City launches another ByWard Market study, this time on public spaces
Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: July 31, 2018
The ByWard Market is the subject of another city study, this time focusing on the public spaces.
The city announced the 18-month project Tuesday after launching a similar exercise for Sparks Street last fall. There’s a new appetite to improve those high-traffic tourist areas of the city.
The city said finding a consultant for the ByWard Market study is in the procurement phase, so the costs haven’t been finalized.
ByWard Market seems to be perpetually under study. The 2013 study on the market by the U.S.-based Project for Public Spaces kicked off a new wave of scrutiny, leading to incremental change.
The city in 2017 opened a redesigned plaza in front of the central market building and installed two premium retail stands. It also experimented with the removal of parking spaces for an Ottawa 2017 exhibit on York Street where the big Ottawa sign now lives.
The next frontier might be better pedestrian access through the market, possibly by closing some streets to auto traffic. Any proposal to remove vehicles and parking in the market district will surely spark controversy, but the city will be faced with a decision at the end of the study. The results of the latest consultation, including the responses to a
survey, will likely inform any changes or the status quo.
Pedestrian flows are expected to increase between Rideau Street and the market when the Confederation Line LRT opens. An underground station on Rideau Street will have an access point at William Street, in addition to the access point in the expanded Rideau Centre. Rideau Street is also scheduled for upgrades in 2019, once the LRT construction is done. (The LRT line is scheduled to open in November 2018).
With the new study, the city is looking for ways to “beautify, organize and connect” public spaces.
According to the city, the study will also examine consumer behaviour and potentially inform new requirements for the designs of sidewalks, streets and landscaping.
The city has already achieved its goals in council’s strategic priorities for the term when it comes to markets and Sparks Street. They included new governance models for both the city-run markets (ByWard and Parkdale) and Sparks Street.
When it comes to the markets, the city has turned oversight over to the arm’s-length agency Ottawa Markets.
Ottawa Markets’ own strategic plan for 2018-2022 promotes the idea of a design competition for the public realm of the ByWard Market.
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