Quote:
Originally Posted by lrt's friend
I am sorry but I look at those three photos and that is exactly what we are talking about. Places to shop, eat and drink.
What is the alternative?
Turning the land next to the Rideau Canal into million dollar condos? Turning public space into private property? Building office buildings on green space?
It certainly not going to be historic buildings being built there. Too late for that. Other tourist attractions like those so many panned in the Lebreton proposal?
I really don't get what you are getting at.
And at what expense? We lose the green space, the bike paths. Block the iconic vista up the canal to Parliament hill with buildings, most likely of second rate design?
I think we need to be careful in what we wish for.
As I have said before, there is a lot of history behind how the Rideau Canal has evolved to this point. It will take a lot to change that course. And in the end, will it be better? Remember that strip of land is pretty narrow, and there are a lot of Nimbys ready to pounce on every proposal.
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First, for someone calling him or herself LRT's friend, you are far too obsessed with vehicular access... Almost as though you aren't a pedestrian and don't understand what it means to design pedestrian park spaces whatsoever.
Second, those 3 photos were one person's idea, not mine. There are hundreds if not thousands of examples around the world, many in north america, of creatively landscaped waterfronts that don't rely on commercial properties.
Seriously just google "Urban waterfront" and click away. I'm not curating them for you.
The 'alternative' doesn't involve privatization. All I've said in this thread is that the canal needs new landscape design, badly, possibly with a few new publicly owned pavilions leveraging leasing agreements into more pedestrian bridges. That doesn't mean condos, strip malls, or ripping up the parkway. There is already a massive easement of current landscaping to design in.
It doesn't mean ripping the bike paths, it means augmenting them, creating more space beyond just grass so that walkers, bikers, runners, skaters, whatever, aren't all funneled through the same 2 meters of asphalt.
It doesn't need gimmicky tourist attractions like "Lebreton", the canal IS the attraction. And frankly, you can gloat about lebreton's tourist attractions when, and if, they are eventually built. Until then they're just early staged renderings used to sell a job. (psst. they aren't real)
And by the way, the Canal absolutely has not "evolved" ok. If anything it has devolved because the landscaping is exactly the same as it was half a century ago or more, and there are less activities and amenities along its length now than there were then. It's evolution basically came to a stop 50 years ago because $$$ and NCC. Go visit the city of Ottawa's Emaps website and look at 1928 aerial photographs. The design of most of its length is the same, MINUS many many landscape components that have since been erased. That's not evolution.
Have a look. On the north section there are more frequent and prominent accesspoints. With more intricate pathways, and presumably, seating arrangements. This was replaced by a lower pathway that people today avoid because bad lighting and terrible accessibility make it too dangerous or frightening at night. The concealment along that path attracts a bad element. (guessing it was done it the 60s/70s based on the brutalist concrete?) Not that I think that path is a terrible design because I've enjoyed it personally, but it's wildly out of date.
On the south part of the golden triangle, again there are more frequent and prominent accesspoints with pedestrian roundabouts and probably more seating. Those silly little roundabouts denote "places" along a continuum which is more than we have today. They're locations to meet or gather, they're important.
South of patterson's pond, by 5th. Again there are more landscape elements, the silly heritage pond has a footbridge over it. Call it silly romanticism, but hey, it's another accesspoint too. There are boat houses on the canal! omg the heritage!! How dare they encroach on the water and cross the sacred barrier of stone walls built by our ancestors!
There's nothing to desecrate here. I walk the canal's length regularly. If you do as well, you'll know its walls and railing are falling apart. You'll know it doesn't have enough garbages or places to sit. You'll know it's utterly monotonous and includes no differentiated locations except for the locks. It's public land that should be improved in the public's best interest. That means we should absolutely allow landscape design components to encroach on the canal here or there. Build docks and quais and boardwalks or whatever. Add place-making design components for which there is plenty of space. Give it better lighting and more access points. Give it wider, meandering pathways to accomodate multi-modal transportation. Build more pedestrian bridges connecting East & West. Provide more ways to access the water. Build in permanent structure for winter-use, and god forbid, add a few pavilions along its FOUR KILOMETERS for washrooms and food services.
There's your formula, protected vistas and all. Do some googling of urban waterfronts and get your head out of your car. Vehicular access to pavilions is a hollow concern, though McC can't seem to conceiving such a thing. As is, utility trucks just drive up on the grass regularly. It's not rocket science, but it CAN be resolved in the design stage. It's not some make-or-break concern for conceptual development.
Peace out, I'm done. If you, or anyone else, still can't see past your car-centric pre-conceived "heritage" nimbys then the problem is too ingrained to debate.
Edit: Ohh and look here, What today is just a glorified median down the QED near bronson used to be useful space back when pedestrians weren't shunned by a car-dominant society. Tell me again about the "heritage" we're protecting by refusing to adapt the current landscape. Also just west of Bronson, not pictured, there was a very large boating dock on the south side by the mouth of dow's lake.
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