two parts into a 5-part series on Bronson Avenue. Bronson was designated as an arterial in the 1970s as part of the Centretown plan, and bears the brunt of north-south automobile traffic in a wide swath of Centretown, from Kent/Lyon in the east to Booth in the west. Factors like noise, dust, narrow sidewalks, and limited pedestrian crossings make Bronson a real barrier for foot and cycle traffic, separating Chinatown from points east and discouraging development along Bronson itself.
Bronson is slated for reconstruction in 2011, and, astonishingly, the City presented a plan to the neighbourhood that would see engineers actually widen the roadbed, facilitating even greater traffic speed along the road.
June 5th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Its election year in a city where both traffic and transit development are gridlocked so mayoral front runner George Smitherman's release of his transportation platform this week inspired critical examination from both John Lorinc and Jonathan Goldsbie. While Lorinc focuses on the political motivations for Smitherman's plan, Goldsbie looks specifically at the cycling initiatives to see if they hold sway, or a merely paying lip service.
On a lighter note, the hording finally came down last weekend on renovations to the historic John Street Roundhouse near the base of the CN Tower. Spacing's Nicole McIsaac visited the new National Railway Heritage Centre built into and around the roundhouse and the public space surrounding it and profiles some its exciting features, including restored steam locomotives, historic buildings and a miniature railroad.
Katie McKay reports from Halifax on the success of the May edition of the city's Critical Mass Bike ride which for the first time crossed the MacDonald Bridge over the harbour, closing a lane of traffic in the process. The success of the event was not in obstructing motorists, but in strengthening the breadth of the Halifax cycling community.
Spacing contributor and McGill School of Urban Planning researcher, Jacob Larson introduces readers to the issue of integrating cycling into a broader new vision for transportation in North America. Readers are invited to take a survey on multi-modal connections in the Montreal Region.
On the Lower Main, Alanah Heffez showcases an interesting temporary fix for the unsightliness of the buildings awaiting revised redevelopment plans involving a graffiti bomb by thirty different artists organized by the Corporation de développement urbain du Faubourg Saint-Laurent and the Partenariat du Quartier des spectacles.
June 7th, 2010
Spacing Radio is back for the summer in shorts
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
Spacing Radio is back! For the summer we are changing things up a bit and so over the next few months we're going to give you a lot more to listen to, but in shorter doses. Every time we have a story to tell, we'll post it on the blog and put it out on iTunes. Sometimes you'll get one a day, or a few a week. It's a reflection of the season, when most of us ...
June 8th, 2010
Photo of the day: Balcony of the Aga Khan
By Spacing Ottawa // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Photo taken by Gordon D. Bonnar during this past weekend's Doors Open tour of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, on Sussex Drive"][/caption]
June 9th, 2010
Light rail funding: now the real wait begins
By Peter Raaymakers // No Comments
Editor's note: Peter Raaymakers is the executive director of the Public Transit in Ottawa portal (TransitOttawa.ca), and tries to encourage constructive discussion on transit in the city on that site. He is also the managing editor of the Journal of Public Transit in Ottawa, the community-reviewed journal on pressing transit issues in the city.
The City of Ottawa has been anxiously waiting for months to hear what John Baird announced yesterday: A federal pledge to share the costs of the city's light-rail transit plan. Not a full share of the cost, mind you; ...
World Wide Wednesday: The World Cup, bike gadgets, and the fastest train in the world
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• The BP oil spill, which continues to wreak havoc on the United States' Gulf Coast, is just one more reminder of the perils ...
June 10th, 2010
Surface parking targeted in design plan for Centretown
By Evan Thornton // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="An all-too-common Centretown streetscape"][/caption]
They're ugly when full, desolate when empty, and they promote unsustainable commuter practices. Unfortunately, surface parking lots disfigure the streetscape all over Centretown, tearing large holes in the urban fabric and making the built form of Canada's capital city often resemble a small town in the middle of the prairies.
So it's no surprise that the team charged with delivering a cohesive Community Design Plan for Mid-Centretown have parking lots firmly in their sights as they begin the planning process that will make the area between Kent and Elgin ready to receive its share of the 10,000 extra residents Centretown is expected to attract by 2031.
The .pdf of the slides the planning team presented to a Community Open House held this week is available on the planning team's blog site or you can click here for a direct download. It's a fascinating document, and one of the most telling visuals in the slide deck is the one reproduced below.
Caring about Carling
By Eric Darwin // 1 Comment
Editor's note: this post originally appeared on the author's own West Side Action blog.
Last night was the first Public Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting for the Carling Avenue reconstruction project from the O-Train to Bronson Avenue. Scheduled for 2011, its for a complete rebuild of the street: new sewers, water mains, dozens of cable and gas pipes, curbs, sidewalks, lighting...everything.
The handout emphasized the following priorities in this order: pedestrian, cycling, transit, vehicle. Of course, the the Technical Adisory Committee (TAC) had first whack at the project and they specified two through lanes in each direction, a bus lane, a cycling lane,very generous turn lanes, etc etc all of which exceeds the available right of way. Now, which elements do we guess might get dropped? No points for the correct answer: car lanes, bus lane, bike lane if room, "2m sidewalk (where feasible)". So much for ped priority. And for streetscaping ... to be added in at the end on the leftover spaces.
So, I spent the evening in pleasant dialogue with the city planner and his consultants, educating them as to local pedestrian desire lines, questioning them on traffic volume assumptions, and suggesting the ideal Carling-Avenue-according-to-Eric plan.
June 12th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Taxi's can be unique and identifying feature of a city that play an important part in the street-scape. As Montreal moves towards implementing its bylaw allowing advertisements on Taxis, Alanah Heffez reports on efforts to create an attractive design promoting the city. The new bylaw is also inspiring some grumbling amongst taxi drivers who report some cabs with the new signs have been mistake for pizza delivery cars.
Spacing Montreal is inviting readers to take part in its first ever reader survey of favourite parts of the city. Categories focus around civic initiatives, public personalities and hidden corners of the urban fabric.
Spacing editor Sean Micallef generated a great discussion this week about taking the cycling movement to the next level in Toronto. In an appeal to cyclists, Micallef advocates that riders acknowledge the political nature of everything they do and that accordingly they must approaching sharing the roadways as part of a sensible dialogue with drivers. Is there an onus on cyclists to promote better behaviour amongst fellow riders?
Major changes are coming to Toronto's iconic St Lawrence Market as the winning design was announced this week for the redevelopment of the 1960's era north market building. Spacing's Nicole McIssac covers the announcement and showcases the exciting new plan.
As part of an always great events series, Veronica Simmonds profiles World Naked Bike day and public consultation on the Halifax Central Library.
The Atlantic Snapshots feature this week focused on another distinctly Atlantic scene, this time in Saint John.
June 15th, 2010
Ottawa’s election: still no narrative
By Ian Capstick // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="Watching paint dry: a better story than our mayor's race?"][/caption]
At just over 130 days away from the ballot and it’s barely registered to most in the city that an election is around the corner.
Sure, incumbents are slowly rolling out sleepy reelection campaigns. A few upstarts are getting their cars wrapped and shiny new social media profiles in order.
But, the mayors race only seems busy because Jim Watson keeps an inhuman pace. A long standing Ottawa joke is that Watson will attend the opening ofan envelope. It follows that if Watson is the hare, the Alex Cullen team is currently the tortoise. A sleeping tortoise. Which, I suppose is fair considering one of them actually has a full time job right now.
f you missed what passes for bluster in the 2010 election: Watson is fretting about costs on the LRT project. O’Brien called him a “little old lady” on CFRA. The media failed to really engage in the misogynistic comment or the issue at hand. Plus ca change.
June 16th, 2010
Photos of a landmark withered away: 50 years of Lansdowne inertia
By Marie-Judith Jean-Louis // No Comments
Editor's note: The following post first appeared in Marie-Judith Jean-Louis's Modern Ottawa (MOOT) blog. Passionate about modern and innovative design, Marie-Judith is Ottawa-based interior designer and owner of M2JL STUDIO | modern interiors. In addition to MOOT, she writes regular blogs for M2JL STUDIO and occasionally writes for the Ottawa Citizen. She teaches decorating classes at La Cité Collégiale.
There's a lot of debate going on about the future of Lansdowne Park. A couple days ago, I heard a conversation on the radio about the future plans for Lansdowne and the new proposed designs. The hosts were arguing as to whether or not anything would eventually happen. Apparently, debates about Lansdowne have been going on since the 1980s.
Proposed subway stations get platform preview
By Spacing Ottawa // 2 Comments
Public Transit in Ottawa's Peter Raaymakers has previewed the four main types of station platform for Ottawa's proposed new subway. The artist's conceptions were recently displayed for public inspection at the main library on Metcalfe Street. Raaymakers comes out in favour of the "Centre Platform" option shown above; for images of the other three designs, along with useful commentary on the process, check the PTIO post here.
June 18th, 2010
Headlines: The week in review
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="City Centre Building: "surely one of the ugliest buildings in town" ('Empty excuses for an empty lot', below)"][/caption]
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CITY HALL
Mayor to reveal election plans June 29 (Ottawa Citizen)
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DEVELOPERS
Eco-friendly condo to be non-smoking (Canwest News )
Empty excuses for an empty lot (Ottawa Citizen)
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HISTORICAL/TOURISM
"It was a seedy and shockingly violent town" (Montreal Gazette)
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LANSDOWNE
Public-private partnership not best for Ottawa (Metro Ottawa )
Park plans worry Mayfair (Ottawa Citizen)
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Photo by Justin Van Leeuwen
June 19th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
From the Rock, Andrew Harvey writes about the cycling culture in Canada's eastern most city: St John's. In a city, where cycling is currently a character building endeavour, the city hall is pushing forward with a scaled back, yet still promising bike lane infrastructure plan.
In light of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission's new campaign to get people telling stories of their experiences downtown, Rachel Carolin Derrah writes an excellent piece discussing just what kind of collective story the city is telling about the needs of its downtown for the future.
Citizens targeted by a CP Rail security blitz on a well trafficked informal rail crossing between the Mile End and Petite Patrie neighbourhoods are fighting back with a protest and petition. While the petition is calling for a formalized level crossing in the area, many are content with the status quo, minus the $150 fines.
In the year 2000 the Quebec Government tasked the municipalities of Greater Montreal to create a coherent land-use strategy for the region, a project that sat in stalemate throughout the decade. In a new bill passed recently, the Province has sought compromise by lowering expectations and extending the deadline further. Alanah Heffez discusses the troubles and promises of the new move.
John Lorinc used his column this week to explore a different aspect of the transit question. Focusing on the issue of Car Sharing, Lorinc criticizes Toronto's sluggish progress thus far. He also illustrates the improvements that candidates should be promising to bring Toronto in line with other North American cities and recognize car sharing as the cost-effective transportation solution that it is.
Spacing editor Shawn Micallef launched a new feature this week profiling the work of students from his third year class at the Ontario College of Art and Design. By posting the work on Spacing, Micallef hopes that Spacing readers will challenge the student's and put their ideas to the test.
June 21st, 2010
Street names: the stories behind the signs
By Dwight Williams // 3 Comments
Anecdote, urban legend, sometimes even myth: we don't usually associate such descriptors with the street map of our city, but there is a story behind each and every street name we encounter in our daily navigations.
And with over seven thousand of them now in use, there is a rich store of narrative to be revealed by exploring the history behind Ottawa's street names. They are a unique insight into what the builders of our city held most dear, and a lens through which we can see how our civic culture has ...
June 22nd, 2010
Opinion: Bits and pieces tactic masks the real goal of Landsowne plans
By Tim Lash // 3 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Bank and Holmwood corner as seen in OSEG proposal"][/caption]
Editor's note: The following opinion piece by Tim Lash takes the form of an open letter to decision-makers and the general public in advance of the June 28 council vote on the OSEG proposal for the renewal of Lansdowne Park.
re: Visual Resources for Civic Lansdowne Decisions, and a Request
Dear Ottawa residents, councilors and mayoral candidates,
OSEG and City staff have split up their design and publicity about Lansdowne's future into separate parts: (1) the major part faced by Bank and Holmwood that would be given to OSEG for private development, (2) the stadium and Ottawa Civic Centre, (3) the remaining public space near the canal (which might include an "overlap" area north of the Aberdeen Pavilion).
The parts have been put forward out of sequence, partially, with shifting goal-posts and assumptions. The split hides the significance and impact of what would be given over to private development. It would be wrong to make a legal commitment on this basis. Please don’t.
To be right, Lansdowne has to be shown whole – what it is now, and what’s proposed. Only so can everyone concerned
• consult honestly and make civic decisions that are good socially, economically and environmentally
• plan and design coherently so objectives for Lansdowne Park are met in reality, and won't cancel each other out, or let one subvert another, and
• achieve a place that works with people’s surrounding activities, places, and facilities.
June 23rd, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Flip bridges, sewer diving, and the death of starchitecture
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• In Hong Kong they drive on the left side of the road, in mainland China on the right. This simple difference creates an complicated engineering dilemma. How do you ...
Opinion: Renaming Wellington Street would be an act of historical amnesia
By Immanuel Giulea // 6 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="328" caption="Should Ottawans know who this man is?"][/caption]
Editor's note: Immanuel Giulea is the Founder and Executive Director of the Société Macdonald-Cartier Society.
Ottawa’s civic holiday in August is known as Colonel By Day. City Council reaffirmed that as recently as June 9--a decision that underlines the intimate connection between the City of Ottawa and its founder Lieutenant-Colonel John By.
In recent weeks, Bob Plamondon has created some publicity around the idea of renaming our venerable and historic Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill. Those in favour of renaming the street argue that the Duke of Wellington never set foot in North America and had no connection to the city. Instead of honouring a relatively unknown figure, they argue, why not pay tribute to our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald?
June 25th, 2010
Headlines: The week in review
By Spacing Ottawa // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1024" caption="Earthquake evacuees on Carling Avenue"][/caption]
June 29th, 2010
Lansdowne vote: dark day, or a new dawn?
By Evan Thornton // 5 Comments
In a 15-9 vote last night Ottawa City Council approved the Lansdowne Live partnership. While Spacing Ottawa took no position on the redevelopment — our contributors and commenters were split on the issue — over the course of the debate and the public consultation process we ran strong arguments both in favour and opposed to the OSEG proposal, starting with an impassioned "pro" editorial on our very first day from Alain Miguelez, who called it a key city-building project and argued that:
There should be more people at Lansdowne. There should be more ...
June 30th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Transit maps, subway stations, and monorails
By Kat Snukal // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We'll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Should private corporations be allowed to purchase the naming rights of public subway stations? The Transit Politic Blog muses on the answer as the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation ...
July 2nd, 2010
The meeting of the mega-projects: A tunnel for Bank Street
By Dwight Williams // 16 Comments
Editor's note: Many commentators have noted that the decision by Mayor O'Brien to run again in this fall's municipal elections means that he can campaign by claiming two significant achievements: spearheading the decision to build an East-West LRT that includes a downtown tunnel, and backing the proposal to redevelop Lansdowne Park. So far, the two major projects have been presented as "stand alone"; here Spacing Ottawa contributor Dwight Williams suggests a way to link them.
In the months since the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) brought forth their proposal for redeveloping Lansdowne Park, ...
July 3rd, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
In Halifax, Katie McKay shows how the public space of the Halifax Common was recently utilized to host the largest Pow Wow ever held in Atlantic Canada.
Rachel Carolin Derrah profiles the Neighbourhood Earth Project launching this summer in parks throughout the North End of Halifax. The project aims to educate about local landscapes and urban ecology.
Alanah Heffez talks to skateboarders in Montreal's Peace park about their perspective on the uses of public space and the failure of the city to address the needs of a significant and active community.
Devin Alfaro talks about famous urban thinker Jane Jacob's lesser publicized opinions on the issue of Quebec sovereignty. Contrary to what you may expect, Jacobs considered sovereignty a practical idea when viewed objectively.
As politicians continue to ignore demands for an independent inquiry into the failures of the police at last weekend's G20 Summit, Spacing played host to a number of attempts to bring some sense about how the legacy of the G20 weekend will forever change Toronto. Jonathon Goldsbie is scathingly critical of Mayor Miller's complicit response. Matt Blackett discussed the most important questions to be asking in the wake of the incidents. Dale Duncan reflects on the need to question police tactics on large event crowd control. Emma Feltes talks about how police used features of the public space against the populace.
In the immediate aftermath of the weekend, Spacing also featured excellent reports and unique perspectives on what happened on the city's streets. Matt Blackett highlights some of the most powerful footage of the protests while Nicole McIsaac shared observations from a weekend amongst the protests, and reported on the mood of the street following the weekend.
July 5th, 2010
Revisiting the front porch
By Spacing Ottawa // 7 Comments
In many neighbourhoods in Ottawa, front porches seem like holdovers from another age. They are so rarely used, it's almost as if residents are now embarrassed to be seen on them. Their long decline as a social space may have started as far back as the 1950s; the above video is from a Disney picture in 1963 and seems to be hearkening back to an era the filmmakers felt was already slipping away.
Do you have a front porch? Is it a welcoming space to ...
July 6th, 2010
Good will on our streets: The Art of Swap
By Spacing Ottawa // 3 Comments
A few years ago little wooden boxes started appearing, nailed to telephone poles across Ottawa. Inscribed with the motto "Take something - Leave something" the cheerful little cubes – always whimsically decorated – were seen by thousands of Ottawans every day. They were a mystery to some, a source of delight to others, and in time new "Swap Box spottings" became a coffee-shop topic throughout the urban core, and a point of reference in the local blogoshere.
Probably no blog celebrated the Swap Box phenomena more than the excellent Knitnut, by Zoom. In fact, clues as to new locations of Swap Boxes were sometimes left as comments below KnitNut posts.
There aren't as many swap boxes as there used to be; rain and wind have taken their toll, as have vandalism, bylaw enforcement, and souvenir hunting.
July 7th, 2010
Future of interprovincial transit looking good – on paper
By Peter Raaymakers // 3 Comments
Editor's note: The following post originally appeared in Public Transit in Ottawa; it is published here by the author's consent.
On Tuesday evening, I stopped in to the public consultation on the National Capital Commission (NCC)-led interprovincial transit study. Attended by about 30-40 people (at least when I was there, from 6-7 p.m.), the consultation represents the fourth step in the overall process, the results of which will help the strategy team come up with a recommendation for integration of the national capital region's transit infrastructure--in short, better connecting Gatineau with Ottawa through public transit.
July 9th, 2010
Focus on food hurting City’s vision for farmers’ markets
By Emily Sinclair // 1 Comment
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Last month’s unseasonably warm weather has had me looking forward the 2010 farmers’ market season. While cautious in my own gardening habits – I did not plant early lettuce, beans, peas, radishes etc… - I have been patiently waiting for the arrival of fresh spring vegetables after a winter’s worth of rather tired greens, canned tomatoes and heavy root veggies. A great thing about Ottawa is that many neighbourhoods within the City’s urban core are well-served by farmers’ markets (Parkdale/West Wellington, Mainstreet/Old Ottawa South, the Glebe). These markets offer opportunities to buy fresh produce, often grown by people within the Ottawa valley. However, recent debate over the “value” of one of the City’s markets – the Ottawa’s Farmers’ Market located in Parking Lot #4 of Lansdowne Park – raises some questions about just exactly how the City sees / understands the role of the farmer’s market in the modern city. Specifically, recent staff reports and Council decisions heavily emphasize the economic role of the farmers’ market rather than broadly interpreting the market as a public good.
July 10th, 2010
Has the O-Train made its mark?
By Evan Thornton // No Comments
In the midst of the ongoing debate about the future of Light Rail Transit it Ottawa it can be easy to forget that we've now had LRT rolling through our city for nine years thanks to the O-Train "pilot project" launched along an old CP rail corridor in 2001.
That's getting a little long in the tooth for a test run, which seems to be why the City has announced a 5-week haitus in service this summer so that "lifecycle maintenance" can be carried out to carriages and track. The shut-down starts this Monday, the 12th, and the train will be replaced with a special service for the duration.
As a pilot project running along a largely out-of-sight length of track with limited integration with the rest of the transit system, the O-Train has been derided as the "train to nowhere". Yet when Carleton U is in session -- and that is pretty much year around nowadays -- the ridership is up around 10,000 per day, twice what the estimates projected.
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Veronica Simmonds profiles a fascinating public space art project taking place this month in the Halifax Common. The Common: For as Long as You Have So Far takes its participants on a personal journey through the natural history of the area using a fictional story about one's ancestors and future decedents.
Steve Bedard reports from Halifax on the troubles facing a proposal to build new infrastructure for active transportation on a short stretch of Herring Cove Road. As usual, the opposition is coming from local businesses who view the plan as potentially harmful to their business.
Despite being a wonderfully vibrant and lively area at all times of day, Downtown Montreal is a place lacking in the sense of community amongst its residents found in many other parts of the city. Devin Alfaro reports on the Quartier en mouvement street festival, a coordinated effort to change the change the situation by hosting a block party on a closed off street during select days in July.
Results are now being posted for the Montreal Top Spots Survey which asked Spacing readers about their favourite things in Montreal. This week Spacing published the results for the best of the city and for best of municipal politics.
While the year 2010 hasn't left us with the moon bases we were once promised, at least we are finally starting to make progress on Jetson's style Personal Rapid Transit. Adrian Lightstone continues the Ideas For Toronto series by looking at a PRT pilot project which is about to begin in Stockholm, Sweden and points to how the transit mode could become an efficient and feasible feeder for higher orders of transit. It all begs the question of where this could work in Canadian cities.
As Toronto moves forward from the G20 summit, tempers and emotions are cooling enough so that practical questions can move to the forefront. In his weekly column, John Lorinc creates a list of 1o questions a G20 inquiry should address. With his characteristic pragmatism, Lorinc focuses on issues of how the police policy was established, who was behind it, and what grounds it was established.
July 13th, 2010
The strategist and the policy wonk – at last a contest for both
By Vicky Smallman // 2 Comments
What a difference a few weeks make. It seems we have a mayoral race.
It wasn't much of a surprise when Mayor Larry O'Brien announced his intention to seek re-election. With the passage of Lansdowne Live, he likely concluded he had accomplished enough to run on his record. Sure enough, that was the focus of his re-election announcement (as awkward as it was). O'Brien declared that he wants the election to be about leadership, which he says is about “getting things done”. “We've finally gotten over the constipation of amalgamation”, he said.
It's an odd statement to make for a mayor who leads a fractured council that often split along urban/suburban/rural lines, that has flip-flopped on multiple decisions, that cost taxpayers millions by canceling the former light rail contract, and that unnecessarily prolonged a bus strike. Yet when it came to budget time, the council seemed to be able to get things done in spite of the Mayor. But is it a more functional body than when Larry O'Brien took office? Hardly. And as others have pointed out, O'Brien is quick to claim the credit for projects that were started well before his time or which have been spearheaded by someone else. And as for those voters who have been paying closer attention, he is counting on a certain number of them overlooking the flaws, and focusing instead on the promises he has kept.
July 16th, 2010
Street Names: Wellington, ByWard and By
By Dwight Williams // 3 Comments
In recent weeks, we've witnessed a debate over whether or not one of the central streets of the downtown core should be renamed. As a result of that debate, we've also gotten a civic history lesson or two on the founding of Ottawa.
In truth, the names of Wellington and By should be forever linked in the minds of Ottawans for one reason: the city as we know it today could not exist without either of them.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="194" caption="Source: Wikipedia Commons"][/caption]...
July 20th, 2010
Vacant Lot wanted
By Spacing Ottawa // 5 Comments
"Hyperallergina" is an artist from Montréal who has obtained a small grant to work with a vacant lot in Ottawa to try to give it more visual appeal. The grant came from the Awesome Ottawa Foundation, and though we are not talking about a lot of money – the foundation has as its motto "Forwarding the interest of Awesome in the universe, $1,000 at a time." – we think it is a worthy cause, and look forward to following the progress of Awesome as it disburses its modest but joyful awards through the city. Here is Hyperallergina in her ...
PODCAST: Listen to Spacing’s 5-part series on G20
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
It has been over three weeks since the G20 Summit left Toronto but the actions of protesters and police are still lingering.
Spacing Radio's podcast team was on the streets during the tumultuous weekend recording sounds and reactions to the ongoing events. Our contributors have also sat down politicians, journalists, and human rights advocates to discuss the complex issues of policing and protesting an international summit. You can also read the posts by Spacing Toronto's writers for more ...
July 21st, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: The US edition (plus parking)
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• The hull of ship from the 1700s was found last week at the World Trade Centre site in Manhattan, reports CNN. Archaeologists suspect that the ship was sunk to retain and add precious land area to the island.
• Looking for a recession proof industry? The Globe and Mail reports that parking lots continue to pull in record earnings in Canadian cities. With supply limited by increasing real estate development in our downtown cores, the price of parking has increased 233 per cent in Calgary and 130 per cent in Toronto over the past ten years. While some bemoan the dent this has made in their pocket book, Spacing's Shawn Micallef calls this the "universal price of great urbanism" .
• As New York City cracks down on illegal advertisements, Treehugger reports that some of the city's guerilla gardeners are "turning billboard blight into pop-up planters".
July 22nd, 2010
SUMMER SHORTS PODCAST: Riding “the Clockwork Orange”
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
LISTEN TO TODAY'S SPACING RADIO PODCAST
Sometimes exploring a city means just shutting your eyes and listening. In this soundscape, Spacing producer Mieke Anderson takes you underground into the Glasgow subway system.
Affectionately known as "the Clockwork Orange" because of its orange subway cars and circular route, Glasgow's underground dates back to 1896 making it the third oldest in the world. Recently, the city was considering shutting down parts of the system ...
July 23rd, 2010
Winnipeg: the long slow victory of the Exchange District
By Evan Thornton // 4 Comments
July 24th, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
What does your choice of favourite buildings say about your personality? Continuing to digest the results from the reader survey of the best of Montreal, Spacing contributor Justin Boulanger speculates about the personal traits of the readers of who selected the top three favourite buildings and laments that the Sci-Fi nerds were not organized enough to get Olympic Stadium onto the podium.
In a landmark public space ruling the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled this week that the City of Montreal's anti-postering bylaw is unconstitutional. Christopher DeWolf reports on the story of how the law was challenged and speculates what the city will do to accommodate postering in the future. The post also includes a fantastic gallery of posters from around the city.
As part of the Ideas for Toronto series Adrian Lightstone brings up the issue of using referendums to gauge public support for new revenue tools for transit funding. Citing that referendums having fallen out of style in Canada, Lighstone points out they are frequently used in American cities and other places around the world and have even been used in Toronto.
Mayoral Candidate George Smitherman walked Eglinton Ave all the way across Toronto this week suggesting his interest in urban walkability. Spacing's Todd Harrison caught with him during part of his walk for a discussion about how he would promote walkability as Mayor and put the discussion on Spacing Radio.
On the transit file, the weekly Monday Musings column this week generated discussion on how the proposed service cuts to bus routes around Halifax will affect the city. Additionally, Lauren Oostveen delves into the Halifax archives to look at the city's public transit history.
Spacing Atlantic is launching a photo contest challenging readers to encapsulate their city in a single photograph. Read more about the specific criteria and how to enter.
July 27th, 2010
Street Names: Works of Fiction
By Dwight Williams // 3 Comments
The above photo was taken at a street corner in the far eastern reaches of Orléans; an obscure intersection, but of course its pop-culture reference is anything but. Yes, it's that Mulder & Scully, the duo from The X-Files. The story of how these two nondescript suburban thoroughfares got their televisual nomenclature has been told elsewhere but their existence does raise the question – are there other Ottawa streets named after fictional characters?
Well, the fact is that the practice of naming Ottawa streets for famous fictional characters has been going on, albeit sporadically, since as far back as 1899.
This was borne out in the pages of Ottawa Past and Present by one A.H.D. Ross, published back in 1927. In Volume II of that work, there is a list of the streets and parks running ten pages in total. In those ten pages are at least three examples that predate Mulder and Scully.
July 28th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Maps, Trains, Trikes and Three Million in the A40
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Time's Michael Grunwald took the train ride from Miami to Orlando to consider the Obama administration's $8 billion investment in high speed rail. The US President aims to create 13 national high speed rail corridors to relieve road and air congestion, reduce carbon emissions and highway deaths, create jobs and jump-start the domestic manufacturing industry. The stimulus funding is a great first step but at 1/8 of last year's spending on highways, there is much more work to be done.
• The New York Times reports on the growing trend of cargo-hauling tricycles in New York City. The bespoke "industrial trikes" transform bikes from personal transportation devices to child-carrying, grocery-hauling complete car alternatives. Users even reported a positive change in their interactions with cars and trucks when using the device.
July 29th, 2010
Gender and the City: parity still eludes us
By Vicky Smallman // 6 Comments
Apparently there are a record number of candidates running for municipal council this year. For those looking for some alternatives to the status quo, this is good news. Only one candidate is running unopposed, and several incumbents are retiring – so no matter what, we'll see new faces on council this year. And it's good for our local democracy to have a lot of people show their interest in serving their community.
In the coming months, we'll have a chance to look at the ward races in detail. Folks are still launching campaigns, so the field is shifting. I'm reluctant to step in and start analyzing each race at this point.
But as someone who has a keen interest in seeing more women in elected office, I couldn't resist doing a little calculation. According to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, women make up 13.9 per cent of mayors and 23 per cent of councilors – pretty much on par with other levels of government, and contributing to Canada's dismal international rating for women's participation in politics. FCM wants to raise Canada's average to 30%, and have been running campaign schools and workshops across the country for a few years now. Local councilors Marianne Wilkinson and Jan Harder held a campaign school for women here, which from all reports was well attended.
July 30th, 2010
Headlines: The week in review
By Evan Thornton // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Landfill in Los Angeles: next stop for Ottawa waste technology?"][/caption]
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CITY LIVING
Gen Y trading suburban space for urban convenience (Ottawa Citizen)
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ENVIRONMENT
Moodie Drive Landfill --Plasco lands $110M cash infusion (Ottawa Citizen)
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MUNICIPAL ELECTION
Record number of candidates for Ottawa vote (CBC Ottawa )
Moment Doucet Campaign Caught Fire (Ottawa Citizen)
2010 election will be Ottawa's most accessible (EMC Ottawa )
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PEDESTRIAN SAFETY
Pedestrians, cyclist reported on 416, 417(Ottawa Citizen)
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PUBLIC ART
New Barrhaven transit station will boast public art, on the sheep(Ottawa ...
July 31st, 2010
Spacing Saturday
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
As part of a continuing look at unbuilt projects across Halifax Dustin Valen profiles and examines Thomas Evans recent thesis proposal Meta-Library: A Public Platform for Information Exchange.
Katie McKay profiles the Making Tracks locomotive related art project that took place this week at the Halifax Via Rail station.
Cedric Sam revisits the history of the Plaza Swatow site in Montreal's Quartier Chinois as the building was announced and built between 2007 and 2009. (article in French)
Emile Thomas debates whether or not to renew his membership in Montreal's Bixi bike sharing program and uses the opportunity to reflect on Bixi's merits. (article in French)
Andrew Walsh and Mieke Anderson present another Spacing Radio summer short this week featuring Gentrification: The Game! by artist collective Atmosphere Industries.
If you haven't seen Alden Cudanin's strike Before & After photos of the city yet, this weeks work: A 72 Year Crossing at Yonge and Bloor is definitely a great place to start.
August 3rd, 2010
The Resurgence of the Front Porch
By Erin O’Connell // 3 Comments
Erin O’Connell is an urban planner who has worked in both the private and public sectors. She enjoys thinking about urban design, cycling to work, and wandering around her local hood.
Let’s assume that most people enjoy interacting with their neighbours, and more generally, that people enjoy watching other people. Yes, there are some people who prefer to live without interaction with their immediate community (but perhaps interact with their on-line communities) but, for most people, spontaneous daily interaction is one of the joys of living in a neighbourhood.
The last house we lived in had a front porch. It wasn’t exactly functional; its stairs were oriented towards the side of the dwelling, it served as the entrance for two separate units, and it was the storage area for a several pairs of recycling bins. But once in a while I’d find myself sitting out there on the steps watching the passers-by and waving at the others doing the same on the street. Not a lot of thought was given to this particular part of the house. Last year we moved to a new place, where there are grand renovation plans down the line, but currently no front porch. Well, to clarify, there is a small landing area between the ground and the front door, but not enough room to perch a chair or tables or do anything except enter and exit the house. In the all-too-common "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality, I can’t help but look around to my neighbours to see how they have modified their homes over the years and note the resulting patterns of use.
August 4th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Bridges, Straddling Buses, Superhighways, Navigation
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
• The ten-lane I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota is being called the safest bridge in America. The bridge which replaces a structure that collapsed into the Mississippi River in 2007 killing 13 people, is bright white with stylish curved piers. But as CNN reports, its the 323 high technology sensors within the structure that set the bridge apart. The $1 million devices record corrosion, stress, bridge movement and security data. With such a huge price tag, some wonder whether the money might be spent on older bridges more likely to collapse.
• Those of you spending summer days exploring the city may enjoy this piece in the New York Times about navigating the urban jungle. Gooley and MacDonald offer some creative wayfinding techniques for the urban wilds.
August 5th, 2010
Photowalking the city: Five questions for Justin Van Leeuwen
By Evan Thornton // No Comments
August 6th, 2010
PODCAST: St Mary-le-Bow’s bells in London, England
By Matthew Blackett // 1 Comment
LISTEN TO TODAY'S SUMMER SHORT 017 ON SPACING RADIO
You know when you're exploring a city for the first time and you turn a corner only to stumble upon something completely unexpected?
This is what happened to Spacing producer Mieke Anderson on a recent trip to London, England. Initially, it was only a faint sound barely within earshot. Then suddenly she was face-to-face with the St Mary-le-Bow Church and consumed by the ringing of its famous bells. Wandering the streets of London you'll still hear ...
August 7th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Photowalking, front porches and books
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Spacing Atlantic editor Emma Feltes revisits her article from Spacing's 18th issue, 'Oh, The Spectacle' on the newly developed Seaport Farmers' Market building in Halifax.
Émile Thomas lists the top five books about urban spaces. Including his own recaps of why they're an important read.
Spacing's publisher, Matthew Blackett, starts a discussion about the usability of subway maps. In Toronto the map is simple, because there are only 69 stations compared to New York's 486. Which is why graphic designer Eddie Jabbour wants to redesign New Yorks map — to make it less intimidating.
John Lorinc compiled a pros and cons list for both the Presto smartcard and open fare payment systems that are being proposed as fare alternatives for the TTC.
August 9th, 2010
San Francisco’s plan to deal with parking
By Matthew Blackett // 1 Comment
SFpark Overview from SFpark on Vimeo.
I know I'm stating the obvious when I say this: parking a vehicle downtown, in Ottawa or any city, can be a challenge if not entirely frustrating. But the parking policies of a city go a long way in determining how a city is experienced at street level. For instance, the city of Prince George, BC has nearly 50% of its entire downtown area covered in parking lots. The downtown of many Canadian cities ...
August 10th, 2010
Storefront banking in retreat: a new kind of desert on the horizon
By Dwight Williams // 4 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="No loitering, no smoking, no banking "][/caption]
On Friday July 23, 2010, a signal change happened at the Fallingbrook Mall in Orléans: the local branch of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce - CIBC - closed its doors for the last time.
Much of the furniture, the last of the files, and most of the signage had been moved out to other branches over the course of the previous few weeks. The final bits of equipment were moved out in rented vans the same evening the branch closed.
CIBC provided several months' warning of this change to any and all willing to pay attention. To be sure, many of their customers at that branch will likely make use of the other branches further away from that mall. Many will also make use of the online services on offer, either supplanting or in addition to visiting those other branches. For these customers, it will be more or less business as usual with a minimum of discomfort or disruption. Some might not even feel any pain at all, and consider the change a "gain".
August 11th, 2010
Days are numbered for the express bus: Candidate Cullen defends hub-and-spoke
By Peter Raaymakers // No Comments
Editor's note: The following is cross-posted from Spacing Ottawa contributor Peter Raaymakers' site, Public Transit in Ottawa. For this fall's municipal vote, Peter is maintaining an Election Hub on public transit on the PTIO site.
Over the course of the 2010 Mayoral Election campaign, Public Transit in Ottawa will be sitting down with as many mayoral candidates as are available, discussing their platforms and thoughts on transit in this city, and what they hope to achieve during their mandate, if elected mayor.
Something which all transit planners are concerned with are transfers: The conventional thinking is that more transfers = less riders, because riders don't want to get off one bus and have to wait for the next one. That speaks to the success of OC Transpo's express routes, where many suburbanites can take one bus from just about their front door to their office.
With Ottawa's current light-rail plan, though, that's going to change. Transferring from bus to train will be a reality. But it's a reality already, and mayoral candidate Alex Cullen thinks we're going to see even more of it as our transit system continues to grow.
August 13th, 2010
Making the grade for bikes: how much separation is enough?
By Evan Thornton // 7 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Hintonburg contraflow: a preview of Centretown East-West cycle lane?"][/caption]
The other day I came across this odd length of one-way street in Hintonburg. It's a short block joining Armstrong to Wellington Street West but it has a "contraflow" lane for bicycles, meaning that while cars on this block drive north, cyclists ride south. The cycle lane features two small cement islands at the top and bottom of the street with a ladder pattern of yellow paint running between them.
While such a feature was new to me, Kathryn Hunt of the Incidental Cyclist blog pointed out that a similar contraflow lane has operated in Old Ottawa South for several years, beginning at the corner of Bank and Cameron and running west toward Carleton U.
August 17th, 2010
Photo of the day: World of Maps
By Spacing Ottawa // 3 Comments
photo by Justin Van Leeuwen
August 18th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Where in the world?
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• A report released Monday by the New York City Department of Transportation paints a fascinating picture of pedestrian safety. The study examined over 7000 crashes between 2002 and 2006 resulting in death or serious injury and yields some startling statistics. "Jaywalkers were involved in fewer collisions than their law-abiding counterparts who waited for the “walk” sign, though they were likelier to be killed or seriously hurt by the collision." "80 percent of city accidents that resulted in a pedestrian’s death or serious injury, a male driver was behind the wheel." "[L]eft-hand turns were three times as likely to cause a deadly crash as right-hand turns." "[T]hree-quarters of the crashes occurred [at intersections". As the New York Times reports, the study is providing a quantitative basis for the city to continue its program of re-engineering the street grid.
• Portland, Oregon is the proud owner of new and improved bike wayfinding signs. The green signs feature distances and directions and travel times to popular destinations. Residents can thank a $1 million federal stimulus grant for the improvement, says Bikeportland.org
August 20th, 2010
Mapping Ottawa’s cycling hazards – an interview with Alex deVries
By Evan Thornton // 2 Comments
This past week the City launched a "Cycling Safety Evaluation Project". A major component of the project is an online survey that asks cyclists to identify "the most hazardous intersections they encounter" on the streets of Ottawa. It's a much-needed and long-overdue initiative, so it's no surprise that news of it spread quickly through social media networks; in fact one well-know cyclist-blogger has already completed the survey and posted her reaction to it.
But frustration with the state of Ottawa's often-hazardous cycling infrastructure has already led a local cyclist to launch a similar online exercise. The excellent Ottawa Biking Problems has detailed reports from 80 of the region's most hazardous cycling trouble spots, mapped out from Hull in the north to Manotick in the south, and Blackburn Hamlet in the east to March Road in the west.
Alex deVries is the man behind OBP, and this week he spoke with us about his experiences as an Ottawa cyclist and the cycling community's reaction to his site.
August 23rd, 2010
Photo of the day: Late Train
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
photo by Érinn Cunningham
August 24th, 2010
Sacred space, secular use: downtown churches turn to the arts
By Kate Wetherow // 3 Comments
This summer Chamberfest once again highlighted churches as fantastic downtown arts venues.
Re-imagining or re-purposing “the church” is happening a lot more these days.
The Sunday Event
With fewer parishioners spending Sundays at churches, especially in downtown areas, beautiful old church buildings are being forced to diversify or dissolve.
There is a migration of well-established congregations purchasing cheaper property in the suburbs and following families out of the city, such as the Metropolitan Bible Church formerly on Bank and Gladstone Street (shortly to be a new condo block).
Churches are expensive. They rely on funds from Sunday collections and fundraisers to support their operations. Downtown property taxes and older buildings are a strain and increasingly challenging to maintain.
While some are selling off their parking lots to make ends meet, other parishes are finding new uses for their spaces and attracting new audiences, beyond Sunday’s main event.
August 25th, 2010
The Dog Days of Summer Campaign
By Vicky Smallman // 3 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="O'Brien and Doucet get the message. But what about Cleo?"][/caption]
September is approaching and campaigns are picking up the pace. Candidates are starting to roll out their platforms. Pressure groups are lining up debates and releasing platforms of their own. Before we know it, election signs will start popping up... although perhaps not as many we might expect.
Larry O'Brien's campaign says that lawn signs are "old school and expensive". He's opting for billboards instead. Clive Doucet's campaign is eschewing the tradition for environmental reasons. It's unclear whether this includes signs on public property (which were much more effective a campaign tool for O'Brien in the last campaign, as his lawn sign count was minimal). But Alex Cullen's website still has a link to order a lawn sign, and Jim Watson keeps announcing his daily sign request count on Twitter, so they won't be jumping on the no-sign bandwagon.
World Wide Wednesday: Mobile Food, Noisy Hybrids, Fighting for the Empire, Moscow Traffic
By Hilary Best // No Comments
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-hyVzTVDLg[/youtube]
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• NPR chronicles a growing trend for start up chefs who use trucks, trailers and mobile homes to sell their food to the masses. The overwhelming expense of starting a restaurant isn't stopping these gastro-preneurs from practicing their art.
• The Globe and Mail reports that for $148 U.S., Japanese Prius owners can now install noise makers into their hybrid cars. The devices make a whirring sound equivalent to the noise of a regular car engine; regulators and automakers hope the move will reduce the number of pedestrian-hybrid crashes which are two times more common than with conventional engines. The device may soon be made available in other markets.
August 26th, 2010
Vintage Ottawa
By Spacing Ottawa // 7 Comments
We came across this little gem recently on YouTube -- it's a 1940s newsreel-style trailer, produced for MGM studios, created to show American movie audiences a little-known foreign capital city called Ottawa. The earnest and stilted narration is worth the price of admission by itself (listen for the pronunciation of "Ri-DEAU") but the most fascinating aspect is just how little "ceremonial" Ottawa - the canal and the parliamentary precinct – have changed in the 70 years since the film was shot. As the narrator says, they ...
August 27th, 2010
Walking the west: self-guided heritage tour of Hintonburg
By Evan Thornton // 1 Comment
August 30th, 2010
Photo farewell to Super Ex
By Spacing Ottawa // 1 Comment
Yesterday was the last day ever for the Super Ex, and Spacing Ottawa contributor Érinn Cunningham was there to capture some images for posterity. Click on the image above to see all the images in his set.
August 31st, 2010
Should “greening” Lansdowne mean paving the Greenbelt?
By Spacing Ottawa // 6 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Top right of image shows the 28 acres of forest to be paved over"][/caption]
The following letter was sent to us by Spacing Ottawa reader Jason Garlough, who is a member of City of Ottawa’s Forests and Greenspace Advisory Committee:
"On Wednesday, September 1st 2010 the City’s Committee of Adjustment will be considering an application for a “Minor Variance” that would allow more than 28 acres of existing forest in the Greenbelt to be destroyed and replaced with a 2,000 car parking lot and Exhibition Hall.
September 1st, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Hotspots – Tokyo, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Copenhagen
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• If you've been saving up for a trip to Tokyo's Shimokitazawa neighbourhood, be sure to plan your travels before 2013. The bohemian hotspot is due for revamping and some fear that the very characteristics which make this place a favourite (twisting alleyways, discount ...
September 3rd, 2010
Mayor of Ottawa delights American game show audience
By Spacing Ottawa // 1 Comment
In 1955, that is. The cranky old eugenicist may have been as racist as the day is long but Ottawa mayor Charlotte Whitton knew how to get a crowd on side with a quip. Here she has the audience, the panel, and the host of the old What's My Line gameshow absolutely howling simply by affirming her unmarried status. "I've made enough mistakes", she says by way of explaining why she is still a "Miss", not a "Mrs."
September 8th, 2010
Run, don’t walk – 28 seconds in Cairo
By Evan Thornton // No Comments
Thanks to our friends at the Regina Urban Ecology blog for spotting this one. Language warning for the commentary.
World Wide Wednesday: Say no to free parking, hawks and baggy pants
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• Streetsblog NYC features a response from Donald Shoup (UCLA professor and author of The High Cost of Free Parking) to Randal O'Toole (Senior Fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute) about his misconceptions of the role of government intervention in parking. Shoup makes a number of interesting points - notably that mandatory parking minimums often force developers to provide more parking spaces than they would voluntarily provide in a free market setting. "Off-street parking requirements," he writes, "thus change the way we build our cities, the way we travel, and how much energy we consume."
• The New York Times offers up an overview of the envelope-pushing changes to Broadway Ave and a window into its past. Incremental changes to the famous street have increased public space, improved cycling and pedestrian safety and decreased travel times. The changes have overcome some of the challenges intrinsic to the diagonal formation of the street, a relic of an 1815 agreement to bend Broadway in order to save midtown orchards.
Doucet’s transit plan: mind the gaps
By Eric Darwin // 7 Comments
Editor's note: This week mayoral candidate Clive Doucet renewed the debate around the future of Ottawa transit by announcing a plan that would use Carling Avenue as the western leg of a surface LRT system.
The following is a cross-posting from West Side Action in which transit activist Eric Darwin responds to the plan; Eric notes that if and when other candidates reveal their visions for transit, he looks forward to examining them in similar detail.
I’ve skimmed over the Clive Doucet for Mayor position paper entitled “On the right track”. While I enjoyed reading Doucet’s transportation platform, I don’t think it is the right track at all.
Plank 1. LRT in Four Years: the paper starts with a great headline. It seems to promise we’ll we riding LRT trains within his first term. This is great marketing, making hay on the current plan’s long time horizon (riding DOTT in 2019). Except … the 2019 date is very conservative, filled with slop room in the planning and construction process. I think the current DOTT plan could be up in running by July 1 of our sesquicentennial in 2017, all the way from Lincoln Fields to Blair, which isn’t much beyond the four-year date alluded to by Doucet Four years from Nov. 2010 would be 2014-15. I say 2015 because Doucet cannot by himself get his plan going on day one, should he be elected. So we could have the current plan by 2017, vs. his much more modest plan for 2014. Which system will last a century or more?
September 9th, 2010
The day they blew the south side up
By Evan Thornton // 1 Comment
Spacing Ottawa was launched a year after this demolition took place, so we couldn't link to this video when it was first uploaded -- but we were reminded of it by Citizen writer Ken Gray's recent link to Doucet's video effort, looking back at what the Lansdowne used to be like for generations of Ottawans.
Clive Doucet knows how to make a good video; this one has a personal and nostalgic tone before honing in on a serious message.
The video above though? It's just blowing ...
September 11th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Hurricane Earl, Bridging Bixi and Transit Plans
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
As Hurricane Earl lashed the East Coast last week, Earth Sciences Professor and Spacing photo contributer Lawrence Plug documented life in Halifax as the storm passed over the city.
Veronica Simmonds reports on the Commons Dance Party, an event intended to celebrate the commons as a free public space at the end of summer.
Alanah Heffez tells the story her neighbourhood's push to get the Bixi bike sharing program introduced to its of the part of the city and the ensuing bureaucratic tangle.
Devin Alfaro reports on the Montreal Urban Ecology Centre's upcoming Car-Free Neighbourhoods Week which aims to expose Montrealers to some of the car-free urban design experiments being tested in Europe.
Ryan Bolton and Spacing Votes follow the increasing post labour day pace of the municipal election, covering both the new feel of the election in the Fall and the release of front-runner Rob Ford's transit plan.
Shawn Micallef continues his Toronto Flaneur series at the Toronto Zoo and explores its history, sense of place and role within the city.
September 13th, 2010
Ottawa’s Alphabet Village
By Dwight Williams // 5 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Created with Google Earth"][/caption]
This started out as another one of the “Street Names” stories.
Once my digging began, though, it turned into a story about a neighbourhood that most people in Ottawa can't place. Its history is little-known.
Where do you find this district? Well, just to the east of the train station, branching off of Tremblay Road, are two sets of side-streets. Uniquely for Ottawa, they are alphabetized.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="363" caption="Source: Author's files - used with permission"][/caption]
There is Avenue K and Avenue L, then the interruption of Belfast Road, followed by Avenues N through U.
The omissions will be explained as we go along.
This kind of nomenclature is not unique among Canadian cities. Saskatoon has had such street names since the 1880s. Ottawa’s “alphabet village” came along some two decades later, or so we’re told by the maps we have from those days.
September 14th, 2010
How to influence the Ottawa election
By Ian Capstick // 2 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption=""Two for the mayor's debate, please" ( fortunately, plans to charge $10 for last night's mayor's debate were dropped )"][/caption]
If the performances at the opening mayoral debate are any indication, Ottawa voters may be left scratching their heads in confusion this election season. The two so-called front runners used the opportunity to cajole and verbally headlock each other, while the other candidates sputtered and grasped at the remaining time.
Media reports on the debate focused on the few moments of true debate between Jim Watson and incumbent Larry O’Brien, with brief mentions of how the oldest candidate in the race stormed out of the very hall that is named after him.
Andrew Haydon, about twenty years from his first retirement from politics and well past his political prime, guaranteed himself media coverage with a last-minute entry into the race. Then he earned only a little more through a dramatic storm-out after failing to attract significant interest from the audience and then refusing to continue debating (but not before returning to the mic to denounce the debate).
September 15th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Slow down
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• Grist celebrates artists in Santa Rosa, CA, this week. Mark Grieve and Ilana Spector made use of the city's 1% for art law, which requires corporations doing major construction to fund public art projects, to build "Cyclisk" - a six storey sculpture made out of 340 bicycles and weighing in at 10,000 pounds.
• The Active Transportation Alliance reports on a new traffic calming device in West Vancouver, BC. A realistic stenciled image of a child chasing a ball has garnered controversy as a potential distraction.
September 16th, 2010
Urban Forum fall series announced
By Evan Thornton // No Comments
This was just sent to us by the organizers of the excellent Urban Forum series:
Trees and Suburban Houses:
Roots and Foundations – the underground conflict
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 | 7pm
Champlain Room, Ottawa City Hall
with James Urban, FASLA
As we struggle to preserve Ottawa’s urban forest a new challenge has arisen to the planting of trees in developing areas of the city. Has marine clay soil left behind by Lake Champlain created a conflict between the stability of house foundations and the trees that grace our streets?
James Urban is a Landscape Architect who has worked for ...
September 17th, 2010
Photo of the day
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Ottawa Rowing Club"][/caption]
photo by Anthony Easton
September 18th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Joe Beef, Election Influence and Alphabet Soup
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
In an open letter to mayoral candidate George Smitherman, Shawn Micallef implores the candidate to change the character of the campaign by switching from being a Tie Domi to a Wendel Clark.
Congratulations to the Spacing Editors! This week Spacing was awarded the 2010 Jane Jacobs Prize.
Alanah Heffez takes a look back into the history of Montreal through the historical character of Joe Beef and his raucous canteen in the 19th century port district. The story is a fascinating and honest look into lower class in Canadian cities at the time.
The borough of Plateau-Mont Royal announced this week that it will follow on its bylaw to ban bill boards becoming the first part of Montreal to do so. Alanah Heffez explores the history of such movements to speculate on whether the law will be upheld.
Emma Feltes is on the road in Western Canada and takes some time to celebrate Canadian cycling infrastructure victories there.
September 20th, 2010
Would big government be better for Ottawa?
By Evan Thornton // 6 Comments
Editor's note: Spacing Ottawa reader Adam Bentley send this to us in the form of a letter to the editor. Discussion around reducing the size of city council is an election topic not just in Ottawa but in other Ontario cities as well, but the idea of radically expanding the size of our City's governing body isn't one we had come across before. Here's how Adam says it could be done:
September 22nd, 2010
The best of the West: cycling infrastructure
By Emma Feltes // No Comments
Editor's note: this post originally appeared in Spacing Atlantic. The author makes several comparisons to cycling infrastructure in Halifax, but her observations will be familiar to Ottawa cyclists as well.
WESTERN CANADA - Most references to superior cycling infrastructure tend to default to the Netherlands, Portland, and — largely thanks to Gil and Enrique Penalosa — occasionally Colombia. While international models like these provide enough cyclist envy to fuel tense debates in a lagging city like Halifax, I have sometimes wondered why — outside of Montreal's Bixi program — comparatively little celebration is made of Canadian cities' own cycling victories... however small they might seem.
In the last three months I've been traveling Western Canada, my limitations as a non-driver have fluctuated between debilitating and a non-issue. Surprisingly, however, this fluctuation does not always correspond to city size. In even the most unexpected places, I've discovered bike-friendly features (albeit sometimes minute) that we'd benefit from across the country. Here's a smattering of simple solutions we might learn from the West.
World Wide Wednesday: Traffic Jams, New York, Maps and Speed Humps
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• From the innovative efforts of PlaNYC to the remarkable pedestrianization of Times Square, urbanites from around the world marvel at the New York's ability to plan and execute ambitious and exciting projects. How do they do it? Katharine Jose at Capital New York attributes much recent success to Jan Gehl. This article profiles his approach and recent work. "A good city is like a good party, you stay for longer than you plan.”
• Crain's New York reports on the latest must-have for New York apartment seekers: bike storage. With the number of commuter cyclists increasing 79% over the past three years, landlords find themselves charging fees for the space to keep up with demand.
September 24th, 2010
The Wellington Marbles
By Spacing Ottawa // 7 Comments
Spacing Ottawa photo contributor Justin Van Leeuwen was on hand this week as the City installed 18 sculptures along Wellington Street West, from Garland in the east to Island Park in the west. The sculptures –- each a playful re-imagining of a fire hydrant –- are the work of artists Marcus Kucey-Jones and Ryan Lotecki, and tomorrow (September 25th) the pair will be leading a walking tour of the installation route, mustering at 1.00 in the lobby of GCTC, 1233 Wellington Street West. To register send an email to publicartprogram@ottawa.ca or call 613 244-4261.
The funding for the ...
September 25th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Big Government, Urban Farming and the $100 Million Question
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
In a new weekly Farm Friday feature, Lizzy Hill profiles the Small Plot Intensive Farming techniques of the innovative Lake City Farm project which grows greens on the lands of people who sign up.
Spacing's Emma Feltes asks the $100 million question about whether or not the proposed the convention center is the right move for downtown Halifax.
Alanah Heffez continues her fascinating look into the colourful historic character Joe Beef and his 19th century tavern; this week focusing on the role Beef played in the community.
Through a bit of Urban Exploring Alanah Heffez discovers a seemingly secret staircase leading up towards the mountain in Outremount.
As Rob Ford continues to pull ahead in the polls, Spacing Votes this week offered two competing visions of what the progressive side should do. On one hand John Lorinc argues that Pantalone would be best to fall on his sword and bow out of the race. On the other, former Miller campaign communications director Andrea Addario argues that Pantalone is the only viable alternative as Smitherman has already boxed himself out.
Spacing's Dylan Reid sparked infrastructure debate this week with two posts. The first dealing with how commuters actually get downtown, a response to Rossi's underground highway proposal. The second deals with a interesting new initiative on University Ave to raise pedestrian crosswalks, avoiding puddling in the winter.
September 27th, 2010
Photo of the day
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Canadian Museum of Civilization"][/caption]
Photo by Sookie
September 28th, 2010
Looking for the ideas behind the sniping
By Vicky Smallman // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Meanwhile, has Larry O'Brien stumbled onto a key demographic?"][/caption]
Someone asked me today when I was going to stop being so polite during my weekly municipal pundit gig on CBC's Ottawa Morning. I guess I have been pretty reserved in my election commentary so far. Although I believe I did refer to one campaign tactic as “lame” last week (that would be this, which sparked this equally odd response from O'Brien).
I don't know. I guess it's just hard to find the ideas behind all the sniping. And it's gotta be rough for Doucet, Haydon and other Mayoral candidates to get their words in edgewise if the coverage focuses on bizarre barbs traded by the front-runners. It was all feeling so... underwhelming.
September 29th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Union Square, Poop Power, Density and Urban Magnetism
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• Streetsblog questions the conventional planning wisdom that successful transit depends on density. Using the counterintuitive example of the comparatively dense Las Vegas with Vancouver, Jarrett Walker discusses the importance of how we measure density and the role for transit-supportive ...
October 1st, 2010
Non-profit Beaver Barracks a model for sustainable housing
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
The Beaver Barracks project at Catherine and Metcalfe is nearing completion and its developer, the non-profit Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, is starting to spread the word about the features the newly developed site is offering the community. Sylvie Trottier is the "Green Animator" in their communications department and she has been guest blogging on various Ottawa urbanist sites talking about the project.
We asked her to submit something to Spacing Ottawa concentrating on the sustainability features of the new Beaver Barracks. She sent us the following:
Taxes, transportation, poverty, the environment – with the municipal election looming, discussions over what kinds of ...
October 2nd, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Beaver Barracks, Electoral Reform and Hybrid Taxi
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Lauren Oostveen dives into the vaults of the Nova Scotia Archives to find some fantastic images of Nova Scotia in the early 1960s.
Matt Neville continues the fanstastic [Re]presenting Halifax series which aims to explore the city through visual exploration. This time the focus on built form and open space.
The Joe Beef series concluded this week with the story of Beef's death, populist funeral and contested legacy.
Hilary Best reports on the growing on the growing movement for municipal election reform with some fascinating ideas tried elsewhere in the world that could improve dismally low voter turnout rates and overly high incumbency success rates.
In 2007 Toronto began an plan to convert all of its taxis to hybrid technology by 2015; to date it the city only has 40 hybrid taxis. Adrian Lightstone reports on the progress and impediments of greening a taxi fleet.
October 4th, 2010
Photo of the Day – Chinatown arch
By Spacing Ottawa // 1 Comment
photo by Justin Van Leeuwen
October 5th, 2010
Tonight: Liveblogging “Debate 2.0″
By Spacing Ottawa // 3 Comments
Debate 2.0: Envisioning Ottawa’s Future
Tonight at 9.00 P.M. is the mayoral debate we've been waiting for here at Spacing Ottawa.
Leveraging the interactivity of social media and focusing on youth and the arts, it will be hosted by the versatile bloggers from Apartment 613. Here's a snippet from their description of the event:
Apartment613 and the Institute On Governance are doing their small part to put the municipality to the forefront by organizing a mayoral candidates’ debate, set to take place on Tuesday, October 5th at 8 p.m at the National Arts ...
October 6th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: No Ridiculous Car Trips
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• In Malmo, Sweden, a witty cycling campaign is getting real results. Now four-years old, "No Ridiculous Car Trips" capitalized on the unfortunate reality that 50% of all trips under 5 km in the city were taken by car. Recognizing this ridiculous waste (and enormous potential), a group of dedicated citizens combined installation art, story telling and incentives to get people to re-consider their modal choices. Copenhagenize has a delightful short film profiling the campaign.
• In London, England, the choice to take transit is now back on the table as Underground employees are return to work following a 24-hour strike. According to the BBC, the strike was prompted by job cuts and several more disruptions are planned for November if the dispute remains unresolved.
October 7th, 2010
“Young men in spandex”: cycling stereotype dies hard
By Kathryn Hunt // 2 Comments
Editor's note: The following piece originally appeared in the author's own blog,"The Incidental Cyclist"
Somehow, even though I know it's been a growing focus for the local media, I'm still pleasantly surprised when I hear a story on cycling pop up on the radio or in the paper. Hey, I think, they're talking about me! Which is what I thought when I heard Kathleen Petty talking to an urban planning expert from Copenhagen this week on CBC's Ottawa Morning about bike facilities in the city.
Not that either of them said much that I didn't already know. "Your bike paths are beautiful," said the woman from Copenhagen, "but crossing the Portage Bridge was the scariest thing I've done in my life." There was the usual conversation about how healthy biking is - every dollar spent on cycling infrastructure gains back something like $1.80 in saved health care expenses, or so they claim - and how good for the city, with businesses along bike routes gaining something like 10% profits (tell that to the Somerset Street BIA, who put the kibosh on the proposed test route that would have run east/west along Somerset.)
October 9th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Community Boards, Sharrows and Spandex
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Vicky Simmonds reports on citizens taking bike infrastructure into their own hands by painting their own sharrows on the streets of Halifax, following the guidelines of the Urban Repair Squad movement.
Emma Feltes profiles the 'City Mail' project in Halifax, a creative new initiative that aims to challenge the way participants think about landmarks and the flows of people through the community.
From the archives, Alanah Heffez showcases an incredible 1897 bicycle map of Montreal. Covering the entire island and surrounding region, the map is a fascinating look not only into cycling in the 19th century but also how 20th century planning altered the city.
Alanah Heffez profiles a fascinating alleyway art installation featuring turn of the century photographs displayed in the places from which they were taken. The somewhat neglected alleyway setting provides for a unique link to the past as it has avoided renovations that have altered the street front.
Two posts touched on the need for new approach to planning in the city this week. Dale Duncan talks about the need for voters to ask candidates how they will engage citizens in the planning process. John Lorinc talks about a recent proposal by Paul Bedford to implement New York style community boards.
Nadia Halim recounts the adventure of a recent Thursday night psychogeographic walk in Toronto. The tale comes complete with quick sand, celeb sightings, and of course: lesbian Wiccan poetry readings.
October 12th, 2010
Transit culture at last! O-Train inspires monster dog
By Evan Thornton // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Foot-long chili dog "][/caption]
The Hintonburger on Wellington Street West has a penchant for using otherwise under-appreciated local references in its marketing. There is the way its sandwiches are named after obscure local streets (try the Armstrong Burger!), its practice of publicizing the much-reviled #2 bus as the best way to find the joint, and then of course the name of the restaurant itself. Why didn't anyone think of that before?
But they may have topped themselves with their latest menu innovation, launched this last weekend. It's a grilled chili dog of ...
October 13th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Las Vegas seeks new motto
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• FOLLOW UP: For those looking for a little more on the Shweeb, CNN offers up a more extensive report on Google's $1 million investment in the new transportation technology. As to why the web giant is investing ...
October 14th, 2010
Misty eyes, phone bots, modest promises – it’s character time in the mayor’s race
By Vicky Smallman // 5 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Calling frenzy - phone bots, circa 1914"][/caption]
Today -- October 14 -- is the last advance poll before election. The pace is hopping! Debates, fundraisers, doorknocking, phone calls, coffee parties, community events – campaigns are working hard to generate momentum, solidify support and shift the undecided. They'll be encouraging volunteers and firm supporters to vote early, then starting to gear up for election day.
As I write this, half of my twitter feed seems to have received an automated survey call from Larry O'Brien. Last night I got a similar call – not a survey but a plug for his latest campaign video.
Ah, the campaign video. No one actually seems to be spending the cash to put them on TV these days, but you can get a lot of mileage by spreading links to video on social media. Or, in Larry's case, by getting lots of coverage in traditional media for blasting your opponent with an attack ad.
October 15th, 2010
Guerrilla takeover planned for today
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
.
Anytime after 3.00 this afternoon, the War Memorial, Parliament Hill and the Byword Market are the locations likely to be infiltrated by a band of urban warriors dedicated to animating public space with their preferred weapons of choice - the human voice.
Yes it is the "guerrilla poetry" program of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word - a rotating national event that has come to Ottawa for only the second time.
As public art goes, guerrilla poetry -- where impromptu spoken word events quickly take over a street-corner or a well-known gathering spot -- has to to be one of the simplest (if ephemeral) ways to animate public space. It does take a certain kind of courage though, and we were keen to talk with a practitioner to find out just what goes into the making of guerrilla poet. We spoke with with Danielle Gregoire, whose work can be seen in the video on top this post.
October 16th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Election Clutter, Transit Culture and a lack of Politicians
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Devin Alfro highlights the pluses and minuses of the newly restored Marché Saint-Jacques. While definitely positive that building has been restored from municipal offices back to its original function, there are questions of how the new market fits into the existing neighbourhood.
Émile Thomas gives an excellent profile of the Verdun neighbourhood; a bridge between many aspects of the city and a home to the most enlightened hipsters.
John Lorinc delves into the long and tumultuous history between George Smitherman and David Miller and speculates on how this affected Miller's Pantalone endorsement and what would have happened had someone with a similar resume run in place of Smitherman.
As opposed to many of its suburbs which are littered with campaign signs, Toronto has very tight rules regulating when and where candidates can put up signs. Sean Marshall looks at Toronto's regulations and at the merits of the practice in general.
Joshua Biggley reports on the troubling electoral climate in Charlottetown, where only seven of the ten wards even have challengers running and speculates on the troubles democratic stagnation could cause the city.
Veronica Simmonds profiles Halifax Housing week which aims to celebrate successes and highlight needs of homelessness in Halifax.
October 18th, 2010
Photo of the day: Ninety-Five
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
Photo by Justin Van Leeuwen
October 20th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Meters, TOD, Cranes and Floating Orbs of Light
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• Slate offers a history of a ubiquitous piece of street furniture: the parking meter. The article traces the meter back to its roots in Oklahoma City and questions the move towards privatization of city parking. Privatization deals, such as the one recently undertaken in Chicago, argues planner Aaron Renn, assign a "property right interest in the biggest component of public space in the city to a private monopoly that doesn't have the public's best interests at heart."
• Does transit oriented development require a certification system? Bloggers at Liveable Bay and Straight Outta Suburbia think so, according to Streetsblog NYC. The term, which has been influential in defining and supporting the development of walkable, cyclable, accessible urban environments risks dilution without measurable standards. But what exactly does transit oriented development mean?
October 21st, 2010
“Notify of follow-up comments” now available by email
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
October 22nd, 2010
Street Names: Macdonald and Cartier
By Dwight Williams // No Comments
We started this series covering Wellington and By. Among the other figures of historic influence over the history of Ottawa are, of course, the Prime Ministers of Canada and several of their more influential allies.
Sandwiched between Elgin Street and the Rideau Canal for over 125 years are salutes to the first of the post-Confederation PMs, Sir John A Macdonald himself, and his chief ally from the francophone side of the aisle, George-Étienne Cartier. Built at some point around 1877 or 1878, with Cartier Street as an offshoot of Cartier Square -- ...
October 23rd, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Silo No. 5, Baldwin Street and Walkshops
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Alanah Heffez takes readers along for a tour of Silo Number 5, the enormous abandoned grain elevator along the waterfront in the Port of Montreal. The site has been bought from the Port Authority of Montreal by the Canada Lands Company. While the CLC has big plans for the incredible site, it also faces many challenges.
Émele Thomas takes a look at Montréal's movement to re-embrace the St Lawrence River by examining the essential role the river plays to Quebec and analyzing the current as well as future situation of the waterfront in Montréal itself.
Spacing is co-hosting a walking tour and workshop at the 4 Days Better City Lab event in Halifax, and invites readers to take a closer look at the event and some of the amazing things that have happened so far.
Careful to avoid giving any direct endorsement, Spacing Editor Matthew Blackett makes an appeal to voters on the eve of the election to fully consider the power that the Mayor has and what someone could do with those powers.
As part of the ongoing Street Stories series, Eric Mutrie takes a look at Baldwin Street, a place that's hard to find but easy to love, and examines both the history of the street and what makes it so successful today.
October 25th, 2010
That vision thing
By Vicky Smallman // 3 Comments
Editor's note: Today is municipal election day across Ontario. In Ottawa, you can enter your address in this polling station finder to find out where you vote; the polls are open from 10 a.m until 8 p.m. You'll need to bring a piece of ID with you that has your street address on it; the list of acceptable ID types is here.
From 8.00 until 9.00 this morning, Spacing Ottawa columnist Vicky Smallman will be teaming with Walter Robinson and host Alistair Steele to provide election day commentary on CBC Radio, 91.5 on your FM dial. Vicky and Walter will also be appearing on CBC TV from 9 to 10 in the evening, hosted by Lucy Van Oldenbarneveld.
It's all over but the voting.
It's all over but the voting.
As I write this piece, I'm watching a documentary on the urban planning success that is Portland. Now there is a city with some vision - about the links between urban planning, sustainable growth, quality of life, and smart transportation. I think we need to give our councillors, our city staff, our mayor – whoever they are – permission to bring a little Portland thinking to Ottawa. They don't do it because they think we won't buy it. I've heard it time and time again when raising ideas:
Hub and spoke? “People don't like to transfer”.
Crosswalks with pedestrian signals? “People won't stop”.
Segregated bike lanes? “Business won't go for it”.
And so on.
Meanwhile, we get mediocre development, a haphazard transit plan, a disregarded official plan, aging infrastructure, inadequate parks and recreation, overstretched social services, a divided council and an overworked city staff.
Election liveblog with Ian Capstick and Apartment 613
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
Check this space after 8 P.M to see live results from the Rogers 22 Election night blogging team, made up of writers from Apartment 613 and Ian Capstick's Media Style.
Rogers22 Election Night Blog :: Powered by Producers and Writers from Apt 613 & MediaStyle
October 27th, 2010
Rebranding Ottawa
By Spacing Ottawa // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Amsterdam Logo from CitID collection"][/caption]
World Wide Wednesday: Bike Sharing, Libraries, Posters and City ag
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• While functional bike sharing systems are in the works for many cities, project execution can sometimes be a challenge. The New American City profiles Social Bicycle System (SoBi), a project founded by former NYC Department of Transportation bicycle planner, Ryan Rzepecki. SoBi uses secure lockboxes that can be added to any bicycle (and secured to any standard lock), along with enabling software which uses GPS and mobile phones. The system, being piloted in New York this fall, promises to reduce the cost of implementing a bike sharing system and creating opportunities for grassroots bike sharing systems to develop.
• Having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card. And in St. Paul, Minnesota, you don't even need the card, according to the Wall Street Journal. In a time when library budgets are often the first to be slashed, unmanned robo-libraries are popping up in all sorts of unusual locations (strip malls, parking lots, city hall). For folks looking for out of the way books in New York City, the New York Times recommends the Terence Cardinal Cooke-Cathedral branch of the public library system located just outside the turnstile entrance to the No. 6 train on the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 50th Street.
October 28th, 2010
The abuse and neglect of Somerset House
By Dwight Williams // 6 Comments
[flickr mikeygottawa 72157625047890029]
Editor's note: The above photoset is by Mike Gerike, who tells the story of how it came together here.
Somerset House goes back a long way.
Somerset House goes back a long way.
Located at the southeast corner of Bank and Somerset, this three-story heritage landmark dates back over a century, to 1897. Sir Wilfrid Laurier was beginning his first term as Prime Minister and Ottawa's mayors were still elected on an annual basis. With that miniature turret marking the northwest corner of the roof facing the intersection, you can't mistake it for anything else in the neighbourhood. In 1935, the place was renamed _- briefly, as far as we can tell -- the Ritz Hotel.
My personal relationship to the building was fleeting, though friendly: on two or three occasions, either co-workers at one of my day jobs of the moment or friendly acquaintances would invite me to join them for one social gathering or another at the ground-floor tavern, the Lockmaster. The food, standard pub grub as it was, was okay and competition at the pool tables provided its own entertainment as well. From the early 90s its cellar bar was known as the Duke of Somerset pub, and it was the home of boisterous and well-remembered "Celtic Sunday" music sessions. After the 1998 World Cup "The Duke" became the unofficial headquarters of the UK expat community who gathered to watch satellite broadcasts of English soccer matches; for a big qualifying match it was standing room only. Billy Bragg famously watched England vs. Macedonia there in 2002 and worked the experience into a song intro at Barrymore's that same night.
October 30th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Election Schadenfreude, Inspiring Logos and Smelly Photos
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
They say that smell is the strongest sense tied to memory. Montreal artist Alexandre Cv has taken this up and launched the Smells in the City Photo contest challenging participants to capture the city through smells that help define it.
Alanah Heffez uses Toronto's recent electoral misgivings as an opportunity to look back at Montreal's civic administration one year into its term. Through the benefit of hindsight it is obvious that many post-election predictions didn't fully come true.
Spacing co-hosted a walking a tour of Downtown Halifax's 'blank spots' this past weekend and featured two corresponding posts. Emma Feltes recaps the walk and invites readers to join the ideas hub. Matt Nevile continues the [Re]presenting Halifax series with some incredible conceptual maps of Halifax's vacant space.
Joshua Biggley weighs in on the electoral plebiscite facing Charlottetown voters which will determine whether or not the city keeps its ward-based representative system.
Just in case you hadn't heard, Toronto elected a new mayor this week. John Lorinc posted two excellent election week pieces recapping the campaign and questioning that Monday's results really represent a revolution.
Spacing's Dylan Reid returned from a trip to Chicago and reports on the city's unique above ground parking adaptations, a result of its swampy foundations.
November 1st, 2010
Photo of the day: slush-free on Slater
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="592" caption="Bus stops on Slater and Albert rebuilt with sidewalk drains, just in time for slush season"][/caption]
-photo by Dwight Williams
November 2nd, 2010
Ignorance about U-Pass is stoking the controversy
By Peter Raaymakers // 9 Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="576" caption="For transit too? Protesting University of Ottawa students demand lower fees"][/caption]
Editor's note: The following is cross-posted from Spacing Ottawa contributor Peter Raaymakers' site, Public Transit in Ottawa.
It's pretty amazing to think that the City of Ottawa's U-Pass pilot project has become such a hugely divisive issue. The project, for those who use public transit regularly, means a 50 per cent savings for those with a regular student pass (based on an eight-month school year). And since it qualifies for up to and including rural express fares, it means a nearly 60 per cent savings for 'express' students, and a massive nearly 70 per cent discount for 'rural express' students.
The problem, though, arises when considering those students who don't use transit. And maintain that they won't, whether or not they're given a pass. Without an opt-out clause, it means a $290 tuition increase for those students who don't use transit that comes without direct benefit.
November 3rd, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Markets, USBs, airbags for cyclists, water infrastructure
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• Last week, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania celebrated the re-opening of Market Square - a pedestrianized market place which will play host to vendors and seating areas in the summer. As Project for Public Spaces reports, it is hoped that Market Square will spur downtown revitalization.
• Open source data reaches new heights with Dead Drop - an anonymous, offline, peer-to-peer file sharing network which uses built infrastructure as the medium for file sharing. Curbs, buildings and walls are injected with USB drives for any curious laptop user to plug into.
• Trust the Swedes to find a way to make cycling safe and stylish. The Incidental Cyclist presents the Hövding - an airbag helmet for cyclist. This USB charged airbag deploys on impact, surrounding the victim's head. Check out the crash test dummy video to see for yourself
Integrated bus trip planners: two solitudes edging closer
By Spacing Ottawa // 1 Comment
This just in from the City of Ottawa:
Ottawa – Interprovincial transit travellers can now find their way with just a couple of clicks on their computer or mobile device. OC Transpo and Gatineau’s public transit authority, the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO), have merged their transit planning databases.
The amalgamation of the OC Transpo Travel Planner with the brand new STO Plani-Bus database will help riders find the route that best meets their needs, saving them time and hassle. The joint, online planner ...
November 4th, 2010
“What you build relates to people” – Arthur Erickson’s addition to the Bank of Canada
By Evan Thornton // 5 Comments
The architect Arthur Erickson died in 2009. Two years before his death, he gave an interview - excerpted in the video above - where he spoke frankly about how he won the commission to design his famous addition to the Bank of Canada building on Wellington Street. Rather than put forward ideas of his own, he told the Governor of the Bank what he didn't like about the plans that had already been drawn up; his criticism was trenchant enough that the Bank asked him ...
November 6th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Blaming Pedestrians, Arthur Erickson and Happy City
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Alanah Heffez reports on the disturbing new public ad campaign in the Montreal Metro which highlights the dangers pedestrian face in Quebec. While trying to promote safety the ads end up blaming the victim and encouraging the notion that walking is dangerous.
Emile Thomas looks back at the troubled mood in Montreal during the 1995 referendum and speculates on the role that increasing urban and city based identity has had on reducing the importance of the sovereignty question.
Steve Bedard reports from Halifax on the crosstown connector bike route initiative which has gained approval to move on to the stage of public consultation
Andrew Harvey reports on the latest initiative of the Happy City organization in St John's, a unique event in which participants were invited to say whatever they thought was important to the city.
In a post that generated almost a hundred and twenty comments, Spacing attempted to make sense of election results through transit riding, non-driver Rick McGinnis who explains why he chose for Rob Ford.
Eric Mutrie continues the Street Stories with a look at Jameson Ave that profiles the history of a street that has been called a landing strip for immigrants into the city.
November 8th, 2010
Bronson road diet – the video
By Evan Thornton // 2 Comments
The struggle to put Bronson Avenue on a road diet instead of rebuilding it with wider car lanes is ramping up, with a community meeting scheduled for this upcoming Wednesday at the McNabb Centre on Percy at 7.00 PM.
You can plug in to the fight for pedestrian-friendly Bronson at rescuebronson.ca or follow their twitter feed at @rescuebronson; meanwhile for a succinct overview of what is at stake this post from the Dalhousie Community Association is great place to start.
Also, over the weekend the ...
Centretown’s great divide – the reprise
By Evan Thornton // 4 Comments
We ran this video back in June not long after we learned of the City's plans to widen the already dangerous Bronson Avenue ever further. What do we mean by dangerous? The video is an unedited minute of rush hour, shot from the perspective of a pedestrian waiting to cross Bronson at Somerset. Except that, other than the masochist shooting the video, there are no pedestrians; foot traffic knows to avoid Bronson if at all possible.
We think ...
November 9th, 2010
Rush Hour
By Kathryn Hunt // 1 Comment
Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Spacing Ottawa contributor Kathryn Hunt's blog, The Incidental Cyclist
I encountered a bit of a traffic jam on the way to work this morning. I thought they'd all have been gone by now: by the time I need to buy a toque for under the helmet and break out the gloves, I sort of expect the migratory birds to have left. But, apparently, no.
These folks are just one of the road hazards of November. There's their poop - it's gross - and the fact that a bird this size feels no need to flee before an oncoming bike. They just gaze at you sideways, like they're daring you to violate their personal space. But there are other hazards on the roads this time of year. . . for one thing, I also notice more roadkill in the late fall. I'm not sure why: maybe animals like squirrels are slower at this time of year. And it's mostly squirrels. (There are more disgusting things to accidentally roll over with your tires than one of those sad flattened patches of fur in the bike lane, but not many.) But it's also birds - seagulls, mostly, although there are pigeons too.
November 10th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Building British, Sidewalk Slowpokes and Parking Fortunes
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• Jonathan Glancey at the Guardian offers an interesting view into the role of architecture in contemporary British life. "Spending on architecture and building (not always the same thing) has fallen in real terms over the past 200 years. Where once buildings were the greatest, proudest and most expensive objects money could buy, today we spend on much else besides. ... For the most part today, we aim to build as cheaply as possible."
• Irritated by sidewalk slowpokes? So is the New West End Company, a group of 600 business owners in the district around Oxford Street in London and they're taking action. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the group plans to separate sidewalk traffic into speed lanes - directing slow movers to walk in a "shopper lane" along store fronts, so that hurried residents and workers can proceed without opposition on the sidewalk's edges.
November 12th, 2010
Tower demolition done right
By Evan Thornton // 1 Comment
The internet was abuzz this week with the video from Ohio of a 275' smokestack demolished with dynamite; it fell the wrong way, scaring a family that had gathered to watch the explosion from a vantage point in what they thought was the safe area.
It put me in mind of the great Fred Dibnah, the English steeplejack that brought down 90 disused mill smokestacks in his career. In densely populated areas he would demolish the giant chimneys one brick at time, climbing up in the morning ...
November 13th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Green Frosting, Road Widening and Peep Shows
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Jacob Larson analyzes the Quebec government's second attempt at a proposal to rebuild the Turcot Interchange. Larson attempts to cut through the 'green frosting' to comment on the facts of what could be built.
Alanah Heffez takes a look at what is probably the oldest house in the historic neighbourhood of Griffintown. Turns out, the house is so old that reveals the mysterious existence of another neighbourhood which once existed at the site.
Emma Feltes reports on the exciting plans for the Halifax Central Library and on the progressive public consultation process that was used in its planning.
Lauren Oostven continues the Front the Vaults series by exploring the archived history of Gottingen Street and its historic ties to Halifax's German community.
Launching the new Head Space column this week, Luca De Franco interviews Christina Zeidler, head organizer of the YIMBY Festival which aims to promote cooperation between politicians, developers and community groups.
Fred Sztabinksy reflects on what is perhaps the most common peep show on the streets of Toronto: portholes along the sidewalk that allow views of construction sites. Sztabinsky considers why developers include these windows and why we love them so much.
November 15th, 2010
Metcalfe running the wrong way for Padolsky’s lantern
By Evan Thornton // 4 Comments
The controversy around of the city's plans to widen Bronson Avenue seems to naturally lead to discussion of the other arterial routes that cut north through Centretown.
This weekend I heard a local architect talking about Metcalfe Avenue. His first point was that since, like its neighbour O'Connor, Metcalfe is a one-way street, there is very limited interest in creating pedestrian-scale development. If offered a choice, pedestrians will nearly always opt for walking along a traditional two-way street, where lower traffic speeds make for a better mix of cars and people. And since cafes and ...
November 16th, 2010
PODCAST: Saving BIXI, Bronson Avenue, and our parks
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
LISTEN TO THE NEW SPACING RADIO PODCAST!
While some parks are jam-packed with kids, dog walkers and seniors practicing Tai Chi, others are deserted and neglected. Producer Mieke Anderson speaks to David Harvey about his recent study on improving parks.
Also, Spacing Ottawa's Evan Thornton discusses his city's plans to turn back the clock to a time when car was king. And reporter Andrew Walsh addresses the pros and cons of the public bike network, BIXI, with Spacing Montreal's Alanah ...
November 17th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: By Taxi, Bus or Bike
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• Detroit has had its fair share of hurdles over the past few years but Time says the winds of change are blowing and they are coming from Mayor Dave Bing's office. In a city that has lost half of its population in the past half-century as well as its key industry, it may be time to cut losses on abandoned neighbourhoods and crumbling infrastructure to focus efforts on the city's core assets. As the prestigious Kresge Foundation fronts a massive planning effort for Detroit's future, Time offers a prescription of density, contiguity, naturalization, urban homesteading and ethnic diversity for Motown.
• While American bikesharing systems generally trail their European counterparts in terms of station density and overall ridership, Streetsblog reports good news out of Minneapolis. The city's Nice Ride system, which launched this summer, topped 100,000 trips in its first five months. Even more hopeful - of the 680 users surveyed, nearly 20 percent used the system instead of driving.
• "An icon of [New York City's] urban landscape, the humble yellow cab is set to undergo an unprecedented face-lift — perhaps the biggest change to the city’s street aesthetic since licensed cabs were required to be painted yellow in 1970," reports the New York Times. The three competing designs offered up by Ford, Nissan and Turkish manufacturer Karsan, are more minivan than sedan.
November 18th, 2010
Watch NFB: Highrise/Out My Window, a 360° interactive documentary about vertical living
By Julie Matlin // No Comments
Editor: Spacing is pleased to announce we're resuming our partnership with the National Film Board of Canada to showcase films and interactive projects from their online screening room. Julie Matlin of the NFB will be occasionally posting films here on Spacing that explore public spaces, Canadian or international cities and anything urban. The NFB is one of Canada's greatest resources. Click here to view their entire online collection. ...
November 19th, 2010
Spacing Ottawa anniversary: Seven things I learned about my city
By Evan Thornton // 1 Comment
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="553" caption="Can it really be a year already?"][/caption]
It seems last month, not last year, that we launched Spacing Ottawa with a party at the Cube Gallery on Hamilton. I'll never forget the date; ironically, that's because I hardly remember what happened. I had come down with a horrible once-in-a-decade virus that same morning; I was croaking instead of talking and breaking out into random sweats and dizzy spells. I was so hopped-up on Robitussin DM that if it wasn't for this video I don't think I'd remember one conversation from the entire evening, but I do remember that I met a hundred or so people with elbow bumps instead of handshakes. With streaming nose and eyes, you'd have been crazy to take my hand even if I'd have offered it.
But despite such an inauspicious start to my association with Spacing, I've had a fascinating year as editor of this blog. The best part has been getting to work with the many contributors to our pages; contributors whose interests span so many areas of expertise and who brim with enthusiasm for Ottawa's urban experience.
November 20th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Tower Renewal, Metcalfe Ave and The Joy of Cycling
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Spacing Ottawa marks the first anniversary of its launch this week
Emile Thomas showcases a rejected Transport for London public service ad about the Joy of Cycling which playfully pays tribute to the illustrated safe sex manual of the 1970's.
Alanah Heffez and Devin Alfro continue the photo du jour series presenting creative and timely photos that showcase Montreal in a unique light.
Crystal Melville reports on the Nova Scotia government's progressive plans to include cyclists and considerations for their safety in the province's Motor Vehicle Act.
Rachel Caroline Derrah reports on the exciting dialogue surrounding what to do with the former Queen Elizabeth High School site in downtown Halifax. The site is being transferred to Capital Health with has mused about making the grounds an urban farm.
Toronto has the second largest number of high rise buildings in North America. That's why the future of David Miller's signature Mayor's Tower Renewal program is so important. Adrian Lightstone reports on a prominent symposium held this week asking where to take the program next.
Jessica Lemieux attending a dinner honouring Charles Sauriol, the father of Toronto Conservation, and left inspired by the attitudes and projects of the award winers.
November 22nd, 2010
Photo of the day
By Spacing Ottawa // No Comments
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="599" caption="Looking up on Queen Street"][/caption]
photo by Justin Van Leeuwen
Video: City removes heads from parking meters; exposes bikes to theft
By Editor // 1 Comment
[caption id="attachment_4277" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="They come by night: workers removing a parking meter in Chinatown"][/caption]
Editor's note: this first appeared in author Charles Akben-Marchand's own Images of Centretown blog.
The last couple weeks, the City of Ottawa has been removing parking meters as part of their plan to switch to Pay & Display parking, and convert some parking meters to ring-and-post bike racks. Unfortunately, despite various assurances, there won't be enough racks to replace the lost meters.
Pictured above is a shot of the City workers removing racks on Somerset street at Arthur:
As was ...
November 24th, 2010
World Wide Wednesday: Winter Cycling, Airport Links and Civic Engagement
By Hilary Best // No Comments
Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
• As the weather turns colder, some are considering turning in their bikes for other transportation options. BikePortland.org urges you to reconsider! With plenty of helpful tips to help you brave the winter on a bicycle, you can keep on rolling into the spring.
• The Next American City offers some insight into the experiences of American cities planning airport-city connections. The article suggests that the best laid plans consider market demand, the ability of the service to reduce emissions and congestion, financial feasibility and the distance from the offsite terminal to the airport. DC's Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is cited as one of the nation's best: with stops connecting the airport to both downtown Washington as well as the much of the region, it is the mode of choice for a quarter of airport passengers.
Orléans roundabout: ready to assist your street-crossing needs
By Spacing Ottawa // 4 Comments
[flickr dwight_ew 72157625461810084]
Flickr photoset used by permission of Dwight Williams
Despite every appearance of still being a work in progress, the much-touted roundabout on St. Joseph Boulevard finally opened to traffic this afternoon.
Ottawa is not known for doing roundabouts especially well, particularly for pedestrians and cyclists. With that in mind, if you are in Orléans and find yourself ready to brave the new intersection sans auto, the City of Ottawa has issued instructions that you might want to memorize before you try anything as complicated as actually crossing the street.
November 26th, 2010
Street names: the entertainers
By Dwight Williams // 4 Comments
Call this a work in progress. Also, expect this category to be revisited. With those two caveats out of the way, we'll begin with this thought:
In one sense, this post is similar to the Works of Fiction instalment. The difference is that these famous names belonged, or belong, in some cases, to real people. The names mostly come from one branch or another of the entertainment industry; they go back almost a century, so they usually ring a bell with a volume that varies with the age of the citizen who reads them on the signpost. In one or two cases we suspect the sound has grown very faint, but in several cases, more than one generation counts a street's namesake as part of their own cultural history.
Take Shatner Gate out in the Hazeldean-Katimavik region of Kanata for instance. Built in the early 1980's, it was almost certainly named for actor William Shatner. His career as an actor began with the CBC, and it took him from his native Montréal to Ottawa, before sending him west to California and from there, of course, to the bridge of the USS Enterprise.
November 27th, 2010
Spacing Saturday: Rebelmayor, Accommodating Pedestrians and the Entertainers
By Marcus Bowman // No Comments
Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blo