Eskimo roll

The picture above is the outlet below the water pumphouse on the aqueduct that runs through LeBreton Flats. The ped bridge is at the top, the beginning of the kayaking course is at the bottom. The water course is variously known as the Tailrace, or Bronson Creek (until the last decade the creek was actually the private property of the Bronson Corporation).

There are three signs in the area. Notice one in the lower centre left of the picture above. Here's a closer up:

It says:
Combined Sewer Overflow Area
Adverse Water Quality Can Occur

I think that is bureaucratic speech (note the lack of a noun, as in who might be responsible for the overflow or adverse quality) for:
Watch Out - Big Sewer Dump Right Here!

I wonder if any of the kayakers feel like doing an Eskimo Roll now??

Twilight on the Aquaduct and the ... come out to play

A number of earlier posts show damage caused to large trees in the LeBreton Flats area. The Dalhousie neighborhood hosts a surprising number of animals and birds.

These two twilights shots show the local vampires, err, beaver out to prey on unsuspecting urbanites. In the photo with a fine stone-arch bridge in the background, the beaver can be jut seen in the right foreground. Click picture to enlarge. The second picture shows him up close ... he was about 20 feet away from me and curious about the flash on my camera. After several shots, he dove leaving only a trail of bubbles.

Why Not Ask First? We May Have Other Plans!

There's a lot of hoopla in the mainstream media these days with everybody and their brother popping up with new plans for Lansdowne Park.

The alternative plans tend to share some elements in common:

The Glebe will get a big grassy and treed park. Someone else's money will restore some older, architecturally significant buildings into marvellous wonders for the local neighborhood. Locals will wander in on bicycles and by foot to buy directly from the friendly farmer locally-grown no-downside produce. After that they can linger by Venetian canals sipping coffee from organically grown (in the shade) responsibility harvested 100 mile coffee beans, while the breeze waffles in the gentle strains of the NAC orchestra playing in the park. Tourists come (by transit, of course, or maybe electric vaporettos or bixi bikes) to wander, mouths agape, at the wonder that is the heart of The Glebe. The vital canal side sidewalks are enlived by the thousands of residents who live in the park ... except for the plans that insist no one may live in the park, unless maybe they are renters.

Gone will be the football stadium, soccer stadium, and outdoor concert venue. Where did they go? Over to Bayview, of course. Nothing attracts amateur planners like a big "empty" lot.

What happens to the plans already in place for that neighborhood? What happened to their plans for lively cafes along an historic aquaduct? Fun riverside walks? Vital mixed income condo developments? Ethnic shopping nirvana?

Gone. Replaced by a giant stadium or stadii, deafened by outdoor concerts, swarmed by hodes or car parkers (not everyone will arrive and depart by magically silent bullfrog-powered transit). For most days and evenings, the stadium areas will be vacant wideswept voids, interrupted by tractor trailer bays and large parking structures (pressed into cost-recovery use as park and ride facilities to encourage car commuters to drive to the edge of the downtown core and take free transit...).

Oh, think maybe the locals might prefer the "other plans" already developed and approved by Council and subject to subdivision agreements and into which millions of tax dollars in infrastructure development and land remediation have already been poured? Well, here, toss them a library building, now that's an intellectual+jock=happy formula. Nevermind that the City already has a new library on track, approved land purchase, and has a library board and ward councillor opposed to moving to Bayview, well they can be changed, just a triffling issue.

Too much of the Lansdowne Park dreaming seems hinged on dreams of the Glebe getting a urban area high-culture park to foster their Florida-inspired nirvana while fobbing off the noisy and troublesome stuff to another neighborhood, without bothering to ask if the recipients of all this largesse want it.

Just for the record, I am not totally opposed to the idea of a utopian-dream stadium at Bayview, but I am sure concerned about what sort of stadium the neighborhood would actually end up with.

Contrary results ...

NCC path (foreground); City path beyond


what will the yellow line do?



There must be a law or maxim somewhere that the more planning is done, the more expensive the administration, the worse the results.
-

A few blogs ago I lamented the apparent mismatch between the NCC section of the bikepath from new Wellington that goes south along the aquaduct behind the new Claridge condo at 200 Lett Street in LeBreton Flats.
-

I still cannot believe that despite all the planners, all the coordination, the high city taxes ... that the City-spec'd path is two feet narrower than the NCC path it continues.
-

I remain curious as to what the yellow line will do ... jog to the centre of the city section? continue straight on leaving one lane wider than the other? Or maybe the city won't have a yellow line, because their path isn't a bike path, its a pedestrian only path?

Edit: 25 August 2009: as noted in the comments, it is an illusion that the NCC path is wider than the City path. Both measure the same with a tape measure at several points along the paths. However, there is a side path joining the NCC path just a few feet north of the switchover to City path, and the problem lies at the junction. Basically, the NCC contractor did not build a proper radius or curve on the side path and it joins the NCC path rather sloppily, leaving only the few feet from the where the paths join to the joint with the City path being too wide by about a foot. The correct solution is to trim the NCC path back for about 10' on its radius so it blends into the main path better. So, the City and NCC are coordinating their paths correctly. Whew.
-Eric Darwin

How Wide is a Bike Path ?

in May, NCC path is laid, looking south from Wellington


in August, Claridge lays path behind 200 Lett St condo

Now Claridge may not be the fastest developer in town, but he is finally implementing the landscaping around the 200 Lett Street yellow-brick condo tower on LeBreton Flats. The path behind the condo, along the tailrace/aquaduct, is being laid and connected to the NCC path. The path is laid to City of Ottawa standards, as spec'd to Claridge in the subdivision agreement.

Look at the not-yet-paved gravel path in picture two, which extends the NCC path. Notice that the new path is at least one foot, maybe two feet, narrower than the NCC path. Yup, the NCC apparently builds its paths to a more generous standard than the City, and the two bodies can't quite coordinate when they build different sections of the same path...

Unless ... the NCC built a multipurpose path, which most of us (in)correctly call bike paths, and the city is planning a pedestrian only path ... it wouldn't surprise me if the two layers of government are that far out of sync ... after all, when the City built the path along the north side of Albert from Bronson to Bayview, they paved it a foot or so narrower than their 'official' bike/multipurpose paths, so they won't paint a yellow line down the middle, and have threatened to put "walk your bike" signs on the path. All this, even when they were advised by a number of parties even before the gravel roadbed was put down, that it was too narrow, but apparently four months notice before the asphalt was too late for the city to fix it, so cyclists and pedestrians are stuck with a nebulous "what is it" path that looks like a bike path but maybe is and maybe isn't... when the asphalt goes down on the path along the tailrace, I'll measure it and the NCC path and compare.

Landscaping resumes at Claridge's Condo

I figured that Claridge might never landscape its project on LeBreton Flats. But in the last few weeks, a lot has happened. Sod appeared on the west side of Lett Street (right side of picture 2) in front of the Beirut-style bomb crater. And on Friday, some rather large trees appeared in the front lawn of the building, along the sidewalk. Compare the size of the new trees to the ones planted a few months ago along the north side of the building, shown on the left in picture 2.

_

Picture 1 is of the rear yard, or courtyard between the current building and next phase just starting. Landscapers have been installing decorative paving designed to turn a plain lawn into a sort of sculpture. Three large trees have been planted too. All the area in picture 1 is on the roof of the parking structure. I have not been able to see if they have started the green roof on the seventh floor planters.

_

The building has no name, but this week it sprouted a number: 200 Lett Street. Lett is still a private street, as is Fleet, both of which will be assumed by the City as public streets when the development conditions are fully met.

_

Behind the building, red-tiped stakes mark out the continuation of the short NCC bike path that will someday run along the tailrace / aquaduct.

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.

-

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?

Bikepath to No-where

The NCC has been landscaping the area north of the Claridge condo building on LeBreton Flats since mid-winter. Earlier posts on this blog showed the winter landscaping and very early spring planting of trees and shrubs. Eventually, the Fallen Firefighters Monument will be constructed on the grassy area.

The contractor (same one as is doing Plouffe Park) has now paved the bike path from Wellington Street north along the west side of the tailrace. A side branch cuts off to the west to join Lett Street beside the condo. But the path goes nowhere, as Claridge hasn't yet landscaped the area between the condo building and the tailrace. The NCC has also seeded the area with grass seed. Light standards are not yet installed. The entire length of the new bike path is shown in the picture above.

This first bit of path bodes well for the future bike and pedestrian pathway that is supposed to eventually continue from here to the end of Pooley's Bridge (ridiculously still closed after an expensive renovation as a essential pedestrian and cycling link) and then west along the aquaduct to Booth and eventually the Ottawa River Parkway where it begins at Vimy Street.

While the plan is good, it will be even better if the path also continues west to service Bayview Station and then eventually joins the Scott St path going to Westboro. But all the investment in the current path sections will be nearly useless if the NCC and City persist in building the path one building lot at a time, with the complete path being usable only when all the Flats are built out in thirty years time. When will we get those nifty aquaduct-side cafes featured on the NCC website?

Kudos to the NCC for building the path, and the quality of the landscaping. Thumbs down on the glacial build-out timeline.

Bureaucrats are not Marketeers

aquaduct east of Booth

Beirut Flats

When Urbandale or Minto or one of the large reputable developers begins to build out a new suburban neighborhood there is usually some park amenities available with the first phase of the project. Then each year the parkland is further developed as more houses are built. These builders do not say "this is a twenty year buildout, we will do the public landscaping when the construction is all finished..." Developers realize that to entice residents there have to be amenities from day one, with tangible promise of more amenities to come.

Contrast that with the bureaucrats at the City and NCC on LeBreton Flats.There are unsold condos in the first building. It must be difficult for Claridge to sell $400-700,000? condos in a 'luxury' building when the foreground is of ... mine tailings? Beirut before reconstruction? And Beirut was reconstructed faster than the Flats is being built out so buyers will view the open excavations shown above for years if not decades, as there are no immediate plans to develop the twin office towers called for in the subdivision plan.

There is a long-term conceptual plan for building out bike paths and parkland around the development, but each little bit is to be built as the adjacent building is constructed. Did no one ask what use a bike path is if it goes nowhere for 30 years? The pedestrian/cycling Pooley's Bridge, reconstructed at great expense and opened with much political grandstanding before the cameras, remains closed to this day, a bridge to nowhere, unconnected to the paved roads and nearby bike paths because the adjacent lots haven't been built out yet (and there is no schedule for the build out either). NCC concept plans for the project show commercial space in the base of apartment buildings, with cafes along the aquaduct. None of this commercial space will be leasable if the paths are not there, if there is no traffic, no street level vitality.

The aquaduct through the centre of the Flats is to be the spine of a parkland corridor through the Flats, with adjacent pedestrian and cycling paths, leading to a larger park around the inlet pond at the west. The NCC reconstructed and restored the aquaduct years ago, its intended landscaping is nice. But once the politicians unveiled the plaque commemorating the event, the City hasn't been back. Photo 1 above shows typical conditions along the canal: tall weedy grass and shrubs choking out the lilly beds and rose beds. Dead trees have not been replaced. The zone between the bike path and canal wasn't mowed all last year, and the garbage left there after Bluesfest remains to this day.

There have been some landscaping efforts in the area: the tailrace was expensively redone by the City water dept. to reduce the danger of landslides in the ravine (!); the NCC has started landscaping the vacant lot north of the new condos (with bike paths that don't quite connect to any of the other paths or roads in the project); and of course the initial phase of LeBreton park was built as part of the War Museum project. But the spaces in between ... rubble and garbage strewn pits ... segments of abandonned bike paths ...

WWMD? [what would Minto do]: I suspect they'd make sure the designated parkland areas are mowed so they look green and inviting. Bike paths would be connected in areas where construction is not imminent. Trees would be planted now so that parkland is even more enticing when later phases of housing is built (and would thus yield better returns).

If the City and NCC would cooperate on the basic parkland plan exercise, then a few trees could be planted every year, paths laid out and eventually paved. Then in 2020 or 2030 when residents move in they would be attracted by green parkland and mature treed areas. I fear these future residents will only find promises of parkland, pictures of pathway cafes, and the occasional toy tree.

Tailrace Kayaking

The Tailrace, aka Bronson Creek, flows out of the Fleet Street Pumping Station at the eastern end of LeBreton Flats. Bronson Creek was until a few years ago the private property of The Bronson Corporation.

It is used as a whitewater kayaking course. The kayakers have already been out this season. On Wednesday, a member of the club was adjusting the gates the kayakers pass through.

The kayak course is another hidden gem in the West Side area, and well worth putting it on your evening stroll, dogwalk, or cycling route.

Beaver Tales

Last year I frequently spotted one of our beloved national symbols, a beaver, in the Aquaduct that runs through LeBreton Flats.

He has been hungry. One of the few remaining trees that survived "soil remediation" has become lunch. Unless ... Mr Beaver is planning a lodge in the aquaduct.

I bet he gets his lodge finished before Claridge finishes anything it is building.