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, many different aspects to the proposed plan – and those of several competing proposals as well – have been discussed in many different forums, including here at Spacing Ottawa. The issue of transit support for events at the redeveloped park, however, seems to have largely escaped notice.

It’s not that OC Transpo, City Hall and the OSEG partners have ignored the transit issue. They haven’t. They’ve worked out contingency plans of their own, and those have been shown at open houses, and posted online for anyone with the time and inclination to track down and look at. It is possible that their planners…

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.

Here's West Side Action's Eric Darwin on the issue:

The problem with the City's current approach is that it assumes Bronson is a four lane street. And that it is congested. And therefore, the solution is to widen it.

I don't think Bronson IS a four lane street, and there is a whole pile of traffic engineering literature to support my view. Bronson only LOOKS like it has four through lanes. In fact, what it has is

…

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 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 drive home.

I was met in Carleton Place by Gary Strike of the community group behind the bus line, who explained the reasons for the initiative -- in his case, monthly gasoline costs of $400.00 dollars -- and then I was given an expert tour of the central district by ex-mayor Brian Costello.

As the slideshow above relates there are some real rewards for the visitor; you'll find a historic town centre that is attractive and well-kept up but clearly exists to serve local needs, unlike several communities just outside the municipal boundary that take dead aim at the tourist dollar.…

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 drive home.

We'll meet with some of the community members behind the new initiative, and take the opportunity to explore CP's historic downtown and enjoy its riverbank views. We'll be posting our impressions along with some photos in next week's Spacing Ottawa blog.

If you have any questions you'd like us to ask LCT about the new service, or Carleton Place more generally, please comment under this post or tweet us at @spacingottawa.

photo by P199

Prowling the depths: best left to auto traffic?

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.

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…

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.

But to my mind, that’s not all that could be done with the station. I don’t…

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:

We often think of buildings as permanent. They're familiar; we take
them

…

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…

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.

Gone are the sketchy pink Miami Vice signs along the “Bank Street Promenade” and welcome are the sleek monochrome industrial features that now line the once cluttered sidewalks.

Most welcome are the…