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.

[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!

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.

The beloved Aberdeen Pavilion witnessed Ottawa’s early Stanley Cup victories and Frank Clair Stadium was, for decades, the site of football triumphs and agonies, from the Riders to the Panda games and the short-lived but fun Bootleggers. The Central Canada Exhibition was, and has remained, the city’s main venue for entertainment and agricultural fairs. The Civic Centre witnessed Memorial Cups and the rebirth of the NHL. Big-name…

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.

If you travel around on city sidewalks often,…