cycling evidence

We all see cycling porn shots of Holland and other European countries. A favorite is to show a gizillion bikes parked outside a train station or on a central square.

This Ottawa picture is taken up close, so the whole thing is filled with a sea of parked bikes. Alas, the sea does not continue out of the frame, this is all there were. It's a exposure of cycles, but really our bounty is modest.

Next time I get into the Constitution Square garage, I will take a picture of the ever-increasing size of the popular indoor cycle parking garage there. It's a well-endowed cycle parking lot.

I suspect people from a very poor country are impressed by our large parking lots full of cars at big box malls. Certainly car aquisition rates high on newcomers' priority lists. But for jaded Canadians, large parking lots are not something to celebrate, but to lament.

Last time I was in Den Hague in Holland I felt rather repulsed by the sea of cycles parked outside. It was out of control, a mess of bikes. In some European cities, the shear mass of parked and abandoned bikes becomes an eyesore, a trip hazard, visual clutter ... rather like our car parking lots. We have to be careful what we wish for.

Boys Toys

It's a bird ... a plane ... a dragonfly ...

It's Heli-Go, the photographer disguised as a helicopter. Remote controlled, it was taking pictures from above the new Domicile condo site at the corner of Holland and West Wellington. Inside the operators van was a huge flatscreen TV so the operator could see what pictures he was getting, real time.

The operator with the plastic nose cone taken off. The camera is suspended below the skids, and could be rotated and angled via remote control. When flying, the legs and foam base of the copter retract up and horizontal to the 'copter, to clear the way for the camera angles. It was equiped with a digital still camera today, sending its wireless camera images to the ground control TV, but there are also movie cameras that he can attach, for filming aerial movie scenes and promo videos.

Rich Trend

I spotted this school bus in the municipal parking lot along Preston. Its cargo was walking en masse across Preston to attend a yoga studio.

It says ... something ... that the denizens of affluent Rockcliffe Park and the city's elite private academy are migrating to Preston Street. Not long ago, aspirations ran the other way. Amazing what wider sidewalks will do.

Flower Power

The Dalhousie Community Assoc. installed and maintains the garden in front of the Dalhousie Community Centre (shown in the background) on Somerset street (thanks to Ida the gardener!)

There is a constant stream of people passing the garden who pause to admire it. It brings a smile to so many people. Flower power builds communities.

When the photographer turned around, she saw me taking a picture of her taking a picture. When I turned, I saw her friends taking a picture of me taking a picture of her. This is what we saw:

The tulip festival in Ottawa starts today.

Mack sees Bell

This particular cement truck is often to be found on Preston Street. Mr Simpson on the front grill makes the truck distinctive. When walking on West Wellie near Holland, I met him there too. Busy man.

He is going to continue to be a familiar sight on Preston near Primrose. Bell has decided that since the street has been reconstructed, the sidewalks put in place, the landscaping done ... they are now going to dig up the above intersection and put in an underground vault or chamber. Not content with digging up the corner for three weeks, they are then going to dig up another block of Preston to run new underground cables ducts to Elm Street.

It's enough to make one cry. Except that my shares in Bell went up in value. It's hard to figure out why.

Boring Life downtown

Worked started on Monday doing test bore holes for the new Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel (DOTT). Hopefully, the cost won't be wasted if the anti-tunnel Watson gets elected mayor.

The first bore hole is on the park just below the Juliana Apt building near the corner of Queen/Bronson/Hill Street. Each hole boring takes one to two days. While drilling, the crew takes rock samples to ensure what is deep under the downtown is what geologists currently expect to be there. The drilled hole will be capped off with a removable lid, but the hole underneath remains, and will have monitoring equipment in it to measure water flows (the DOTT is for dry people, not storm water). The entrance to the tunnel will be a few hundred meters west of this first hole, roughly where Brickhill Street runs between the two city parking lots on the north side of Albert.

Some of the later holes along Albert Street will be 160' deep, deeper than previous bore holes in the downtown core. Finding the deep water tables and the direction of the water flow (the "thalweg") will be new information that will also benefit future municipal and private sector construction projects.

drilling corner of Albert/Hill/Bronson

drilling on Albert opposite Ottawa Tech

This info is from the City: the Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Investigation for the tunnel portion of Ottawa’s Light Rail Transit (LRT) Plan is scheduled to commence on May 3, 2010 and run until mid-June.

The primary purpose of the Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Investigation will be to further advance our knowledge of the existing geology and groundwater conditions along the tunnel alignment. This information will inform the preliminary engineering and design of the LRT project.


A total of 23 geotechnical boreholes and 15 environmental boreholes will be drilled along the tunnel alignment. Work on each drill site will run from two to five days and on some locations minor traffic re-routing will be required.


Work begins on the western segment and will move East along the tunnel alignment.


Councillors of affected wards have been contacted and residents and businesses in proximity to the boring will be advised prior to commencement.

Tree planting excitement

double click to enlarge

For some time now, spring tree and shrub planting has been going on along West Wellie and Preston streets. It seems every day reveals a tree or shrub bed somewhere new.

Shown above is the supply dump for the trees and shrubs being installed on Preston between Albert and Somerset. It is incredibly exciting to see the greening occur, especially since in the case of Preston the streetscaping process has been going on for more than sixteen years before big results finally appeared on the ground. But it was worth it!

A few of the trees planted last year suffered nicks and snowplow damage over the winter. Tree guards/fences/cages are now being considered for Preston. Trees are vulnerable to just one careless equipment operator, so I think it is worth the expense of protecting the trees.

Hundreds of potted spirea await planting.

More sidewalk patio issues

The former Melrose groceteria (now there's a word we don't use much any more...) will become a gourmet pizza establishment. The owners are looking for a way to have some outdoor patio.

The front sidewalk area is tight, but I think it is doable. But do the new owners want their gourmands dining beside the tavern entrance? They proposed a patio at the back of the building (but I gather, not the side ...). They are opposed by the local neighborhood association representing neighbors who feel the back yard patio will be noisy for their adjacent houses. The Assoc. suggested to the owners, that they consider a building frontage of opening glass doors/windows, so you can dine indoors yet open air to the sidewalk.

Profit margins in most businesses are thin. Grabbing a few extra seats and getting bodies in them during some good summer weather is a cheap way to increase sales when demand is high. The patio also offers aforesaid pizza gourmands an environmental choice: A/C indoors, patio outdoors. Wide open windows does not increase seating capacity, and can bugger up climate control for those sitting inside but not at the window (and for the kitchen too).

Given the little hierarchy of patio choices I put in a post a few days ago, I would suggest NO to the backyard patio, maybe to a sideyard one, and YES to a front yard one. Now, it remains to show some imagination in how to get that patio built. I gather their is pressure for the city to relocate the gray switch box in front of the building. The owners could also look at renting and decking over the first parking space to detour foot traffic around their patio. Or maybe the city might increase the bulb out to take over that first parking spot.

Driving in Circles

A traffic circle is being installed at the intersection of Bayview/Burnside/River Street, in the Bayview Yards area, between Larouche Park and the old city sewer works yards that back onto the Ottawa River Parkway and Lemieux Island. I am hoping the centre of the circle will be planted with trees.

Pedestrian crossings are on the 'straight stretches' a few meters outside the circle and permit peds to cross the street one lane at a time taking refuge on the triangular islands.

Only three streets arrive at the circle, sort of like a Y. Each street is only one lane, so the circle should be easily navigable by cyclists as they do not have to move right/move left (as in Orleans) and can probably stick to the centre of the lane. Indeed, I hope sharrows are painted to direct cyclists to take and hold the centre of the lane going around the circle.

The view from the top of the little hill on Burnside Avenue. Bayview Ave goes right, River road (to the Parkway and Lemieux Island) goes left.

Navy Monument Sod Turning

2010 is the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Navy. This accounts for all the banners and display panels on Confederation Boulevard and down by the war memorial.

A monument is being errected to this anniversary at Richmond Landing, the original origin point of Richmond Road, at the Ottawa River below Chaudiere Falls where the Bronson Creek/Tailrace/Kayak course enters into the Ottawa River.

The banners behind the tent are some of the ones decorating Confederation Boulevard.

There was a large collection of navy-types there. I haven't seen this many navy uniforms in decades (a navy brat, I grew up down east).

As for the monument itself ... well, it hasn't been constructed yet, but they hope to have it finished in 2011, which will be less-late than the navy gets its new gear. I asked a couple of the old salt types at the ceremony what they thought of the monument [slightly curved concrete wall with gold ball stuck on the top edge]. Let's just say they missed the symbolism, meaning, representation, purpose ... and so did I. Old Salts still have a good vocabulary.

The friendly streets of west side Ottawa

Outside this never-quite-finished rona-vating house, an impromtu living room has appeared on the city boulevard. Your seating choice: floral sofa ... or mod leather armchair? Or mid-century modern plastic chairs set out especially for Robert? The pink carpet marks the residents as breast-cancer savy. There are even coffee tables for your ... coffee, sometimes served in unique stubby brown glass cups.

I love it, if only because it would never work in Orleans or Barrhaven. Now, to wander down one block . . .

In contrast to the informal sidewalk enhancement on Cambridge, is this corner lot at Somerset/Bell. The manufactured stone blends in reasonably well with the limestone foundation of the old building. Lots of materials here: limestone, fake stone, tile doorstep, mod brick commercial front on an old painted and unpainted brick house.  The garden plants are very new and I hope they will fill in. Perennials or shrubs would have been better though, as they provide four season planting. Still, its a good step toward making Somerset Street sidewalks nicer.

Fence me in...

Along Lisgar Street, this condo association is widening the sidewalk by about two feet with their own paving of small cobbles. They have also installed a manufactured rustic stone curb about 6" high which will protect the garden area from wandering feet and parked cycles.

Here is the new pavers at the front condo entrance.

A little bit further along the street, is this new front yard landscaping:

The brick pavers are more formal. The new fence is attractive, but also quite high. The situation is different from the first condo, as there is a thriving row of foundation shrubs up close to the windows in which B&E artists, winos, rough campers, or whomever the building owners and residents consider undesirable, can hide/reside.

Somehow, the first condo, with its curb edging, is much more subtle and friendly marking of the boundary than the fence, however nice it may be. It remains to be seen whether the measures chosen do their job.

By the way, in both cases, I think the parking meter posts should be left in place once the pay and display system is put in, and converted with the addition of a vertical ring and post top finial, into useful bike racks. In the case of the first condo, the parked bikes themselves will form an impromtu fence; in the the case of the fenced in apartments, the posts will keep cycles off their new fence.

Sidewalk Life, Sidewalk Patios

One of the key arguments the Preston BIA made for wider sidewalks throughout its territory was to permit sidewalk patios. These enliven the streets, put people on the sidewalks for hours at a time, and promote the sort of spontaneous interactions that make city life enjoyable and that are simply not possible in drive-everywhere-by-car "suburban" lifestyles.

Much of Preston Street is predominately commercial in flavour, especially to the south end. Residences are still scattered amongst the businesses, and upstairs "above the store".  But in the north end of the street, it is predominantly residential at ground floor and above, with scattered businesses. The planning exercise done over the last decades opted to keep this residential end vs commerical portion in the zoning. There are even some provisions to try to maintain the live-above-the-store nature of the street.

Pubwells is a restuarant-bar (I use the terms loosely, not in a legal descriptive sense) at the corner of Preston and Spruce. It is the last business of the last block of commercial frontages. Most everything north of it is residential. Across the street from it is residential, although the vacant lot will be developed commercial. Pubwells wants to install a front patio. It will not be very large: two rows of tables along the window frontage.

I like the idea of animating the sidewalk. Many of the frequenters of Pubwells are local regulars, from the seniors coop, from adjacent residences, from the commercial zone along City Centre Avenue, etc. Yet I am acutely aware of how intrusive outdoor dining can be, mainly because it is night after night all through summer.

the row of housing across the street

Here is a hierachy of situations:

• outdoor dining on a roof, back second floor, back yard abutting residential side street - generally against it
• outdoor dining on a side yard facing the residential side street - proceed only with extreme caution and consideration of what is adjacent
• outdoor dining on a front sidewalk of a commercial street, even if residential across the street, on the side street, or above: generally in favour of it. 

Reclaiming the corner

Do you recognize the above corner? If you are a west side pedestrian or cyclist, or maybe a No 2 bus user, the likely answer is yes (motorists should not recognize it -- your eyes are supposed to be on the road!). It's at the corner of Bayswater and Somerset, northwest side, where Bayswater starts to suddenly go downhill (elevation speaking, not quality wise).

Behind the green picket fence is an amazing ever-changing collection of . . . stuff. Gnomes, flower pots, a yapping dog that escorts pedestrians past the fence, a patio ... all seem to me to made from recycled materials. People after my own heart. I think the garden is a loveable element of spontaneous urban form, the diversity that keeps neighborhoods interesting.

All the garden is apparently on city property.

Somerset, and the section of Bayswater abutting this property, is being rebuilt this summer. Wider sidewalks, landscaping, decorative lighting, all those good things that make neighborhood main streets much better for residents and businesses.

At corners, the style of streetscaping being employed along Somerset extends the sidewalks and paved areas w-a-y back to the property line, and sometimes beyond. The result is roomy corners for pedestrians, improved sight lines for motorists (opening up the corner triangle, in traffic engineer speak), and changed landscaping at the corners. A typical corner might look more like this:

The city's policy for the Bayswater / Somerset corner was stated to me as "In regards to the corner, the City’s policy and practice is to reclaim public space within the right-of-way for public purposes, and eliminate unlawful encroachments". The drawing for this corner is shown below (the house and corner in question is toward the top right of the intersection):

I find myself somewhat torn about this corner. While interesting now, it could become a parking space or other unattractive use with another resident. In which case, I favour reclaiming it and landscaping it as a public space that will somewhat permanently set its format and use in concrete and official plantings. On the other hand, some of the corners already installed along Somerset/West Wellie seem to me to be rather too large, and this dynamic patio/garden is much more interesting.

It is a trade-off of the spontaneous vs the planned, the resident vs the corporate city, public space vs private space. Where do other west side readers stand on this?

One hour to a cleaner neighborhood

On Saturday morning at 10am a group of Dalhousie residents will gather at the Dalhousie community centre (corner of Empress and Somerset) for an hour (or two) of neighborhood grooming. We provide the gloves, bags, and friends. In small groups, we tidy up a few blocks or nuisence spots. This year the focus will be on the two pedestrian staircases that go up/down Nanny Goat Hill. The Primrose staircase runs east-west; the Empress Ave staircase runs north/south; the bottom of the Empress stair comes out near the Good Companions centre.

One of the nicest aspects of gathering up the miscellaneous debris is soaking up the praise ... there isn't a pedestrian going by who doesn't stop to thank us for tidying up. We hope this evangelizes into people more concerned about keeping our neighborhood tidy.

Please feel free to join your neighbors Saturday.

Tiptoe through the tulips

On Sunday is the upcoming Tulipathon Walk sponsored by Multifaith Housing Initiative to raise money and also awareness of the need for affordable housing for low-income people in Ottawa.

It's this Sunday, May 2nd, from 2 to 4 pm, with registration beforehand at Commissioner's Park (Dow's Lake and Preston). It's a 6 km. walk from there through the park to Fifth Ave. and back again - with tulips in view along the way.

Candelabra lighting for Somerset?

Noticed these candelabra in storage at the government warehouse at 1010 Somerset Street, the putative parole office now used as a stone cemetery and for architectural salvage.

While they are likely hiding out during stone work renovations on parliament hill, I thought they might make interesting pedestrian light fixtures on the soon-to-be streetscaped Somerset Street out front of this warehouse.

Dalhousie wins the Stanley Cup

I note from the morning paper that some government bodies here in Ottawa are excited at the notion of building a 65' high  replica of the Stanley Cup. That's about six to seven stories high. A site is yet to be found.

Obviously, such a cup won't fit comfortably on a small downtown plaza, like the teapot with the revolving tree in front of Minto Place. I suggest it should go in a more visible spot.

Since the cup is named after Lord Stanley, and Lord Stanley's full title was Lord Stanley of Preston (yup, true, I read it in the paper) then it could go somewhere along Preston Street. The Dow's Lake end is out of the question, as the NCC wants that to be "natural" and even ruled out the gift of a Dutch windmill. The mid parts of Preston are all developed. That leaves the north end.

Most readers will know Preston is to be extended north of Albert, over the aqueduct, and connected to the existing intersection of Vimy Private (War Museum entrance) and the new Wellington Street. This extension is to be built as part of the very first phase of the DOTT - LRT project. So why not put it where Preston crosses the LRT line? It would be a short stroll from either the massive Bayview station or the LeBreton Station. It would be visible to motorist, tour bus, and transit traffic passing north-south and east-west. It would be accessible on major cycling routes (BikeWest, Ottawa River paths, north-south LRT corridor cycling route the Cyclopiste de Preston). As the buildings are not yet built along the street, the monument and adjacent buildings could be properly integrated. If the Ottawa bixibike system ever gets going, there would be a convenient tourist cycling route from the downtown to the War Museum to the Stanley Cup monument to Dows Lake (with a stop of gellato on Preston) and back to the downtown along the canal.

Sounds like a winner to me.

city map, 1895

Double click on the map to enlarge it, and scroll around it for a bit to explore Ottawa in 1895. Notice the area called "Dalhousie" - our community name goes a long way back.

Notice that a number of streets have the same name. The Queensway is still a railroad right of way. Carling Avenue is simply "Macadam road"(Macadam invented asphalt paving). Notice that Gladstone doesn't exist, but many of its segements do, which goes some way to explaining why that street twists and curves the way it does as it connects up bits and pieces of older streets on not-quite-matching grids.

I also like seeing the lost creek that exits Dow's Lake and travels down what is now Preston to Nepean Bay. At some point, this creek was swallowed up into the brick sewer built under Preston Street about 1898. The construction of the Somerset Viaduct just west of Preston raises the ground level enough to prevent the entire Preston basin from continuing to drain towards the River, which resulted in a century of flooding basements during heavy storms.

Integrating streets, sidewalks, with ped-bike paths

There is a pedestrian-cyclist path along the east side of the Otrain cut from Carling to Young Street. Hopefully this path will be rebuilt and extended next year (a study is underway) to become a really useful cycling link "Cyclopiste de Preston".

Some careful thought needs to be given to how the path will connect to the sidewalks and pavements of the adjacent dead-end streets - there are many of them.

Currently, only one street has its sidewalk (and only on one side) properly connect to the recreational path. This works well for pedestrians, but what are cyclists supposed to do? Walk their bike? (unlikely); ride on the sidewalk then swerve onto the road? (likely) and the movement is even more awkward for those going from the street to the path as the connection is only on the wrong (left) side of the road.

For many of the side streets, there simply isn't a proper connection between the city sidewalk and city pedestrian path a few meters further along:

And sometimes the informal goat trail connection cannot align well with the sidewalk at all. These trails are muddy, some are steep, all are awkward and unmaintained.

Chinatown Arch gets own blog

Last week saw the official groundbreaking ceremony for the new Chinatown royal arch. In the photo above, Grace Xin of the Chinatown BIA puts incense into a holder. From left to right, Senator Vivian Po, John Baird, Bob Chiarelli, Yasir Naqvi, Chinese Ambassador, Councilors Holmes and Wilkinson.

Shown below are two of the first concrete castings made for the arch. The casting yard is on Cambridge, behind the Yangtze.

Stone lions, to guard the base of the arch, from China.

As a lot will be happening at this gateway site, I have set up a separate blog site to follow the Arch: http://www.ottawachinatownroyalarch.blogspot.com/. It has a RSS button at the top of its page, so you can elect to have the new posts sent directly to you.

I anticipate there will be only one or two posts per week. At quiet times, there will be picture posts of arches in other world cities. I have found about 20 such pictures thus far.

You are unlikely to ever experience another royal arch construction in your lifetime, so be sure to pop over to Chinatown to inspect the progress, and follow the blog postings when you cannot be there. If you send me photos, I will try to use them: mailto:EricDarwin1@gmail%20(dot)%20com.

New housing on Preston

when landscapers plopped in the nice sized trees along the Preston boulevard a few weeks ago, this tree came with a housing unit. No sign if the occupant came with it ... or if this is the start of  condo mania on Preston.

Cycling UP 400% in March

At a recent transportation briefing at City Hall reference was made to March cycling being up 400% over prior years. I asked for the data, and got this:

Cycling speaker Friday 5pm

Condo mania

Here's the crowd lined up outside the SohoLisgar project by StarwoodMastercraft, on Lisgar near Bank. I happened by at 7pm, and there was already a crowd inside the sales office.

I am not sure if this line up reflects the desirability of the units, or if it a shining demonstration of creating demand and a sense of urgency to sell that first 30-50% of the units.

When I passed by again at 9.30 the caterers were packing up but there was still about 25 people in the sales presentation centre.

At the side of the building is this poster, about 15' high:

Now the model might be sitting on her bed, delighted to be home ... but I first think it shows her sitting on the device invented by Sir Thomas Crapper.

hard hitting poster