(Orleans) St. Joseph Blvd Community Improvement Project Area

[Dundas]

I was reading this section http://city.ottawa.on.ca/residents/p.../index_en.html on the city of ottawa website about improving the look of st-joseph blvd. It dates back to January 28, 2009. I havent really noticed any changes since that date, I wonder if anything will ever happen?

[citizen j]

That is a very good question.

[RTWAP]

Don't quote me on this, but I think they had to use the money to pay for some additional costs on the traffic circle. The local councillor was pushing to have the funds for the improvements topped up so that the changes could be implemented as planned.

[TransitZilla]

This is being spearheaded by the local BIA.

http://www.heartoforleans.ca/en/streetscape.php

[Dundas]

On the (Official Plan Amendment)

They talk that they want to intensify development, put on street parking and reduce the speed limit. To make it a compact city around the blvd.

I wonder if that will really happen?

[Kitchissippi]

• Video Link

I was just out there yesterday riding my bike to remind myself why I moved from Orleans and closer to the core. That has got to be the ugliest "main street" in the city, and to make it worse, traffic is fast. With the 174 parallel to this road, they really should limit the through traffic down to 2 lanes, make it cyclist friendly, have super wide sidewalks and encourage building closer to the street. Cumberland Village a few kilometres east should serve as an example.

Instead of the roundabout, they should start with the few blocks around the church as it is the best architectural centrepiece of the street, maybe create a plaza and a counterpoint across the street to define a focal point and build from that.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I was just out there yesterday riding my bike to remind myself why I moved from Orleans and closer to the core. That has got to be the ugliest "main street" in the city, and to make it worse, traffic is fast. .

St-Joseph is totally salvageable, which is not the case of most similar arterial roads in suburban Ottawa. I don't think there are any thoroughfares in, for example, Kanata or Barrhaven (or even within the former city limits of Nepean)
that offer as much potential on this front as St-Joseph.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I was just out there yesterday riding my bike to remind myself why I moved from Orleans and closer to the core. That has got to be the ugliest "main street" in the city, and to make it worse, traffic is fast. With the 174 parallel to this road, they really should limit the through traffic down to 2 lanes, make it cyclist friendly, have super wide sidewalks and encourage building closer to the street. Cumberland Village a few kilometres east should serve as an example.

Instead of the roundabout, they should start with the few blocks around the church as it is the best architectural centrepiece of the street, maybe create a plaza and a counterpoint across the street to define a focal point and build from that.

We seem to both share having moved from the east end to places closer to the core. I choose the east side of the core whereas you seem to have picked the west....

The roundabout is a really stupid idea. I agree. The last thing we need is to make high speed traffic stop less.

The problem with St Joe is that it is one of only 3 east-west roads that exit Orleans. Thus it will always have that function and require the lanes to handle it. The other problem is that out of Orleans 100k+ population very few people actually live within a nice walk of that street. A good part of one side of it is a the cliff and the other side just does not have that much in the way of housing. This makes it extremely difficult to create a street around pedestrians. Bike lanes might help a tad, but out there they will probably mostly attract bike-obsessed/Lance Armstrong wannabee commuters trying to get to the parkway, rather than people traveling to business along the street. The risk with bike lanes is they would make the street even wider and leave us with another Innes road.

Encouraging building closer to the street is definitely a good start, although I don't know how much new building there will be in the near future. Most of the ugly strip malls and such things have a fair bit of life left in the buildings.

So we are left with street scaping....joy. Happy trenching power lines.

I think the real challenge is the suburbs what works from a business standpoint is the car....so the trick is how to design something interesting that is car friendly. Not a usual design problem now is it?

[Lakche]

I'm very disappointed that they are going to use approx 2 million dollars which was provided for improving the entire street of St. Joseph to just adding a single roundabout at St. Joseph and Jean d'Arc. I don't even think the roundabout is necessary at that location and wouldn't help much.

What they could have done with that 2 million was focus on improving the entire street. Between Place d'Orleans Drive (2nd intersection, exits at the corner with Petro Canada) to Jean d'Arc they could have removed more power lines, re-constructed the curbs/sidewalks, and widened the road 1 lane total to add a center turning lane to allow cars to turn left into the shops/offices/etc without blocking traffic.

Making the street more pedestrian-friendly is not a bad thing, but with the amount of shops and offices along the street, and its currently high-volume traffic, accessing some of the stores can be difficult.

For example, if you're heading east and you want to pull into the McDonalds, you usually have to wait a good few minutes for an opportunity to turn left into the McDonalds, the entire time blocking the 2nd lane from traffic. With a center turning lane, you could wait in that lane and no other lanes of traffic would be blocked.

This is also a problem when you're heading west, and people are trying to turn into Giant Tiger, they get stuck and it blocks traffic for a few minutes each time.

Improving the entire street might also attract more shops to open along that street. The way it seems now, shops are closing and moving up to Innes Road.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by Lakche

What they could have done with that 2 million was focus on improving the entire street. Between Place d'Orleans Drive (2nd intersection, exits at the corner with Petro Canada) to Jean d'Arc they could have removed more power lines, re-constructed the curbs/sidewalks, and widened the road 1 lane total to add a center turning lane to allow cars to turn left into the shops/offices/etc without blocking traffic.

Making the street more pedestrian-friendly is not a bad thing, but with the amount of shops and offices along the street, and its currently high-volume traffic, accessing some of the stores can be difficult.

For example, if you're heading east and you want to pull into the McDonalds, you usually have to wait a good few minutes for an opportunity to turn left into the McDonalds, the entire time blocking the 2nd lane from traffic. With a center turning lane, you could wait in that lane and no other lanes of traffic would be blocked.

This is also a problem when you're heading west, and people are trying to turn into Giant Tiger, they get stuck and it blocks traffic for a few minutes each time.

Improving the entire street might also attract more shops to open along that street. The way it seems now, shops are closing and moving up to Innes Road.

The problem is, "improving" the street to make traffic flow better is a mug's game. Nothing will be solved by adding more lanes or making it easy for cars to turn. It just leads to a downward spiral of even more traffic and less pedestrian appeal.

St Joseph should not compete with Innes Road. What it needs is a total overhaul to offer something completely different in Orleans and move towards being more urban. Narrowing the street down would eventually weed out the useless through traffic by encouraging most commuters to use the 174 instead, and gradually making the street more of a destination. Land along it should be rezoned to encourage more dense mixed-use, as is happening on Rideau Street, Wellington, Bank, Richmond, etc. An old-style wide main street with angled parking would really be nice there:


Fort Morgan Times

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

• Video Link

I was just out there yesterday riding my bike to remind myself why I moved from Orleans and closer to the core. That has got to be the ugliest "main street" in the city

It's ugly, now. But it has good "bones", especially by lackluster suburban Ottawa standards.

A couple of well-thought-out projects, and it could be well on its way to being halfway nice.