Category Archives: Bayview Otrain

Fence me in, please !

Construction fences are a mixed blessing. They are harbingers of something new, and hopefully improved. And they are less welcome when they block off public paths and spaces.

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Earlier this month the large parking lot on the north side of Albert just west of Bronson was fenced off. The parking lot isn’t much loss, but with it went Brickhill Street and a segment of Old Wellington, where the tour buses used to park. This will be a staging site for constructing the LRT tunnel under the downtown. So we are in for years of entertainment, err, mess and noise. Depending on your view.

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Earlier this week, crews began installing fencing just north of the Bayview Station. The former snow dump site off Bayview Road, known as Bayview Yards, and site of the former spay neuter clinic, will be a major staging site for the LRT construction project. This will include extending the Otrain track northwards … no, not to Gatineau, just a few metres north to better align with the future Bayview LRT station to be constructed above.

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I found myself wondering at the care to keep the fence off the rails, but then I thought  the rails are conductive, so maybe its to electrically isolate the fence from the rails, in case of lightning. Can you think of a better reason?

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?

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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eric Darwin commemorative gate CLOSES soon

Intrepid follows of this blog may recall the brou-ha-ha over the gate at the north end of Preston (aka the Preston Extension) where for decades residents have accessed the Ottawa River parklands. We even had a legal crossing of the Transitway ! Then one day — shock:

… a popular cycling and walking route closed unexpectedly …

Several times the NCC has tried to close the gate, but we beat them back. Some kind soul even put up a sign naming the gate after Qui- Moi?

That sign is long gone, and today the NCC announced our gate and access to the Flats, the River, the bike paths … is coming to a demise. Closure. Pathway prorogation.

As part of the Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan (FCSAP), the NCC will be proceeding with the second phase of soil remediation work on the northern portion of LeBreton Flats. Remediation work will occur on the land north of the open aqueduct, south of Wellington street, between Booth and Preston streets, from November 2012 to December 2013.Work will occur between 7 am and 6 pm, as per City of Ottawa by-laws. All trucks will reach the highway via the designated truck route on Preston street.

The site will be fenced off for the duration of the project, which includes the closure of unofficial trails between Wellington and the Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway (formerly the Ottawa River Parkway).

The text isn’t exactly crystal clear. What unofficial trails exist between Wellington and the parkway? Isn’t all that area freshly landscaped as part of the War Museum? Wouldn’t they be “official”? Or do they mean the old, but still-in-use bike path along the north side of the aqueduct? So I asked the NCC for clarification.

The “Preston Extension” – both the current paved one and the future Preston extension are shown on the map below. Squint at the bottom left corner:

 

the area being closed is the bottom left, ie west of Booth, north of the aqueduct

Not all is lost, however, as the new OTrain corridor  bike and ped path, aka the MUP,  should be open shortly. This will give people access to the River. It will be less convenient for some; more convenient for others.

At the last Public Advisory Committee session on the OTrain MUP, I asked the city planners what would happen to the MUP and people who use it during the construction of the new Bayview LRT station, which straddles the path, and which will be a major construction project lasting for several years.

Their reply was that parts of the path might be shifted, detoured, or relocated during construction, but that the contractors would just have to deal with the path remaining open. I am much encouraged by those words, BUT the governing words will be those in the contract issued for the construction of the LRT.

The clarification I received from the NCC regarding the closing of the Preston Extension and the fate of the pathways on the Flats is as follows:

1.  yes, the pathway that is parallel to the aqueduct (north of the aqueduct) will be closed and eventually removed from Booth street to approximately the end of the aqueduct as the land beneath this section of the pathway will be remediated. It will not be immediately rebuilt as part of the forthcoming works.

2.   the pathway along the river will not be affected and users will see no change.

3.  The path within 30 meters of the aqueduct will have to be closed starting next week, to prevent accidents….  The pathway within 30 meters of the aqueduct will be closed on the week of November 19th, likely on Monday.

 Preston Street extension will be used by heavy trucks as part of the works and will have to be closed to protect the public. Although plans may have to be changed, we’re not planning to have to close it before a few months. The community will be informed as early as possible if it becomes the case.

4. lands south of the aqueduct will not be affected aside from the former Preston Street extension which might require closure. The contractor does not expect to use the former Preston Street for the next months as a trucking route for the site. Therefore, at the moment, the NCC does not plan to close the access at Albert/Preston streets. Nevertheless, for a project of this magnitude there are always unknowns and it is possible that the former Preston Street might become a trucking route at some point within the project. If that were to occur, the pathway would be closed to ensure public’s safety.

So, we gain a new OTrain path, and lose the old Preston Extension and the aqueduct path. Note that the LRT plans do not include a crossing of the OTrain at Preston at this time.

 

OTrain bike path paved

Okay, I mislead you a bit with the title.

It’s not a bike path, it’s a multi-user path, since cyclists, pedestrians, dog-walkers and their guardians are all welcome. And it’s not all paved, just the section from Somerset north to the Ottawa River.

I suspect the section from Somerset to Young didn’t get paved due to the heavy equipment installing the staircase at Somerset. But I am hopeful we will get it paved before this winter.

Herewith, the pic:

section between Bayview Station and the Sir John A MacDonald Parkway.I think the amount of “zoom” on the picture distorts the curves, which are in fact gentle. The NCC section gets nicer black chain link fence.

the path meets the OTrain platform

looking south along the new path as it leaves Bayview OTrain station, towards Somerset

the new path goes through Bayview OTrain station, as viewed from the Albert Street overpass

looking south, behind City Centre building, with the plain silver chain link fencing

view north, from City Centre building, back towards Bayview Station. Lamp-posts are in, but not the light heads

paved section of pathway ends at the Somerset underpass. It will be possible to “race” the train between Gladstone and Bayview …

 

Spreading the dirt

Work continues on the OTrain bike and pedestrian pathway (the multi-user path, or MUP, in planning jargon). It looks awfully close to being ready to pave. Contractors are spreading topsoil along the edges of the path. On Monday I saw this gizmo spreading the topsoil over large areas:

Here’s another picture of it, showing the source truck with the topsoil:

A few days ago, both CTV and CFRA ran stories on the path. I can only imagine what CFRA found awful; but I did see the CTV report on their website. It was pretty pointless. They interviewed several cyclists along the river parkway who didn’t know that a new path was being built. The dollar amount of the path was stated breathlessly. It was hard to tell what the “controversy” was: the amount of the expenditure, that cyclists didn’t know the taxpayer was improving their lives; or that the city wasn’t telling people about the path.

They also interviewed a storeowner who didn’t know about the path. I guess he doesn’t read his mail (flyers were sent out via Canada Post) or BIA communications. This is the same store owner who I have heard complain bitterly about the widened sidewalks along Preston removing precious car parking, who advocates the streetscaping should  be torn out.

On a more cheerful note, here are some more pictures of progress on the Otrain path.

From Somerset, there will be a staircase down to the path, especially useful for those who want to go north to Bayview Station. Here the contractors are putting up the supports for the concrete columns:

e

The stair runs at 90 degrees from Somerset Street. At the last PAC meeting, it was to run up the dirt slope instead.

 

This high retaining wall was a contentious item in the plan. It was required that the path minimize the land take in the area, leaving as much room as possible for the new station construction. In recognition of the uncertain situation, the wall is modular, and can be taken down and reused elsewhere if so desired.

The path is wide and safely graded, so on the weekend anyone can walk it’s length from Young Street to the McDonald Parkway, although the last bit of slope down to the Ottawa River is still fenced.

 

 

 

 

The “Other” Iconic Station viewpoint that we lost

The Confederation Square station entrance (or lack of one) is getting a lot of press.

 Earlier, the proposed Rideau Station was straddling the underside of the Canal, with the east entrance coming up at the Rideau Centre and the west entrance coming up at Confederation Square. This was called the Rideau Street station as that was its primary market, and the main reason it was pushed eastward under the canal was the sharp southward curve the track took immediately upon leaving the Rideau Station heading towards Campus:

 

The prior plans showed the western end of the Rideau station platform connected to a long, fairly convoluted set of underground corridors and staircases to come up to entrances at the plaza on the east side of the old train station, and further west by the driveway entrance to the front doors of the NAC.


(There have been numerous versions of this entrance, depending on the depth of the tunnel and its exact alignment. The pic above is to illustrate the concept).

It was from this entrance by the NAC that people exiting the door would have an “iconic” view of the War Memorial, Parliament, etc. Keep in mind that the station entrance design for the NAC location was to kept very minimal and low, because otherwise it would interfere with the motorist’s sight line from their iconic view from Colonel By Drive.

Right from the first unveiling of the Rideau Station plans, I was sceptical about the NAC  entrance. The long sinuous underground corridors to get there are confusing and  unappealing, with several 180 degree turns, 90 degree turns left and right, and odd jogs in the horizontal corridors.

And once you exit at street level, where are you? You’re on the “wrong” side of Confederation Square, you have to cross multiple lanes of busy traffic at busy time-consuming traffic signals to get to Parliament, Sparks, the War Memorial, or the Market. In short, other than a tourist directed there because of the iconic view, who would want to exit there? Is an iconic arrival viewpoint enough justification for this location?

I felt that most people  working along the west side of Elgin would find it faster and more pleasant to exit from the downtown east station, which is also closer to tourist-type destinations such as Sparks Street and Parliament Hill.  The planners at the time were clearly uncomfortable with the main tourist arrival point for Parliament et al being in the East station, a downtown office canyon (Queen Street) where there was no immediate sense of direction to the Parliamentary precinct.

The City’s projected users of the station at Confederation Square showed the following breakdown. At the time, I was told that the number of wide streets to cross or delays in crossing was not a factor in the allocation, only geographic dispersal. Obviously, walk time is not strictly related to distance, but to the time to traverse that distance, which is influenced by the delay at busy streets. About 35% of the pedestrian traffic heading south out of the station would be heading towards Elgin Street (either side) (would any head to DND via the MacKenzieKing Bridge?) and about 5% towards Parliament, Wellington Street, or Sparks:

Remember, the City has only unveiled plans for two exits for each station, which is the legal minimum required. But they expect stations to have multiple exits when actually fully built out. These additional exits come as the plans are refined and detailed, and as adjacent property owners decide how/if to connect their buildings to the stations. (The city will  negotiate rights of ways and cost sharing). I fully expect the Downtown East station to either be shifted very slightly east or have a longer underground exit carry people  closer to Elgin.

But is the Confederation Square entrance the ONLY iconic entrance at hand?

Recall that there is another iconic sight line the NCC and City’s Official Plan protect, and that is from the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway where it rises up and over the O-Train track at the Prince of Wales Bridge. This offers motorists from the west a great view of Parliament and the downtown, a view line that is protected forever.

And barely a few yards south of the motorist’s protected view point is the Bayview Station. the major transfer point for South bound LRT/O-Train services and East-West LRT services, and possibly the STO Rapibus Ottawa terminal or the extension of LRT service to Gatineau. Tens of thousands of passengers will use this station daily.

Under the plans kicked around for the first bit of LRT planning, people arriving at this station would ascend the escalators into the grand hall and have gradually revealed, to the east, a large overhead arch of the roof framing an “iconic” view of the downtown (which may or may not have actually included the Parliament building silhouette).

Alas, the City decided that preserving even a narrow view plane for tens of thousands of daily transit users was not worthwhile. For motorists a few yards north, however, it is a major accomplishment of National Capital Image Building. I guess Obama isn’t expected to arrive by LRT, only by armoured limo on the riverside highways. The escorts for his body guards, however, are more likely to arrive via the LRT, but they don’t warrant a nice view.

The City then turned its back on the remaining views of the downtown that would still have been possible from the station, even if there were some mid-rise Claridge condo towers in the foreground. The City decided it wouldn’t align the arch of the station to frame the view, then compounded it by reversing the escalator flows so that ascending riders view Mechanicsville instead of the downtown.

Yup, it takes multiple parties — the City, its Mayor, the NCC, and others, to produce such  missed opportunities. Iconic sight lines are not priceless, there may be times to not take advantage of them. And we shouldn’t locate/design whole LRT stations primarily because they offer a nifty view upon exiting. Sightlines and views are city-building tools, that elevate a place from the ordinary to the special. But the LRT first and foremost has to work as a transit system.

Are we valuing sight lines highly enough, both at the Confederation and Bayview sites? In the midst of all the noise, it’s hard to tell.