Light shining on St Anthony

St Anthony school on Booth Street is getting some new windows. The new pattern, shown in the photo below, looks more in keeping with the architecture of the school than the old windows coming out.

Framed on Booth Street

Steel framework goes up for the Z6 condo on Booth at the corner of Balsam (near Gladstone). Steel frame construction is lots of fun to watch because the progress is so fast and its "toylike" - shades of Meccano or plastic girder sets!

Goodbye Desjardin's IGA/Loeb

The former Desjardins IGA / Loeb store on Booth Street at Eccles has been closed for several years. Demolition is now underway, making way for the new Cornerstone housing project, a four storey 40 unit apartment residence.

The new Cornerstone residence, coupled with the now-under-construction Z6 condo building (16 of 26 units sold) will give a modern new face to tired Booth Street. Both buildings have traditional brick exteriors with modern design touches.

The last large remaining eyesore on the street is the blighted zone known as Cousin Eddey's garage/ Chado's auto repair. The only saving grace there is that it is a large lot, which will make some developer happy some day.

Laying the foundations for Z6 Condo on Booth St

Foundation forming boards still in racks as delivered into the hole by crane. Note the footings are in place around the perimeter, and part of the back concrete wall forms and re-bars have been put in place.

west side

The building will have a round corner facing the Balsam/Booth intersection.

The square elevator base has been poured, with rebar in place to support the elevator shaft walls.

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.

Cornerstone Project launched

the Cornerstone women's housing apartment building (42units) will be built at the corner of Booth and Eccles, on the site of the former Desjardins/IGA/Loeb grocery store

Diane Holmes, Royal Galipeau, Jim Watson, Sue Garvey, and Yasir Naqvi

Sue Garvey speaks to the large turnout that came to launch the project

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.

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.

New Residential Building, Booth near Somerset

Shown is a interim elevation of the new senior's residence building proposed for the corner of Booth and Eccles Street, just south of Chinatown's main drag: Somerset Street. It has 42 residences, common facilities, a brick and well-detailed exterior finish. It complements the Somerset West Community Health Centre across the street. It should give a real boost to the appearance of Booth Street and the Dalhousie neighborhood as a whole. Anthony Leaning is the architect. Construction beings in 2010 for completion in 2011.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (iii): Albert Street widening planned

tailback of cars on Booth going to Gatineau, evening rush hour at 3pm

tailback of cars extends back to Gladstone, every single vehicle had only one person in it

The intersection of Booth / Albert fails for several hours a day. Mostly this is due to our city policies of catering to single occupancy vehicles. Drive them by the thousands,  and we will widen the roads for you! Right now the "tailback" or long queue of vehicles trying to get onto Booth to go to Gatineau extends back to Preston on the west (often blocking that intersection) and back to Empress or even Bronson on the east. On Booth south of Albert, in the heart of a residential neighborhood cruelly sacrificed by the city traffic engineers at the altar of car supremacy , cars stack up in a line that always goes back as far as Somerset and sometimes back as far as Gladstone.

Right now there is one turn lane for cars to stack up in. The left turn lane from Albert eastbound is constrained in length by the need to have a turn lane onto Preston. The City proposes to "ease" the situation by constructing a double turn lane on Albert. One lane will be the same length as the current stack lane, the other will likely be the entire block from Preston to Booth. The planners justify this construction as being necessary to move the bus traffic through the intersection once the existing transitway is closed. However, the additional stack lanes will be permanent, not temporary, and there is no word of making a stack lane specifically for buses. Instead cars will clog up the lane and transit users will be able to proceed only as fast as the slowest single-occupancy motorist.

This proposal strikes me as ill-thought-out. We cannot continue paving over valuable downtown development land for such low value uses. The stack lanes are justified as being for transit, but offer transit no special advantages. The widened Albert Street will simply deliver more cars to an already failing intersection at Booth / Albert. This part of the LRT plans definately needs a rethink based on principles of traffic demand managment (instead of coping with cars, figure out a better way to move people through the area / intersection).

While details are not available, the decision to build the Preston Extension will likely require the construction of  right and left turn lanes on Albert on both sides of Preston. Why do ostentiously transit-oriented projects result in so much road engorgement for commuters? The future Albert is looking a lot less like a city street and more like a mini-freeway.

Note to critics of LRT costs: the construction costs of the new Preston Extension and Booth / Albert intersections and Booth overpass over the transitway, primarily of benefit to single occupancy cars, will be billed to the LRT project rather than having some apportioned to the general transportation budget. Transit users and tax payers get hosed once again, car users get more hidden subsidies.

Z6 Condo construction continues

The Z6 residential four-floor condo is underway on Booth Street at Balsam, albeit very slowly. The foundation has been excavated for a single-floor underground parking garage. The square pool is probably the elevator pit.

It is interesting how often it is the toilet that is installed first. Occupancy (for the condos) is anticipated for 2010.

Booth Street Infill

This building is located on Booth Street just north of the Queensway. It has been underway for several years, with long pauses in construction. The exterior walls are made of foam blocks that are stacked up and then filled with poured concrete to be load bearing, insulated both sides.

It appears to be three units: a three storey unit facing the side street w/ garage; a three storey unit facing Booth, w/garage; and a stair down to a half-basement unit that runs under both of the upper units.

The exterior parging / stucco is almost complete. A bit of roof flashing has blown loose on the top front vertical wall over the "porch". The bit of sloped roof bothers me a bit, since it has an overhang that is not evidenced elsewhere.

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.

New plans on Booth Street

Shown is the old Desjardins IGA/Loeb Booth Street, located just a few metres south of where Booth crosses Somerset.
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The building has been vacant for several years. Attempts to find a new grocer have failed. A government funded study on installing a food coop floundered. The building has a typical industrial facade, but behind the facade I hear there are several old houses joined together. The result is uneven and shifting floors bridging stone foundations.
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Thirty years ago Desjardins had the current Loblaws marketing plan in place. There were grocieries, and furniture, a hardware aisle, and upstairs a baby furniture department (remember when this Dalhousie neighborhood had kids? they are pretty scarce now...).
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While the "for sale" signs are posted outside, I hear that it will shortly be demolished to permit the construction of a 40 unit apartment building for seniors. This is good news. It removes one of the uglier underused parts of the street and replaces it with something new and vital.
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The Z6 condo building now under construction a few blocks south will add a jolt of fashion and style to the streetscape. Now, if only Domicile or someone would replace Chado's/Cousin Eddey's garage, the biggest eyesore of all, just a few blocks further south, then Booth could resume its role as a respectable street in our Dalhousie neighborhood.

Eyesore for sale

I am all in favour of mixed use neighborhoods. The success of mixed use depends on compatible uses and neighborly spirit. Unfortunately, our neighborhood has several examples of ill-fitting or incompatible land uses.

In the past, I have high lighted the blight of Cousin Eddy's and Chado's body shops on Booth Street. As a result of complaints by myself and other members of the Dalhousie Community Assoc the clutter of signage was reduced, garbage, old tires etc was picked up. However, the mysteriously absent trees from the side boulevard remain unreplaced.

A blog reader (Thank you !) has alerted me to the fact that these properties are for sale for a redvelopment site.http://www.ottawarealestatenews.ca/357BoothStreet08January2009.pdf . Perhaps the construction (now begun) of the Z6 condo will encourage other developers to look closer at Booth St. A nice infill here could totally rejuvenate the streetscape.

A a slightly pessimistic note, the real estate listing is from January, so buyers dont appear to have been beating down the doors.

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?

NCC vs City Maintenance Practices

city aquaduct

city aquaduct

NCC maintenance

The NCC landscaped the area along the bike path behind the new War Museum and east of Booth Street, shown in photo 3. Along the riverside chain link fence the NCC planted rose bushes and other shrubs, then applied mulch. Mulch does not stop all weed growth. The picture shows little piles of weeds and grass pulled out by NCC contractors. They picked them up just after I took the picture. By removing the weeds, the rose bushes will have more chance to grow stronger and bigger and choke out future weeds. And of course it just plain looks better.

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Compare the NCC maintenance to the City's maintenance of the rose bush plantings and other shrubs along the City-owned aquaduct that runs through LeBreton Flats, shown in the first two photos. The landscaping looks similar to the river edge, as both were designed and installed by the NCC. However, the aquaduct plantings were transferred to the City. I cannot recall ever seeing any maintenance activities along the aquaduct. The result is a weedy, overgrown slope. The desired roses, lillies, and other shrubs struggle to survive. It desperately needs some TLC, but will the City give it?

Recession Over ?

New housing starts is a good leading indicator of economic confidence. Builders must get their product started a year or more before it is to be occupied.

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Three new residential projects have begun in the west side area. The top picture shows the excavation for the second tower of Claridge's project on LeBreton Flats. If you look closely, you can see the base for the high crane has been installed on the right side of the hole, near Fleet Street which leads to Pooley's Bridge and the downtown.

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Picture 2 shows the demolition of two older housing units on Preston Street. They will be replaced by a new three storey building (2 floors of residential above commercial). The advertisement and elevation for the project was shown in an earlier blog. I really like this project, its scale is perfect for the street, and it more than meets the main street zoning and planning guidelines for at least 50% of the total floor area being residential above the commercial area.

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The last picture shows the first bit of hole digging for the Z6 condo building on Booth Street at Balsam, near St Anthony School. The four storey condo has one commercial space on ground floor; the project is 60% sold.

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".

Booth Street update

double click to enlarge picture

A few weeks ago, this blog featured Cousin Edy Garage and Chados Auto Body as the ugliest, messiest businesses in the neighborhood.

As I went by today, the old tires left on the boulevard are gone, the garbage picked up, and as shown in the picture, several unhappy people removing some of the sign clutter.

If they mow the lawn ... and the mysteriously disappeared trees replaced ... the place will once again be an acceptable neighbor, at least until someone redevelops the lot for condos!