Ādisōke [Ottawa's New Central Library] | U/C

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

If only there was some way of building things over rail lines.

Possible but expensive. Line would also have to be built before the Sens do, which is unlikely considering the Trillium's conversion is completly off the table at this point.

Don't get me wrong, I agree we should interline. Not going to happen though.

[rocketphish]

Library could anchor the Ottawa of the future

Kate Heartfield
Published on: December 16, 2016 | Last Updated: December 16, 2016 11:49 AM EST

The current main branch of the Ottawa Public Library opened in 1974 and will have served this city for at least 44 years by the time its replacement gets built. The act of building a house of information that will be useful to this capital city for another 44 years feels like throwing a dart blindfolded.

In 1974, Ottawa was a much smaller place and the personal computer was new technology. As strange as 2016 would seem to a traveller from that time, Ottawa in the 2060s will doubtless seem even stranger to us. Our mental models for that future – the Jetsons (2062) or Star Trek’s first contact with the Vulcans (2063) – will of course be proven wrong, but we don’t know how.

Ask any two people to agree on what libraries will look like in just five years and you’ll start an argument. So how can we plan for the technological and cultural changes that will happen over the next half-lifetime – at least, as measured by today’s lifespans?

We can, at least, take a few informed guesses.

Archives will not be obsolete; in fact, they could be bigger and more complex. In 2010, the Library of Congress announced it was going to archive all of Twitter, making every tweet available to researchers. Six years later, this has turned out to be a task beyond its current abilities.

It’s very likely some researcher in the 2060s will want to read Mayor Jim Watson’s tweets about, say, the library he and this council decided to build. Maybe that research will be as simple as a Google search, and maybe it won’t be. How many new forms of information will humanity invent in the coming decades, and who will track it? Our society has two choices: either we learn how to archive data in unprecedented volume and strange new forms, or we give up on reliably preserving information that might be in the public interest.

The preservation of, and interaction with, physical objects is also likely to remain important to our community. Indeed, some theorists think the libraries of the future will be something like the mechanics’ institutes of the 19th century, focusing on instruction, workshops and the creation of objects. The proposed library complex includes exhibit space.

When the library’s asked Ottawans about the future of this city’s library system, it found that “Ottawa residents view the library as a physical space first and foremost.” That physical space will probably be even more important in the 2060s, if jobs and workplaces become more mobile and decentralized. Go to any coffee shop and look at the people working away on laptops, headphones in – communally apart, publicly introverted. It’s not a mode of working that would have made much sense to a Victorian. Or maybe it would have – maybe it’s just an evolution of the men’s club with every member in an armchair, reading a newspaper, a sign calling for Silence! on the wall. Cities seem to need these spaces where we can go to be silently in the company of others.

While physical presence in the library might matter more in 2060 in some ways, it will matter less in others. It might make sense for library membership to be more fluid, possibly based on geolocation, not on the address on your driver’s licence.

There are many ways this project could go badly wrong. The partnership with the federal government, as exciting as it is for both sides, could make everything harder. Council has to consider how to integrate this library into the city, not just as an institution but as a place that people need to be able to get to easily and in all kinds of weather.

And what will the capital be like in the 2060s? We can hope, at least, that the Ottawa of the future will be more comfortable being both a city and a capital at the same time. This combined federal/municipal facility, in a spot that isn’t quite the parliamentary precinct but isn’t quite residential Ottawa either,
could be a foundation stone for that sort of capital if we get it right.

Kate Heartfield is an Ottawa writer. Twitter.com/kateheartfield

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columni...ry-could-anchor-the-ottawa-of-the-future

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Possible but expensive. Line would also have to be built before the Sens do, which is unlikely considering the Trillium's conversion is completly off the table at this point.

Don't get me wrong, I agree we should interline. Not going to happen though.

Line itself wouldn't have to be built, just a roughed-in running way reserved through whatever structure is built.

Don't tell anyone, but there's a ghost LRT station at Baseline already.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Line itself wouldn't have to be built, just a roughed-in running way reserved through whatever structure is built.

Don't tell anyone, but there's a ghost LRT station at Baseline already.

Oh yeah, that enormously expensive station that nobody will use until at least 2023. By then, it will probably need expensive modifications.

[lrt's friend]

The question is how do we make downtown a more pedestrian friendly place? We have the market, we have Elgin Street, we have Bank Street. Maybe we will have Lebreton in the future, maybe. But how are we going to knit these pedestrian friendly areas together? Sparks Street has been a disaster since the Rideau Centre first opened. The newer parts of downtown west of Bank have no street front presence. Everything there was developed hodge podge without considering a pedestrian friendly environment. Sure, there are pedestrians from the offices, but it is far from a destination, anywhere west of Bank.

So we build the library west of Bronson and down the hill. How do we make it attractive to people walking across downtown to want to walk all that way? We shouldn't have to rely entirely on the Confederation Line. In fact, in some respects it will discourage people from walking on the surface streets. The subway should be mainly be bringing people downtown, not be the crutch to move people across downtown, at least, not for the most part.

We shouldn't want the downtown to be even more the domain of private vehicles.

[acottawa]

Many cities build funiculars or elevators to deal with changes in grade. They could also build a bridge connecting the library to the top of the escarpment.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Oh yeah, that enormously expensive station that nobody will use until at least 2023. By then, it will probably need expensive modifications.

Either way, the running way was conserved and the opportunity has been created.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The question is how do we make downtown a more pedestrian friendly place? We have the market, we have Elgin Street, we have Bank Street. Maybe we will have Lebreton in the future, maybe. But how are we going to knit these pedestrian friendly areas together?

Start by no longer approving garbage buildings or building retrofits with lousy ground-level presences.

Start by no longer fixating on the heights of things, but rather how they work on a human scale.

We shouldn't want the downtown to be even more the domain of private vehicles.

And yet that's what were doing with things like the bus-removals on Wellington.

[rocketphish]

New central library spot would leave a void in Centretown

David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: December 16, 2016 | Last Updated: December 16, 2016 4:04 PM EST

Moving Ottawa’s main library to the edge of LeBreton Flats will open a big gap in downtown Ottawa, leaving no branch directly serving some of the city’s densest neighbourhoods.

Having a central library where the planners announced Thursday they want to put it, at the northwest corner of Bronson Avenue and Albert Street, isn’t a tragedy — a central library should be central, sure, but that spot is, and will be even more so once LeBreton Flats fills in. The particular piece of land the library staff have chosen comes with some challenges, such as being distinctly uphill from the nearest transit station, but centralness isn’t one of them.

What it doesn’t do so well, though, is serve the Ottawans who use the current main library at Laurier Avenue and Metcalfe Street as their local branch. Libraries are places to get and return books — and places for meetings and lectures and homework, English and French classes, baby groups and free Internet access. For refuge from the cold in winter and heat in summer. Places you can go and be among people and nobody asks you why you aren’t buying anything. Libraries are community centres disguised as book repositories.

This one will also be an exhibition space for Library and Archives Canada and, we hope, a minor tourist destination.

Moving the downtown branch nearly a kilometre west will be good for northwest Centretown, great for Dalhousie and eventually LeBreton Flats. But the new site is nearly as far from Elgin and Gladstone as the Rideau Street branch in Sandy Hill or the Sunnyside branch in Old Ottawa South. After the move, Centrepointe will be better covered by libraries than Centretown.

Library chief executive Danielle McDonald found herself caught between Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney (a library board trustee) and Barrhaven Coun. Jan Harder (a former chair of the library board) on this as she took questions in the presentation revealing the plans.

McKenney has a solid argument to make about the loss of a library in some of the neighbourhoods she represents. A kilometre is far if you’re on foot. The difference between a walk and a walk-and-a-transit-ride is meaningful. But if what you hear is McKenney complaining that anything west of Bronson isn’t downtown, it sounds absurd. The distance between the sites is, what, a two-minute drive?

“Is this central library for everybody in this city? Or is this a downtown branch?” Harder demanded, tired of McKenney’s questions about the logistics of reaching the proposed site.

It’s both, McDonald told her: “This is a central library. It does serve as a downtown branch.”

The central library will cost the city about $100 million, as much as the library system’s whole plan for new library branches and expansions everywhere else between now and 2023. Those include a new building in Riverside South (which has no library yet) and either new branches or significant expansions of existing ones in Barrhaven and Orléans.

This is a forecast the library board approved just in September. It leaves out the prospect of a new central library, the details having been too hazy to base any projections on, so all the central-library spending is extra. Even without it the forecast includes warnings that the library will have trouble paying for it all with its current funding.

The still-sketchy financial plan for the new library includes selling the old one, though the planners offered up a worst-case scenario based on the premise that the city can’t get anything for the land. That’s implausible but it’s wise to run the numbers conservatively.

If we need to borrow all that money, it means annual payments of $5.5 million, in the planners’ estimates. Add increased annual operating costs of $1.8 million, because the new central library will be bigger and more ambitious in its offerings because that’s the point, and we’re talking about $7.3 million a year in new costs. About 15 per cent of the library’s 2017 budget of $47.2 million.

Maybe the city could sell the current main library on the condition a small branch be included in redevelopment plans, though that would mean getting less for the property and committing to ongoing operating expenses. Not contemplated in the planning as it stands.

River Coun. Riley Brockington was worried enough about the money to ask McDonald whether there’s any prospect of closing branches to cover central-library costs. No, McDonald replied, we’re not planning any branch closures.

Only the one.

[email protected]
twitter.com/davidreevely

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columni...ry-spot-would-leave-a-void-in-centretown

[rocketphish]

Three questions about the central library's proposed site

Catherine McKenney
Tobi Nussbaum

Published on: December 16, 2016 | Last Updated: December 16, 2016 4:08 PM EST

The prospect of a new central public library in our city is an exciting one. Successful central libraries offer citizens a one-stop shop of diverse civic and cultural life. Across the country, new libraries have breathed additional life into downtown cores, from Vancouver to Halifax. In that context, the recommendation to move Ottawa’s new Central Library from the downtown core to the edge of LeBreton Flats raises important questions that Ottawa residents need to consider before the Ottawa Library Board convenes at the end of January. Here are three questions worth asking.

First, how was the feedback from the extensive public consultation reflected in the recommendation? The three highest-ranked criteria during the online public consultations on location were that the site be easy to access: for people with physical disabilities, by foot and by bus. On the face, it is not clear how a site separated from downtown by an escarpment, further removed from the residents who live or work in Centretown, and located more than two km from the crossroads of the city’s bus routes at the Rideau Centre reflects these priorities. Although the recommended site is close to an LRT station – a necessary condition for any future site – library-user surveys indicate that 81 per cent of current users arrive by foot.

Second, how would the recommended site serve the three identified target demographic groups: local residents, other residents of Ottawa, and visitors? Demographic analysis suggests that even assuming LeBreton Flats is fully developed, in 20 years it will still have less than half the population of Centretown. For other Ottawa residents, any location on the LRT would provide transit access. For the almost 120,000 downtown workers who make up one-quarter of the visits to today’s Central Library, the proposed site would be harder to access. The most visited sites in Ottawa are clustered close to the Hill and include Parliament, the ByWard Market and the Rideau Centre.

Third, how would the recommended site serve vulnerable populations? A central library is a place where resources – from internet use to information on community services – can be accessed by all. Close proximity to light-rail transit is critical, but may not be sufficient to ensure some groups can easily get there – the under-housed, the newly arrived, those looking for work – for whom a return transit fare is not an insignificant outlay. The recommended site needs to be judged in part on how those who rely on the many downtown social service providers can benefit.

For those who have been following the process, the recommendation did not come as a surprise. Those administering the site-selection process have never hidden from view that the chosen site was favoured from the start. Before the public consultations or the evaluation exercise began, the selected site at 557 Wellington St. was referred to as the “preferred site” and the conclusion was offered that “a site in the vicinity of LeBreton Flats, near the Pimisi LRT station, would be a good location for the Central Library.” While this predisposition shouldn’t rule out the proposed site, it does suggest the assumptions leading to its recommendation need to be rigorously examined.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a major civic building for the benefit of existing and future residents. We owe it to all of them to make sure we get it right. As the recent discussion of a future site for the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital demonstrated, an evaluation needs to accord with the views and priorities of the users. It is time for residents and their elected representatives to ensure that the ultimate location chosen for a new central library is the one that best advances the public interest.

Catherine McKenney is councillor for Somerset Ward; Tobi Nussbaum is Rideau-Rockcliffe councillor. They, with Ottawa councillors David Chernushenko, Mathieu Fleury and Jeff Leiper, will host a public meeting to discuss the recommended location of the proposed Central Public Library on Jan. 18, 2017, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at City Hall.

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columni...about-the-central-librarys-proposed-site

[rocketphish]

Chapter and verse on the library

Ottawa Citizen Editorial Board
Published on: December 16, 2016 | Last Updated: December 16, 2016 4:07 PM EST

In the late 1890s, one of Ottawa’s lumber kings wanted to donate a building for the creation of a public library, but the city said no; it had other priorities. Yet a decade later, when the first public library finally did open, patrons reportedly ransacked it and stole some of the books, so enthusiastic were they for the treasures on offer.

It’s now 110 years later. Passions are still running high over the Ottawa Public Library, after staff on Thursday released their recommendation to partner with Library and Archives Canada and build a new central super-library on a city-owned site along Albert Street just west of Bronson.

Some don’t like the location. Some worry about the cost. Some think the public hasn’t been consulted enough. Some wonder about parking and accessibility. It sounds a bit like the debate Ottawans just witnessed over building a new Civic hospital. But that’s not quite the case. As a librarian might say, read on …

CHAPTER ONE: The Wow factor

If you’re going to move out of a dowdy, cramped downtown building into a new, spacious and welcoming home, you may as well think big, which both library and city planning staff have done. The Ottawa Public Library says it has Library and Archives aboard for joint development of a new home, with modern meeting and event rooms, a geneology centre and other joint programming space. They’re tossing around words such as “iconic” and “innovative.” Their vision is of a building that “contributes to the establishment of a new civic focal point and civic identity” – to say nothing of a “new national focal point.” The pitch is for a new library that will be “architecturally distinct,” with amazing sight lines to the river. It’s to be built near the pending, glistening LeBreton Flats development being negotiated now by the NCC. If and when approvals start ramping up early next year, the new library will be a positive Canada/Ottawa 2017 “announceable” for politicians of all levels.

CHAPTER TWO: Location, location, location

Some Ottawans insist that any replacement for the main library at Metcalfe and Laurier streets should remain within the most central part of the city – that is, east of Bronson Avenue, not west. But the library and its experts determined that the only serious potential site in the core was too cramped for a proper joint OPL-LAC operation, particularly if they wanted “an innovative and iconic facility” (see, they use those words a lot). Costs to build in the centre core would be higher and the location wouldn’t align with the city’s future development plans.

Some also challenge the library’s assertion that the proposed new location would serve the same neighbourhood residential base as the current site. They also point out (rightly) that the new site won’t immediately be accessible for lunch-time walk-in traffic from commercial and government buildings, unlike now.

That’s likely true. But still, the library’s preferred site will be close to the LRT, and to the busy future LeBreton and Zibi developments. There seems no strong reason to insist it remain in the heart of Centretown.

CHAPTER THREE: Show us the money

To our minds, this money, more than the actual location, is key and library staff danced around this at their public presentation Thursday. True, by combining forces with LAC, the OPL can bring down its share of the loosely estimated cost: to $99 million of a total $168 million. LAC would be responsible for $69 million. OPL CEO Danielle McDonald said that had the municipal library simply built for itself, its costs would have been higher: about $110 million.

This argument ignores the fact that there is only one taxpayer; splitting a higher bill between two levels of government does not magically make it into a lower bill. Quibbling about cost, however, seems premature, since everyone is vague about where the money will come from at all.

There are a few million to be found in library reserves, and doubtless a tidy sum to come by selling the current downtown branch on Laurier. After that, the library-builders are looking for money from the province and federal levels. Or they’ll be borrowing, which means interest payments. No one’s going to fund this super-structure from library fines.

CONCLUSION: Politics and the public

The public gets to email in comments on the 600 pages of study released this week, but so far the OPL hasn’t set up any public feedback meetings before its own vote on the proposal at the end of January. Mindful of the recent snaggle over the Civic hospital, local politicians need to change that (as of this writing a small group of councillors does in fact plan a public session).

This project could be eye-pleasing and inviting, a community research hub and landmark building in an area of town that is being transformed. But we need more on the money, and a sense that Ottawans are fully behind the pitch. The full story is far from written.

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-chapter-and-verse-on-the-library

[rocketphish]

A soaring atrium, study nooks and 3D printers: how space will be used in the new library

Joanne Laucius, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: December 16, 2016 | Last Updated: December 16, 2016 5:52 PM EST

Ottawa’s central library likely won’t have an architect until next October at the earliest, with the 16-month design process due to start early in 2018.

Still, documents filed by the Ottawa Public Library draw a picture of how space will be used in a new central library that will share space with Library and Archives Canada.

Here’s what to expect:

• Exterior spaces will include a drop-off area for vehicles and buses, a 24/7 book drop and parking for strollers and bicycles. There will also be a plaza and green space for public gatherings and outdoor events. Signage and banners will promote exhibitions and events inside.

• The main entrance and the library express are two zones at the front of the library that will be the “front porch and window” into the building. Everyone entering the building will have to walk through the main entrance. The library express will be designed to create a bookstore-like environment. It will be for users making a quick visit to the library and will offer a quick peak at other services to be found elsewhere in the building. It can also be open for use when the rest of the library is closed
• Almost every new central library built in recent years has included an impressive atrium with generous floor space. The new central library will have one as well, called the town hall. This area will also contain a Friends of the Ottawa Public Library retail space. In other cities, library retail spaces are a lot like a museum shop, carrying items like books, educational toys and handmade gifts.

• The exhibition space will be a prominent feature on the ground floor in the atrium, and will be near or clearly visible from the entrance to Library and Archives Canada. Artifacts and artwork from Library and Archives Canada, the Ottawa Public Library and the Ottawa City Archives, as well as travelling exhibitions, will be showcased in the space, which will also have recessed cases that allow for casual viewing without having to enter the gallery. There’s a lot of potential here — LAC, for example, has 4,500 portraits among its holdings and often holds exhibitions in its lobby. The new central library will provide a venue where these materials will gain a greater audience, says Guy Berthiaume, the head of LAC.

• The Genealogy Centre will also be on the main floor, with views of the town hall and the entrance to the LAC entrance. It will be a shared space that offers the genealogical resources of both the OPL and LAC. Experienced genealogists will be able to help themselves, but there will also be staff on hand to help out.

• The forum will overlook the town square and entrance. It will have sub-dividable meeting rooms, a multi-purpose theatre, a demonstration kitchen and areas for speakers and performers, as well as reception space outside the meeting rooms, a beverage or snack bar and a catering kitchen.

• The adult fiction and non-fiction area will be the largest space in the library. Here users will be able to find fiction, non-fiction and media, get access to technology and space for reading, quiet study, browsing and relaxing. There will also be spaces for small groups, and tutoring rooms.

• Visitors won’t get shushed in the children’s discovery centre. The library describes it as a “playful and acoustically separated” from the rest of the library. This will be the home of the children’s collections and will also offer spaces for story time, a gaming area and a noisy play area. While there are tutoring spaces, areas for quiet study and reading, as well as messy program areas and creation spaces. Amenities will include stroller parking spaces, family washroom facilities and a nursing room.

• The teen zone will be a contained and acoustically separated space for both print and multi-media collections for teens and a place for gaming, studying and hanging out. Amenities will include an open mic and stage performance area.

• The creative centre will allow library users to try out and create with conventional and cutting-edge technologies such computers
with specialized software and 3-D printers, as well as hand tooling devices. It’s expected that users will range from youth who have “graduated” from the children’s discovery area to adults, and will include those who are adept with technology to those who are interested in learning.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...ow-space-will-be-used-in-the-new-library

[Richard Eade]

Hmmm... No mention of the Ottawa Room. I hope that they will retain (and expand) this resource.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Hmmm... No mention of the Ottawa Room. I hope that they will retain (and expand) this resource.

Tied in to the genealogical resources, perhaps? But yes, an essential component of the new library, I should think.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Hmmm... No mention of the Ottawa Room. I hope that they will retain (and expand) this resource.

Yes, if you are doing research on Ottawa, the Ottawa Room is so valuable. I can't imagine this being removed.

[Uhuniau]

I wouldn't read anything into the lack of specific reference to the Ottawa Room.

[AndyMEng]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Three questions about the central library's proposed site

Catherine McKenney
Tobi Nussbaum

Published on: December 16, 2016 | Last Updated: December 16, 2016 4:08 PM EST

The prospect of a new central public library in our city is an exciting one. Successful central libraries offer citizens a one-stop shop of diverse civic and cultural life. Across the country, new libraries have breathed additional life into downtown cores, from Vancouver to Halifax. In that context, the recommendation to move Ottawa’s new Central Library from the downtown core to the edge of LeBreton Flats raises important questions that Ottawa residents need to consider before the Ottawa Library Board convenes at the end of January. Here are three questions worth asking.

First, how was the feedback from the extensive public consultation reflected in the recommendation? The three highest-ranked criteria during the online public consultations on location were that the site be easy to access: for people with physical disabilities, by foot and by bus. On the face, it is not clear how a site separated from downtown by an escarpment, further removed from the residents who live or work in Centretown, and located more than two km from the crossroads of the city’s bus routes at the Rideau Centre reflects these priorities. Although the recommended site is close to an LRT station – a necessary condition for any future site – library-user surveys indicate that 81 per cent of current users arrive by foot.

Second, how would the recommended site serve the three identified target demographic groups: local residents, other residents of Ottawa, and visitors? Demographic analysis suggests that even assuming LeBreton Flats is fully developed, in 20 years it will still have less than half the population of Centretown. For other Ottawa residents, any location on the LRT would provide transit access. For the almost 120,000 downtown workers who make up one-quarter of the visits to today’s Central Library, the proposed site would be harder to access. The most visited sites in Ottawa are clustered close to the Hill and include Parliament, the ByWard Market and the Rideau Centre.

Third, how would the recommended site serve vulnerable populations? A central library is a place where resources – from internet use to information on community services – can be accessed by all. Close proximity to light-rail transit is critical, but may not be sufficient to ensure some groups can easily get there – the under-housed, the newly arrived, those looking for work – for whom a return transit fare is not an insignificant outlay. The recommended site needs to be judged in part on how those who rely on the many downtown social service providers can benefit.

For those who have been following the process, the recommendation did not come as a surprise. Those administering the site-selection process have never hidden from view that the chosen site was favoured from the start. Before the public consultations or the evaluation exercise began, the selected site at 557 Wellington St. was referred to as the “preferred site” and the conclusion was offered that “a site in the vicinity of LeBreton Flats, near the Pimisi LRT station, would be a good location for the Central Library.” While this predisposition shouldn’t rule out the proposed site, it does suggest the assumptions leading to its recommendation need to be rigorously examined.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a major civic building for the benefit of existing and future residents. We owe it to all of them to make sure we get it right. As the recent discussion of a future site for the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital demonstrated, an evaluation needs to accord with the views and priorities of the users. It is time for residents and their elected representatives to ensure that the ultimate location chosen for a new central library is the one that best advances the public interest.

Catherine McKenney is councillor for Somerset Ward; Tobi Nussbaum is Rideau-Rockcliffe councillor. They, with Ottawa councillors David Chernushenko, Mathieu Fleury and Jeff Leiper, will host a public meeting to discuss the recommended location of the proposed Central Public Library on Jan. 18, 2017, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at City Hall.

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columni...about-the-central-librarys-proposed-site

Arguably, the new library location is more centred on permanent downtown residential population density, rather than workers in office towers. Southern portions of Centretown would be either closer or further, depending on where you live, but people in north Bronson, Somerset/China Town, and whatever the base of Booth hill is called, are now closer to a library than ever before, with libraries more equally spaced east/west from Rideau/Central/Rosemount. Its the southern Centretowne residents who are chiming in. Maybe Jack Purcell should have a library room in it? https://raw.github.com/.../OttawaPopulationDensity.png

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by AndyMEng

Arguably, the new library location is more centred on permanent downtown residential population density, rather than workers in office towers. Southern portions of Centretown would be either closer or further, depending on where you live, but people in north Bronson, Somerset/China Town, and whatever the base of Booth hill is called, are now closer to a library than ever before, with libraries more equally spaced east/west from Rideau/Central/Rosemount. Its the southern Centretowne residents who are chiming in. Maybe Jack Purcell should have a library room in it? https://raw.github.com/.../OttawaPopulationDensity.png

The escarpment is a barrier for a lot of people (both physical and psychological). From where I used to live in centretown, the proposed location is almost exactly equidistant to the current library. But between Nanny Goat Hill, the Escarpment, the weird, anti-pedestrian intersections and the lack of built up area en route, I would consider the current location a lot more walk-able, particularly in the winter.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The escarpment is a barrier for a lot of people (both physical and psychological). From where I used to live in centretown, the proposed location is almost exactly equidistant to the current library. But between Nanny Goat Hill, the Escarpment, the weird, anti-pedestrian intersections and the lack of built up area en route, I would consider the current location a lot more walk-able, particularly in the winter.

The sheer exposure of the new site, especially to westerly/northwesterly howlwers coming across the river, will make access in the winter very unpleasant.

[AndyMEng]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The escarpment is a barrier for a lot of people (both physical and psychological). From where I used to live in centretown, the proposed location is almost exactly equidistant to the current library. But between Nanny Goat Hill, the Escarpment, the weird, anti-pedestrian intersections and the lack of built up area en route, I would consider the current location a lot more walk-able, particularly in the winter.

The schoolyard at Ottawa Tech has been upgraded to include a very nice trail, past a dog park, and leading directly to the new signalized intersection at Bronson/Slater/Albert. Granted, this intersection is ridiculous, but I as I see it, the library is literally 100 yards further. I realize there's an 'escarpment' but its really just a slight downhill. The roads/grading/signalization can all be easily changed, even to 'level out' the end of Albert Street to meet the top floor of the library (i.e. delay the downhill on Albert Street), before the library building cascades down to Lebreton Flats. I actually see it as a great opportunity to provide a public accessible route (i.e. lifts) to get you from Lebreton alllllllll the way up the 50 foot hill to Downtown.