Communities, urban design and planning issues

[lagatta]

I'm putting Antonia's piece here, on the TTC and how Transit authorities are organized in Montréal (the entire island, not just the parts that are part of the city) and Vancouver (with 21 unamalgamated communities:

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1136859--struggling-to-get-the-ttc-back-on-track

This is Toronto local news, but pertains to planning, democracy and public transport issues everywhere. We note that the general manager of OC Transport in Ottawa was turfed just after the TTC head, and remember the fiasco engendered by car-sucking, transport-hating mayor O'Brien.

Our métro has extended to Longueuil in the South Shore for decades, and there is a recent extension of the orange line to Laval - which has proven wildly successful with Laval residents (and some Montrealers commuting the other way). Of course our system is woefully underfunded, as everywhere - the Laval extension is making the ride for commuters from the stations along St-Denis/Berri (including mine) very uncomfortable indeed.

There is a lot of roadwork on Avenue du Parc and the surrounding streets now, and it saddens me to cross the corner of Parc and Laurier and see the tracks remaining from the former tramline there emerge from their burial ground.

[lagatta]

I thought this snippet from "Active Transportation" blog about planning improvements to the mess that is the more southern and newer portion of Bank Street in Ottawa was worth a look:

http://activetransportation-canada.blogspot.com/2012/03/ottawa-plan-turns-bank-street-from-mess.html

quote:

"A plan to refresh 3.2 kilometres of Bank Street between Riverside Drive and Walkley Road received resounding support on Feb. 28 from city councillors who sit on the planning committee.

Creating cycling and pedestrian links is a big part of encouraging those hubs to develop with a mix of businesses and housing, according to the plan. The goal is to keep that section of Bank Street as a commercial strip, but add more vibrancy and foot-traffic to the street by allowing housing and offices to also be built along Bank.

Cycling lanes along the length of Bank Street would help that effort, and are recommended in the plan".
----------------------------------
Michael Haynes' blog features interesting short items about walkable, cyclable, liveable cities and towns, and recreational projects, but my main crticism is that the items are so very short and there are no links taking readers into articles of more depth.

That part of Bank is very car-centric and cycling/walking there is unpleasant (despite the Middle-Eastern goodies). But Bank should also bring back the streetcar, in the shape of a modern tram or LRT line. Even more downtown/midtown traffic is often snarled.

[Boom Boom]

God, I miss Ottawa - I lived there from 1949 to 1975, and I used to return for a visit every spring. As my arthritis is now close to crippling me, I am seriously considering selling my house and property here when I get the mortgage paid off (2016), and taking an apartment or senior's residence in Gatineau - just to be close to Ottawa. I don't want to change from my Quebec Health card or disability benefits - I have no idea now if Ontario benefits are anywhere near as good as Quebec's. And, besides, I've been looking online at prices in Ottawa for housing - holy cow, that's become an expensive place to live!!! Gatineau just makes much more sense to me, but we'll see. Maybe global warming by then will make the winters less cold here. Just kidding!! 
 
 
ps: how bad is my arthritis? I can't peel potatoes or carrots.

[Boom Boom]

quote:

"A plan to refresh 3.2 kilometres of Bank Street between Riverside Drive and Walkley Road received resounding support on Feb. 28 from city councillors who sit on the planning committee."

I grew up in Alta Vista and the Glebe, both within walking distance of Bank / Riverside, but never wanted to walk or cycle near that corner because it was just bloody awful for both cyclists and pedestrians. I'm glad to hear there's finally a plan to make that area more friendly and accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. Why has it taken 60 years to finally do something there????
 
ETA:  There's a shopping mall close to the corner of Bank / Riverside - but, sadly, it wasn't built until after we moved away from the area. There used to be a great coffee/donut shop (Mr. Donut) there where we would drive - when I got older in the later 1960s - with our friends after seeing a movie or having been at a dance.
 
ETA: A bit of Ottawa history: Hitsman's Bakery on Bank was owned by a relative who lived not far from us in our new home in Pine Glen, a suburb of Ottawa near the Merivale Road.
 
ETA: My mother in the 1940s worked at Munro's Drug Store on Elgin, owned by another family relative.
 
ETA: There was a shoe repair shop on Bank near Riverside started up in the early 1940s. It burned down around 1956; they were friends of ours, and their apartment was above the shop - so our Mum took them into our home and they stayed with us until they found a new place.
 
 

[lagatta]

Boom Boom, the little mall at the corner of Bank and Riverside is Billings Bridge Plaza. (I have relatives nearby, as well as in Gatineau, in Vieux-Hull and Aylmer).

I haven't seen that particular doughnut shop (these things change hands) but there is a SWISS PASTRY Also a Loblaws banner supermarket (used to be Loblaws, now another of their banners) and an LCBO. And stuff that doesn't pertain to gastronomy. It is right on a Transitway stop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billings_Bridge_Plaza http://billingsbridge.com

When you were growing up, there weren't the Lebanese pizza and baklawa places there are now on that stretch of Bank...

You'd be fine in Gatineau - there are parts where access to Ottawa via public transport is very easy. I don't know if there are any social housing apartments or residences for seniors in Aylmer, where a cousin of mine lives - the centre is a nice old town, though there is ugly sprawl on the outskirts. I could ask her.

As for arthritis, we should be answering that at "What hurts?" - There are many devices to help arthritics with daily life, even simple things like better peelers

I'm sad thinking of things like adapted steering wheels and bicycle handlebars, as a dear friend in Germany with bad arthritis has died recently - no, not of arthritis - one can't die of that, though people who are very severely disabled can die of lack of exercise via other conditions. But we will take solutions to what hurts... Her husband must be either selling that off, leaving it to her son (from a previous marriage) or simply too sad to deal with it.

[Boom Boom]

Boom Boom, the little mall at the corner of Bank and Riverside is Billings Bridge Plaza.

Yes - that's the one - thanks!  In my teens when I got my driver's license, I would go there after school, as well as the Carlingwood shopping mall on Carling Avenue - if I wasn't shopping, I'd just go to either mall to hang out.  Mr. Donut was across from the Billings mall in the 1960s. I think it became a Tim Horton's in the 1990s.

[lagatta]

James Schwartz's utilitarian cycling and urban design and planning issues blog "The Urban Country" has an interesting piece today, "The Car Once Symbolized Freedom", in which he extensively references an equally interesting article by Christopher Hume of the Toronto Star, "How the young are still waging the war on the car".

Both quote, ironically, the not-yet-late PM Margaret Thatcher's sneering pronouncement: “Any man who rides a bus to work after the age of 30 can count himself a failure.”

Quaint indeed, but Hume adds: "Thatcher’s heirs still hold power, however, despite the untold havoc they have wreaked over the decades. Little wonder we feel these are such perilous times."

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1160457--missing-the-bus-on-transit
http://www.theurbancountry.com/2012/04/car-once-symbolized-freedom.html

[Antonia]

I can't say this is true of rush hour since I don't use the TTC at those times but I can state without qualification that, during the off-hours, the subway here is dominated by women, students and minority males.

[lagatta]

Here is an interesting site on women transforming cities, though the content seems a bit limited, centred on electoral politics - important, but much transformation of cities has come from below: http://womentransformingcities.org

Antonia, I think the rush-hour crowd is a bit different, but here I'd think there is still a slight majority among passengers of women, and certainly a lot of students, recent immigrants and others who can't afford a car. However there has been an increase in ridership among car owners, whether women or men. Unlike the TTC, the STM has increased frequency and bus services. We do need a couple of north-south tram or light-rail lines though. Since the orange line was extended to Montmorency in Laval, it is impossible to get a seat into the city centre from Jean-Talon at least. It is great that so many people from Laval are taking the métro, but that line (the one I take most often) is utterly saturated now.

[Toedancer]

Thank you so much for that link Lagatta!

[Holly Stick]

I'll post this here too:


Just ran across this Canadian Green Building Council which has various chapters across the country:


http://www.cagbc.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=The_CaGBC

[Antonia]

Three of my stories:

Main Piece for the entire weekend package: Is Toronto Ready for Climate Change?

One on energy, co-written with Jim Coyle

And, finally, the Roots of Resistance to Climate Change

[lagatta]

Quoting Antonia's first article:

 "Roadways are being rutted because softening asphalt is being gouged out by car and bus tires".

I had never seen this in earlier years, but last summer, the corner at Bernard and Parc (80 bus, rush-hour express bus, lots of cars, trucks, cyclists and pedestrians) was gutted and unsafe. Idem Pie-IX between Beaubien and Jean-Talon - huge, deep pits, dangerous not only for cyclists but for pedestrians.

Edited to correct timeline, and adding that the pit at the corner of Bernard and Parc has been filled in, but I've been careful never to take Pie-IX even for one corner again. I don't like taking such busy streets, but they have lights, and it can be just as risky to cross busy streets such as Bélanger in eastern Rosemont without one. I found another street that does have lights, between Pie-IX and Viau, to go north from the St-Zotique bicycle path to destinations around Jean-Talon.

I'm falling asleep, so no more about this tonight. (Yep, no grammar or spelling errors, but I didn't express exactly what I had to say. This problem will only get worse: the City will have to look at what is done in places with hotter summers.

bonne nuit et bonjour!

[lagatta]

From urban challenges to a dense, carfree village planned in a rural county of Maine:

http://www.piscataquisvillage.org

Of course this isn't for everyone, and will probably attract a very specific demographic, with the requisite $$$ and freedom, but it is interesting to see a project in the US at least attempting to repair some of the mess made by carcentric design.

[Holly Stick]

A bunch of links about preserving historic homes, etc.:


http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/08/10-most-compelling-historic-preservation-reads/3019/