Wellington Street Pedestrian Mall

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

I hear you on the animation point. But I do think that Wellington is much more of a through route between Bank and Elgin, so it would have a lot more natural foot traffic than the Garden of the Provinces. (I find Confederation Park, if that is what you are meaning, to be quite lively.) I wouldn't envision a road with sidewalks, but more of a well-designed, unified public space that could host events and that people would want to hang out in.

Maybe there can't be bike lanes, or the planned bike lanes move to Sparks. Surely they can find a way to accommodate the short bus.

I am not sure what makes it a good through route between Bank and Elgin. Elgin North of Sparks is just the PMO/PCO Complex so there is northing to get people that far North on Elgin. If they want a scenic route the Parliament Grounds offers many scenic options, including along the cliff edge, which I am sure will be quite impressive once the construction is over.

I meant Confederation Square, which is rarely lively.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I am not sure what makes it a good through route between Bank and Elgin. Elgin North of Sparks is just the PMO/PCO Complex so there is northing to get people that far North on Elgin. If they want a scenic route the Parliament Grounds offers many scenic options, including along the cliff edge, which I am sure will be quite impressive once the construction is over.

Wasn't even thinking of the cliff edge. It will be spectacular, though my guess is that they will do nothing to the sea of parking in front of it and most people passing by won't even know it's there.

Just speaking from experience on Wellington - at least in the daytime, there is always a good flow of pedestrian traffic between tourists and people from the offices along Wellington to the Rideau Centre/Market.

Confederation Square is pretty much a traffic island as currently configured. Lots of pedestrians passing through though.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

Wasn't even thinking of the cliff edge. It will be spectacular, though my guess is that they will do nothing to the sea of parking in front of it and most people passing by won't even know it's there.

This is what I don't get about Ottawa. People are comfortable with parking lots along nearly the entire length of the waterfront, but try to run cars and transit along a 5 lane arterial road that serves no other function and they freak out.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

Just speaking from experience on Wellington - at least in the daytime, there is always a good flow of pedestrian traffic between tourists and people from the offices along Wellington to the Rideau Centre/Market.

I walk along Wellington nearly every morning at about 8:25. I can usually count on one hand the number of pedestrians I encounter. In the tourist season in the afternoon it is most busy between Rideau and Elgin (i.e. the part that is not closed to traffic) and somewhat busy between Elgin and the Centennial Flame Entrance, with hardly anyone between Metcalfe and Bank.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I walk along Wellington nearly every morning at about 8:25. I can usually count on one hand the number of pedestrians I encounter. In the tourist season in the afternoon it is most busy between Rideau and Elgin (i.e. the part that is not closed to traffic) and somewhat busy between Elgin and the Centennial Flame Entrance, with hardly anyone between Metcalfe and Bank.

In fairness, I'm usually there later in the day (Chipotle doesn't open until 11), so maybe "daytime" was overstating things.

[grooveduster]

As a forever resident of Ottawa, I am so saddened that this street is now closed to traffic. It was one of my favorite streets to drive up and down, and is by far, the most beautiful street in downtown Ottawa, especially at night. A pedestrian mall is a terrible idea. I hate to say it, but the city of Ottawa can't handle the responsibilities of building a quality pedestrian mall with any sort of euro-maturity. It's going to end up a ghost town just like Sparks.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

... and the St. Andrew's Church (is it still a church?)...

Yes it is!
http://www.standrewsottawa.ca

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by phil235

I find your hyperbole on this topic to be a bit much. "We continue to close downtown street by street"? Well, we closed Sparks St. in 1967 and then Wellington in 2022, so I guess that does constitute a bit of a pattern. And the PS doesn't want to return to any offices, not just the ones located downtown, so I'm not sure how that demonstrates much of anything about downtown. It all seems a bit defeatist.

I'm torn on a Wellington closure, but I see the benefit of a larger pedestrian district, not all of which needs to be shopping and cafes. What I don't buy is that prioritizing car access is the recipe for a rejuvenated downtown. Mainly because I don't think that has actually worked anywhere.

Being realistic, there is a good portion of the suburban population who are perfectly content with their stroads and big box shopping options located a quick 10 minute drive from their houses (45 minutes on Saturday afternoon). If that group is forced to be in the office, they will do their 7 to 3 and head right back to their suburban homes right after work. That group isn't coming downtown outside of work hours regardless of how many theatres and galleries and world class restaurants we manage to attract. They aren't the target market.

The real target market is the (still) growing downtown population, students, tourists who want to explore the city by foot or by bike, business visitors and others in the city who appreciate a varied urban environment. I don't think a couple of closed roads is very likely to dissuade that group from visiting.

If we truly want to become more like a European city, we need to do better than this. Downtown needs to be our meeting place. Look at all the great cities including Toronto, Montreal and New York. The city centres are not dependent on only the local population. Maybe, suburbanites will do there day to day shopping in the suburbs, but the best shopping choices, best restaurant choices, and the best opportunities for entertainment, and events need to be downtown and we need to make it easy to get there. We have failed miserably.

I am older than most here, a native Ottawan who has lived in the suburbs all my life, and the centre of the city has deteriorated considerably over my lifetime. I have tried to support transit, and I am a walker, but there are times when I have to drive downtown, and would love to drive by the most beautiful part of the city. I know I am no longer wanted. I have heard the comments time and again from the suburban perspective, on why downtown is no longer the place to go. Just this week, I got this comment: I would love to bring my 98 year old mother downtown to see the Christmas lights, but it is no longer possible. We should not minimize how we no longer place our best architecture on display without the need to pay for parking and walk a number of blocks. Yeah, I get the desire to make downtown more pedestrian and cycling friendly, but at what cost to the majority who are not going to make those transportation choices? And we continue to give transit a black eye with poor and unreliable service. How does that bring people back downtown?

I also want to point out that there have been more than just 2 streets barricaded over the last 60 years. Mostly for the better, but many streets have been blocked all over the older parts of Ottawa. The long-term effect of all these closures is to make downtown more inaccessible.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

If we truly want to become more like a European city, we need to do better than this. Downtown needs to be our meeting place. Look at all the great cities including Toronto, Montreal and New York. The city centres are not dependent on only the local population. Maybe, suburbanites will do there day to day shopping in the suburbs, but the best shopping choices, best restaurant choices, and the best opportunities for entertainment, and events need to be downtown and we need to make it easy to get there. We have failed miserably.

And yet in none of the cities you reference is it remotely easy to drive downtown or to park directly at your destination. Montreal and New York have been leaders in pedestrianizing streets and making new public spaces. Yes, they have more developed transit systems, but they are also more complicated and you definitely don't expect to get where you are going from the suburbs on a single or even a double transfer in any of those places. Toronto in particular did nothing to expand its transit system for about a decade and a half when its population was exploding. By comparison, driving to downtown Ottawa on an evening or weekend is a dream.

Having lived in both Toronto and Montreal, I can also tell you that I regularly heard suburbanites bragging that they hadn't been downtown in 6 months or a year or two years. This isn't an Ottawa-specific problem. A lot of this comes down to growing pains as Ottawa becomes bigger. Yes, we've made mistakes with transit, but a lot of the complaints I am hearing just come with being a big city.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by phil235

And yet in none of the cities you reference is it remotely easy to drive downtown or to park directly at your destination. Montreal and New York have been leaders in pedestrianizing streets and making new public spaces. Yes, they have more developed transit systems, but they are also more complicated you definitely don't expect to get where you are going from the suburbs on a single or even a double transfer in any of those places. Toronto in particular did nothing to expand its transit system for about a decade and a half when its population was exploding. By comparison, driving to downtown Ottawa on an evening or weekend is a dream.

Having lived in both Toronto and Montreal, I can also tell you that I regularly heard suburbanites bragging that they hadn't been downtown in 6 months or a year or two years. This isn't an Ottawa-specific problem. A lot of this comes down to growing pains as Ottawa becomes bigger. Yes, we've made mistakes with transit, but a lot of the complaints I am hearing just come with being a big city.

It's kind of ridiculous to compare ourselves to Toronto or Montreal. That said, it's actually easier to park in Downtown (ish) Toronto. Many municipal lots that are often reasonably priced. Montreal agreed less so.

We are an urban area of 1.3M and there are lots of good examples we could follow. And not only in Europe. The simple fact is most people aren't interested in that. They want their suburban life. Someone who's handle is LRT's friend has lived his whole life in the suburbs.

Personally, I have always lived centrally and Westboro or New Edinburgh are slightly too suburban for me but I recognize I am an exception. Whenever people visit me in the Byward Market from somewhere else they question it as a choice. Both from elsewhere in Ottawa and further afield.

I think it's kind of ridiculous to close Wellington because we let one protest get out of control and it is a bit of a traffic annoyance but the more we gridlock traffic the better for the positive development of the city as a whole so I guess it's a win.

[Harley613]

We are an urban area of over 1.5 million, not 1.3 million. 2021 Census was 1,488,307.

[postingaboutottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

If we truly want to become more like a European city, we need to do better than this. Downtown needs to be our meeting place. Look at all the great cities including Toronto, Montreal and New York. The city centres are not dependent on only the local population. Maybe, suburbanites will do there day to day shopping in the suburbs, but the best shopping choices, best restaurant choices, and the best opportunities for entertainment, and events need to be downtown and we need to make it easy to get there. We have failed miserably.

I am older than most here, a native Ottawan who has lived in the suburbs all my life, and the centre of the city has deteriorated considerably over my lifetime. I have tried to support transit, and I am a walker, but there are times when I have to drive downtown, and would love to drive by the most beautiful part of the city. I know I am no longer wanted. I have heard the comments time and again from the suburban perspective, on why downtown is no longer the place to go. Just this week, I got this comment: I would love to bring my 98 year old mother downtown to see the Christmas lights, but it is no longer possible. We should not minimize how we no longer place our best architecture on display without the need to pay for parking and walk a number of blocks. Yeah, I get the desire to make downtown more pedestrian and cycling friendly, but at what cost to the majority who are not going to make those transportation choices? And we continue to give transit a black eye with poor and unreliable service. How does that bring people back downtown?

I also want to point out that there have been more than just 2 streets barricaded over the last 60 years. Mostly for the better, but many streets have been blocked all over the older parts of Ottawa. The long-term effect of all these closures is to make downtown more inaccessible.

If you want to go see the lights then i'm not sure how closing wellington makes that harder its not like there is parking between Bank and Metcalfe that doesn't require you to walk a block north or walk from one of the parliamentary precinct surplus lots.

I've lived in the core for 25 years now (OOS, Hintonburg and Centretown) and in the last year have had friends and family visit from Toronto, Montreal and NYC and all of them were taken by how charming and trendy Hintonburg and Old Ottawa South were compared with the idea of Ottawa that is generally put forward. They also all used the confed line which by this point works generally well day to day and has better headways than most systems in north america.

I'm only saying this because i'm always caught off guard by the confidence by which people who don't live in the core give as the dire state of affairs because it seems to be going in the opposite direction of my experience as younger person who lives there.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by postingaboutottawa

If you want to go see the lights then i'm not sure how closing wellington makes that harder its not like there is parking between Bank and Metcalfe that doesn't require you to walk a block north or walk from one of the parliamentary precinct surplus lots.

I've lived in the core for 25 years now (OOS, Hintonburg and Centretown) and in the last year have had friends and family visit from Toronto, Montreal and NYC and all of them were taken by how charming and trendy Hintonburg and Old Ottawa South were compared with the idea of Ottawa that is generally put forward. They also all used the confed line which by this point works generally well day to day and has better headways than most systems in north america.

I'm only saying this because i'm always caught off guard by the confidence by which people who don't live in the core give as the dire state of affairs because it seems to be going in the opposite direction of my experience as younger person who lives there.

Trendy little neighbourhoods are great (and almost any city has them), but they are not really a substitute for attractions or destinations in the central part of the city.

[lrt's friend]

I think we are defeatists and satisfied with everything being second rate. We use the excuse of a badly handled convoy protest to close our most iconic street to have second rate pedestrian mall when one is struggling just one block away. We seem to be happy to convert the back streets of downtown into traffic sewers or better discourage those awful suburbanites entirely and welcome tourists with almost impossible wayfinding. I know I am awful when I brought a friend from Florida, drove by Niagara Falls, down Yonge Street and by the CN tower and then followed Confed Boulevard past Parliament.

Yes, we are not Toronto or Montreal but Ottawa is a growing city and we need to build for the future. Traffic will get worse but that does not mean closing things down. We might not want to drive there, but we can still drive through Time Square in New York and by most iconic locations in Europe

[postingaboutottawa]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Trendy little neighbourhoods are great (and almost any city has them), but they are not really a substitute for attractions or destinations in the central part of the city.

For attracting and keeping young professionals/artists to live here they are way more important. Who wants to live in a place and go to tourist/suburbanite traps all the time? In my mind the real showcase attraction is the river pathway but i understand that my feeling about lack of waterfront development runs against the prevailing opinion here.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by postingaboutottawa

For attracting and keeping young professionals/artists to live here they are way more important. Who wants to live in a place and go to tourist/suburbanite traps all the time? In my mind the real showcase attraction is the river pathway but i understand that my feeling about lack of waterfront development runs against the prevailing opinion here.

We should be willing to welcome all, new residents, suburbanites and tourists but it should not mean trying to convert downtown into a quiet trendy neighbourhood . If that is what new comers want, why did they choose downtown? That is contrary to our goals of a lively, busling place.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

We should be willing to welcome all, new residents, suburbanites and tourists but it should not mean trying to convert downtown into a quiet trendy neighbourhood . If that is what new comers want, why did they choose downtown? That is contrary to our goals of a lively, busling place.

I don't think anyone said that downtown should be quiet. But it should have good public spaces of some kind. Maybe Wellington isn't the best choice for a public space, but Centretown is lacking in those at the moment, so that is the appeal of this proposal. I'd also note that modern urban planning focuses on making neighbourhoods more appealing for the people who live there, not those driving through.

[postingaboutottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

We should be willing to welcome all, new residents, suburbanites and tourists but it should not mean trying to convert downtown into a quiet trendy neighbourhood . If that is what new comers want, why did they choose downtown? That is contrary to our goals of a lively, busling place.

If people don't want something on the quiet side Ottawa is not going to be a good fit.

Graded on a curve Elgin is lively and the market is lively (at least with the students back) and for that to happen they are changing. The idea of the market as a place people will drive in from Nepean to get produce or go to a white tablecloth restaurant is hopelessly outdated for better or worse. When I was in Toronto going out with friends earlier in the year they didn't drag us to somewhere off Younge or Spadina we went out in Leslieville. When I visit friends in Montreal we don't go to a bar on Crescent or st denis we go to mile end (and really at this point Little Italy because mile end is not the mile end of seven to eight years ago).

I just got back from new york and seeing midtown during the holiday season took up a day. We spent most of the time in the LES/Chinatown/Bowery and Williamsburg/Bushwick because that's where the young energy is and where people who live there are going out.

Obviously more work has to be done to animate wellington and it will probably take years at best for more people to move north of Laurier for it to be more animated. Tying it in to the overall vibrancy as experienced by the people who live here is what i am pushing back on as I think it is an outdated mindset which only looks to be reinforced because of covid and the growing pains of moving towards being an actual city and not a bunch of amalgamated towns with museums, a cbd, and a busway.

[Acajack]

I suppose there are some fancy-ass plans out there with pictures of what a pedestrianized, lively Wellington St. would look like, but being quite familiar with the street it's hard to imagine where all these appealling amenities would be located.

Basically all the buildings from Elgin to the Portage Bridge have a specific, single functional purpose already, and won't be converted to any other uses, or don't have room to implement a café with a patio or some form of interesting retail or services that would be an urban destination for people.

I believe prior to the pandemic there was a patio lined up right with the Peace Tower on the open space in front the visitor centre at Wellington and Metcalfe.

But aside from that? What are the other potential spots?

The only other open spot is a parking lot just west of 100 Wellington (former US embassy), a building that is now used by Indigenous groups.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I suppose there are some fancy-ass plans out there with pictures of what a pedestrianized, lively Wellington St. would look like, but being quite familiar with the street it's hard to imagine where all these appealling amenities would be located.

Basically all the buildings from Elgin to the Portage Bridge have a specific, single functional purpose already, and won't be converted to any other uses, or don't have room to implement a café with a patio or some form of interesting retail or services that would be an urban destination for people.

I believe prior to the pandemic there was a patio lined up right with the Peace Tower on the open space in front the visitor centre at Wellington and Metcalfe.

But aside from that? What are the other potential spots?

The only other open spot is a parking lot just west of 100 Wellington (former US embassy), a building that is now used by Indigenous groups.

I think it will mostly likely look like Mackenzie Avenue does now. Extra-wide sidewalk beside a fence that will have some dead trees and benches (which I am sure NCC bureaucrats will give some fancy name to), two driving lanes for the MP short bus, a cycling track and closed government buildings.