The Great Canadian Towns and Villages Thread

[hipster duck]

I always thought the super wide streets of Prairie towns were built that way from the beginning so that a horse-drawn wagon could do a U-turn without backing up.

Designing your towns around four-wheeled vehicles was even more of a space hog back then!

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by esquire

I'd be more inclined to wonder about them if they spent good money trying to impress people from thousands of kilometres away who will never set foot in their town...

They should be improving this for their own well being. Not to impress outsiders. Near or far.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

They should be improving this for their own well being. Not to impress outsiders. Near or far.

It's a sleepy town of 1,500 people... what kind of capacity for expensive public works projects do you think they have?

Imagine someone running for mayor of Wynyard. He promises to double the property tax bill to pay for a critical infrastructure project. What is this necessary project? Water treatment plant? Fire department upgrades? A new recreational facility? No... he's going to buy out half of Main Street, demolish it and make the street narrower. All I can say is good luck to anyone running on that platform.

[Truenorth00]

Is ripping out asphalt and replacing it with sod that controversial? Especially if it saves money on the plowing and roadworks budget?

[ShavedParmesanCheese]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Is ripping out asphalt and replacing it with sod that controversial? Especially if it saves money on the plowing and roadworks budget?

It'd be controversial to the rural, car-dependent people who'd have a more difficult go getting their trucks into town.

I think it could be done. I mean, Alix clearly did it. It would need a politician in great standing with the town and a street with tarmac in desperate need of replacing, though.

[ShavedParmesanCheese]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I always thought the super wide streets of Prairie towns were built that way from the beginning so that a horse-drawn wagon could do a U-turn without backing up.

Designing your towns around four-wheeled vehicles was even more of a space hog back then!

That definitely helped the cause, think about how buggered an up-and-coming town would be if they built all their roads people-sized, and eventually ended up the size of Calgary.

[niwell]

I'm sure the wagon thing played a part, but we can't discount hubris. So many prairie towns were going to be the Next Big Thing!

[urbandreamer]

Not just wagons but farm equipment. Where are you going to park that https://www.versatile-ag.com/NA/pages/product_4wd.php to pick up some pops and chips?

[TorontoDrew]

Never been but I hear it's nice Stratford Ontario.

City Hall Stratford Ontario by AncasterZ, on Flickr

Stratford,Ontario by sonicgregu, on Flickr

Stratford Ontario by Jack Tome, on Flickr

Stratford Ontario by Jack Tome, on Flickr

Stratford Ontario by Jack Tome, on Flickr

[ShavedParmesanCheese]

Few friends and I had plans to head to Stratford for a festival sometime last year… you can guess what happened to that

Gorgeous town. They’ve retained not only the historic town hall, market square, and court house, but the GTR station’s in use as well not every town can say that anymore.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by esquire

It's a sleepy town of 1,500 people... what kind of capacity for expensive public works projects do you think they have?

Imagine someone running for mayor of Wynyard. He promises to double the property tax bill to pay for a critical infrastructure project. What is this necessary project? Water treatment plant? Fire department upgrades? A new recreational facility? No... he's going to buy out half of Main Street, demolish it and make the street narrower. All I can say is good luck to anyone running on that platform.

Given that Wynyard is a low density thing anyway, any such plan like that to "revitalize" downtown would likely just push development to the next super-plaza near the highway anyway.

It's not like Wynyard is limited by land area, nor facing the pressure of thousands of people immigrating per year. I'd actually wager that you could live more of your life walking in that town than the average suburbanite in Vaughan.

It's not great looking, but that's a modern-era thing.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Given that Wynyard is a low density thing anyway, any such plan like that to "revitalize" downtown would likely just push development to the next super-plaza near the highway anyway.

It's not like Wynyard is limited by land area, nor facing the pressure of thousands of people immigrating per year. I'd actually wager that you could live more of your life walking in that town than the average suburbanite in Vaughan.

It's not great looking, but that's a modern-era thing.

It is curious why prairie towns have such wide main drags, even when they were laid out before widespread car ownership, but in any case, yeah: narrowing them is probably not in the cards.

A lot of low-hanging fruit in the case of a town like Wynyard though. sidewalks could be widened without any real impact on traffic, a treed median could be installed between the traffic lanes, more benches and places to gather could be added. If there's enough development activity, the one-storey buildings could be replaced over time with buildings of three or four storeys, which would make a huge positive difference.

Some relatively small changes could yield big results, but huge urbanism-focused makeovers don't seem too likely.

[esquire]

Beautification projects like that could work in places like Wynyard. But I don't think it would go much farther than that. Just from what I see, Wynyard doesn't look like a growing place... I doubt there will be much in the way of new builds beyond just replacing old buildings that are no longer in good repair.

[Truenorth00]

It's not even just aesthetic. The cost to maintain all that asphalt must suck.

[Airboy]

It is said that the space needed to turn a team of horses and a wagon is the reason for the wide main roads.

However see the attached for the best explanation.

http://spacing.ca/edmonton/2014/12/1...-7-lanes-wide/

prescribed a minimum road allowance of one chain (66.5 feet or 20.1 metres) between every section for north-south roads and every two sections for east-west roads. This road allowance was seen as a desirable minimum width to accommodate a herd of cattle, but did not necessarily require a road to be built. This became the standard width for most roads in the new cities across the Canadian west.

Streets intended to be major commercial thoroughfares, however, were often laid out wider than a chain to accommodate a diverse range of users and activities, from delivery wagons, stage coaches, pedestrians, cattle, utilities and new transportation technologies such as the streetcar, which were proliferating across North America at the time. Jasper Avenue has a width of 30.5 m (approximately 100 ft or 1.5 chains) throughout Downtown and Oliver. Subtracting sidewalks, this has resulted in 7 lanes of traffic for most of its length today. Whyte Avenue is similarly broad, reflecting its original purpose as a main street for the Town of Strathcona. This phenomenon of the seven lane main street is also observed in Saskatoon’s Broadway Avenue or Regina’s Victoria Avenue.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Never been but I hear it's nice Stratford Ontario.

Stratford Ontario by Jack Tome, on Flickr

That still there? I'll go and knock that over right away. Bloody racist.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's not even just aesthetic. The cost to maintain all that asphalt must suck.

The cost of doing a complete revamp to save a few bucks on asphalt replacement would likely not pay off.

Sometimes, we are stuck with the decisions of our forefathers.

[megadude]

Yeah, I think there has to be a certain critical mass before a major revamp project is considered.

Where I cottage up off Georgian Bay are Penetang and Midland. Both of their main streets are just average and nothing special. Actually, Penetang's is rather underwhelming but at least it's not ghetto or abandoned. The only saving grace for it is that it slopes down towards the harbour, which adds some uniqueness to it.

In my 15 years going up there, I've yet to hear any cottager or resident by us say they went into town to go eat or for entertainment. I'm sure have, but it's not exactly a popular thing to do. And it's only a 10-12 minute drive.

Well in 2018 they started a long term project that consisted of three phases along the street. In summer 2020 I passed through a couple of times and I was like "that's it?". All the construction equipment and cones, etc. from the previous two summers and it's hardly changed. It's a slight improvement in how they rearranged parking and the streetscape. But it also depends on the property and business owners to spruce up their facades or frontages and vacant units need to be occupied. Much of that was not accomplished as of last summer. So I wondered if there was any value returned from whatever the expense was.

Penetang is a town of 9,000 but with many more during summer. The marina is at the foot of main street. I hope one day it could become like Huntsville's main street, but that is Muskoka. More money up there.

[BrannyMuffin]

If you’d ever seen a combine trying to navigate a narrow street you’d understand why they need to remain so wide.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by BrannyMuffin

If you’d ever seen a combine trying to navigate a narrow street you’d understand why they need to remain so wide.

Why are combines taken to downtown?