Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I don't think you can possibly end sprawl. The housing market is telling us that most people prefer living in a low rise situation.

That may be so, but that doesn't mean that low rise housing has to be built on stupid 1960s-style curlicue street layouts that can never be retrofitted, in response to natural social and economic pressures in the future, to serve any other function.

And there is a MASSIVE demand for old-style and denser neighbourhoods, which is why the ones which do exist are so expensive. Yet the developers refuse to build anything resembling those popular older neighbourhoods, claiming there's no demand; the city can't and won't force the issue; and the city approves every stupid suburban development that lands on its plate, while urban redevelopment in the old core gets NIMBYed to death.

The only way we can curb development on the edges of Kanata and Orleans is to provide an alternative. That was where the failed north-south line was supposed to fit in. That would have enabled us to experiment with transit oriented suburbs, something that may never be fully achievable at the edges of Kanata or Orleans.

You can't experiment with transit-oriented neighbourhoods if your status-quo developers won't propose anything other than mid-century suburban crap layouts, and as long as the city keeps approving them.

[JM1]

This is how every metropolis that came of age at the end of the nineteenth century (in the railway age) did it. London, Paris, and Berlin are all served by suburban (now urban) rail networks that had nodes in what started as the centres of dormitory communities but are now thriving high streets and interesting town centres in their own right (even if they remain subordinate to the city centre, they have all the amenities required for life, and perhaps even a few points of interest).

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I think the key is to bring LRT to each of the suburban town centres (Place d'Orleans, Kanata Centrum, Barrhaven Marketplace) and not necessarily beyond. Make each one of these the preeminent transit hub for each community and over time, land values will rise to a point that the sea of free parking lots won't make sense. One of the good things about those big box power centres is that they are so cheaply built and easily redeveloped, but in the meantime they're establishing traffic patterns within the community that make them logical placeholders for future densified cores, even though they may not be feasible at present.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Because Ottawa has a pointless stupid "green" space fetish.

You can never convince Ottawa to defetishize pointless stupid "green" space, no matter what.

It is false green space. A lot of people quote the greenbelt as being the largest urban park but that is just a joke. It's not a park. All it is is the city limits for a city that was supposed to be half a million in size.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

It is false green space. A lot of people quote the greenbelt as being the largest urban park but that is just a joke. It's not a park. All it is is the city limits for a city that was supposed to be half a million in size.

How much of the Green Belt is actually a park?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

That may be so, but that doesn't mean that low rise housing has to be built on stupid 1960s-style curlicue street layouts that can never be retrofitted, in response to natural social and economic pressures in the future, to serve any other function.

And there is a MASSIVE demand for old-style and denser neighbourhoods, which is why the ones which do exist are so expensive. Yet the developers refuse to build anything resembling those popular older neighbourhoods, claiming there's no demand; the city can't and won't force the issue; and the city approves every stupid suburban development that lands on its plate, while urban redevelopment in the old core gets NIMBYed to death.

Those old-style neighbourhoods (Glebe, etc.) aren't particularly dense, they're big houses on big lots with lots of parks around. They're in demand because they're big houses on big lots with lots of parks around close to downtown and a traditional main street. High density neighbourhoods (Hintonberg, etc) are less in demand.

Also, grid street patterns have a higher proportion of roads than curved patterns, and therefore less density.

I think the big problems are they make the pedestrian environment in new areas terrible and they never build the retail first, so people moving into new areas (including some of the TOD areas near the city centre) can't walk to the drug store or the coffee shop like then can in the Glebe and have to pretty much drive to everything, which creates a car-centric culture which permeates everything else.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I think the big problems are they make the pedestrian environment in new areas terrible and they never build the retail first, so people moving into new areas (including some of the TOD areas near the city centre) can't walk to the drug store or the coffee shop like then can in the Glebe and have to pretty much drive to everything, which creates a car-centric culture which permeates everything else.

Businesses wouldn't be feasible if the retail was built first. I think I've said this before, the mechanism for creating new traditional main streets is broken. Gone are the days when entrepreneur class built their own shops (too much risk and the costs are prohibitive) and developers are not interested in selling small individual commercial lots since there is no market for them either. Managing the specific needs of businesses on main streets is also a bit of a headache for the city which is why they encourage BIAs to do some self-management and planning.

Greenfield residential developers are really only interested in selling houses and not much else, so most of the time they push the buttons that appeal to personal privacy and entitlement, rather than a bigger-picture community perspective. In this disconnect, all commercial development is handed over to the mega companies with close ties to the big box stores and franchises. As a result, the community no longer has ownership or local pride of the common shopping areas like they do with main streets, and suburbia is rarely an incubator for innovative retail.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Businesses wouldn't be feasible if the retail was built first. I think I've said this before, the mechanism for creating new traditional main streets is broken. Gone are the days when entrepreneur class built their own shops (too much risk and the costs are prohibitive) and developers are not interested in selling small individual commercial lots since there is no market for them either. Managing the specific needs of businesses on main streets is also a bit of a headache for the city which is why they encourage BIAs to do some self-management and planning.

Greenfield residential developers are really only interested in selling houses and not much else, so most of the time they push the buttons that appeal to personal privacy and entitlement, rather than a bigger-picture community perspective. In this disconnect, all commercial development is handed over to the mega companies with close ties to the big box stores and franchises. As a result, the community no longer has ownership or local pride of the common shopping areas like they do with main streets, and suburbia is rarely an incubator for innovative retail.

I think that's true, but I also think the city could do a lot by
1) improving the pedestrian environment so a retailer can have a reasonable expectation that nearby residents will walk to their store
2) insist on a retail set-aside when zoning is approved or offer other concessions zoning concessions (higher density, etc) in exchange for including retail in the subdivision plan.
3) insist that entrances are built at the property line, facing the street.

It can certainly be done, the westboro superstore is still a big box car utopia but it is built in a way that encourages pedestrians.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

How much of the Green Belt is actually a park?

My point exactly! But people often quote is as being "one of the largest urban parks" which is just a bunch of hooey. See wikipedia or the canadian parks and wilderness society's websites. People see building in the greebelt as destroying an urban park but it's not a park, it's not even urban, all it is is the city limit and you know what, the city has grown and needs to grow. The city has an opportunity to develop new neighborhoods with high access to transit but allowing to build only along the corridors LRT will run. That was my point.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by JM1

This is how every metropolis that came of age at the end of the nineteenth century (in the railway age) did it. London, Paris, and Berlin are all served by suburban (now urban) rail networks that had nodes in what started as the centres of dormitory communities but are now thriving high streets and interesting town centres in their own right (even if they remain subordinate to the city centre, they have all the amenities required for life, and perhaps even a few points of interest).

At the end of the 19th century, cities weren't saddled with stupid curlicue street layouts, pointless legal restrictions on land use, idiotic ideas that land use can't evolve over time, and NIMBYist hysterics.

Until we stop building, or get rid of, all of those things, low-density, mass-segregated North American suburbs will remain exactly as they are for centuries to come. It is ludicrous that we have fossilized land uses in post-war suburbs, but that is what we have done, and that is what we continue to build and approve.

If we want change, we need to change. We don't change. It's almost as if we don't really want to, despite all the blather in our planning doctrines.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

It is false green space. A lot of people quote the greenbelt as being the largest urban park but that is just a joke. It's not a park. All it is is the city limits for a city that was supposed to be half a million in size.

Exactly. Most of it is just fetishized "green space" that has encourage sprawl and adds to the economic and ecological costs of running the city.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Those old-style neighbourhoods (Glebe, etc.) aren't particularly dense, they're big houses on big lots with lots of parks around.

Big houses?

Big lots?

Lots of parks?

Huh?

Also, grid street patterns have a higher proportion of roads than curved patterns

Good. That's a feature, not a bug.

I think the big problems are they make the pedestrian environment in new areas terrible

Yes. By building stupid curlicue street layouts that do not lend themselves to intuitive navigation, which cannot be adopted to any future use other than the initial residential form they are built out as, and which are mass-segregated from other land uses.

In other words: they are not being built like popular, successful, pre-war neighbourhoods.

And yet, the developers keep lying, and saying there is no market for that type of development, and the city keeps approving of the lies.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Businesses wouldn't be feasible if the retail was built first. I think I've said this before, the mechanism for creating new traditional main streets is broken. Gone are the days when entrepreneur class built their own shops (too much risk and the costs are prohibitive) and developers are not interested in selling small individual commercial lots since there is no market for them either.

I am not convinced of that. There is plenty of market for small commercial properties - that's why strip malls and small suburban retail "plazas" exist.

But that's all that gets built in small form. Strip malls and plazas. If the city's policy would insist on that small retail being directed towards new main streets, we'd get main streets, but we don't. That's not what our unimaginative developers propose, and not what the city approves.

They keep proposing, and approving, crap.

So we keep getting crap.

The city should stop approving so much crap, and should start sticking to its guns in terms of the supposed planning philosophy which it aspires to, and then ignores.

Managing the specific needs of businesses on main streets is also a bit of a headache for the city which is why they encourage BIAs to do some self-management and planning.

Which "needs" are those headaches?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It can certainly be done, the westboro superstore is still a big box car utopia but it is built in a way that encourages pedestrians.

It could have been more so: the thing is set way too far back from the street line, and the parking entrance is overly generous.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Big houses?

Big lots?

Lots of parks?

Huh?

Most lots in the Glebe are 50x100, many are much more. Westboro lots tend to be bigger than that. Single family lots in Barrhaven are usually 40 feet wide. Most townhouse developments are 18 feet wide.

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Good. That's a feature, not a bug.

So you don't like density?

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

In other words: they are not being built like popular, successful, pre-war neighbourhoods.

And yet, the developers keep lying, and saying there is no market for that type of development, and the city keeps approving of the lies.

Grid patterns were built well into the 1950s and 60s. 50s neighbourhoods like overbrook, carlington, most of vanier and alphabet city are not nearly as successful (still) as prewar neighbourhoods despite being built in a similar grid pattern. What the prewar neighbourhoods do have is a pedestrian friendly streets, traditional main streets in walking distance, and lots of well-designed parkland (having been designed during the city beautiful trend).

[McC]

I don't know what you mean by "most." There are some to be sure (the marquee streets like Clemow, and the North side of Glebe Ave, for instance), but check the numbered avenues and others on the City's emaps, I think the standard subdivision in most of the Glebe was 30 foot lots, which is no different from North Hintonburg and Wellington West where 25-30 foot lots abound.

[bartlebooth]

According to the Confederation Line website, Lyon station Cavern is 100% complete. I guess it is time to move on. Exciting.

http://www.ligneconfederationline.ca/the-build/downtown-tunnel/roadheaders/

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Most lots in the Glebe are 50x100, many are much more. Westboro lots tend to be bigger than that. Single family lots in Barrhaven are usually 40 feet wide. Most townhouse developments are 18 feet wide.


So you don't like density?




Grid patterns were built well into the 1950s and 60s. 50s neighbourhoods like overbrook, carlington, most of vanier and alphabet city are not nearly as successful (still) as prewar neighbourhoods despite being built in a similar grid pattern. What the prewar neighbourhoods do have is a pedestrian friendly streets, traditional main streets in walking distance, and lots of well-designed parkland (having been designed during the city beautiful trend).

The areas that you describe have a grid pattern because they were actually subdivided before World War I. It is true that they were mostly built up after World War II but not entirely. It is the fact that they were built during the emerging car culture at a time when shopping centres were becoming popular is the real reason for the difference.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by bartlebooth

According to the Confederation Line website, Lyon station Cavern is 100% complete. I guess it is time to move on. Exciting.

http://www.ligneconfederationline.ca/the-build/downtown-tunnel/roadheaders/

I think we'll see it go faster with the other stations from now on since most of the work on the umbrellas is done. That took a lot of time, and mining out the benches seem like a piece of cake comparatively. I have a feeling they could be done with the excavation as early as April.

When the project started, they were counting on constructing free-standing entrance pavilions on the sidewalks, but plans have changed and the entrances are now mostly integrated into existing buildings. I bet this has saved a lot of construction time, and I won't be surprised if the tunnel and its stations end up finished six months ahead of schedule.

[rocketphish]

Two more potties proposed for LRT

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Sun
First posted: Tuesday, November 24, 2015 07:50 PM EST | Updated: Tuesday, November 24, 2015 07:54 PM EST

The city wants to take $2 million out of its LRT contingency fund to build two extra washrooms on the Confederation Line.

The two washrooms would be at Bayview and Hurdman stations, which will be busy transfer points for transit customers starting in 2018. Washrooms were already planned for Tunney's Pasture and Blair LRT stations.

In a report published Tuesday, the city says it will negotiate the final costs with the Rideau Transit Group, which is the LRT contractor.

The city estimates it will cost $13,000 more each month to maintain the two extra washrooms.

The $80 million LRT contingency has been reduced to $20 million after committed costs and money set aside for future obligations and changes.

The community-based GottaGo! Campaign has been pushing the city to build more washrooms in LRT stations.

When the Stage 2 LRT extensions are complete in 2023, the city expects to have additional washrooms in stations at Bayshore, Baseline and Place d'Orléans.

The finance and economic development committee will consider the potty plan next Wednesday.

http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/11/24/two-more-potties-proposed-for-lrt

[J.OT13]

Well it's about time. Of course the two biggest (permanent) transfer points should have washrooms. Even more so considering there are no public buildings around.