"Canada 150th" events in Ottawa

[rocketphish]

Photos and videos:

https://twitter.com/MathieuFleury

[MountainView]

La Machine is awesome. Highly recommend going to check it out. I will try and post some pictures later when not on mobile.

Kontinuum is also pretty neat. Mostly went to check out the LRT line/tunnel/construction. It really amazed me how far I traveled underground without knowing. Entrance and Exit and nowhere near each other. Plus with 2 escalators up we were at the street level in no time. Made me really excited for the LRT to open near year.

[Uhuniau]

I am won over by these giant robots.

ZOIDBERG VOICE/

MOAR ROB'TS!

/ZOIDBERG VOICE

[lrt's friend]

We had a very good evening Friday. We went to MosiaCanada first, which is a beautiful exhibit. I will go again for sure. La Machine was great and we wandered around downtown following the action. I was surprised how close we got in the ByWard Market. Then we enjoyed a late dinner at Joey on Rideau. Took the bus back to the south end at 11:30 p.m. Amazing how crowded the bus was at that late hour.

Who says that Ottawa is the 'town that fun forgot'?

[jcphoenix]

^I really enjoyed MosaiCanada too, went last weekend.

This weekend was the first time I can recall Ottawa feeling like a proper city like Toronto or Montreal in terms of how alive it felt, walking around for La Machine as well as the Asian Night Market (disregarding the vendors and line-ups, it just felt right for it to be on the streets in Chinatown)...and then with the nice weather today, beaching it up at Westboro Beach (after we couldn't find any parking at Meech Lake in Gatineau Park).

Great to hear the estimates of 200000-300000 people attending on Friday and Saturday (after an estimate of 35000 for Thursday). Saturday was pretty crazy with the crowds.

I really hope people think about the potential after this weekend. Also I'm thankful to say most people I talked to were, for once, enthusiastic and felt like La Machine lived up to their expectations.

[lrt's friend]

With Cirque du Soleil setting up shop on the Hull side for most of the coming month, I think of parking and access. This brings me back to the concept of a downtown tramway that will connect all these events more effectively. Once the Confederation Line breaks up transit downtown, access by transit becomes more cumbersome to all these potential event sites.

[eltodesukane]

The connection between Byward Market and Rideau is somewhat deficient.
I saw very many people go between by passing through Chapters, The Bay, McDonalds.
Many were with wheelchairs and strollers, and most of those could not go through the small rotating doors at La Bay, and had to go back with great difficulty while fighting the crowd.
And the Rideau-Sussex intersection was a total mess, with blockages everywhere.
This whole intersection needs a redesign for pedestrians, including the dark unappealing underground passage.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.4253466,-...fo_VOzWSQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&hl=en
Why not this part of Rideau becoming pedestrian only?

[Uhuniau]

Jeff Leiper has a good debrief:

http://kitchissippiward.ca/content/la-machines-joyous-lessons

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by eltodesukane

The connection between Byward Market and Rideau is somewhat deficient.
I saw very many people go between by passing through Chapters, The Bay, McDonalds.
Many were with wheelchairs and strollers, and most of those could not go through the small rotating doors at La Bay, and had to go back with great difficulty while fighting the crowd.
And the Rideau-Sussex intersection was a total mess, with blockages everywhere.
This whole intersection needs a redesign for pedestrians, including the dark unappealing underground passage.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.4253466,-...fo_VOzWSQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&hl=en
Why not this part of Rideau becoming pedestrian only?

The underground passageway was all designed for traffic flow and not for pedestrians. The 60s and 70s were a bad time for urban design. We pulled up the streetcars in 1959 and the car became king immediately thereafter.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

With Cirque du Soleil setting up shop on the Hull side for most of the coming month, I think of parking and access. This brings me back to the concept of a downtown tramway that will connect all these events more effectively. Once the Confederation Line breaks up transit downtown, access by transit becomes more cumbersome to all these potential event sites.

That's anotehr reason why the redrawing of surface bus routes post-LRT needs to mitigate the connections LRT will break, and not create any unnecessary new breaks and seams in transit service.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by eltodesukane

Why not this part of Rideau becoming pedestrian only?

Why should any part of Rideau be pedestrian only? Like it or not, Rideau is still, and needs to be, an important route for motorized vehicles, esp. transit.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by eltodesukane

The connection between Byward Market and Rideau is somewhat deficient.
I saw very many people go between by passing through Chapters, The Bay, McDonalds.
Many were with wheelchairs and strollers, and most of those could not go through the small rotating doors at La Bay, and had to go back with great difficulty while fighting the crowd.
And the Rideau-Sussex intersection was a total mess, with blockages everywhere.
This whole intersection needs a redesign for pedestrians, including the dark unappealing underground passage.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.4253466,-...fo_VOzWSQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&hl=en
Why not this part of Rideau becoming pedestrian only?

I think part of the problem is the lights have not been reconfigured since Rideau traffic was restricted. Pedestrians crossing from CIBC to the Rideau Centre face long red lights even when there are no vehicles.

[Mikeed]

This was one of the most impressive events I have ever witnessed. I really hope one day I see another La Machine weekend, somewhere.

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Jeff Leiper has a good debrief:

http://kitchissippiward.ca/content/la-machines-joyous-lessons

Many of us have said that fewer cars, not more, in our marquee destinations will draw more people and economic activity. Yes, La Machine was a one-off in terms of scale, but the degree to which the principle was proven can’t be overstated.

Removing cars from the market for a major event like La Machine isn't an indicator of whether or not making the area pedestrian only would lead to more people and more economic activity (look at Sparks Street). The fact that the market was packed for La Machine doesn't say again. There's no proof that residents and merchants would be willing to change their habits or tolerate inconveniences for a lesser scale event.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

Removing cars from the market for a major event like La Machine isn't an indicator of whether or not making the area pedestrian only would lead to more people and more economic activity (look at Sparks Street). The fact that the market was packed for La Machine doesn't say again. There's no proof that residents and merchants would be willing to change their habits or tolerate inconveniences for a lesser scale event.

Yeah it is a horrible case study. Personally I think pedestrianizing most of Geroge, York and Clarence makes sense but this event is irrelevant to any examination of that.

[lrt's friend]

There is a good possibility that La Machine would not have operated through the market if it was converted into a pedestrian only area. Likely, a pedestrian only area would have been sufficiently blocked for pedestrian amenities that the fairly large vehicles that transported the spider and dragon could not made its way through.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

There is a good possibility that La Machine would not have operated through the market if it was converted into a pedestrian only area. Likely, a pedestrian only area would have been sufficiently blocked for pedestrian amenities that the fairly large vehicles that transported the spider and dragon could not made its way through.

If the Market already were a pedestrian-only zone, the Usual Suspects would have complained about motorized dragons and spiders entering it.

I don't know that the weekend makes the best argument for "pedestrianization", and i'm not a fan of pedestrianizing anything more than medieval city centres in those cities that have them, but it certainly makes a compelling case for periodic spectacle.

And if I were at Canadian Heritage, I'd be on the phone to La Machine, and Cirque du Soleil, and anyone else with a history of such spectacle, to turn over the Canada Day budget to their management.

[mykl]

I followed almost the entire La Machine event and it was honestly the second best event I've ever been to, second only to the pure joy that was the Vancouver Olympics. Ottawa needed this so badly!

My only complaint would be that like 95% of the time, the crowd was completely free to interact and enjoy, and 15% of the time the police doing crowd control were yelling so much that it really sucked the joy out. I understand the show has a schedule, but if it takes an extra minute to get through the bigger-than-expected crowds, so be it.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by mykl

I followed almost the entire La Machine event and it was honestly the second best event I've ever been to, second only to the pure joy that was the Vancouver Olympics. Ottawa needed this so badly!

My only complaint would be that like 95% of the time, the crowd was completely free to interact and enjoy, and 15% of the time the police doing crowd control were yelling so much that it really sucked the joy out. I understand the show has a schedule, but if it takes an extra minute to get through the bigger-than-expected crowds, so be it.

I didn't see any of the aggressive traffic-copping that was going on, but a solution for anything similar in the future might be to have ushers, in appropriate attire, giving the crowds friendly directions that make them feel even more a part of the event.

And funny you should make the Vancouver 2010 comparison.... was thinking the same thing over the weekend. And have heard several people make comments to the effect that "Ottawa is different now": this may be one of those intangible before-and-after moments.

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

I didn't see any of the aggressive traffic-copping that was going on, but a solution for anything similar in the future might be to have ushers, in appropriate attire, giving the crowds friendly directions that make them feel even more a part of the event.

I found the volunteers on the night of the finale to be very helpful in directing the crowds. Even Guy Laflamme was out there directing people. They were letting people know where they could get a better view and the amount of space that was available on the front lawn of the war museum. A few volunteers were able to move a mass of people. Way better than Canada Day.