Rideau Street: A Tale of Lost Opportunities

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Rideau façades 1950s.


http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Doyle+Streetcars+named+desire/7079120/story.html

More Rideau from previous post;

I'm glad I grew up in Toronto, but pics like these make me wonder what it would've been like to grow up in Ottawa. Looks like life would've been a lot more simple (in a good way).

[kevinbottawa]

I'm glad I grew up in Toronto, but pics like these make me wonder what it would've been like to grow up in Ottawa. Looks like life would've been a lot more simple (in a good way).

Originally Posted by J.OT13

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

That I actually agree with. proposal was too tall for the area and saw the demolition of a few nice old buildings.

I didn't care about the height, but, yeah, demolishing the older buildings was a cost without much benefit.

Uhuniau, your right; with Stage 2, it's guaranteed Orleans will get rapid transit before Rideau. No doubt the new Transitways to Kanata will be converted to ORT before any urban RT is built downtown. And maybe, just maybe, they will extend the ORT to the Corel Centre AFTER it closes down.

And Phase 5 will be Farrhaven. And Phases 6 through 12 will be LRT to the even further-flung suburban — that has yet to be imagined by Tartan, let alone built.

Meanwhile, the central city neighbourhoods will still have an inadequate number of buses, and the 39 suburban councilors will shoot down any attempt by the 1 city-centre councilor of three who actually proposes even modest improvements like signal priority or sacrificing parking for bus crappid transit.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

I heard about this Rideau Street bus mall but I'd never seen it before. This is so nasty! Gross. I can't believe any local elected official, or the NCC, ever let this happen to Rideau Street.

Ottawa has long been a guinea pig for unbelievably stupid urban planning decisions - bus crappid transit, the NCC Brownbelt, Lebreton Flats, Lowertown East, Your Name Here Stadium, the Rideau Piss Mall, etc., etc.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

I heard about this Rideau Street bus mall but I'd never seen it before. This is so nasty! Gross. I can't believe any local elected official, or the NCC, ever let this happen to Rideau Street.

Well, they went from subway plan to bus tunnel over Rideau Street pedestrian arcade to elevated bus plan over Rideau pedestrian arcade too bus mall. See Rideau Centre History parts 1 through 9.

http://urbsite.blogspot.ca/

As for the bus shelters, you can find them in Perth, re-adapted into a market;


http://www.icomos.org/~fleblanc/imagegallery/canada-on-perth/canada-on-perth.html

[lrt's friend]

Downtown has not fully recovered from the opening of the Rideau Centre 31 years ago. It sucked the life out of the rest of downtown, particularly Sparks Street. The horrid bus mall shelters were not moved to Perth until they had successfully killed all the stores on Rideau Street and became the haven for the homeless. One of Ottawa's biggest planning disasters ever. The influx of new condo owners will hopefully revive Rideau Street but Sparks Street remains a sad shadow of its former self.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Downtown has not fully recovered from the opening of the Rideau Centre 31 years ago. It sucked the life out of the rest of downtown, particularly Sparks Street. The horrid bus mall shelters were not moved to Perth until they had successfully killed all the stores on Rideau Street and became the haven for the homeless. One of Ottawa's biggest planning disasters ever. The influx of new condo owners will hopefully revive Rideau Street but Sparks Street remains a sad shadow of its former self.

Sparks is slowly coming back to life with livelier restaurants like the Three Brewers (ok, one livelier restaurant), more festivals, a summer revitalization project coming up. The slight influx of condos on both ends (Cathedral Hill and the Re eventually) and the 2018 opening of the subway might also help.

[Kitchissippi]

If it weren't for the Rideau Centre, downtown would be completely dead, the life of it sucked out by suburban malls. At least the Rideau Centre manages to bring people downtown who trickle into the market and even Sparks. Practically all large cities have had to build malls downtown to compete and survive, be it the Toronto Eaton Centre or Montreal's several underground malls. Cities that didn't, like Halifax struggle with the retail sector and lost all their downtown department stores.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

If it weren't for the Rideau Centre, downtown would be completely dead, the life of it sucked out by suburban malls. At least the Rideau Centre manages to bring people downtown who trickle into the market and even Sparks. Practically all large cities have had to build malls downtown to compete and survive, be it the Toronto Eaton Centre or Montreal's several underground malls. Cities that didn't, like Halifax struggle with the retail sector and lost all their downtown department stores.

I tend to agree. I also wonder whether the Sparks and Rideau stores were already in decline (independent department stores, and mid-market department stores more generally have been in severe decline in recent decades).

That being said, I think the Rideau Centre could have been much better designed (having a separate bus station instead of turning rideau into a giant bus stop, not covering Daly completely, stores facing rideau street, etc.).

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I tend to agree. I also wonder whether the Sparks and Rideau stores were already in decline (independent department stores, and mid-market department stores more generally have been in severe decline in recent decades).

That being said, I think the Rideau Centre could have been much better designed (having a separate bus station instead of turning rideau into a giant bus stop, not covering Daly completely, stores facing rideau street, etc.).

The Eaton Centre in Toronto was a disaster for that section of Yonge, and it's recent renovations have helped a little, but there's only so much they could do. At least the Rideau Centre expansion provides far more opportunity to fix its mistakes.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

The Eaton Centre in Toronto was a disaster for that section of Yonge, and it's recent renovations have helped a little, but there's only so much they could do. At least the Rideau Centre expansion provides far more opportunity to fix its mistakes.

I think that's a similar situation. The types of businesses that were on Yonge in the 60s and 70s (grindhouse theatres, taverns, diners, — stores, record stores, plus small, independent stores that survived from the 40s and 50s) were not businesses that had a big future as tastes and technology changed. The Eaton Centre does, however, draw suburbanites into downtown as well as tourists, etc. Yonge didn't really start to improve until they demolished a whole block of (mostly crappy) stores to make Yonge Dundas Square.

[drawarc]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

I heard about this Rideau Street bus mall but I'd never seen it before. This is so nasty! Gross. I can't believe any local elected official, or the NCC, ever let this happen to Rideau Street.

Another pic of bus mall from street level, 1983:



Source: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1983-ORG-SLIDE-D...?pt=Art_Photo_Images&hash=item51ba17e75d

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by drawarc

Another pic of bus mall from street level, 1983:



Source: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1983-ORG-SLIDE-D...?pt=Art_Photo_Images&hash=item51ba17e75d

Notice that this photo is a mirror image? The street sign lettering and the bus going down the wrong side of the road.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Notice that this photo is a mirror image? The street sign lettering and the bus going down the wrong side of the road.

Wow! We're literally looking at a reflection of the past! :-P

[Trans Canada]

Originally Posted by defishel

I found this one:

I'm really surprised to see Le St George in the background - I didn't think it was more than 15 years old. Turns out it was built in 1987, might even be u/c in the above pic. I'm amazed at how well it has aged.

edit: I see the Perth photo was posted above

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I think that's a similar situation. The types of businesses that were on Yonge in the 60s and 70s (grindhouse theatres, taverns, diners, — stores, record stores, plus small, independent stores that survived from the 40s and 50s) were not businesses that had a big future as tastes and technology changed. The Eaton Centre does, however, draw suburbanites into downtown as well as tourists, etc. Yonge didn't really start to improve until they demolished a whole block of (mostly crappy) stores to make Yonge Dundas Square.

I think everything you say is true. But there was no doubt that the inward-looking orientation of the Eaton Centre hurt that stretch of Yonge Street. It essentially created an interior block that drew pedestrians off of the street, and those wacky stairways and flourishes did nothing for street life. The improvements to the exterior were also important to the revitalization, as they created a more porous exterior with some restaurants facing the street. The problem was that they were really constrained by space. There was only so much they could do in that narrow corridor without taking too much away from the sidewalk.

Given that half of the Rideau Centre is new, there is an opportunity to do things right the first time around. In theory, it should be better than the superficial changes to the Eaton Centre. And if they do get the pedestrian mall on the east side of the mall, that has significant potential to enhance street life in a more organic way than Yonge-Dundas square.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Notice that this photo is a mirror image? The street sign lettering and the bus going down the wrong side of the road.

Yup, as soon as I saw Chapters on the wrong side of the Skywalk/Freiman Building.

[TransitZilla]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread, but the city has a new public realm plan for Rideau St. and the surrounding area.

It sounds like the conversion of Nicholas into a pedestrian plaza between Rideau and Besserer is a go.

http://ottawa.ca/en/news/plan-improve-rideau-street-and-nearby-streets-available-public-review

[teej1984]

It's too bad there isn't an option to completely close Waller off to traffic and make it exclusively pedestrian only. One may think UOttawa would be pushing hard for this as it would make it a more continuous campus.

[1overcosc]

Looks great! One issue though: pedestrian crossing times.

Why does Ottawa insist on making crossing the street a huge pain in the —? One of my biggest gripes with Ottawa vs. Kingston is street crossing. In Ottawa, even in urban areas like Laurier, Rideau, Bank (north of Billings), etc. crossing the street legally usually means having to push a button and wait over a minute for the damn walk light. Trying to get across Rideau anywhere east of King Edward, or getting across Laurier Ave. East is a giant PITA. Whereas in Kingston, that kind of ritual is reserved for suburban arterials, on urban mainstreets the lights are all automatic (no push buttons!), and they change every 20-30 seconds which means you never have to wait more than 30 seconds to cross the street. It boggles my mind how Ottawa, in all of its plans to improve the pedestrian realm, goes on and on building new & bigger sidewalks and street trees but completely ignores ease of street crossing in all of its plans and strategies.

I've sent an official response to this plan calling out this issue. Let's see if it gets anywhere.