General Update/Rumour thread [Urban Ottawa]

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by gjhall

Why do you say that?

The site will likely end up as mixed use (office, residential and retail), and since the demand for office space will likely be low for the next decade since there are millions of square feet U/C, the fact that there are already many condo proposals waiting in line and that Brocolinni is not a big player in the condo market (they build as contractors, but I can only recall "The Slater" as being their own) and finally, the retail market is seeing a huge boon that limits any new possibilities from this point on (Outlet in Kanata, Bayshore, Lansdowne, Rideau, maybe St-Laurent; I think that’s enough to catch up with Ottawa's supposed lack of retail).

Furthermore, the city will be using the north-east corner of Albert and Lyon as a staging area for the subway project.

Although Alterna is vacating the building in 2013, so who knows how long Brocolinni wants to keep the site empty. I doubt they would try to find a tenant for the building.

But that’s just what I rely don’t know. Let’s wait and see what happens.

[Harley613]

i'm hoping that towards the end of the decade Ottawa is of a certain size and recognition that it starts attracting major corporate headquarters. i see Ottawa becoming a little like Minneapolis....Minneapolis has many corporate headquarters because of it's quality of life and most importantly Geography....it's close to the centre of population distribution in the US, just like Ottawa is perfectly situated in the centre of population density in Canada. I think the cost of space in Toronto and the political instability in Montreal will start pushing corps to look at Ottawa in a serious way. We're building the infrastructure...and what is it that Kevin Costner said in that movie Field of Dreams? :p

anyhow, my point is that I feel like an office space boom might happen at the end of the decade if my vision comes to fruition.

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by Harley613

I think the cost of space in Toronto and the political instability in Montreal will start pushing corps to look at Ottawa in a serious way.

I've been wondering if Ottawa could benefit from the "instability" in Montreal. On top of the Bloc Quebecois being in power, today the media were talking about a report by the Université de Montréal that says Quebec companies pay the highest taxes in North America. Perhaps Ottawa should be marketed as an alternative for companies in Quebec that want to do business in French but don't want to be heavily taxed or have had enough of hearing about separatism. If they still want to be Quebec residents they could live across the river in Gatineau and operate their business in Ottawa. You'd think that because Ottawa is full of qualified English and French speaking people there would be national headquarters here. A company could serve English speaking and French speaking people from here.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

IYou'd think that because Ottawa is full of qualified English and French speaking people there would be national headquarters here. A company could serve English speaking and French speaking people from here.

That's one reason that Costco located here. It would be nice to see more of that happen, but I think that the competition among cities for corporate head offices is pretty heated. Unless Ottawa decides to offer incentives to companies, I wouldn't expect a flood.

[Acajack]

There was Costco (which was in Laval previously) it is true but historically there were far worse years in Montreal than today and Ottawa didn't really see many relocations from there. The vast majority went to Toronto.

Although maybe it's because Ottawa didn't chase after them aggressively.

Also, Ottawa has a good location but its transportation links are (were?) not exactly stellar.

The 416 has improved things (was not there in the late 70s and early 80s) for linkages to southern Ontario, and air links are a lot better than they were.

But Ottawa is still I believe the largest city in Canada without a freight rail terminal of any kind.

[J.OT13]

Over the years, we have seen a lot of Montreal head offices move out in waves, but they seem to always go to Toronto. I'm hoping, as Harley 613 indicated, that the next wave seriously considers Ottawa due to its more reasonable general affordability, and that, as kevinbottawa pointed out, that Ottawa would be at the top of the list because of the widespread bilingualism.

Of course, the PQ currently has a minority, so any of her new radical initiatives to piss off companies might not pass in the "National" Assembly. But I would hope that these companies’ smarten up and move out before the next election (or vote of non confidance), where if the PQ or a combination of the PQ and Action National won a majority, and the “Reférendum sur la Souvranité”bomb is deployed.

[J.OT13]

Centretown community design plan recommends two-way streets

Consultants working on a Centretown design blueprint like the idea of converting arterial one-way streets to two-way.

The final version of the Centretown community design plan went public Thursday.

The document recommends first converting Metcalfe St. to a two-way road, followed by Lyon St., Kent St. and O’Connor St.

As the plan suggests, the conversions would need to follow a technical review of the Queensway ramps.

The consultants say the downtown’s one-way streets largely serve peak-hour commuters, so they aren’t being maximized for the full day. Two-way streets, they say, would give motorists more routes to choose from and make travelling by bike or foot safer.

If the city was to test out the two-way idea, the plan recommends piloting Metcalfe St. between McLeod and Wellington streets as a priority because of low traffic volumes and connections to the highway wouldn’t be affected.

The plan also contemplates eliminating the south chunk of Metcalfe St. that runs through the east lawn of the Canadian Museum of Nature. That would also promote the expansion of public space between the museum and Elgin St.

In the plan, Metcalfe St. is considered a “premiere” road in Ottawa since it’s a straight connection between the nature museum and the Parliament Buildings.

Changing how people get around downtown has also been a priority for the city in preparation for light rail through a “mobility overlay” study.

Council’s planning committee is anticipated to receive the Centretown community design plan in December.

http://www.ottawasun.com/2012/10/18/centretown-community-design-plan-recommends-two-way-streets

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

http://www.ottawasun.com/2012/10/18/centretown-community-design-plan-recommends-two-way-streets

I really disagree with that plan.

I don't see how two way streets makes things safer for pedestrians. You end up with more vehicles turning, plus you have to pay attention to traffic from more directions when you are trying to cross the street.

Look at Manhattan, pretty much everything is one-way. It works much better downtown.

[Aylmer]

It makes it safer because cars go slower when there's the possibility of hitting someone head-on. So it's safer because there's more going on.

More obstacles = Slower speeds = Better safety for everyone! Yay!

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

I really disagree with that plan.

I don't see how two way streets makes things safer for pedestrians. You end up with more vehicles turning, plus you have to pay attention to traffic from more directions when you are trying to cross the street.

Look at Manhattan, pretty much everything is one-way. It works much better downtown.

I agree with Lyon and Metcalfe, but not Kent and O'Connor. The volume of traffic that comes up Kent in the a.m. and down O'Connor in the p.m. coming to and from the 417 is huge. Making those streets 2-way will slow things down considerably. As it is now, people turning left basically do so as they please (often onto other 1-way streets) but with two-way traffic they will be stuck waiting and things will back up behind them. If a cab stops to pick someone up on the left side of Kent in the morning (happens quite often) things jam up immediately. I can only imagine what will happen when at least one of the lanes are lost to this plan. Anyway, I guess I will have to find a new route into work in the morning.

[Kitchissippi]

+1

Definitely Metcalfe should be turned into a two-way street, as it is a lousy one-way ending awkwardly on both ends. It would also work great with north-south segregated bike lanes, which would certainly make the Bixi system much more attractive to use downtown. Solving the stupidity of the World Exchange parking ramp (why the hell did the city allow them to use up the road right of way for this?) will be a problem to face.

[Aylmer]

I think the maximum width for a city one-way should be two narrow lanes. More than that and speeding can become much more of a problem imo. I say make them either one-lane/two-way streets with parking or two-lane/one-way streets with parking on both sides, a segregated bike lane behind the parking and curb bulges.

The problem with one-ways is not as much the fact that they only go in one direction (though that does negatively affect the life on the street), but that it turns into a racetrack: if there's no parking on Kent, it's four wide lanes. That's more than the Queensway downtown. You can't expect people to go 50 when you design the road for 120.

However, Metcalf can easily accomodate 1L/2D with parking and bulges. If it's a narrow two-way, you can get away with the bicycle sharing arrows (>>) to indicate that bikes are to be treated as full-sized vehicles.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

It makes it safer because cars go slower when there's the possibility of hitting someone head-on. So it's safer because there's more going on.

More obstacles = Slower speeds = Better safety for everyone! Yay!

That is exactly the problem. A driver can technically only look at one thing at a time.

When making a left turn the driver is focused on finding a gap in oncoming traffic (which is a treat to their safety) and misses a pedestrian crossing at the crossing. I have even done this myself driving and had it happen to me walk. I stopped well short of hitting the pedestrian as I noticed my error, but it was interesting learning/realization experience. I walk a lot and actually prefer to unless it is too far or what I am carrying is too heavy so the error sorta shocked me as I am pretty darn passionate about pedestrian friendliness and related things.

A similar problem is encountered when (as a pedestrian) you walk along the sidewalk approaching traffic and come upon a vehicle entering the roadway turning right. They focus 99% percent of their attention to the left as that is when the traffic is coming from.

With two one-way streets the driver no longer has to worry about oncoming traffic since it is only one possible turn or straight through. The only conflict becomes pedestrians so that is where they look.

[c_speed3108]

a think a better design would be to leave streets one-way, but add segregated bike lanes and re-open blocked up intersections (or intersection when you can't drive straight through.

Opening the intersections would add more traffic lights (which slows things down). It would also spread the traffic out a bit better so things are not as busy.

The bike lanes would work well on a one-way as it would still allow things like para-transpo to stop (say bike lane(s) on left) so there would not be all the drop-off issues they hit on laurier.

They could actually take the left vehicle width lane of the street and make a segregated two-way bike lane.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

That is exactly the problem. A driver can technically only look at one thing at a time.

When making a left turn the driver is focused on finding a gap in oncoming traffic (which is a treat to their safety) and misses a pedestrian crossing at the crossing. I have even done this myself driving and had it happen to me walk. I stopped well short of hitting the pedestrian as I noticed my error, but it was interesting learning/realization experience. I walk a lot and actually prefer to unless it is too far or what I am carrying is too heavy so the error sorta shocked me as I am pretty darn passionate about pedestrian friendliness and related things.

A similar problem is encountered when (as a pedestrian) you walk along the sidewalk approaching traffic and come upon a vehicle entering the roadway turning right. They focus 99% percent of their attention to the left as that is when the traffic is coming from.

With two one-way streets the driver no longer has to worry about oncoming traffic since it is only one possible turn or straight through. The only conflict becomes pedestrians so that is where they look.

Though it's less of a risk to safety because people go slower because they are more careful because they expect the unexpected. If safer roads were those that had the least amount of distractions, then crossing the Queensway should be as safe as warm milk.

You would be right if people went just as fast/slow on any road, but that isn't the case: when there are more outside distractions, you go slower, so if you do by some mishap bump into a pedestrian, it will be just that: a bump.
When there are fewer distractions, you're more at ease and pay less attention to your surroundings, so when something unexpected, like a pedestrian crossing, does happen, you'll be slower to notice and your speed almost guarantees serious injury or death.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Though it's less of a risk to safety because people go slower because they are more careful because they expect the unexpected. If safer roads were those that had the least amount of distractions, then crossing the Queensway should be as safe as warm milk.

You would be right if people went just as fast/slow on any road, but that isn't the case: when there are more outside distractions, you go slower, so if you do by some mishap bump into a pedestrian, it will be just that: a bump.
When there are fewer distractions, you're more at ease and pay less attention to your surroundings, so when something unexpected, like a pedestrian crossing, does happen, you'll be slower to notice and your speed almost guarantees serious injury or death.

While they are obviously not for pedestrians, 400 series divided highways have considerably less crashes per km driven than do city streets, so it is not simply a speed thing. There is actually one spot where people do walk across the divided 100 km/h portion of the 174, at Trim Rd in Orleans. There is a traffic light and while that intersection has had it's share of collisions, I don't believe a pedestrian has ever been hit there - though it is not an extremely busy crossing except when there is special events on at Petrie Island such as Canada Day.

Now on the other hand there does seem to be a sweet spot with driver psychology. When there is too little going on drivers seem to occupy themselves with other things (likely mobile devices). The rural roads in Ottawa, which are straight and have very little traffic do have a absurd number of single vehicle crashes.

[Dado]

I'm with c_speed on this one.

Turning one-ways into two-ways just because the one-ways have historically been used to turn streets into race tracks is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

With limited width rights of way, one-ways - for cars - allow things that are difficult with two-ways, such as segregated bike lanes and bus lanes.


Consider two average-width downtown streets. They typically have room for about four lanes plus sidewalks and not much else. When configured as two-way, each street typically has two traffic lanes and two parking lanes. If you want to put in bus lanes, then a lane of parking has to go for each direction. With bike lanes, you also end up removing a lane of parking for each street on which you put them, and if you want segregated lanes with barrier/buffer zones wider than a curb you may end up removing parking entirely.

But if the streets are one-way, that's not the case. Only one lane per street needs to be devoted to general traffic, unlike on a two-way street where it's two lanes that have to be reserved. That means the overall number of general traffic lanes per direction can be reduced from two to one (i.e. between the two streets), with the result that traffic can potentially be slowed down rather than sped up. This also allows bike lanes to be inserted on both streets in both directions without giving up any parking at all.

On two-way streets, buses and bikes tend not to get on too well due to the leap-frogging tendency between the two modes, but on one-way streets the bikes can be put in a two-way bikeway on one side (the left side) and buses in a lane on the other (the right side) while still having a lane left for parking, which can go either between the bikeway and the traffic lane or to the right of the bus lane if the bus lane isn't too busy.


In short, one-way streets offer the potential for a range of streetscaping improvements that cannot be attained with two-way streets of limited width.

[Aylmer]

I agree, but it's a nuisance if you don't take advantage of that streetscaping. They both have distinct advantages and disadvantages and we need to evaluate the needs of each street and its surrounding neighbourhoods to determine the best option.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

I agree with Lyon and Metcalfe, but not Kent and O'Connor. The volume of traffic that comes up Kent in the a.m. and down O'Connor in the p.m. coming to and from the 417 is huge. Making those streets 2-way will slow things down considerably.

I agree. Another reason would be that both Mecalfe and Lyon have capital monuments that are missed because of the one-ways.

With Metcalfe, heading north as it is today, we are heading towards Parliamant and by converting to a two way street, people will once again get a view of the Canadian Museum of Nature Victoria Building.

And Lyon has the Memorial Arch. I still can't figure out how it's a two way under the arch and then switches to one way past Sparks Street. As far as I can tell, only cars coming out of the PdV garage is using that short north boud leg.

[bartlebooth]

I have heard a few rumours about a new hotel coming to the Byward Market area. Not much more I can really say but sounds like it could be a nice addition to the area.