One two three ... Redlight !

New red light cameras have been installed on Albert a few metres west of Booth Street, presumably to catch east bound (downtown bound) traffic on Albert that runs the red light at Booth.

Another camera has been installed at Albert and Commissioner (the going uphill part of Bronson, so as to speak) between Albert and Slater. I guess it will catch cars running the red light as they accelerate to go up the steep part of Bronson Hill south of Slater ... or turning left across Bronson to get onto Slater.

Boxing Day

Familiar pale green utility boxes like this occupy many city boulevards. This one belongs to Rogers. Note the clever use of all-canadian duct tape to hold the box together.

Inside the box appear to car-like batteries. Lead? Acid? Looks perfectly safe to me.

The box in question is on the left, in the snow. The sidewalk squeezes between the post and the box because ... the city widened the road in the early 1980s but declined to relocate the utility pole. The sidewalk used to run unobstructed on the right side of the pole. The resultant squeeze play pinches the pedestrian walking space, frustrates sidewalk snowplows, and bangs up the Rogers box. Oh, what we do for cablevision.

Winter Cycling Path Maintenance

Alright, I admit that the multipurpose path on the north side of Albert between Bronson and Bayview is not really an official cycling path. If it were, it wouldn't be plowed in the winter, because the City and NCC do not maintain cycle paths in the winter. But since this is officially a sidewalk  ... it just happens to look like and function like and get used like a bike path ... it gets plowed and winter maintained.

I thought this path provided some insight into the feasibility of winter cycling in Ottawa.

They Tried ...

There is a traffic detour around the sewer control station being reconstructed on Booth Street immediately north of Albert. The four lanes are very narrow and the traffic persists in moving too fast. This week, safety no doubt improved immeasurably with the addition of a yellow sign in each direction showing a car beside a bike. Does this mean "no passing" or "share the lane"? In either case, the temp lanes are so narrow no one can pass a cyclist in the same lane.

The City taketh away ...

Just a block down Albert Street from the new tree planting at the parking lots, the City has removed a dozen trees from their City Living housing projects. These trees were in front of the project at the corner of Albert and Booth, and Albert and Rochester (the trees were removed on the Rochester street side) and the corner of Albert and Preston.

As shown in the pictures, these were mature trees, planted about 25 years ago when the housing projects were built. The housing is now undergoing "renewal" by recladding the stucco with artificial wood; and removing the brick sound barrier walls to be replaced by plain pressure-treated plywood panels.

The above picture shows the CCOC housing that separates the two City Living projects. It's trees (and brick sound wall) have not been removed. They are large maples, providing sound and dust abatement for the housing units.

The city giveth ...

I rejoice when the City provides some nice landscaping in Dalhousie neighborhood. The City owns some temporary parking lots along Albert Street, between Bronson and the transitway turnoff at the Good Companions centre.

They spent some time last month rigorously pruning and thinning the existing tree and shrub growth around the lots, possibly to improve the social safety of the parking lots by making them more open and exposed.

Then they added some topsoil, mulch, and planted a dozen trees at the entrance of the lot, which faces Brickhill Street (a tiny street that services the parking lots and connects to Old Wellington). I have never seen such tiny (skinny) trees planted by the City (some of the trees were larger caliber, some were mere whips).

I am curious though, why the trees were planted in a area that is planned for redevelopment, including major equipment staging area for  the DOTT project (if it gets the go-ahead), where there are no nearby houses and few people to see or enjoy the trees, while the City steadfastly refuses to plant trees along the new multipurpose path running from the same transitway/Albert intersection westwards to Bayview station.

Tea and Chips

Lunch time crowds outside Minto Place on Albert Street at Kent. The tea pot is titanium. The chips are fried. The stomachs ... are iron.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (xii): Booth Station

The Booth Street station is location directly under the new elevated Booth Street overpass. The overpass crosses over the station and the aquaduct. The new LRT alignment is a few meters south of the current transitway which is closer to the aquaduct. Most frightening about this drawing is the abundance of car traffic lanes on Booth, the awful manoevering required to get buses from the Booth St bus stop over to the centre lane to turn onto Albert to go uptown, and the generous addition of lanes to Albert Street in both directions. Somehow, a transit project is providing lots of expensive car commuter infrastructure and generous road widenings on prime downtown development land. Just who will rush to live in condos facing such over-sexed roadways? What happened to neighborhood connectivity, with these proposed huge automotive rips to the urban fabric of Dalhousie neighborhood.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (ix): downtown west station

The western most downtown station would be located deep under Albert Street * in the block between Kent and Bay. There will be two major entrances for the "base" station design. If developers wish to tie in, there could be more.

One entrance will be right where the CS CoOp building is now. The entire block housing the CoOp is to be purchased by the City for the new library project. If the library is under construction at the same time as the DOTT, then the station will be incorporated into the Library. If the Library is to be constructed at a later time, then a permanent elevator and escalator facilities will be built up from the underground station to the surface at the present CoOp location with a temporary building at the surface, which would later be incorporated into the new Library building.

The second entrance will be on the north side of Albert, in front of Place de Ville (PDV) right where the existing transitway bus stop is by the fountain and pyramid skylight into the PDV underground concourse. There will be a building at that location to weather-protect the entrances to the elevators and escalators going down. The surface facilities will intrude on the private property of PDV, in return for that, there will be a direct connection from the escalators and elevators into the PDV concourse. So this station at least will have some elements of the "underground city" some people want to see. It remains to be seen if the city can convince PDV to permit ongoing connections of their concourse to other buildings, such as the proposed ones immediately to the east or 240 Sparks (PDV has not connected to adjacent concourses over the last 25 years and I dont think they are likely to change that since their concourse - and buildings above - will have higher value being exclusively on the DOTT).

The DOTT planners also show a possible connection from an underground mezzanine in the escalator area across the street to Constitution Square complex. The City does not plan to build this connection (they provide two access elevators/escalators sets per station), the owners of Constitution would have to do this. Note that the connection would permit transit users to access Constitution Sq and thus weather-proof connections to Slater Street and Kent, but the link is from a mezzanine level below that of the PDV concourse. It is not a connection of the PDV concourse to another complex. Users could travel through PDV, enter the fare-paid zone of the transit station, travel down one or more floors, and then exit the station again towards Constitution Square. Do-able, but not convenient.

* Critics of the tunnel depth should note that the ground elevation of downtown Ottawa varies significantly, even though we generally view it as "flat". The tunnel will be deepest underground at the eastern downtown station, shallower at Rideau and Campus. The exact depth of the tunnel will be determined based on the results of bore holes to be drilled in the next planning phase. If the rock conditions are excellent, the tunnel might be shallower than if rock conditions are fractured. The planning to date assumes the worst, and keeps the tunnel deep.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (v): when the transitway ends at Tunney's

The first phase of the LRT system extends as far west as Tunneys Pasture. It may always terminate there, or may be extended further west as phase two of the LRT system. Until it is extended, a major transfer facility is required at Tunney's for bus users from the west who need to transfer onto the LRT vehicles for the continued journey through the downtown. (The design of that station will be subject of another post.)

Most of the users of the 95 and similar buses from the west will get off their vehicles at the new transfer station to be built to the north of the current station at Tunney's, and have grade-separated direct access onto the LRT station platforms in the cut. The LRT will take them through the downtown core. For users going beyond Blair, they would have to transfer again onto the east end of the 95 route.

However, for 95 users who wish to go to the OTrain or City Centre employment node, or wish to go to Gatineau, it would be frustrating to have to transfer to LRT at Tunneys and then transfer again at Bayview onto the OTrain or Rapibus (more on that! in another post), or at Booth onto a Gatineau-bound bus.

The solution the city proposes is for every third or fourth 95 bus to extend beyond Tunneys along Scott to Bayview and along Albert to Booth, and then turn north and go to Gatineau. Presumably,this may also apply to 97 and some other bus routes. These route extensions would run for as long as the LRT ends at Tunney's and is not extended west (ie 5 - 20 years, possibly forever). We have no word yet on how many buses will be permanently routed on Scott / Albert but we already know intersection widenings will be required/demanded for this at Booth and maybe elsewhere.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (iv): closing the transitway during construction

The new LRT line runs along the existing transitway alignment, with some slight variations. During the construction period of 3-5 years that transitway will have to be closed to buses to permit construction of the new LRT stations and tracks. Where will the buses go?

Earlier plans by the city to move all the transitway buses onto Scott and Albert, starting at Tunney's Pasure, have been abandonned. Thankfully. The additions of 1000 buses per day per direction on Albert and Scott would have horrendous social and environmental impacts.

Instead, the City is proposing to totally rework the bus routes that currently use the transitway. Some will be shifted onto the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway. A temporary bus station along the Parkway at Tunney's is being considered. Other buses will be diverted to the Queensway and Carling Avenue. It is unclear what routes these buses would then take into the downtown core. The Parkway buses for example may take the Parkway/Wellington all the way to the core, or may exit the parkway at Bayview and switch to Albert, which will be unpopular with Dalhousie residents. Of course, many buses will still be diverted onto Scott/Albert  as that route directly parallels the transitway. Planners see an advantage in having commuters see the progress as the new LRT line and stations are being built. We know there will be intersection widenings and new stack lanes at Preston, at Booth, and possibly at Bayview. Will buses on the Qway exit at Rochester to head downtown? Will Carling buses be added to an already congested Bronson (which will be partially closed and rebuilt over the 2011-2012 construction seasons).

Traffic engineers have a thankless task during the construction period. Buses cannot simply be moved onto Scott/Albert, the road cannot handle the volume. So the bus traffic detour "pain" will be shared by a number of neighborhoods. A bus commuters will also suffer as more routes means a lower level of service on each route, and lengthier commutes.

Note that construction of the tunnel itself from a point just east of Booth will not interrupt transitway service much. However, the construction of the LeBreton, Bayview, and Tunney's stations are complex and lengthy. We can expect continued transitway service as far as Booth for the first two years of LRT construction, then the bus commuters will be detoured elsewhere for the final two or three years of construction for the tracks.

More on Bike West - part vii

The story of BikeWest began at the point where the transitway meets Albert-Slater where they split in front of the Good Companions centre just west of Bronson. It began there because the block between the split and Bronson used converted bus lanes which won't be required once the downtown LRT is built and BRT is suspended. For all points west of the Albert-Slater split, BikeWest does not use any street lanes but is a separate route all the way west to Dominion Avenue using the City-owned right of way on the north side of Albert and Scott Streets.

Alternative Route through LeBreton Flats

The Albert-Booth intersection will be a major traffic intersection in the future. It must allow for a number of complex and busy turning motions. It is subject to gridlock. Can BikeWest avoid this intersection?

If the BikeWest route detoured slightly north where the current transitway alignment is, it could pick up the new LRT right of way accross the Flats. The new LRT  LeBreton Station will be approximately at the same location as the bus transitway station, but one storey down from Booth Street. The LRT will pass under Booth with a grade separation. As it goes west accross the Flats, the new LRT route will drift south for a straighter approach to Bayview than the transitway now takes.

Alternative grade-separted route for BikeWest closely aligned with the new LRT route accross LeBreton Flats. Click to enlarge to see in more detail.

If BikeWest was built along the side of the LRT, it could also pass under Booth Street, and the eventual Preston extension too. This route would be only a few meters longer than the original alignment along the north curbside of Albert, but would be faster and safer as it would be grade separated. At some point west of Preston it would resume its alginment along Albert and then Scott. It does not matter for now which side of the LRT alignment BikeWest is on, there are attractive elements to either choice.

One side or two side?

The BikeWest project outlined over the previous few days envisions a two-way bike route on the north side of Albert and Scott. Some people may prefer the idea of a wider bike lane - separated physcially from traffic or not - on each side of the street, going with the car traffic. The reason to avoid this approach is apparent from a glimpse at a city map: the north side has fewer intersections (about 12 on the north side)  than the south side (about 36 intersections), plus the south side has numerous driveways and commercial entrances, some of which, like Holland Cross Beer Store and Trailhead, are very busy.  The north side has no driveways or commercial entrances, and is not likely to ever have driveways, since the buildings proposed along Albert will have their driveways from a new road to be built north of Albert, and of course along Scott the north edge of BikeWest would be the depressed transitway right of way.

Costly structures?

The relative scarcity of intersections is one of things that makes BikeWest affordable and usable and safer than on-road lanes. With the perception of increased safety, cycling becomes a more viable attractive option for getting around. Throughout its length, BikeWest requires only one expensive bit of physical structure: at Bayview. Albert Street already uses up all the available bridge over the OTrain tracks. The transitway bridge will be converted to LRT use. However, the LRT planners have identified that it may be necessary to widen the transitway bridge to improve alignment to the proposed Bayview Station hub. With all the contracting to build the north-south and east-west stations, allowing for interchanging passengers and trains, etc it would be a marginal additional cost to either widen the Albert street overpass or to construct a separate overpass for cyclists that would safely take cyclists past this busy interchange and permit cyclists to access transit and the river parkways.

At this point, it is assumed that BikeWest would be closely parallel to Albert Street. If however, the alternative alignment suggested above it taken through the Flats, the bike route might well be on the north side of the LRT station and could cross over the North-South train tracks to arrive in the middle of the proposed urban development on the former Bayview Yards and then pass under the LRT to regain the Scott Street right of way.

That's it. No other structures are required between Bronson and Dominion. If the bike route is extended beyond Dominion, along the LRT if it runs through the Ottawa River parkway/oldCPR alignment, then some underpasses would be required where the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway and the new LRT swing south at Lincoln Fields. Underpasses like the ones at Carleton and NewOrchard Avenues are simple and relatively cheap, or even cheaper if they are simple square box underpasses like the one where the river side bike path goes under the Champlain Bridge at Island Park.

BikeWest - part ii - from Bronson to the transitway

The current transitway carries buses across LeBreton Flats and links them onto Albert Street (westbound) and Slater Street (eastbound) where Albert-Slater split, in front of the Good Companions Centre, located half way between Bronson and Booth Street.

Above: The Albert-Slater split, where the transitway begins/ends, by the Good Companions Centre. Slater, on the right, was originally built expressly for streetcar traffic to access the downtown.

Both Albert and Slater have dedicated bus-only lanes from the split right into the downtown core. These lanes will not be required for buses once the Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel (DOTT) is constructed and the Light Rapid Transit (LRT) service replaces the current bus rapid transit that uses street surfaces.

There are many contending uses for the bus lane space in the downtown core (east of Bronson over to the canal). But for the lanes west of Bronson, both Albert and Slater traverse vacant lands. The City, in its prior southwest LRT project planning, identified the Slater Street lane between the Good Companions and Bronson as unnecessary for traffic, and proposed converting it into a pedestrian sidewalk (currently missing either side of Slater) and additional greenspace merging into the wooded slope up towards St Vincent Hospital. As for Albert west of Bronson, currently four lanes (including the one counterflow lane that eases traffic onto Bronson), the City proposed reducing this road to three lanes once the buses were replaced by the LRT service.

Click to enlarge map. Dotted line shows the new bike route on the right side of each of the streets.

The BikeWest proposal is for a dedicated 3m-wide bike lane to replace the surplus bus-only lanes on these portions of Albert and Slater. There should be a concrete curb separating the car road from the bike road. The bike road could be about eight inches higher than the car road surface, to clearly identify it as separate from the vehicle road. Or it could be separated from the car traffic by a two foot wide curb/boulevard. Then beyond the bike path, there would be another curb and the concrete pedestrian sidewalk eight inches higher than the bike surface. These differing surface elevations and coloured asphalt paving will self-enforce a separation of traffic types.

Above: Slater Street bus lane would become a dedicated, physically-separated eastbound bike road made of coloured asphalt and there would be a separate concrete sidewalk for pedestrians.

This proposed tripartite vehicle road/bike road/pedestrian sidewalk would blend very easily into the existing wooded slope on the side of Slater. It would also coexist wonderfully well with the recently-constructed separate raised pathway that runs along the north side of Albert between Bronson and the transitway.

Above: west bound bus lane on Albert – shown on the far left - would become separated westbound bike route; boulevard and sidewalk would remain on both sides. Click to enlarge photo, and the new raised sidewalk on the far side of the photo (north side of Albert) will be apparent.

Only for the segment of BikeWest that runs from the downtown to the split would there be separated east-bound and west-bound bike lanes; for the rest of BikeWest project from the split to the west end, both directions would be on one paved surface on the north side of Albert. Cyclists would transition from the one way pair to the two-way portion at a signalized crossing where Albert-Slater split.

Here is a satellite photo of the route from Bronson west to the split at the Good Companions where the transitway is shown curving in from the lower left.

From the Albert-Slater split west towards Booth and then other points west, both direction lanes of the BikeWest road would be on the north (LeBreton Flats) side of Albert. This surface would not be reclaimed from the car road surface, but would be entirely new separated-by-curbs route, paved with coloured asphalt, created on the city-owned space along the north side of Albert, roughly where the current multi-purpose path is now. The pedestrian path/sidewalk would be located immediately north of the new BikeWest surface. This right of way is City owned for parts of the route, and might require some space from the NCC as part of the LeBreton Flats development in a few other spaces.

Above: the current ill-designed cyclist-ped path would relocate a few metres to the right as a new pedestrian-only sidewalk, leaving lots of room for a bi-directional BikeWest surface between it and Albert Street.

The first major intersection the BikeWest road faces is when it reaches Booth. This intersection is already a horror. It is scheduled to get worse. In order to be successful, the BikeWest users must have a fairly generous opportunity to safely cross Booth without excessive wait times.

I suggest this could be done by permitting right or left turns off the Albert Street stack lanes onto Booth only when there is a right turn/left turn green arrow. When there is a green light for through traffic on Albert, the bike road would also have a green light. There would be no turning traffic to cross the bike route during the regular green. Thus cyclists would have exactly the same amount of time to proceed through the intersection as would through-traffic motorists, and there would be no turning vehicles crossing WestBike when cyclists have a green light.

This procedure would be employed at all the subsequent major signalized intersections along BikeWest (eg Bayview, Parkdale, Holland, Island Park, Lanark).

Tomorrow: the Booth to Bayview segment

BikeWest – part i - Opportunity Knocks

The BikeWest project is an idea. An idea about how we can move beyond shared bike lanes. About doing something significant and big to promote cycling to work. An idea for a dedicated, separated-from-cars two way bike road capable of moving thousands of people between neighborhoods and to the downtown. At the same time, an idea that is affordable. Achievable in the medium term. An idea that doesn’t monopolize cycling resources or block other projects. A project that builds up Ottawa rather than dividing it.

Ottawa has many cycle paths now, almost all of them provided by the NCC (bless them for that!). Most of the paths are designed for recreational use: they are scenic, winding paths rather than straight origin-destination commuter paths. The City has marked some “bike routes” and “multipurpose paths”, but they are often unsuitable for both commuters and users who feel threatened by pavements shared with motorists. Some of the marked lanes are really beneficial to those comfortable with on-road cycling.

The main impediment to a high volume dedicated bike route are pretty obvious. First, there’s the car-oriented mentality that dominates City Hall and the NCC. Of course, cars currently are the dominant mode of transport. Second is the short-term mentality at City Hall and the preference to do small-area planning and thus miss the longer-term opportunities. As for the NCC, it’s simply not in their mandate. Third, there is the physical problem of finding a route that has land available, is fairly direct, and goes where people want to go.

Fortunately, there is an opportunity for a dedicated bike route where there is space available, all in City ownership, in a direct line to where users want to go, and where a dedicated bike road can be built where already in-advanced-planning-process major capital expenditures are planned over the next decade and a half.

BikeWest is a bikeway from the downtown running due west along Albert Street to Bayview, continuing west along Scott Street to Westboro, and easily extendable to Lincoln Fields and other points west and south. As evident from the map, it’s an amazingly straight line in a built up city.

The population between the River and Carling Avenue, from the downtown to Westboro, is about 80,000 people. All these people live within an easy ride on residential streets that feed into the BikeWest route. This is a tremendous prime potential feeder area to BikeWest. Of course, there are also many hardier cyclists that would come to the route from outside this catchment area

Above: the main route (click to enlarge)

In subsequent entries, I will describe each segment of the BikeWest project.

The next entry will look at the first section, between the end of the Transitway at the Albert-Slater split by the Good Companions centre, and the downtown.

Opportunity is knocking. Will Ottawans let it in?

Coming soon: BikeWest

Starting Sunday or Monday I will deviate a bit from my catch-all blogging and post a multipart series on a project to improve the cycling experience from the downtown to Westboro.

At the end of the series (next Friday?), the entire post will be available, with photos, as a single document, for anyone upon request to my email or to via comments on the blog (be sure to include your email address explicitly stated, it won't show up even to me when you submit comments to the blog).

Bayview re-landscaped

Looking east on Albert as it goes over the OTrain

Boulevard trees, west side of Bayview seen from Scott

Curious curb jogs, seen from Somerset looking north

Field of Trees, between TomBrown Arena and Albert

Sometimes the City makes me very happy. Like when I see the amount of generous landscaping going in along Bayview Avenue between Somerset and Albert/Scott.

For several years the City waterworks people have been burying high pressure water mains in the area. Approx.where the sidewalk is shown in picture 4 & 5 is the route of the pipeline. There was a bare grassy lawn running from Tom Brown arena's bright orange roof over to the intersection of Scott/Bayview/Bayview/Albert (that's right - all four streets at this intersection have different names, possibly a record for Ottawa). The area was used for staging construction supplies and got all chopped up. Now there is topsoil and a host of new trees. My only regret here is that once again the City cannot bear to actually pave the desire lines that pedestrians wear into the grass showing where they really want to go, but the city makes the sidewalk follow the street line as if pedestrians are just slow cars. By next year, the grass will be worn into a few popular walking lines, diagonally over to Albert Street.

At least the sidewalks here are not glued firmly to the curbline, but are set back generously from the curb, with trees planted in the boulevard, as shown in picture 2. I do hope all these trees survive.

It is always difficult to picture the final layout and appearance of the streetscape before it is all put in place. Certainly I have been fooled before by what something looks like in isolation, but makes more sense as more elements are put in place. But looking down the Bayview the curb line from Somerset the jogs do not make much sense. Bayview is wide at Somerset, to allow for three lanes of traffic and to align with Bayswater on the south side of the interesection. As Bayview goes downhill from Somerset, the street narrows to a two lane road. But notice in picture 3 that the road then becomes much wider again where the new pavement starts, and over the next 40m or so goes back to a narrower roadway. The widening cannot be used for parking, as it is a row of townhouse driveways (and the sidewalk in front of them stays depressed, it doesn't roller-coaster every driveway!). I'll keep an eye on this, but it looks bizarre now.

Picture 1 is looking uphill along Albert as it ascends to go over the OTrain tracks. There used to be a lengthy "merge" lane here. When the City help public meetings on these roadwords, they had kept the merge lane in place, and I had a lengthy debate with the engineers as to why they shouldn't have one (it isn't a Qway merge lane, after all!) and that City policy required they remove it. They insisted it stay. Now its gone, and that is good news. I hope some trees appear in the boulevard.

BTW, the sidewalk running up the hill is brand new concrete squares. The City actually took out and replaced all those squares just last year. Maybe second time lucky ...

This wouldn't be my blog if it didn't contain a beef about the City, and here it is. The high pressure water pipe project runs from Bronson to Bayview. The portion from Bronson to Empress is beautifully landscaped with path and trees and pedestrian lighting, even though the area along the path is subject to redevelopment in the near future and Albert Street is to be reconstructed. Then, there is no landscaping from Empress to Preston to City Centre Avenue, and the City refuses to plant trees because it would be only "temporary" until developments come along the street. But these new buildings are not scheduled to come for another 20-plus years! Then, once the pipeline crosses the OTrain, the lush landscaping resumes. Did our neighborhood do something wrong that we can't get trees from Empress to City Centre?

Festival Externalities

Every festival has impacts external to the site it operates on. These get managed in different ways.

Winterlude and the Tulip Festival have numerous events along the canal, abutting neighborhoods like the Golden Triangle and The Glebe. For both these festivals, shuttle buses run along the canal to get crowds to and from the event sites. This distributes parking impacts over a larger area. It also means the City Hall garage and Lansdowne Park parking lots get used.

For Bluesfest, there are no shuttle services, leaving adjacent neighborhoods to suffer from a huge influx of parkers. This is most noticeable in the Dalhousie neighborhood immediately to the south of LeBreton Flats, and Hintonburg to the west. As a resident of Dalhousie, I am astounded at how many people cruise the streets at 8.45 pm expecting to find on-street parking in the first few blocks from Bluesfest, and then expressing their frustration by driving aggressively or parking on the boulevards or paths and right on corners.


The Glebe even gets some its streets temporarily privatized during the festivals, with guards and barriers to control access, keeping out the general public and limiting access to invited guests. There are no similar controls for the neighborhood to the north of Dows Lake, which is Dalhousie again. What's the difference between the north (Dalhousie) side and south (Glebe) side of Carling Avenue? Would it be that houses on the south side sell for $900,000 and up and on the south side for $250,000?

Right after the Bluesfest, there was the Classical Series on LeBreton Flats. Sponsored by the NAC and NCC, the concerts attract smaller crowds than Bluesfest, but they are handled much better, with continuous shuttle bus service from Tunney's Pasture's huge parking lots to the site, via the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway. As a result, the neighborhood was not overrun with parked vehicles. Unfortunately, the City's enforcement of parking regulations during Bluesfest was largely lifted, with the prompt result that parkers once again began taking over the parkland and boulevards and Albert St path with illegal parking that went unticketed.

The Tulip festival and Winterlude get signage at the Carling OTrain station advising patrons OTrain transit access and sidewalks to Dows Lake and Commissioners Park. The Bayview Otrain station remains unconnected to the Ottawa River bike paths just a few hundred feet north of the station, which also offer a fast direct pedestrian route to Bluesfest. There is no signage indicating the way to walk, of course, but OC Transpo employs additional security to prevent people from walking along the transitway to Bluesfest.

Why does the Classical Music series, Winterlude, and Tulip Fest get shuttle buses and Bluesfest doesn't? And it is not the cost of the shuttles, the City already pays for a glorious shuttle service that doesn't operate. I am speaking here of the ridiculous situation whereby OC Transpo supplies extra post-concert buses to handle the exiting crowds. The drivers and vehicles show up around 6pm, gathering in large red herds along old Wellington east of Booth, and at the bus staging area at Bayview. The drivers stand around chatting and having coffee for hours, to make one or two runs at 11pm. I guess they have to paid for an entire shift. Instead of having these drivers stand there, why not run shuttle service from the City Hall garage, from Lansdowne, and from Tunney's, from 6pm to 11.30?

Why do some festivals better control their external parking and crowd access impacts than other festivals? It wouldn't just be the a$$luence of the impacted neighborhoods would it?

Pedestrian Safety? or Harassment?

I heard on the CBC radio this morning that the City is starting a pedestrian safety campaign. I went to the City website. Their advice for pedestrian safety:



Cross at marked crosswalks or traffic lights, not in the middle of the block or between parked cars.
Remove headphones; put away cell phones or other electronic devices when crossing the street. Use your full attention so you’ll be able to see, hear and respond safely to what is happening on the roadway.
Make sure drivers see you before you cross.
Cross when traffic has come to a complete stop.
At a traffic light, cross at the beginning of a green light. Do not cross once the “Don’t Walk” signal begins to flash or once the light has turned yellow. Never cross on a red light.
Watch for traffic turning at intersections or entering and leaving driveways.
Wear bright or light-coloured clothing or reflective strips when walking in dusk or darkness.



Note that there is nothing for motorists to do; it seems pedestrian safety is 100% a pedestrian responsibility. So if you get run over ... you know who's fault it is!

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Being a parent with young kids - now grown up - and a full time pedestrian (I never have owned a car) I think the City's advice absolutely totally STINKS.

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I always trained my children to cross in the middle of the block. It is way way safer. Traffic is generally moving in only two possible directions, at a predictable rate. Midblock, the road is likely the narrowest, either because of parked vehicles or because our fair City widens roads at the intersections and then wants pedestrians to be exposed to the maximum crossing distance!

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And what are motorists doing at intersections? Let me describe the corner a few hundred feet from my house. Vehicles heading north on Preston reach Albert. These vehicles face long red lights while Albert vehicles have long long turn signal greens. Daily commuters know the pattern, so they zoom right-turn through the intersection. While turning right, the drivers' heads are turned 90 degrees left as they approach the intersection, and about 120 degrees back over their left shoulder as they turn through the intersection. See a pedestrian or cyclist on the right side of the road? Ha! dream on!

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And what does the city recommend a pedestrian do in this circumstance? Why "cross when traffic has come to a complete stop". Except it never does stop, vehicles just roll through the right turn continually, based on car movements only. See the skeleton on the corner over there? That's a pedestrian who waited for traffic to stop...

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Years ago the city had big pedestrian crossing signals at some minor intersections: push the button, lights flashed, cars stopped ... pedestrians walked. Except on Preston St a car with Quebec plates ran over a pedestrian and claimed that the orange flashing lights were french for "sidewalk all clear". So the city removed all the flashing signals and replaced them with regular traffic lights. Now, you can push the button and in many cases wait...and wait...and wait...and wait. Some signals, like the ones at Primrose/Bronson, simply wont turn until a car arrives to justify the light turning. I have stood at that corner through 2 red light cycles at Somerset and Gloucester, watching the intersections north and south of Primrose, while my light wont change! And when it does eventually go green, Bronson motorists run the orange and usually the red too, each driver in his or her single-occupancy vehcile looking carefully at the intersection before running the light... they are looking for cars, which might enter the intersection and damage their own car ... but pedestrians, ignore them!

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For further illustration of this common event, recall the big power blackout a few years back in August. I walked home, observing vehicle to vehicle courtesy at almost every intersection where there might have been chaos. But at Bronson/Primrose, Elm/Preston, and the Otrain crossing at Bayview, which are all mainly-pedestrian signals rather than opposing-flows-of-traffic signals, motorists did not slow, did not look, they just zoomed through at full speed. Traffic planners tell me that signals are safer than flashing pedestrian crossings, but my experience is that motorists soon learn which signals are "real" (where another car might hit theirs) and which ones don't count (soft pedestrians are safe to ignore).

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There is one signal that is pedestrian activated that does work instantly.The one at Primrose/Booth. But again, motorists can readily see there is no crossing car traffic, so too many are reluctant to stop, they run the orange or red so they can get 40' ahead and stop in the queue of lined up cars in the grid lock to hell (sorry, gridlock road to Gatineau).

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Preston St is right now being narrowed to two traffic lanes as part of its reconstruction. Prior to 1959 the houses along the street were great family living: with front yards, huge elm and maple trees shading the street, curbside sidewalks. Then the City widened the street, removed all the greenspace, and installed a mini-sidewalk so close to the houses that for most of its length it is under the drip line of the front verandahs and in some places narrowed to less than 3' width because of verandah posts. There never was enough traffic to justify the widening. Now we are spending millions of your water-bill dollars to narrow the street and install streetscaping, a most worthwhile expenditure in my estimation. But, the major intersections such as Carling and Albert, the City is insisting on installing very generous turn radii, which means the pedestrian crossing distance [remember to cross at intersections now, its safer!] is LONGER for a street that has just been narrowed! Why the generous turn radii? Because its "safer" for a 53' tractor trailor to turn. And just where are these tractor trailers coming from? Are they removing comatose civil servants from the cubicle farms at Tunney's Pasture?

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So, to conclude my rant, I do not appreciate the City's pedestrian program to force people to cross the street only at intersections. Indeed, I would love to see the actual legislation that forbids people from crossing the street. In fact, the City's policy is contrary to common sense and their own reports that indicate pedestrian hazards increase with the length of the crossing. And the longest crossings are at intersections, not midblock.
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So, City, spend your money on sidewalks, crosswalks, street narrowings, and not on advertising campaigns to blame the pedestrian.
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And stop the stupid practice of locating bus stops at mid-block, or 100's of feed further and further from those "safe intersections".

Leadman's DOTT meeting May 26th

Leadman's ward bumps up against Somerset Ward where I live, almost on the border of the two, which is why this blog is named West Side Action, since I try to cover events that happen on the west side of the downtown, regardless of fiefdom. Anyhow, I joined the big turnout for her forum Tuesday evening on the DOTT.

Her presentation and meeting themes covered two things: the DOTT in the downtown area, and the first-phase LRT in her ward terminating at Tunneys Pasture. She was accompanied by Renfrew Morrison, a transportation consultant that we recall was Clive Doucet's hired gun for his Carling LRT proposal earlier this spring, and who was Urbandale's hired gun in August 2007 when the developer lobbied to resurrect the southwest LRT.

What follows is not a report of the meeting, but my impressions of what went on. So, it is personal views, interpretation, and not "objective".

Leadman claims that council approved the Albert St routing for the LRT tunnel, including a surface crossing of the canal using the Mackenzie King bridge, with a sharp turn south, ie the current bus route through the downtown. And that the counsultants have gone off and "surprised" her and "shocked her" by examining alternative routes, and eventually recommending the Albert St - Rideau St - Ottawa U route. She claimed to be shocked that they had extended the terminus of the first phase LRT to Tunneys Pasture instead of Bayview, as council had directed.

Both Leadman and Morrison want an underground city in the downtown, connecting the stations with underground malls under office buildings. I wondered why the underground city idea never dies: council killed the plus-16 version of it years ago, and the city's developers have consistently refused to connect together their own malls. Minneapolis discovered you can have a lively plus-16 network or lively streets, but not both, and got the worst of both. I think Ottawa is way too small to support two lively streetscapes, or three, if plus-16 walkways are brought back in. Please "bury" this fantasy. And recover more of the surface from autodomination.

Morrison surprised me by claiming that 180m stations, capable of handling six car LRTs or future conversion to subway trains, would never ever be required in Ottawa, not in 100 years. I am in part puzzled by this because so many of the other blogsphere critics of the DOTT claim the system will not be able to handle the traffic proposed. Is the system undersized or oversized, on the short term or the long term?

I go to the DOTT meetings held about every two months as member of the public advisory council. The give the same presentation earlier that day to the business advisory council. And I thought they gave it to council members. But both Leadman and Morrison continually surprised me by their poor grasp of what I thought were well-covered items.

For example, Morrison chided the DOTT team for failing to include a spur at Rideau to extend the LRT east (along Rideau, or north to Gatineau), in fact, this has been frequently mentioned by the consultants.

More bizarrely, Leadman claims that by ending the first phase LRT at Tunneys, it forever "precludes any great circle line through Gatineau" (using the POW bridge) and will "eliminate potential for cross river transit forever". I guess this eliminates any potential for a n/s LRT line along the O-Train route too, but elsewhere in the meeting Leadman seemed to support that route, and the Carling LRT, even with the LRT going to Tunney's.

Well, maybe not to Tunneys. Her position alternated all night on that. Certainly building a major transfer station at Tunneys will be disruptive. But it will be very useful for the residential community, local bus transfers to the LRT, and Tunneys employees in the future, during the first phase LRT AND once the LRT is extended westward. Some citizens at the mike expressed appreciation for improved LRT service. It is not a "throwaway cost". It is, of course, perfectly fine to build a major transfer station at Bayview, in the neighboring ward, and she expressed no concern about throw away costs there. So does she favor ending the LRT at Bayview, or continuing to Tunneys? And in future phases, should it continue west past Tunneys? The answers varied all night.

Similar confusion prevailed on the use of Scott and Albert for BRT service. Recall that during conversion of the transitway to LRT service (at least two years) all the buses that use the transitway from Tunney's to the downtown will have to move off the transitway onto Scott and then onto Albert. This will certainly be very negative for adjacent residents, and I too question how the roads can handle all the buses. Staff suggests that the two curbside lanes will be bus only lanes, but I still see congestion hell.

Then, once the LRT is running, in theory most of these buses can be stopped at Tunney's and riders transfer to the LRT if going to the downtown, and for those going to Bayview or LeBreton, every third 95 would provide this service. However, Leadman and many citizen speakers derrided putting buses on Scott, derrided transfers at tunneys, and derrided evil-Kanata residents who want one-bus service from Kanata to downtown. Well, if they dont want transfers at Tunney's, they'll have decades of buses on Scott until the LRT is extended to Lincoln Fields and transfers are forced there. At some point you cannot please everyone, tradeoffs are necessary. There are hard choices here, and more leadership and consistency is required than was evident last night.

There was consistency though, in several aspects: Tunneys transfer station: bad; buses on Scott street: bad; LRT to Tunneys: good; no: bad; Kanata riders shouldnt be worried about making transfers at nice indoor stations; local riders wont stand for forced transfers; put the transfer station at Bayview, the city owns all the land around it (points to PPT slide that highlights land that is in fact owned by other parties like Phoenix DCR who have applied to build a condo on the land); its dumb to put LRT on the Ottawa River Parkway; the solution is to run all the buses on the parkway all the way to the downtown and not along Scott; look at the big picture, plan for the future and the whole city, but make decisions based on short-term local impacts. The tunnel selection should be based on city-building criteria, but give us the costs of each option first (so we can choose the cheapest?)

And the STO buses ... Leadman claimed the study ignores the STO buses on Ottawa's downtown streets, and claimed that there are more STO buses than Ottawa buses downtown. In fact, the DOTT projections always have counted all the STO users as being DOTT tunnel users, which gives some hint about the future of STO surface buses in the downtown, and some hint about the direction of the interprovincial transit study.

The audience asked many intelligent questions, and some whoppers. Members clearly disagreed as to whether transfers were good or bad, generally it seems Kanata residents should be prepared to transfer but local riders should not. The Byron right of way is useless for LRT, claimed a speaker, because it goes no where (gee, and I thought it ended so close to Lincoln Fields...). The LRT should run along Carling because there could be many stops serving local businesses and institutions (but no mention of why Kanata commuters would want such a milk run service). Use Byron, on the surface, no, put it underground. Leave the parkway only for cars, remove the buses, dont put LRT on it. No, keep the buses on the parkway. Even extend them all the way to the downtown on the parkway. A number of people spoke to the idea that the current transit planning too oriented to long-haul commuters at the expense of local transit (I agree heartily, but we still gotta deal with the folks in Barrhaven and Kanata). Keep the buses off Scott (cheers !) (how? by putting them on Albert, but hey, that's not our ward, it's someone else's problem).

Oh, that Bayview station, great place to put it, its in a field surrounded by no one. As for the Blair terminus, its stupid, its out in the middle of nowhere with vacant space around it, move it into a built up area. Morrison: London transit cited as doing great innovative tunneling work using the Austrian mine technqiue, and we are not considering it. He ignores that the tunnel-boring consultants for DOTT are from London Transport. Dont build the DOTT near the Langevin Block ... running it under the War Memorial would make a "nice" terrorist target ... but not to worry about running it along or under DND ...

Conspiracy theories abound, and are some of the reasons why going to public meetings can be so much fun. Did you know the LRT is intended for the Ottawa River parkway because they want to rezone it all for condos? That Hintonburg is always "targetted" because its poor? (I nod my head at that one ...) That it should be run on Byron so locals can use the LRT, but not on Byron because it is no longer a right of way but a park? That the urban core is the victim of suburban dominated council? (allright, I've gotta agree with that one too). Or that city staff is so incompetant that they continually bamboozle councilors and go off on their own tangents regardless of council direction and staff is secretly running everything ...

In summary, there were a number of valid concerns raised, in particular how well the DOTT will work at the great depth proposed; and how buses will be handled during construction and between phase and phase two. Yet if we are to focus on the big picture, the city-building one, we cannot continually nitpik on local impacts. The transit system has to serve a variety of needs and users, and cannot exclude the long haul, short haul, peak or off-peak users.

Leadman was listening, and giving people a chance to vent, and that is admirable. But she made no effort to reconcile her own mutually-conflicting options, and offered little leadership. I would have preferred her to have expressed some preferences for moving the system forward instead of just agreeing with every expressed concern. I think it is a leader's role to also temper public opinion, to acknowledge that with change comes disruption as well as opportunity. There will be some pain along with the gain. She could also try to reactivate the Carling-Bayview CDP so that vulnerable chunks of the neighborhood are prepared for change as the LRT is built out. She could also attend some more of the DOTT briefings (or send her staff, or get more community association people attending) because the significant factual gaps and misunderstandings undermine the quality of decisions and leadership we expect.

Urban Planning Nostalgia

Over at the blog The Ottawa Project is a story of visiting Lorne Ave and the not-unreasonable assumption that what is visible on Lorne represents that which was demolished on the Flats in the early 1960's.

I think that overview is overly sympathetic to the demolished areas. I do not wish to take the view that it was right to demolish whole neighborhoods/built up areas in favor of total rebuilding, which was the big government view of urban renewal then (note to today's amateur city rebuilders and commentators who too often wish for bigger govt action - be careful of what you wish for ... ).

The Flats was a mixed use neighborhood. There were grotty warehouses and rail tracks and SLUMS there as well as some nice houses. We dont do ourselves a favor by sugar coating or idealizing the old neighborhood. Granville Island or Old Montreal or old Halifax represent the effects of millions of dollars of disneyfication and not the normal evolution of old mixed use neighborhoods. Sometimes cheap housing is just that - it serves a purpose and then should be demolished and replaced by something better. As successful as Granville Island is, Vancouver is busy demolishing old stock in the adjcent neighborhoods for redevelopment from scratch. And who in Ottawa is clamoring to declare Hintonburg or Mechanicsville historic districts with every building preserved from demolition? If not Mechanicsville, then why LeBreton?

It is just plain wrong to assume that Lorne avenue represents what was built and demolished on the Flats. The NCC demolition targetted the polluted lands, the obsolete industrial uses and the structurally impaired housing. Their demolition continued south only as far as the worst structures went ... for eg they went half way up Booth and stopped at Primrose but left the houses backing onto these from Lorne because the Lorne houses were structurally sound (and when I moved here 30 plus years ago, certainly not nice nor trendy). Similarly, only some units were demolished on Rochester, Preston, Primrose ... leaving a gap-toothed landscape. But it was the bad-condition houses that were demolished and the good ones were left in place. Once a high percentage of the area is demolished, there were no doubt some structurally sound and maybe even attractive structures demolished simply because they were isolated in a non-functionable landscape.

Fortunately, the era of widespread urban demolition is past. Or is it? Will the Carling-Bayview CDP, which Councillor Holmes has agreed to try to resurrect, aim to preserve the old industrial buildings and every old house? Or will we view this area as a brownfields to be majorly redeveloped with townhouses and apartments and new park space?

Phase one of Lebreton flats in 1980 built new housing around some of the survivors and this makes a fortunate transition zone from new townhouses to old community. Note that it was the city/government that built the remarkably ugly and ill-suited townhouses at the Albert St end of Lorne Ave that blight that otherwise admirable streetscape.

In short, many of the houses on the Flats were demolished because they were substandard, slums, or structurally compromised. Certainly today, we MIGHT spend vast sums of public money to "save" and reposition such a neighborhood. Look at neighborhoods that were better than the Flats that were left alone - like Hintonburg, Mechanicsville, etc - which evolved to what they are today, with a lot of infill development of mixed quality and scale.

I dont think we should idealize the past and be nostalgic for a quality residential neighborhood that exists more in our imaginations than reality. Eddy McCabe wrote a lot about what it was like to grow up in that neighborhood, and it was anything but wonderful.