Rideau-Sussex Redesign/Public Square | Proposed

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Mille Sabords

I agree with you Jeremy. I think Denley nailed it right on the head this time. Someone has posted a brilliant photoshop image of Union Station with cafés along the canal banks. No reason there can't be a similar type of "opening" of the facade that faces this new square. Or even, an addition that would frame and animate the space better. There must also be something we can do with Union Station's enormous blank wall. I'm not necessarily thinking a jumbotron ... but something.

I was thinking along similar lines - perhaps a glass winter garden with space for an outdoor cafe.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by Danman

My grandfather was the manager of the Grand Hotel! I saw my first stripper there at the age of 13 :-P

Well, post a photo if you have one!

[the capital urbanite]

why study it for the next 5 years?!
All the necessary infrastructure is already there...
paint some new lines;
close-off the mackenzie king ramp to traffic;
backfill the underpass;
put in a new sidewalk on the South side of Rideau street.

The city could do it before June...

[highdensitysprawl]

Originally Posted by the capital urbanite

why study it for the next 5 years?!
All the necessary infrastructure is already there...
paint some new lines;
close-off the mackenzie king ramp to traffic;
backfill the underpass;
put in a new sidewalk on the South side of Rideau street.

The city could do it before June...

If in doubt, study it..that is the motto of this City Council.

[citizen j]

Yeah, as surreal as it is to say "I agree with Denley" (he's been so off the mark in the past), this time I definitely have to agree with him. Someone needs to tell the NCC that "public space" and "green space" aren't the same thing. I want to write them a letter telling them that parks have a place, and thanks for the Greenbelt and Gatineau Park, etc., etc., but please stop sodding the city. Maybe I'll go do that now.

[jitterbug]

OK, maybe I'm missing something, but why do all three proposals call for the underpass to be eliminated? Is it just to get rid of those annoying homeless people and other "trouble-makers"? If so, then we should also eliminate most of Rideau Street, the Byward Market, Bank Street, etc.

Maybe we should try tackling the root of the problem of street crime than tying to shove it under the rug.

Pedestrain underpasses work successfully in Europe. It's the perfect way of making a busy intersection safe for large volumes of pedestrians, while allowing the smooth flow of vehicles on the surface. Simple as that.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by jitterbug

OK, maybe I'm missing something, but why do all three proposals call for the underpass to be eliminated? Is it just to get rid of those annoying homeless people and other "trouble-makers"? If so, then we should also eliminate most of Rideau Street, the Byward Market, Bank Street, etc.

Maybe we should try tackling the root of the problem of street crime than tying to shove it under the rug.

Pedestrain underpasses work successfully in Europe. It's the perfect way of making a busy intersection safe for large volumes of pedestrians, while allowing the smooth flow of vehicles on the surface. Simple as that.

It is true that they work in Europe, but I am not sure that the Rideau-Sussex intersection is *that* busy (say, compared to the Arc de Triomphe where at least 12 streets if not more converge) that an underpass is absolutely necessary. I think another difference is that many cities in Europe (Paris is a good example) have greater foot traffic and all times of the day, every night of the week, than Ottawa. So the likelihood of finding one’s self completely alone in the underpasses near the Arc is quite a bit lower than it is in Ottawa.

Anyway, I don’t know how they deal with underpass security issues in Europe, perhaps security cameras? Or blaring operatic arias on speakers to keep riff-raff away?

[Mille Sabords]

Originally Posted by jitterbug

OK, maybe I'm missing something, but why do all three proposals call for the underpass to be eliminated? Is it just to get rid of those annoying homeless people and other "trouble-makers"? If so, then we should also eliminate most of Rideau Street, the Byward Market, Bank Street, etc.

Maybe we should try tackling the root of the problem of street crime than tying to shove it under the rug.

Pedestrain underpasses work successfully in Europe. It's the perfect way of making a busy intersection safe for large volumes of pedestrians, while allowing the smooth flow of vehicles on the surface. Simple as that.

My own take on it is that the "street crime" that occurs here is a byproduct of bad design, not the real issue. The real issue is that the underpass makes pedestrians walk longer and detour from their intended path, which is a straight line along Rideau Street. Before there even was an underpass, this was a real city block with a number of buildings that had stores along a continuous sidewalk at the surface between Union Station and Sussex.

The underpass was built to get pedestrians out of the way of cars.

I am very happy that they will finally give us back our sidewalk. Cars are faster than people on foot, they can take an extra few seconds to turn left on Rideau and right on Sussex. Pedestrians are slower. Eliminating the underpass can easily shave a nice chunk of time and distance off a walk (in winter, etc.)

[jitterbug]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Anyway, I don’t know how they deal with underpass security issues in Europe, perhaps security cameras? Or blaring operatic arias on speakers to keep riff-raff away?

I can't say how much of a security issue European underpasses are, although I would think simple measures like security cameras and routine foot patrols would be a good start. But filling in the hole seems like a drastic step to resolve a simple security challenge.

As Randall Denley correctly observed, all three proposals are underwhelming. There is so much more that could - must - be done to fix the downtown core, and tweeking one intersection won't make an ounce of difference. My pet peeve is King Edward Avenue (especially north of Rideau), a once proud "avenue" now disgraced into a dilapidated freeway on-ramp. (And the so-called improvements to this street are a sad joke.)

[Acajack]

Personally, security in that underpass has never been a real concern for me, as I am bulky enough that no one really messes with me.

But I just don’t think of it as a quality urban space for Ottawa, it being cold, damp, poorly lit, and surrounded by brutalist, non-descript concrete walls.

All in all, no big loss for Canada’s capital if they do away with it. And good thing they got Terry Fox out of there!

[Ottawade]

In addition to foot traffic and car traffic there are cyclists and as a cyclist that underpass is tremendously annoying. You have to cross over two lanes of right turning traffic who don't seem to care much about hitting you. Biking through that really awkward intersection always feels more dangerous than it should. Best case scenario if you are a tame biker, you can get off your bike if and portage under (UGH!). Often when i bike to the rideau center from centertown I will just end up locking my bike to the railing before the underpass and walking under.

[Ottawade]

Here's how the intersection looked Sunday evening.



(My photo)

[waterloowarrior]

good post by David Reevely on why he's glad 700 Sussex wasn't turned into a park, he links to a good article as well.

A pro-park pathology

By DAVID REEVELY 08-07-2009 COMMENTS(0) GREATER OTTAWA

Dismal as I think the building at 700 Sussex Drive is, at least it's better than the park a lot of people seemed to want to have on the Daly site. It's got some street-level retail and an Ottawa-original restaurant with one of the city's great patios in the Metropolitain. Much better than another park right next to the very large and lovely Major's Hill Park and quite close to the long ribbon park that runs along the downtown stretch of the Rideau Canal. In this case, the fact we got a building there, for all its flaws, is pretty much due to the bullheadedness of the National Capital Commission — which is also why the building is flawed, since the NCC didn't really listen to anybody about how it was to be built.

Matthew Yglesias looks at the reasons for a pro-park bias in his capital, Washington D.C.:

It seems to me that human beings have some kind of psychological tick that leads them to overestimate the amount of time they’re going to want to spend engaged in outdoor recreating. It’s one thing if you live in California, where the weather’s nice all of the time, but here in the Northeast how much use do we really get out of parks? People don’t go to the park at night, or during the winter, or when it’s raining....

Part of the issue I that I think there’s not enough “in it” for the local community to allow development as opposed to park creation. An elected official doesn’t want to be in the position of giving land to insidious developers instead of using it for public purposes like a park.

Not that I'm against parks, at all. It's just that I don't think they're automatically the best use of any vacant space. They can be hubs of community activity, sure, but only when they're placed and configured right. The long spaghetti strands of greenspace we get along our waterways where commerce and other activities are all but forbidden, also thanks to the NCC, are a grievous underuse of places with tremendous potential.

[kwoldtimer]

An urban square, however, could be much more than a park on this Rideau/Sussex site. Something that incorporates the space into the Conference Centre. I still like the idea of a glass winter garden/cafe attached to the east side of the building.

[waterloowarrior]

The following item is planned for 10:25 at this Wednesday's board meeting


National Capital Commission’s Rideau Canal Open Space Preliminary Design – Plaza Bridge to Laurier Bridge and the Ottawa Convention Centre’s OCC Public Realm Preliminary Design (D)


I guess this may be the area where Kitchissippi's proposed canal level space would be?

[rakerman]

Originally Posted by Ottawade

Here's how the intersection looked Sunday evening.



(My photo)

That entire mess is mostly NCC + the Greber plan, isn't it? I think there used to be a building next to the train station, not a messed up partial-highway vision. Plus NCC allowed the Daly Building to fall into disrepair, destroyed it, and then allowed not only a condo on the site but one that is a featureless cube. All of which to say anything that they do to "fix" Rideau-Sussex will just be an attempt to undo decades of very bad planning.

[rakerman]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Matthew Yglesias looks at the reasons for a pro-park bias in his capital, Washington D.C.:

Not that I'm against parks, at all. It's just that I don't think they're automatically the best use of any vacant space. They can be hubs of community activity, sure, but only when they're placed and configured right. The long spaghetti strands of greenspace we get along our waterways where commerce and other activities are all but forbidden, also thanks to the NCC, are a grievous underuse of places with tremendous potential.

I think the point is that urban planning is not about some abstract urban environment, it's about the actual place where you live. "Park" or for that matter brick or concrete "plaza" open space (as is stuck in front of some buildings downtown, as well as in front of the National Gallery) becomes in winter "windswept snowscape", plus which people don't USE big open spaces generally, although they like to look out on them. People like the edges. So it really is about park (or other space) *with amenities appropriate to the area, culture and climate". That being said, New Yorkers seem to love their parks and New York is just as sh-t in winter as Ottawa is. But one of the key lessons is not to have this pure greenspace park idea (kind of zoning for parks). Madison Square Park is just a couple blocks of green, but it's a nice little walk and rest PLUS you can grab something to eat at the Shake Shack and sit out at tables.

http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.741917,-73.987588&spn=0.00365,0.006539&t=h&z=18

Russell Square Gardens in London is just a couple blocks of green, but it's a nice little walk and rest PLUS you can grab something to eat.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sourc...06539&t=h&z=18

I think we get confused between park as pure pastoral, which we already have in the Arboretum, and park as "green space to live in public", which we really don't have anywhere in downtown Ottawa. If you look at Dundonald, there's no sense that people would want to spend a lot of time in or around the park - there are zero restaurants or cafes that face on the park. Compare this with Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia (which is not exactly a fantastic downtown overall), where the square is surrounded by cafes and restaurants, as is common in many other cities.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sourc...06539&t=h&z=18

So I agree - some grass and a fountain? Um, nice, but it will be covered with snow and the fountain will be shut down in winter anyway. Build something that gives Ottawa citizens something they can use in our climate, but also keep in mind that we should be evolving to more shared public space, in the same way that Copenhagen evolved itself from an indoor culture to an outdoors culture by a stepwise, measured set of policy decisions and reclaiming space.

[waterloowarrior]

urban design study for the square

[rakerman]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

urban design study for the square

"the Node"? seriously?

Interesting to see progression of plans over the years and terminology changing from clear statements like "Union Station removed" to "Distinctive Street with Landmark Node" bureaucratese. "The Node should be recognized for its location within the social-political realm"?

Am I reading it right that they've coloured Place du Portage and Sparks as "major attractions"? Major detractions, maybe.

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

urban design study for the square

I like the traffic circle and central monument. The one they've rated highest is my second favourite.