Ottawa Superblocks

[Ave_Christus_Rex]

I watched a video about Barcelona's "superblocks," and thought that Ottawa should do something similar. Basically, the idea is you have a group of city blocks where all non-local private car traffic is banned. The superblocks are separated by streets of normal car traffic. So I made a map of my vision of an "Autoluw" in Ottawa. The streets in purple are unaltered; all the rest are off-limits to cars except for ones owned by the residents of that neighbourhood.

It's long past time we reclaimed the streets of urban areas for people from the cars. Would love to hear people's thought on this, and whether it's overambitious.

[Williamoforange]

Originally Posted by Ave_Christus_Rex

I watched a video about Barcelona's "superblocks," and thought that Ottawa should do something similar. Basically, the idea is you have a group of city blocks where all non-local private car traffic is banned. The superblocks are separated by streets of normal car traffic. So I made a map of my vision of an "Autoluw" in Ottawa. The streets in purple are unaltered; all the rest are off-limits to cars except for ones owned by the residents of that neighbourhood.

It's long past time we reclaimed the streets of urban areas for people from the cars. Would love to hear people's thought on this, and whether it's overambitious.

If your truly looking to get this started then your going to need to get the Centretown CDP & those that support it thrown out, and to that I say goodluck. Cause without the residents to fill the streets all your asking for is more sparks streets and when what I think you want it more Elgin.

https://ottawa.ca/en/centretown-community-design-plan

[Ave_Christus_Rex]

Originally Posted by Williamoforange

If your truly looking to get this started then your going to need to get the Centretown CDP & those that support it thrown out, and to that I say goodluck. Cause without the residents to fill the streets all your asking for is more sparks streets and when what I think you want it more Elgin.

https://ottawa.ca/en/centretown-community-design-plan

Elgin would be just lovely without cars.

And I'm not looking to get this done overnight. This can be implemented gradually, one block of one street at a time. Or start with closing one street lane and replacing it with a bike lane or widened sidewalks.

[lrt's friend]

If we don't want cars, we need to make transit better. We can't block bus routes on the few through streets available. How is Elgin better without both cars and buses? Elgin's nearby streets are too far away to be convenient to transit riders. From a business perspective, out of sight is also out of mind, which means less business. When Elgin Street was closed for reconstruction, business went way down. Doing this permanently, will have the same effect.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

From a business perspective, out of sight is also out of mind, which means less business.

If there was any truth this, malls wouldn't exist.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

When Elgin Street was closed for reconstruction, business went way down. Doing this permanently, will have the same effect.

Poor reasoning. The reconstruction took away pedestrian, transit and auto traffic.

[Truenorth00]

Welcome to the forum. I'm a huge fan of pedestrianization. But you've come to a forum where most of the folks think walking is something you do on vacation, after paying a few thousand dollars to Air Canada for the privilege.

So you gotta set the target a little lower for this town. I would argue Sparks and its shit implementation completely ruined the idea of pedestrian streets. So maybe the best place to start would be the Market and fixing up Sparks. The pandemic patios is really showing how much better the Market can be without cars. An actual plan instead of the ad hoc one now. That is what might actually get the conversation going. Before that happens if these ideas are unimaginable to the folks here, just imagine the reaction from the general public who actually likes Ottawa as the giant car dependent suburb that is mostly is.

[GeoNerd]

Originally Posted by Ave_Christus_Rex

I watched a video about Barcelona's "superblocks," and thought that Ottawa should do something similar. Basically, the idea is you have a group of city blocks where all non-local private car traffic is banned. The superblocks are separated by streets of normal car traffic. So I made a map of my vision of an "Autoluw" in Ottawa. The streets in purple are unaltered; all the rest are off-limits to cars except for ones owned by the residents of that neighbourhood.

It's long past time we reclaimed the streets of urban areas for people from the cars. Would love to hear people's thought on this, and whether it's overambitious.

1) This would be a great transformation. I like the idea of slowly implementing this over the years until the core is eventually fully pedestrianized. It would obviously need to jump many hurdles and need strong leadership to accomplish. But nothing is impossible.

2) Don't even listen to some of the naysayers and negative Nancy's on here. They're just grouchy armchair urbanists that have no idea what they are talking bout most of the time.

[GeoNerd]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Welcome to the forum. I'm a huge fan of pedestrianization. But you've come to a forum where most of the folks think walking is something you do on vacation, after paying a few thousand dollars to Air Canada for the privilege.

So you gotta set the target a little lower for this town. I would argue Sparks and its shit implementation completely ruined the idea of pedestrian streets. So maybe the best place to start would be the Market and fixing up Sparks. The pandemic patios is really showing how much better the Market can be without cars. An actual plan instead of the ad hoc one now. That is what might actually get the conversation going. Before that happens if these ideas are unimaginable to the folks here, just imagine the reaction from the general public who actually likes Ottawa as the giant car dependent suburb that is mostly is.

Jeeze. Again, your view of this "town" is skewed and just miserable. You need to get out of that dumpy area of Cyrville. It's making you miserable. Your constant negativity is exhausting. This city has it's faults but it's truly a great city. Arguably the best city in the country. Just maybe not your forgotten corner of it.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by GeoNerd

Jeeze. Again, your view of this "town" is skewed and just miserable. You need to get out of that dumpy area of Cyrville. It's making you miserable. Your constant negativity is exhausting. This city has it's faults but it's truly a great city. Arguably the best city in the country. Just maybe not your forgotten corner of it.

I actually do think it's a great city. Best in the country? Probably not. But that's a matter of opinion. What isn't opinion is the high level of car dependency and the prevailing support for it. Even on forums that are supposedly about transit and urbanism. It's awfully hard to get over the Stockholm syndrome of high car dependency. When you have people on this forum who argue that stores won't have visibility unless there's auto traffic driving by them, and still fancy themselves urbanists, that says it all...

[roger1818]

I saw an interesting video about what makes a successful "Pedestrian Mall." There are a number of factors, but one of the key ones is that there needs to be a good reason for pedestrians to want to go there in the first place. That can often be indicated by a high level of pedestrian traffic before cars are removed. Removing cars isn't enough on its own to attract pedestrians.

• Video Link

[Truenorth00]

Yeah. We have a good example of a mediocre pedestrian mall in Sparks st.

I really hope the takeaway from Covid patios is that the Market and even places like Elgin would be better off pedestrianized. Took Covid to even allow this to happen. But I hope we don't backslide on this.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yeah. We have a good example of a mediocre pedestrian mall in Sparks st.

I really hope the takeaway from Covid patios is that the Market and even places like Elgin would be better off pedestrianized. Took Covid to even allow this to happen. But I hope we don't backslide on this.

How would you get to Elgin if you remove transit as well?

We build a new urban neighbourhood in Old Ottawa East, and then we have to redirect buses via Sandy Hill. So nobody goes by Elgin anymore and the customer base shrinks to those who can walk there only.

We are not creating an urban utopia if there is only one way in and out of downtown.

[Urbanarchit]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

How would you get to Elgin if you remove transit as well?

We build a new urban neighbourhood in Old Ottawa East, and then we have to redirect buses via Sandy Hill. So nobody goes by Elgin anymore and the customer base shrinks to those who can walk there only.

We are not creating an urban utopia if there is only one way in and out of downtown.

Reading the original post, there is nothing in it that suggest that public transit would be banned. Instead, they actually say non-local private car traffic. So public transit, local residents with cars, cyclists, delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles, pedestrians would still be permitted. It's not about there being "one way in and out of downtown" - that's quite a misrepresentation of what the person said. There are several routes they propose for private, non-local drivers to use to get in and around downtown, and the purpose otherwise makes other street calmer for the local residents.

In previous threads about cycling on and near Elgin Street, users of the forum (who evidently don't cycle) felt that the bike lanes 360m away on O'Connor was sufficient cycling infrastructure to serve Elgin, one could say the same about roads for non-local private cars being served well enough by the purple roads Ave_Christus_Rex suggested (considering they propose more roads for cars than cyclists have and other streets are closer to Elgin).

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yeah. We have a good example of a mediocre pedestrian mall in Sparks st.

I really hope the takeaway from Covid patios is that the Market and even places like Elgin would be better off pedestrianized. Took Covid to even allow this to happen. But I hope we don't backslide on this.

Yes but expect at least in winter it will backslide. If we can’t pedestrianize Clarence street OP is dreaming in technicolour we are going to remove car traffic from Metcalfe and O’Connor.

We need if anything probably more roads to provide for what’s the democratic will of the city which is live in an affordable detached house and drive to work, shopping and recreation. Personally I think that’s a miserable way to live but I can afford to have enough space living in a central area. I can tell you demand for the suburbs has exploded not reduced and this was a pre-Covid trend. Exurb froth is even stronger.

[J.OT13]

I would support a partial implementation of the superblock concept. Starting with many east-west streets that could easily be taken away from non-local traffic (or maybe fully closed to cars) between the Queensway and Lisgar, starting with Somerset between Bronson and the Canal. Timmies would have to sacrifice its drive-through and the Beer Store its parking lot.

North-south would be a tougher sell, with many streets leading to and from the Queensway, Bank and Bronson being the only true north-south arteries though central Ottawa and have a high amount of shops and services. Certainly Kent and Metcalfe could at least stand a road-diet. Percy could be local only or closed to traffic. There is some merit with closing Elgin to vehicular traffic (but maintaining bus service) between the Queensway and Lisgar.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

How would you get to Elgin if you remove transit as well?

I should have been clearer. I get that Elgin can't be fully pedestrianized. But it becomes way nicer if the only motorized traffic on there is buses.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

We build a new urban neighbourhood in Old Ottawa East, and then we have to redirect buses via Sandy Hill. So nobody goes by Elgin anymore and the customer base shrinks to those who can walk there only.

I'm not pushing for a fully pedestrianized Elgin. But I would bet money that it would not only survive. It would thrive. In no small part because of the kind of development it would draw to the entire area. It wouldn't need traffic from outside the area. Locals would patronize the businesses on the street.

I will never understand this line of thinking that says businesses won't survive if cars aren't driving by. It's mathematically illogical given that a bus lane can carry 2-3x the number of people that a car lane with a whole lot of single occupancy. You are proving the point of what an uphill climb it is to convince suburbanites like yourself who are so cucked by car culture that they can't imagine businesses surviving without auto traffic. It's why I'm so pessimistic all the time.

[J.OT13]

I think Elgin as a mostly restaurant and bar district would do very well as a pedestrian only street. I don't believe we could say the same for retail oriented main streets like Bank or Wellington West.

Like Truenorth00, I'm not necessarily advocating to close down Elgin. Transit should be maintained. If we had transit only, we could remove parking and any turning lane that might be left on the street. It's a conversation that's worth having. Maybe not now because we just re-built the street, but maybe in 10-20 years.

[Williamoforange]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I think Elgin as a mostly restaurant and bar district would do very well as a pedestrian only street. I don't believe we could say the same for retail oriented main streets like Bank or Wellington West.

Like Truenorth00, I'm not necessarily advocating to close down Elgin. Transit should be maintained. If we had transit only, we could remove parking and any turning lane that might be left on the street. It's a conversation that's worth having. Maybe not now because we just re-built the street, but maybe in 10-20 years.

Considering the alot of the "parking" on Elgin is currently used as patio space, something the city should make even easier to do. "removing" parking won't gain you that much space unless you plan on removing Patio space.....

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Williamoforange

Considering the alot of the "parking" on Elgin is currently used as patio space, something the city should make even easier to do. "removing" parking won't gain you that much space unless you plan on removing Patio space.....

What we shouldn't be doing is reverting those spots back into parking.

[OTSkyline]

I visited Elgin this weekend and had dinner at one of the patios. The rebuild was great to see and the road diet definitely helped (wider sidewalks, larger patios) - the street was very lively and packed.

Same story with the Byward Market, place was packed, busy and I think the case study of closing streets down to regular vehicles and turning these high-traffic pedestrian areas more and more walkable has proven highly successful.