Quote:
Originally Posted by isaidso
Landscaping/public realm in Vancouver, despite room for improvement, is way way nicer than what one sees in other Canadian cities. Even on prominent streets like this one in Ottawa (Rideau Centre), the street is grim and depressing. I wouldn't want to spend a second on this street below. I realize it's winter but they've made zero attempt to make it an attractive place to be. YUCK!
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It makes me wonder how big an improvement we would see in this respect if key areas of cities had sidewalk heating. Right now, any city that has sidewalk ploughs go up and down for part of the year probably doesn't want to spend too much on pretty stuff that's probably going to, at best interference with winter operations, and at worst get completely destroyed.
It's so silly that we don't have more of it already considering that it actually is a net cost saver. It reduces healthcare costs and lost productivity from injuries (falls), it encourages active transportation by making routes more pedestrian friendly, reduces labour cost related to maintenance personnel, allows the heated spaces to be up and running much more quickly, reduces damage to public spaces from the heavy clumsy ploughs, eliminates the use of salt... and the list goes on and on.
Probably not worth the cost in warmer places like SW BC, but they're the exception.
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