Ugly Canada 2 (Only architecture, planning and design faux pas)

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

House in suburban St. John’s. $600K lol Not hard to tell it’s Alberta money.

That's really awful. Of course there is evidence of a prickup truck.

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Mellastmanland

Alack, I live smack-dab in the middle of Mellastmanland. In fact, one of his sons lives down the street and has razed and rebuilt his own McMansion, while a daughter of that Trump-admiring Blaine dipshit reportedly lives a couple houses down from me.

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by Gresto

Was it in this thread that the hilarious houses in Detroit, with driveways directly egressing a multi-lane freeway, were posted? That was a mind-blowing thing to see.

I did a bit more digging because I was interested in finding this absurdity again. Check out houses built directly onto a freeway.



https://www.google.com/maps/place/30...!4d-83.2821245

[Wigs]

Gresto, that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by Gresto

I did a bit more digging because I was interested in finding this absurdity again. Check out houses built directly onto a freeway.



https://www.google.com/maps/place/30...!4d-83.2821245

Do you think the original house was built pre wide highway and they just kept on adding lanes (and the traffic that wider roads attract). I've seen houses like that in the UK that were built on to a standard road and over time it became a dual carriageway (two or three lanes each way with the occasional roundabout or traffic lights but no new access allowed) that you can only enter and exit in the same direction.

https://goo.gl/maps/Lwyu9qkwteGikZSdA Here's a farm lane access on to a road with a 70 mph speed limit. Not much of a merge lane. Close to where some of my family live.

[MolsonExport]

The houses look pretty new to me. How awful. who cares if you have a mcmansion if it abuts an expresssway?

At worst, these homes are 20 years old.

Nothing spells "success" like the never-ending roar of semis on a six lane freeway going past your house all day and all night.

[Innsertnamehere]

To be fair there are houses lining Highway 11 between Barrie and Gravenhurst too. Most date from before it was upgraded to a freeway though and are pretty junky. MTO is generally slowly buying them up and demolishing them too.

[SignalHillHiker]

I can't even imagine the noise. I used to live on Prince of Wales Street here, which is a typical rowhouse street but also a main thoroughfare up and out of downtown toward Kenmount Road:


(One of the many intersections in St. John's that have near-340-degree turns since we switched to driving on the right, and would be SO much easier if driving on the left lol)

You could not leave a window facing the street open. During the day, it was like a highway. You could not hear company, or even a TV.

[megadude]

That is the worst example I've seen. When you drive on the I-90 in WNY, you see houses where you think that's way too close to the highway but this one takes the cake. Those WNY houses aren't right beside the highway but their yard is.

Kind of reminds me Castlemore Road in Brampton where the city did expropriate land in order to widen the road. I would drive be a few houses like this on my way to Woodbridge over the years and see how they would change. Went from a semi quiet country road to a thoroughfare. In this case you can see they added one lane but also added a walkway as they built new housing on either side. Driveway was basically chopped in half.






upload photos for a link

[SignalHillHiker]

Sorry, esquire, for being mean...

But on my fave FB group (View from my window), this one came up today:



And I had a trauma response , just remembering my years living there, walking along streets like that.

So I dug up my view from my office at that time.







Ahhh...

And just as a palette cleanser, there are nice areas to that city lol I might've been miserable, but I can still recognize that:

But, holy fuck. Even with warm naturals taking over generic interior design, I can never do beige. Ruined beige for me, that city. I even hate yellow because it's just too close lol

[MolsonExport]

Nothing like a Fountain Tire to spruce the area up.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

That's really awful. Of course there is evidence of a prickup truck.

Not to mention, the rest of the house is extremely low-crass mutilitarian, so the pornate fireplace surround could not be more out of splace.

[SignalHillHiker]

$195K.

[TownGuy]

Did you put the 195k there because you feel like that is outrageous? If that were here, people would be falling all over themselves to buy that place, or any place, for that price. Detached and garage too? There would be a bidding war.

It is ugly though, yes.

[SignalHillHiker]

Not outrageous, the lot is probably close to $100K, but definitely too much for what it is. I paid $167K and mine is lovely lol

[MolsonExport]

That 195K house is leaning, and should probably be condemned (or fixed at a considerable cost).

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by Gresto

I did a bit more digging because I was interested in finding this absurdity again. Check out houses built directly onto a freeway.



https://www.google.com/maps/place/30...!4d-83.2821245

That's the stroadiest stroad that ever stroaded.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Mister F

That's the stroadiest stroad that ever stroaded.

I've been on Telegraph Road. It's definitely a very busy suburban stroad. That section has some weird U-turns things that are not controlled by lights. There are quite a number of them and they aren't pleasant as you are dealing with traffic moving quickly. I believe the maximum there is 50 MPH. You can't turn left at any of the traffic lights around there and have to use the U-turns if you want to access things on the other side.

The road is not a freeway but does have some expressway characteristics such as being divided and having the right-in and right-out with the exception of the U-turns.

Now I'm sure that many people on here have seen the commercials from the Detroit TV stations. Telegraph Road reminds me of this strange classic TV ad for the Alan Ford and Ray Whitfield Ford dealerships that used to play in the 1990s and probably many years before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo3XPDh7Irs

[lio45]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Not outrageous, the lot is probably close to $100K, but definitely too much for what it is. I paid $167K and mine is lovely lol

$195k is absolutely outrageous for that thing unless the lot is in the heart of downtown and zoned for much more interesting stuff than a house.

[deja vu]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Now I'm sure that many people on here have seen the commercials from the Detroit TV stations. Telegraph Road reminds me of this strange classic TV ad for the Alan Ford and Ray Whitfield Ford dealerships that used to play in the 1990s and probably many years before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo3XPDh7Irs

I definitely remember that ad!

I grew up in metro Detroit and have driven on Telegraph Road many times. I remember when those houses were first being built (2001-2002), each one uglier than the next, and thinking how strange it was, and I was only 12-13 years old. Those homes stand in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the state, on one of the busiest roads. And they have basically zero yard / buffer. Real estate is at a premium there, and I guess they desperately wanted to be part of that zip code. All I can think is, the commute must be easy. They all have their little lions and their Immaculate Virgin Mary statues out front too. I used to imagine that it was all one extended Italian-Catholic family inhabiting these homes.

The house posted further above is estimated at a little over $1,000,000 on Zillow right now.

I think the one next door to this is the ugliest - a true stucco palace. When I was a kid, I thought it was an elaborate bounce house.

There are still a few empty lots, in case you are considering a move there...