Category Archives: Albert St

Suddenly, Bayview Station CDP doesn’t look so bad

The City’s (in)famous Bayview-Carling CDP process has been sputtering along for a very long time. In January, the City cut it into three segments, each their own CDP. Rather like the myths about worms, does each section have a heart and ability to keep on wiggling?

Interested observers can trot off to Tom Brown Arena this Tuesday evening to see the purported “final” draft of the Bayview Station area plan. You can send your doppleganger to the Albert Street reconstruction open house being held the same night at the Dalhousie Community Centre. Since the two projects overlap planning areas, it is somehow appropriate they overlap their public consultation times, but at different places, hence the need to employ your twin.

Bayview Station is less contentious than the still-writhing-in-the-Dark  Carling end of this planning worm. That’s because this CDP planning zone contains exactly zero houses. That’s right, its all vacant land, brownfields, industrial lands, former dumps, and other stuff the Florida creative class disdains. Although cheap industrial space is so scarce that it is becoming trendy, witness the arrival of some speciality boutiques and restaurants in old industrial buildings. How the worm turns.

bayviewmap

Above: the basic study area – Bayview Yards on upper left, City Centre Avenue on lower right. (from previous draft plan)

And, in the usual Ottawa manner, the plan follows behind spot rezonings and much lobbying. So 801 Albert has already been rezoned for 30 stories or so for two office towers; if built, they will be the largest office complex in the city. And the crowd of condos lining Parkdale is set to jump east and take up proliferating along the Bayview industrial lands,   north of the transitway/Albert/Scott. Won’t those new condos block the views of the Parkdale condos? No, they’ll be the new view, that’s all.

Here’s a sketch from the previous draft showing the eventual build out of the Bayview Yards area as seen from some not-yet-sold Parkdale penthouse:

bayview mechanics

The above pic is from the previous draft of the plan, and a few items have changed. The old sewer works yard, the white building on the left, will likely be kept. The buildings closer to the transitway/LRT have gotten shorter  taller, and are now 30 stories. The plan still calls for the buildings to be linked by a series of courtyards and arches and green mews, just like no one appreciates at Claridge’s project at the east end of the Flats.

There is some talk of removing one of the high rise buildings mid-block on the parcel east of Bayview Road, and putting in a local neighbourhood park. The larger existing Laroche Park is used for field sports as well as local uses, and has a splash pad, but presumably it will be more intensely used as condoville grows along Parkdale, so maybe another local tot-lot park will be wise. The missing development space from the removed tower will be added to the top of the remaining towers, which may actually hep make developing these polluted sites more economic.

bayview hinton

Above: sketch viewed by a pigeon from somewhere high above Hintonburg from previous draft of plan. Undulating roof is the LRT station, Tom Brown arena is shown much expanded (no funding mind you). Warning: new plan will not be exactly as shown, as elaborated below:

On the southeast quadrant of the plan along City Centre Avenue there are some significant changes. Here is the view from the previous plan:

bayviewdalhousie

 

The pink houses in the foreground and right are existing homes; the turquoise stuff is NCC dreams on the Flats, with the Claridge great-grandkids still constructing condos. The proposed zoning starts at four stories along the edge of existing housing that runs from Preston westwards.

The general principle of the plan is OK. There is a height gradient as one moves west through the neighbourhood  There used to be a height gradient as one moved south too, away from the 801 Albert office towers shown at the very top of the white building cluster. But about a year ago the major property owners (Domicile, Equity) questioned whether the gradient should run down as it went south, or up as it went south to Somerset.

So in a fine example of Solomon-like wisdom, the City is rezoning all the land along the east edge of the tracks as 30 stories. This is sure to make someone happy.

The plan still has some glaring flaws.

While it calls for mixed use development, there is no plan to quantify that. If it goes all residential, or all office, no matter, as long as there are some convenience stores at ground level. There are no intensification targets for jobs, residences, population or even a dog count. So there is no plan for more recreation facilities or parks since the  eventual buildout is all unknown. Still, it remains difficult for the city to write a plan even without any targets.

Will the plan contain some detailed descriptions of acceptable ground level usages? The Dark plan for Centretown CDP actually specifies how residential frontages should work, in some detail. Will these guidelines be extended to Bayview or the Carling CDP’s? Dunno.

The plan includes Albert Street running right through the middle, but is silent on how wide it could or should be, and when it might reach that status. Previous CDP dreams  for Albert to be prettified and landscaped and traffic calmed, are gone. The bridge has a speeding problem now, how will that be addressed? It won’t.

Bikewest currently runs on the north side of Albert and then on Scott, interrupted by the narrow Albert street bridge over the OTrain. Will that be fixed/connected? That is apparently up to others.

Will Bikewest connect to the OTrain path at the LRT Station? Dunno, and the Bayview LRT station design currently doesn’t allow for a ride-able connection.

The CDP plan is being presented with no details about the size or detailed function of the Bayview LRT station except for the previous RTG “artist conception” sketch released last fall. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

 

This lead to some nasty comments at the PAC (public advisory committee)  that it doesn’t matter because as the LRT stations continue to shrink, Bayview Station will end up reusing the four bus shelters already there, with a permanent station to be built “some day” “as the area develops”.

The draft document I saw last week also muddied the waters on the Primrose extension. When the Just Right storage building – the former Champagne streetcar bar, subsequently Vimy House –  becomes just right for redevelopment, Primrose is supposed to be extended thru the site as a pedestrian street, aligning with an extended Primrose west of City Centre Avenue (when that site is redeveloped…)  and connecting to the new Old Wellington right-of-way pedestrian bridge over the OTrain tracks. The concept was straight and clear on previous drafts, but somehow got messed up getting to this draft [perhaps due to the long planning process people can't remember any more - ed]

Similarly, the high-potential underpass that links City Centre Avenue with the government warehouse complex at 1010 Somerset, is left vague. If it isn’t addressed when doing strategic planning, when will it be? At the last minute? In a rush?

The City is also continuing along its path of proposing to have a CDP plan that calls for high rises, but to leave the actual zoning as is. In this way, every applicant has to apply for a rezoning, and the City can sell this permission to the developer for money under sec 37 of the Planning Act.

So despite there being a plan, the endless contentious rezonings would continue.

Community members of the PAC strenuously objected, since one of the purposes of the plan is to create certainty, and the zoning — which is what general members of the public understand — should be honest. There were dire predictions that deliberately setting the zoning and the plan at odds would eventually lead to an OMB overthrow and the city would lose all the Sec 37 stuff anyway.

On this matter,   at the last PAC meeting the developers agreed that they didn’t like the zoning not matching the plan, and felt it makes them out to be the bad guys each time they propose a building within the plan specifications. Plus, uncertainty costs money, as does the rezoning process. Will those objections be enough to cause the city to reconsider its greed? Not likely.

Observers of the Bayview Station CDP need to also keep in mind that the redevelopment areas don’t just end at Somerset on the south (there is another CDP to do the Somerset-Gladstone-Queensway stretch of CDP) nor do they end along Scott or Mechanicsville areas (Mr Dark has been hired to wave his magic wands over those areas in the Scott Street CDP). And don’t forget there was that awfully disappointing Tunney’s Pasture redevelopment plan last fall.

On the positive side, the City is actually looking at designating some of the land along the OTrain MUP behind 801 Albert Street as official parkland. It would be the only park in the city with a secret.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Albert Street reconstruction – Back to the Future?

jan 2013 041

 

above: elderly gent attempts to give directions to city engineers who will shortly zoom off – but in what direction?

 

The section of Albert Street that runs through LeBreton Flats is up for reconstruction starting this year. Total reconstruction, as in deep sewers, new watermains, new pavement and curbs. But the wiring won’t be buried  that is a cost imposed on suburban areas not in central Ottawa.

What will be the changes? Well, we don’t know for sure. The contract is being given to the Rideau Transit Group while the project is in the design stage, with more unknowns than knowns. In addition to the unknowns we know about, there are probably lots of unknown unknowns too.

The engineers know what they want to see in 2018: a four lane Albert between City Centre Drive and Empress. In addition, there will be turning lanes running all the way from Preston to Booth, and maybe a few others. They anticipate that the final road will be moved north about 15′ from the current curb. They are designing a 3.5m grassy median or boulevard on each side of the road. This grassy boulevard may someday – possibly in 2018, but maybe later — become a segregated bike lane, or a painted bike lane, or maybe neither, since there is no budget provision for actually building the lane, and the city is relieving itself of the obligation to install cycling facilities for major reconstructions.

In the meantime, between reconstruction in 2013-14 and 2018, the RTG may wish to convert that boulevard space into bus lanes, whilst the transitway is closed to buses because it will be converted to rail for the Confederation Line LRT. Or it might build the bus lanes all on the north side of the street instead, as a two-way transitway distinct from cars on Albert.. Or maybe it will build them all on the south side. Or neither. Apparently there are about a dozen road options.

But what residents along the street will have to put up with for some years (again, just how long is one of those known unknowns) is a six lane Albert (plus extensive single and maybe double turn lanes, so 7 – 9  lanes in total at intersections) with hundreds of buses per hour (exactly how many buses is also a known unknown since it hasn’t been decided if Albert will be used only for 90 series routes, or all the Kanata-Barrhaven express buses).

After the RTG is finished running buses along Albert — which is presumed to be some months after the opening of the LRT in 2018 — then the asphalt lanes will be torn out and the grass put back down. Unless, of course, the City comes up with money to build those bike lanes.

Or, since the mood of council in 2018 is known to be unknown, but we can anticipate the worst, some Councillor will brightly declare that the lanes should be left in place because, after spending all that transit money, it’s time to do something for the poor motorists. Then we will get stuck with six lanes forever. Another King Edward freeway, but without the nice landscaping or metal seed pods.

Today, the City may promise it will remove the lanes, someday, but it is not bound to do so. Anyone who has followed municipal governments for some years will recall promises that are not kept, and residents have no legal basis to enforce the prior promises. Promises are cheap when there can be no enforcement or penalty clauses.

So while the community members on the PAC (public advisory committee) have had lots of say on what we would like the future Albert Street to look like, and how it might function, we have lost on most of the issues.

Ped lighting on the sidewalks and(planned) bike lanes, given that this is a designated “scenic gateway” to the downtown? Nope, no can do.

Keep the two way multi-user path on the north side of the road, and especially keep it elevated like it is now? Nope, no can do. A temporary MUP might be put in place in the interim period up to 2018, but its not in the cards for the future, because those bike lanes will be just fine for taking your eight year old or towing a bike trailer to go the river front parklands.

Raised sidewalks, especially along the south side where there are some rather bleak retaining walls and no building fronts? Nope, no can do. Sidewalks are, by definition, remember, to be glued to the side of the road at the curb. And an elevation advantage for peds just ain’t in the drawings folks.

The City, through its OCH agency, spent millions and several years building that new retaining wall in front of their houses between Preston and Lorne. Can they do something to fix up the 100m of collapsing wall west of Preston? Nope, no can do. If it collapses or falls down, the sixteen individual property owners will have to figure out how they are going to do that, collectively or individually. The city, will however, enforce that they keep the collapse debris off city property.

At least pedestrians will get proper drainage and catch basins along the street? Well, not necessarily, that’s another one of those known unknowns. They may not replace the sewers and catch basins until late 2018. That’s up to RTG. Surely pedestrians won’t mind walking along the continuous puddle and surface ponding that characterizes and plagues Albert Street for another five years. Hey, maybe that 1000 buses per morning will splash all that water out of the road?

The PAC also lobbied the city to investigate roundabouts at Preston-Albert and City Centre-Albert intersections. Nope, would require negotiation with the NCC and this project isn’t allowed to do that. Negotiation with the NCC is the exclusive prerogative of the Confederation LRT and the western LRT extension (WLRT) projects so other projects are frozen out of land asks.

The PAC lobbied for a continuous centre median from Preston to Booth, to prevent U turns and other dangerous manoeuvres motorists use to avoid the “no straight through south bound onto Booth” restriction that applies after 11pm at night. For this the city agreed, as channelling vehicles is good for traffic flow.

And they agreed to propose landscaping down said centre boulevard, although they aren’t proposing anything near as nice a Allumetieres or Maisonneuve in Gatineau. (Remember when Gatineau was our poor cousin over there? Now Ottawa is so enfeebled it can only talk about doing something half as nice, subject to budget restraints of course).

Street lighting for motorists will be on a line of poles put on the centre median. Can we make this look decent, so it doesn’t look like a freeway inviting high speeds? Maybe put lower level lighting (like the ped lights, if we get them) half way up the poles? Nope, mid or low level lighting is not proposed for Albert Street.

The PAC also asked for design features to make the road look like a street, and not a road or imitation freeway. We don’t want it to look and function like Bronson does near Carleton U. Answer: it will be designed for a 50kmh limit, which means it is designed for 60, as a margin of safety. The rebuilt road will be wider, smoother, flatter, with fewer catchbasin locations, longer sight lines, etc etc. Hey, it’s not the city’s fault if it looks and functions like a freeway, go talk to the motorists.

How about back curbs for the sidewalks, to protect the planting zones from plows and the soil being trodden down? Nope, no can do.

How about the new TMP so much touted by the City and Councillor Hume, you know the one that talks about enhancing the pedestrian experience and improving ped facilities so people will be encouraged to walk to transit stations? (This section of Albert passes both the Bayview and LeBreton Stations). Nope, haven’t talked to the city staff implementing that, and have no plans to. Maybe someone else can look at that in 2018.

So what pedestrian volumes are expected when the new LRT stations open, and will six foot wide sidewalks be enough to carry the volume of pedestrians, and will waiting areas at intersections be wide enough to deal with the volumes? City: haven’t looked at that, have no plans to look at that. Maybe things can be changed later if they don’t work out with standard minimum sized sidewalks.

What about a signalized intersection at City Centre Avenue  (if there can’t be a roundabout) since so much redevelopment is proposed there in the Bayview Station CDP now going to Council? And what about all those cyclists being delivered to here on the new OTrain MUP? Sorry, current traffic volumes don’t justify signals here, nor is the City proposing to install ductwork for future signals.

What about all those cyclists coming on the new OTrain MUP? You know, the ones the city is counting on to relive some of the overcrowding during the transitway closure.  How will they get onto Albert? Sorry, that’s someone else’s problem.

Well, what about Bikewest, Mayor Watson’s plan for an major east-west bike route from Westboro to the far east? What form will it take along Albert and how will it connect at each end? Sorry, that’s up to the bike planning folks, we’re just doing the road.

What about the Preston extension? The extension of Preston over to the existing signalized intersection of Vimy Drive and Wellington/Sir John A McDonald Parkway, will be constructed and used for a detour for a number of years during the construction of the LRT. The extension is also in the OP as a permanent route. Will this new road surface be permanent or will it be temporary? Answer: most likely temporary, with catchbasins and sewers  and curbs and asphalt installed and then removed again. It’s just a throwaway cost of building the LRT. Gotta save the cost of building an overpass over the LRT. (Background info: if the City builds the overpass now, it gets to pay for it. If it waits a dozen years — or lifetimes — until NCC developments reach this area, then the NCC builds it. And if the temporary road looks at all permanent or parts of it remain in situ, there is the issue of pedestrians and cyclists forcing their way through this popular alignment much as they do now, to the frustration of the NCC and City who try to close it down).

Booth Street is one of those primarily residential streets that the City has decided to redeploy as a major commuter arterial to and from Gatineau. It’s an awful mess now, with huge queue backs, and a severely impaired living arrangement for residents. Nope, won’t address that now.

What about traffic calming bulb out dimensions on Booth? Remember, the City agreed to narrow traffic lanes on Booth (south of Albert) as its concession to slowing traffic. These lanes are narrower than what the city calls for on cycle routes, and somehow Booth which used to not be on the cycle routes has magically appeared as a cycling route. How will the city resolve these two policies, one calling for narrower lanes and one wider? No answer. Another known unknown.

Well, how about the redesign of the Booth – Albert intersection? Can we comment on that? The neighbourhood PAC has some suggestions! Nope, the public consultation doesn’t include that key intersection in the middle of the strip, nor is that intersection designed yet, and however it is designed will be up to the RTG who will design it to fit their LeBreton Station needs. Period. Another known  unknown.

Well, how about the little side streets, like Lorne, Perkins, and Empress, some of which have almost no traffic, could we look at doing something nicer there since a standard street design with two lanes of traffic, parking lane,  two sidewalks, two sets of curbs and catchbasins aren’t really needed? Maybe something more mews like, that would actually cost the City less to build and maintain? Nope, not interested.

What about the Albert intersection with Rochester, which is a lengthy north-south street that intersects with Albert. And is a designated bike route parallel to and much safer to use than Booth.  It is a legal intersection, with crossing rights for pedestrians and cyclists, how will that be handled? Answer: no measures will be taken to improve this intersection.

The City’s LRT plan boasts that it will be connecting the LeBreton Station to the Broad Street alignment that crosses the aqueduct and goes to the War Museum and  Bluesfest site. This also aligns with Rochester Street. Will there be any provision to cross the LRT or will this remain another one of those “missing links” in the urban network? Sorry folks, no answer, because one city department simply can’t talk to another one,  coordination being the latest mortal sin.

Now it may be that the City has resolved many of these issues in the last week. That’s another unknown. But it is known that the public is invited to the Dalhousie Community Centre this Tuesday at 7pm (corner of Empress-Somerset) to review the plans and offer comments.

I encourage you to go, not so much to ask about the current plans, because so much about them is  known to be unknown, and undoubtedly there are unknown unknowns, and you’ll have to listen very carefully to distinguish between might be’s and could be’s and may be’s and whether it is 2013 or 2018 that something might be done.

But you can at least tell them what you want: A real street, pedestrian and cyclist friendly, well landscaped,  not another pretend freeway like Bronson or King Edward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actual treasure map to the “beer train tunnel” under Albert Street

Today’s Citizen has a fun story * by Ian McLeod  on the fabled beer train tunnel under Albert Street (this section was formerly known as Wellington Street). Every time there is major work in the area, the rumours spread of vast underground caches of beer, chilled and ready to take home by the lucky workers who can find them.

This was a great motivation for the Perez workers who built the 1980′s townhouses on Walnut Court (the southwest end of the tunnel and former brewery site). Let’s just say there was lots of excavation superintendents at the time.

Ditto for the workers who tore down the old warehouse building on the north side of Albert, the reputed north end of the tunnel. The Carbide building was the longest / largest in the British Empire when built, extending from [what is now] City Centre Avenue to Broad Street.  This building was used, amongst other things, to construct trans-Atlantic telegraph cables and accessories.

When the Parkway (not yet the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway, or John A Macdonald Parkway) was first used for express buses to Kanata and points west back in Andy Haydon’s day, half the building was demolished to permit the buses to get to the parkway via a new Preston Extension (its closing subject of a story here  just a few days ago…).

In the Citizen story, we are told  ”officials with the City of Ottawa’s communications office [said]  there was nothing in municipal records about any tunnel, much less a lost train”.

Hmm. Just how much do the communications people know?

How about this engineering drawing. A City drawing, no less, coming to WSA via the Old Dalhousie Ward heritage committee:

(click to enlarge)

It shows the intersection of Preston (coming up from the bottom of the drawing) and meeting Wellington (now Albert) running across the width of the drawing. The tunnel itself is shown to the left with the dark dotted outline. Enlarging the drawing shows the tunnel is 352′ west of the Preston intersection.

Since each sidewalk square is about 5′ wide, simply walk 70 squares west of Preston and you get here:

 

Notice the cracks in the pavement!

Aren’t they about 9′ apart!

OMG, its the tunnel !

Isn’t this enough to get the gardeners in those houses excited?

But wait, the Old Dalhousie Ward heritage committee has more City info. Here’s a cross section of the tunnel, looking east along the former Wellington, now Albert Street.:

The tunnel had to squeeze under the 51″ water main on the left, incline up a bit to get over the 3′ sewer pipe, and then descend a bit to get under the second 51″ water main. The drawing clearly shows the tunnel is 7′ high by 9′ wide. About 66′ of the length is under the city street.

Now back to reality.

Albert is up for total reconstruction in 2013, and the old tunnel will be excavated and filled. At that point, rumours of a train in the tunnel, or a gizillion cases of beer (still miraculously fresh after all those decades) will be tested. Until then, the fumes, the rumours, may be enough to cause the contractors to work harder, and maybe stay a bit late into the dark of night.

* Read more at the Citizen story: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/abandoned+rail+tunnel+lost+train+somewhere+beneath+LeBreton+Flats/7596660/story.html#ixzz2D3ZBlHfL

Bicycle tracks on the west side

A new sign has appeared on Albert Street near Empress (by the Good Companions, aka where Albert and Slater meet). It directs cyclists south along Empress, and up the stairs to get to Laurier.

Now I recognize that this is a way to get to Laurier. And more specifically, the Laurier SBL. But after you hike your bike up hundreds of stairs (using the bike trough on the side of the steps), you arrive at the bottom of a steep hill. Walk up that, and you are at Primrose. Go east one block, north another block on Cambridge, then east again a short block to reach Bronson and the start of the Laurier SBL. Which promptly goes back down the hill.

It seems to me to be a lot of effort and circuitous perambulations to get to a point that is just a few hundred feet east of where you started on Albert. For not much benefit. Here’s an historic photo I stole  from Urbsite that shows what a straight line Laurier is (from the top of the hill) to the section of Albert on the Flats down below. A staircase up this hill might have been worth it, but not the circuitous one now suggested by the city, which sends one on a long detour to get to this spot. The merits of this route is discussed in http://denvan.ca/wp/nanny-goat-path/

(above: the three-porched-row house at the bottom of the concrete wall is now where Good Companions is. )

Personally, I’m not thrilled with either route. They are very uphill, only to go downhill again a block later. I consider myself an expert at finding the flat route between points. Cycling routes that don’t consider the grade, just don’t make the grade for me.

It’s much less hill climbing and descending to simply ride along Slater (if you like that sort of vehicular cycling). Or cycle up the Albert contra flow lane or even the sidewalk (I don’t mind, if you do it carefully). Both these options take you a more modest grade.

And in the City’s longer term traffic plans (ie beyond 2018), the Slater alignment will be abandoned, and Slater moved over to share the Albert right of way, which will be unnecessarily wide once the transitway is removed. There is a drawing of this realignment at http://westsideaction.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/civic-gateways-absense-of/     Logic would suggest that the old Slater right of way would make a great, gentle slope bike path along the edge of the forested escarpment, while keeping a bit separated from heavy road traffic. Sounds great to me.

Ahh, but then how to get to Laurier? Typically, you can’t get there from here.

At least, not until the bike path is constructed on some sort of diagonal through the old Tech High School playing fields to reach Laurier around Percy Street. Sigh. At least there is some sort of possible linkage, given time, will, and funding.

So, back to the staircases.

The Empress staircase has the “old model” trough for wheeling a bike up (or down) the stairs. Over on Bayview, the City widened the short concrete stair there by about 18″ to permit the installation of this trough, which comes complete with Zebra Stripes. I saw some teens riding their bikes down this trough, which would be tough to do on the Empress stairs.

But in case someone wants to try, here is the view down the Empress stairs. Navigating the bumps and chicanes at each landing merely adds a frisson of challenge to the task.

Look closely in the above photo, and you will see a cyclist approaching Mount Staircase. Do they expect the magnitude of the climb ahead of them?

Civic Gateways (absence of)

Ottawa is nicer than many other cities. Despite the criticisms of the NCC, they do engage in long term planning and city building that generates a sense of grandeur or pride. Without them, Ottawa would be vastly impoverished, just another short-sighted mid-sized city planned with short term expediency the governing rule.

Ottawa is engaged in a worthwhile planning exercise for the downtown core, called Downtown Moves (DOMO). The removal of the bus lanes by 2017-18 creates the opportunity to remake the surface streets in a more livable and pleasant way. And not just replace the bus lanes with parking lanes. For this strategic thinking the city must be lauded.

But only if this isn’t just another expensive study that sits on a shelf being ignored.

One of the shortfalls of the City is its lack of considering large-scale gestures that make a place identifiable. Virtually all of Ottawa’s iconic sites, parks, and monuments are Federal. DOMO opens the door a crack (albeit a very small, understated crack) to something a bit grander.

One of the distinguishing features of Ottawa is the number of Y-shaped or triangular intersections. Confederation Square is the major iconic one and is the number one identifying feature/place of downtown Ottawa, despite it being a somewhat lifeless square much of the time. It’s not so much a place as somewhere to cross through.

DOMO identified a bunch of threshold points that separate the Town from the Crown. I think they understated the potential of the other civic gateway points.

The two gateway opportunities that might be very useful are at either “end” of the Albert – Slater one way pair. At the eastern end, the triangle is nicely landscaped (by the NCC) but it is elevated and is merely a traffic island on the roof of the NAC garage. It’s visibility is not helped by the McKenzie King bridge being mostly a bus road, where uses look out the side windows of the bus rather than forward.

I think this site has enormous potential for a monumental gateway feature with high visibility, without interrupting the Elgin – War Memorial axis. And this not need mean an expensive feature. The function of planning is to identify the opportunity, and preserve the spot, so that at some future time when a monument or feature is looking for a home, there are prime spots available.

Here is a closer up view, which gives a better idea of the significant area available:

The old Lorne Building along Elgin was recently demolished and a new EDC-clone building is going up in its place, which will provide a slightly more uniform backdrop to the vista.

One of the appealing things about the triangle is its similar shape to the War Memorial triangular-square. The section of Albert by the NAC is currently pretty much a pedestrian and urban wasteland, despite the pretty music being played by Oscar Peterson. The NAC is toying with some strategic plans to improve their building, including a main entrance on Elgin, and enclosing the largely-unused rooftop terraces with glazing to make conference or performance spaces. This could enliven the sidewalks which are wide but dead right now.

And at the other end of the downtown, Albert and Slater rejoin. The current configuration at the western edge of the core is another make-do compromise. Albert is overly wide west of Bronson; Slater is routed along the former streetcar right of way along the escarpment. Both sections of road west of Bronson are candidates for road diets once the transitway is replaced by the LRT-in-a-tunnel.

Long term thinking calls for the removal of Commissioner Street between Albert and Slater, to “regularize” the intersection, and the relocation of Slater to be more like this:

The above scheme was drawn by traffic engineers to optimise/maximize traffic flow. It would not be difficult to overlay a city-building, livable streets type revision.

Alas, the area is “outside” the DOMO study zone by 30 feet. And the Bronson reconstruction project (now underway) won’t be considering it. Nor will the Albert reconstruction project (2013+) which runs west from the putative join of Albert-Slater at the current debouche of the transitway. In short, no one is responsible, and the opportunity may simply die.

It’s main hope lies in that it is symmetrical to the eastern gateway point at the NAC, and just might get roped into the plan because of the planner’s love of symmetry and balance. But I’m not too hopeful. Throughout the DOMO process I found their interest and keenness to be on the east side of the downtown, how it relates to Rideau Street or Elgin, and to Parliament (all of which are proper areas of study) but whenever I brought up the west side, how people might get from the Future City on LeBreton Flats, or old Dalhousie neighborhood, or Chinatown, their eyes glazed over and pat phrases about “other studies” tumbled out. The near west side remains unfashionable.

But the DOMO study is not yet put to bed (or on the shelf, as the case may be) so I still have hope someone might spend a day looking at the west side of the downtown core. I am always an optimist. There is always hope.

City’s tallest office towers proposed for west side

Phoenix DCR is going to Council in August seeking rezoning of the parcel of land known as 801 Albert Street. They are proposing a 34 storey office tower; a 31 storey office tower, and a 7 storey office tower. Currently, the tallest office buildings in Ottawa are Place de Ville at 29 stories and Place Bell, both in the downtown core.

The parcel of land they propose to build these on is right across Albert Street from the existing Bayview transit station and the adjacent OTrain station. The triangular parcel of land is immediately north of the 8 storey City Centre office tower (the City Centre site has long been OK’d for developments in the 8 to 22 storey range), where City Centre Ave meets Albert. The site is bounded on the west by the OTrain line and new north-south multi-user path (bike path) on which construction begins later this month.

Here is a bird’s-eye view of the triangular site, located immediately south of (ie above) the word Bayview  (station). Our bird is flying somewhere above the Ottawa River, looking south:

The proposed office towers would have about 1.3 million square feet of space. The site is very difficult to develop, being crisscrossed with sewers and water mains. The developer was pushed off by the city back in 2010 when they initially sought rezoning, pending completion of studies about the condition of the infrastructure and the possibility of relocating some of the pipes (one pipe is to be relocated by the developer).

The aerial view below reverts to a more conventional view with north to the top of the picture.

The closest residential housing to the site is immediately east (right), the townhouses of Walnut Court.

Working closely with city planners, Phoenix has managed to insert three buildings between the pipe rights of way. They are well set back from Albert due to a major pipe crossing the site just south of Albert. They used this setback zone to create a forecourt for motorists arriving at the site.

The three buildings would only have 275 parking spaces in the four-level garage, and 22 on the surface, for somewhere around 5 – 6,000 employees. This is truly a transit-oriented development, dependent on the east-west LRT and north-south OTrain for all the employees to arrive. The buildings are designed for single occupancy, ie the Feds, with secure loading zones and mail rooms, etc. Recall that Federal buildings do not, as a rule, include much parking.

Proposed office towers, bird’s-eye view from the north-west, looking south. Albert Street is in the foreground, the City Centre complex is behind these buildings; the OTrain is to the right.

The building relates well to the adjacent streets. Residents and community associations put a lot of work into the CDP regarding this site. We wanted buildings to relate to the Albert Street grade on the north; and the much lower City Centre and O-Train grades on the south and west. This project has the auto court on the Albert level; and major pedestrian and cyclist entrances on the west at O-Train level, with direct access into the new Bayview Station at O-track level. Thus crowds of pedestrians needn’t be crossing Albert at 3pm every day… southbound and westbound travellers will find the shortest route via the ped path at OTrain level; eastbound travellers might go either via the path or cross the street.

The two tallest towers are linked above grade, and at grade by a lobby. The CDP calls for open access through the Phoenix site to the south, so that residents or workers at the (future) City Centre site will also have direct access to Albert and the transit station; although the new emphasis on the O-Train level as a pedestrian spine might reduce that need.

The south side of the building has some surface parking and garage entrances. According to site plans community members saw at a preview last September, the south side is being designed to simulate a street environment, with curbside parking, and the sidewalk along the south side will connect directly from City Centre/Albert intersection through the site to a new ped bridge over the OTrain connecting to the former Wellington right of way into Hintonburg (the bridge that used to be there was removed in 1970) . Phoenix is offering funding for the ped bridge and seems cognizant for making the south side pedestrian friendly and safe.

Most people tend to view the 5.3 acre triangular site as being “in a hole”, but it isn’t really. The problem is that Albert Street rises up on an earthen embankment to its bridge over the OTrain. The service ramp to the City Centre building has a similar slope; and then further south Somerset Street is also raised on a viaduct. But the Phoenix site is at the same elevation as Primrose, Elm, and Spruce Streets, and the City Centre site, and Tom Brown arena, Bayview Yards, and most of LeBreton Flats. I am confident that when / if built up as per this proposal the landscape will look and feel natural.

When the Dalhousie and Hintonburg CA’s, plus representatives from Walnut Court (townhouses immediately east of the site), met the developers last September, there was considerable scepticism that the suggested buildings did look nice but would the final buildings actually look like that? In particular, the innovative second skin of coloured glass panels on the north façade looked expendable should the developer need to cut costs.

In the rezoning application, the proponent wants to “shrink wrap” the buildings as proposed, so the exact saw-tooth south façade and building shapes and locations would be approved but any changes would require council approval (rezoning). Would this include the exterior as shown? We don’t know.

The preview session also raised some concerns about the west façade (no pic available) which is precast concrete punched with windows. The concrete surface was required to meet LEED standards and to reduce solar gain from the western sun.

The CA’s generally approved of the traffic access and signals as suggested. We felt the driveways would work as shown, for the traffic volumes projected. However, the parking needs to be almost all short-term parking, not monthly rentals, since if the garage is full of monthly parkers then day-parkers will flood the neighborhood. And the building, as planned, is only useful for Federal tenancy, since any other use, such as condos or a hotel, would require a lot more parking and more road access than is feasible to provide. We are also concerned that the relationship of the site to Albert Street be urban and not encourage motorists to speed up due to the large scale surroundings.

The ground level of the building has a horizontal “arcade” of white concrete across the front to provide eye-level interest. Personally, I’d like to see that extend out from the northwest corner of the building out to Albert Street, to more fully enclose the courtyard. There will be the usual food court and services inside.

As presently proposed, the building seems isolated and the surroundings bleak. It is certainly not part of any downtown or mainstreet fabric. But then, it wouldn’t fit well on any traditional mainstreet (West Wellington? Preston? Somerset?) due to its size. It is much more like the Tunney’s Pasture buildings, which are towers-in-a-bunny-field adjacent a rapid transit station. There is, however, the possibility of developing a more cohesive and usable high-rise neighborhood when the City Centre site is redeveloped and a pedestrian spine is required to run north-south from Somerset to Bayview Station.

The seven storey building on the east, the most triangular one, is  a meeting centre with conference rooms around some sort of atrium. Or, it could be office space. These are details to be worked out should the developer find a tenant, because this complex won’t be built unless they have a pre-signed tenant for all of the space in at least one tower.

The shadows thrown from these towers will go a long way in the winter. Fortunately, they go north, where there is no existing or proposed residential uses. The late afternoon western sun may throw a shadow onto the adjacent Walnut Court, Primrose, and Elm residential areas (the existing Tunney’s Pasture buildings do that already). Unfortunately, the shadow study doesn’t include late afternoon projections, despite Community Association requests:

 Summary: The site for this development is difficult to design well, and the proposed rezoning is highly dependent on the buildings being exactly as shown, and for a single tenancy office use. The quality of the ped and cyclist access via the western frontage is crucial for the easy movement of the six thousand workers to and from the Bayview Station.

Major changes coming to downtown streets

The current downtown Ottawa is rather blah. Some might even call it bleh. Over the decades, it has become a motor-vehicle-oriented environment, with the fast movement of vehicles the main only priority. We all know about the walls of buses. And the priority given to automobile commuters over pedestrians. Trees: rare as hen’s teeth. It has become a downtown one goes to because you have to. It is not a shopping, or even much of a recreation destination. All rather sad.

When the LRT is opened, there will be major changes. Most OC Transpo buses will be off the Albert and Slater bus lanes. What do we do with the freed-up space? Recall too that the current bus stops disgorge pedestrians at many locations; the LRT will deliver huge crowds, all at once, at limited locations.

So Council directed that the Downtown Moves study be conducted, to integrate urban design and transportation strategy, and to restore the balance among street users [in council's actual words]. Most people can understand that a vibrant downtown doesn’t  come from wider roads, faster traffic, or “getting everyone out” as quickly as possible ( I exclude from this understanding some select minority voices).

The Downtown Moves study isn’t about just tinkering with the core. It’s a major rewrite opportunity, to reallocate space, to refresh the downtown sidewalks and streets for the next 50 to 100 years. Thus far, the working teams have not been timid. So it is time to look at some of the suggested streetscapes.

Note: these are working documents only, in progress sketches, and may not be the final designs. They will evolve under pressure from various factions. So how well are we moving towards the grand statement:

“Our downtown is about to undergo a transformation that will define a new identity and be the foundation for its prosperity for coming generations. The investment in Light Rail Transit will open and sustain a new pursuit of civic and national pride in the urban quality of our capital City. Our downtown streets will be reoriented to favour and comfort pedestrians, cyclists and transit users, recognizing that all travellers end and start their trip on foot. With this healthy and active orientation, our streets themselves will begin to be praised as among our city’s most coveted public spaces that in turn spark investment and that are befitting of the highest quality of buildings and open spaces along them”.

Queen Street will be a key street to the future. Currently the only two-way street downtown, it is a fairly claustrophobic, narrow canyon. It is a minor street destined to become the main pedestrian experience. The north sidewalks are very narrow east of Bank Street. The exit stairways and elevators to the underground stations will come up in what is now the parking lane on the south side of Queen (pic below).  There will be loss of some on street parking and planners have to figure out how to disperse crowds of 5000 people per hour. The sunny side of the street is the north side.

The sketch below has been marked up in a workshop focus group. The north parking lane is gone, replaced by wider sidewalks and pedestrian amenities. The south side parking lane is now paved in the same material as the sidewalks, and may even be at the same level as the sidewalk, separated from it by removable bollards, so that the parking lane can be incorporated into extra-wide sidewalks for events like Canada Day. Cyclists mix with traffic; and in the distance you can see a typical stairway entry to the LRT just beyond the two parked cars. Street furniture (ie mail boxes, benches, light posts, signs) will be all aligned with the trees to maintain the clearest possible sidewalks.

 

Two blocks north is Wellington. In the working sketch below (and remember, no decisions have been made…) there is a two-way bike lane suggested on the north side of Wellington. This helps make a more complete network of bike-friendly streets in the downtown connecting the major tourist points (bixi-bike tourism) and the major paths that approach the downtown but seldom connect with each other (this bidirectional bike lane would connect the Confederation Boulevard bike circuit, to the Alexandra and Portage Bridge bike lanes, etc). The two way path alignment was selected to minimize conflict with turning vehicles (the north side has few turn opportunities, and will apparently have fewer in the future as the Parliament Hill security perimeter expands) and to preserve sight lines to the Hill. Eastbound buses (and the whole STO route problem/scenario remains unsolved as yet) will stop at the curb; but what about westbound STO buses and tour buses? Tour buses in particular want to deliver passengers as close as possible to the destination. Bus riders may be let off onto islands between the bike lanes and bus lanes, but total available road width is a constraint. Double left turn lanes may be a thing of the past. The suggested public space configuration in the sketch will help remove the sense that Wellington is a huge barrier separating the downtown and Parliament:

Albert and Slater will be changed drastically once the main bus routes are removed. It seems uncertain just how many fewer buses will be there.  Some objectives along these streets are to integrate the public sidewalk space with the building setbacks and available private spaces along the street. Intersections will get much wider crosswalks. The parking lane is on the right side of the street, paved to match the sidewalks. It would not be a rush hour traffic lane. There would be bulb-outs at the intersections and midblock locations for trees. The bike lane is on the left side of the street, placing the cyclist close to the vehicle driver’s field of view and not hidden on the “far side” of the vehicle. There may be opportunities to squeeze in delivery bays between the bike lane and traffic lane. But essentially, the bus lane space has been given over to non-vehicular uses. Remember, though, that bike lanes have a higher capacity than car lanes.

The only north-south street that has been sketched out thus far is Metcalfe, and only north of Sparks. No analysis has yet been done for O’Connor, Kent, Lyon, etc. And as far as I could tell, they hadn’t yet addressed what to do south of Sparks. Frequently suggested is returning the streets to two-way status, the traffic planning fad of one way streets being largely past its acceptable date. Such a major change is beyond the mandate of the Downtown Moves plan. When examining the N/S streets, several new factors come into play. First, most of the parking spaces north of Queen are closed much of the time for security reasons. They can be repurposed a bus loading zones or para-transpo zones. Tourists walk slower and in wider groups than office workers, so the sidewalks connecting Sparks to the Parliamentary precinct should be wider. Then we might as well continue the wider sidewalks down to at least Albert to help disperse the commuter hordes arriving from the LRT stations. These north-south streets are also major locations for street vendors, so might as well plan for them now.

What’s next?

The Downtown Moves teams will be refining the sketches/scenarios for public space downtown. They have to run them by the traffic people to assess what it does for vehicular movements, goods movement, safety, special access needs, security, taxis, etc. They have to run them by the various downtown private sector groups, such as hotel owners, office building managers and owners, etc. They do have numerous photo examples of similar changes done successfully in other cities.

Hopefully, with continued leadership from the politicians (ie, no wavering in face of NIMBY’s who might lose a parking space or who believe cars rule) there can be a balanced discussion and evaluation of the transportation and urban design possibilities.

The Downtown Moves team will read the comments you make to this post, so fire away. And tell your councillor if you like the direction the study is moving, but save him or her the nit picky details as the study is still early on. We need to encourage the process towards a better downtown and not bog it down.