Elgin Street Renewal

[rocketphish]

More pics:







https://twitter.com/hydroottawa/status/1265735946944864259

[J.OT13]

Looking good. Wonder if we'll start seeing some redevelopment soon. This is one of the few streets left untouched by new condo/rental buildings. Figures crossed that historic buildings are preserved.

[grooveduster]

Wow! Just wow!...this looks so nice! Hopefully the hydro pole removal will extend to other parts of the city...

[mykl]

Awesome pictures. Quite the spectacle!

[J.OT13]

Thank goodness Hydro Ottawa pushed for buried wires.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by DarthVader_1961

Sidewalks are pretty wide now. Looks tight.

Not tight enough for 2 lanes and 30kmh speed limit IMO. And half of those sidewalks widths are "flexible" parking spaces.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

All we need are trams re-installed going to the old Clegg Street loop (the little parkette where the old loop used to be is still present).

Is that the children's park at Clegg and Main?

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Looking good. Wonder if we'll start seeing some redevelopment soon. This is one of the few streets left untouched by new condo/rental buildings. Figures crossed that historic buildings are preserved.

It would be great if the retail frontage on Elgin could be preserved as condos are built on side-streets and off-block. A street like Cooper would be a good landing spot for condos much like the two towers a block north of it were constructed. They impact Elgin but don't directly remove street frontage and retail presence.

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by JHikka

It would be great if the retail frontage on Elgin could be preserved as condos are built on side-streets and off-block. A street like Cooper would be a good landing spot for condos much like the two towers a block north of it were constructed. They impact Elgin but don't directly remove street frontage and retail presence.

Agreed; development strategies focusing primarily on mainstreet redevelopment can end up seeing local character replaced by Shoppers, banks, chain coffee shops (if lucky) or empty storefronts due high rents. Towers on the side streets with lower commercial rents allow for new business opportunities instead of replacing existing successful stores. However., the building containing MacLaren's on Elgin should definitely go

What about everything south of Gladstone? It's a Heritage Conservation District but turns into a dead area with a huge missed opportunity to connect Centretown to Main Street and the canal, especially if the police building can be redeveloped.

[Truenorth00]

Have they been able to speed up construction with reduced traffic from covid?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Agreed; development strategies focusing primarily on mainstreet redevelopment can end up seeing local character replaced by Shoppers, banks, chain coffee shops (if lucky) or empty storefronts due high rents. Towers on the side streets with lower commercial rents allow for new business opportunities instead of replacing existing successful stores. However., the building containing MacLaren's on Elgin should definitely go

What about everything south of Gladstone? It's a Heritage Conservation District but turns into a dead area with a huge missed opportunity to connect Centretown to Main Street and the canal, especially if the police building can be redeveloped.

That's what I've been saying for years. Preserve the main street and develop blocks that are behind.

There is plenty of development opportunities near Elgin, with countless parking lots and crappy buildings from the 70s onward. Heritage can and should be preserved, along with the human scale of Elgin itself.

[mykl]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

What about everything south of Gladstone? It's a Heritage Conservation District but turns into a dead area with a huge missed opportunity to connect Centretown to Main Street and the canal, especially if the police building can be redeveloped.

I don't know that I'd call boarding up windows for safety reasons a redevelopment...

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by phil235

Is that the children's park at Clegg and Main?

Yes, that is where the streetcar loop was from 1925 to 1939. Imagine that, they built the streetcar line through Ottawa East for only 14 years.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Yes, that is where the streetcar loop was from 1925 to 1939. Imagine that, they built the streetcar line through Ottawa East for only 14 years.

It's hard to find a transit map that includes the Elgin-Main line. But I managed to find one. I imagine this is the peak of Ottawa's streetcar system.


https://www.maproomblog.com/tag/ottawa/

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

It's hard to find a transit map that includes the Elgin-Main line. But I managed to find one. I imagine this is the peak of Ottawa's streetcar system.


https://www.maproomblog.com/tag/ottawa/

Interesting. Here it is in a higher resolution.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

It's hard to find a transit map that includes the Elgin-Main line. But I managed to find one. I imagine this is the peak of Ottawa's streetcar system.

Thanks for the map. I've never seen that before.

Good to see that disjointed transit planning is not a modern phenomena. The historical lines do bode well for the idea of Elgin/Hawthorne/Main as a continuous corridor that can redevelop.

Gladstone/Bell/Bronson is also an interesting route. Hard to picture a streetcar loop at Bronson and Dow's Lake.

[trhgr]

The City of Kingston announced its plan to block traffic (completely or partially) in some of its downtown streets. Nice.
Elgin Street could really benefit from a similar action : use parking spots for patios / pedestrian traffic and divert buses to nearby streets (as they were for the last many months).

[OTownandDown]

Originally Posted by trhgr

The City of Kingston announced its plan to block traffic (completely or partially) in some of its downtown streets. Nice.
Elgin Street could really benefit from a similar action : use parking spots for patios / pedestrian traffic and divert buses to nearby streets (as they were for the last many months).

I'm 100% for taking away all of the street parking. I've been to Elgin weekly for the last 2 years and it's not a problem parking on a side street, and makes the Elgin streetscape so much less stressful.

Buses, however, need to return to Elgin. Its too much of a clusterf*ck for buses to go in and around these small, quiet streets. Not to mention the schedule delays and motion sickness for passengers.

[TransitZilla]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-cycling-collision-elgin-street-1.5611322

City knew bike crash site was dangerous, cycling advocates say
Natalia Goodwin · CBC News · Posted: Jun 14, 2020 4:00 AM ET

Advocates say design was flawed from the start of the Elgin Street reconstruction

Ottawa cycling advocates say the city should have known that a redesigned stretch of Elgin Street where a cyclist was seriously injured Friday night needed better protection.

Just before 8 p.m., a 20-year-old woman was struck near Catherine Street by the driver of a pickup truck, outside Ottawa Police Service headquarters.

The cyclist was taken to Ottawa's trauma centre with a broken femur and possible ankle fracture.

"A lot of cycling advocates had noticed during the plans that the design for that area was going to be dangerous for cyclists," said Jordan Moffatt, a board member of Bike Ottawa who lobbied for the plan to be changed.

Warnings during design process

As part of the reconstruction of the busy commercial strip, which got underway in 2018, the stretch from Lisgar to MacLeod streets was reduced from four lanes to two and given a 30 km/h speed limit.

No dedicated bike lanes were added, with cyclists instead required to ride along with traffic in what are called "super sharrows": bright green boxes painted with the emblem of a cyclist.

Moffatt said that south of McLeod Street, where Friday's crash occurred, the speed limit increases to 50 km/h and the number of traffic lanes goes back to four — but there is still no dedicated bike lane.

He said cycling advocates have been pointing out problems with the road design since 2017, when it was approved by city council.

While he doesn't know what caused Friday's collision, Moffatt said he believed such a lane could have helped — and is now calling for one to be installed south of McLeod Street to the Queen Elizabeth Driveway.

"When you're building separated bike lanes, or you're building safe roads, what you're doing is you're minimizing the possibility that something bad can happen," he said.

"Even if someone made a mistake, what you're doing is you're creating the possibility that mistake won't create a huge, catastrophic injury or fatality."

Councillor 'furious'

Friday's crash was one of two serious collisions involving cyclists last week: on Wednesday night, a cyclist was killed and a pedestrian seriously injured when they were struck while riding near the Champlain Bridge.

Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney took to social media to unleash their anger over the Friday crash, tweeting they were "furious" and later noting it could have been prevented had the city listened to the criticism over the road configuration.

"I sent that back four times with the engineers," McKenney told CBC News, referring to the design progress.

"We continue to prioritize driver's speed over cycling and pedestrian comfort and safety."

McKenney is now planning to bring the matter to the city once again.

"That's what we do as a city. We wait until somebody is critically injured or, even worse, killed — and then we go back and redesign. So we will go back. We will ask for something better."

Director of infrastructure services Carina Duclos said in a statement Saturday the City of Ottawa would not be commenting on the Elgin Street crash as police are still investigating.

Will be reviewed

Mayor Jim Watson said Sunday city staff would immediately review the incident with police, and any recommendations that come from police or the city's traffic engineering department would be "implemented for greater public safety."

Watson also noted the road configuration went through a full public consultation before it was approved.

"There was a real desire to widen the sidewalks for pedestrians ... which unfortunately left not enough space to create the cycling lanes," he said.

"As you know, there's a cycling lane a block off on O'Connor [Street], which is a segregated lane as well. It's available for people who are going to north-south."

Hmmm... if only someone had pointed out the flaws in the design south of McLeod 3 years ago...

[Aylmer]

"There was a real desire to widen the sidewalks for pedestrians ... which unfortunately left not enough space to create the cycling lanes," he said."

Wow, I didn't realize the sidewalks took up the entire 20m right of way. Those are some super wide sidewalks right there.