Canadian Urban Canyons

[Bcasey25raptor]

West Georgia urban canyon in the fog.


Edit:I'm on my cell. Not sure why it's not showing, I'll try again when I get home.

Edit2: Got it to work.

[Innsertnamehere]

it easy to forget how warm Vancouvers winters are..

[Beedok]

Quite depressing.

[J.OT13]

Ottawa

O'Connor Street;


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Connor_Street


http://www.pastottawa.com/comparison...n-street-/215/

Metcalfe Street;


http://www.pastottawa.com/fr/compari...-o-connor/216/

Sparks Street;


http://www.pbase.com/image/118737977


http://www.maximimages.com/image/CKO...ttawa-downtown


http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.co...e-weekend.html

[MolsonExport]

Ottawa is certainly no slouch in the urban canyon department. Which I imagine is surprising for some that only judge the city by its (relatively) modest skyline. Density, dear Watson, Density.

[Bcasey25raptor]

Height aint everything.

What ottawa does, it does well. Skylines need to look great from a distance but street level must also look urban and many big cities in North America surprisingly fail at the second part.

[Chadillaccc]

Agreed! Fantastic shots. Especially love the density of mid-rise historic buildings.

[Trans Canada]

Nice density? Sure. Vibrant downtown? Not even close.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

Nice density? Sure. Vibrant downtown? Not even close.

Oh come on, no need to say such directly confrontational bullshit. Jeez, there's already enough dumpster fires on the Canada section.

[someone123]

Here are some Halifax photos I took last summer. I don't think they made it into this thread yet. They weren't really intentional "canyon" shots, but I like the mix of older buildings and highrises:

Granville Street


Hollis Street. The building on the left was not quite finished when I took this photo. A new 23 storey building is being built right now on the left side of the street near the end of the highrise buildings so this will be slightly more canyon-like in a couple of years:


Close up of some older buildings on Hollis:


I didn't take any shots right down Barrington, but it's got some nice stretches of 4-8 storey streetwalls plus some highrises




Not quite a canyon but some of the narrower streets are pretty interesting:

[MTLskyline]

^ Nice shots! Love the old buildings.

[Trans Canada]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Oh come on, no need to say such directly confrontational bullshit. Jeez, there's already enough dumpster fires on the Canada section.

Ha I love Ottawa, grew up there. But anyone who's spent time in that city (or lived there) knows the downtown core is dead (much deader than Calgary's (yes, deader)).

Having the best urban canyons in Canada doesn't really do much for the city when it's all government and commercial office. I don't see "#1 in Urban Canyons" on the tourism brochures.

IIRC Ottawa is having a mini condo boom so hopefully that will bring some life to downtown. But there is a long way to go.

[Monolith]

Ottawa and Halifax look fantastic!

[J.OT13]

Those Halifax shots make it look like a much bigger city than it actually is. Impressive.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Trans Canada

Nice density? Sure. Vibrant downtown? Not even close.

I don't know..The summer patio scene is pretty decent..I wouldn't call it deadsville..At least in the summer.ha.

The canal skating scene can be fairly vibrant...It's just not Dundas Square.

Great shots of both Halifax and Ottawa btw..Cheers

[Beedok]

I would say Ottawa actually suffers a bit for that density. If the towers were spread out a bit better the core could easily feel 1.5-2 times larger. I do think that Ottawa's spray of nodes and dense downtown will make for a very good urban environment when it hits 2 or may 3 million, but at a little over 1 million it feels like it's teasing you by falling short of the impression it gives. The buildings are just a little too short to impress. The CBD is just a little too small to impress. The secondary nodes are just a little to sparse and small to impress. Etc. The bones are there for when it become a big city, but right now it's like a gangly teen.

[le calmar]

I admit I was disappointed by the lack of activity in downtown Ottawa and on Sparks St. But Bank St. and the Byward Market are reasonably busy.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Those Halifax shots make it look like a much bigger city than it actually is. Impressive.

it feels like a much bigger city than it is in person as well, at least compared to Ontario cities of 400-500,000.

[drawarc]

Neat photos of Halifax.

[TorontoDrew]

I really need to get out to Halifax. Only a handful of Canadian cities interest me enough to visit and Halifax is one of them.