Cycling with Professor Buehler
Reading Time: 7 minutesRecently Professor Ralph Buehler from Washington visited Ottawa. We took him on a cycling infrastructure tour through the centre of the city. Read what we saw in this blog post.
Urban planning
How About a 2nd Billings Bridge in Old Ottawa South?
Reading Time: 3 minutesA hotly debated area for safe cycling in Ottawa is the intersection at Riverside and the Billings Bridge, built in 1916. According to BikeOttawa’s website, the intersection at the south side is the one that has the most reported collisions in Ottawa, including a deadly one, when Meg Dussault was waiting on her bicycle at a cramped sidewalk/MUP and a right turning truck caught her bars. Vision Zero From a Sustainable Safety or Vision Zero point of view, this intersection needs to be changed, so that this can never happen again. There are plans to build a path underneath the [Read more…]
Brand new Berczy Park Toronto – 1 Excellent Public Space Done Right
Reading Time: 5 minutesTake a close look at the picture below, and you probably think it is one of those slide show images of Jan Gehl, to show some place in Køpnhågn in the 1960’s as part of a successful place making “parking-lot-becomes-urban-park-you-Canadians-should-walk-more-enjoy-the-winter-stop-whining-about-the-cold-it-is-cold-in-Denmark-too-and-look-we-cycle-year-round” story. But this picture is not Copenhagen, it is downtown Toronto. Trip to TO Just two weeks ago, my wife and I had to go to the GTA as my wife had meetings in Oakville. We took VIA (450 km/$44 one way), the GOtrain (45 km/$9.02 – PrestoCard) and a taxi from Oakville Bronte to the hotel (7 km/$15) Burlington, [Read more…]
So… will anyone actually buy a unit without a parking space?
Reading Time: 2 minutesOver the last year or so Karen and I talked on and off about how we want to live when we are reaching our 70’s. Do we still want to live in the inner suburbs in a house with a garden and be car dependent at times? Do we want to move into a condo closer to LRT and use shared bike and car systems? When you are not adding much to your income anymore at that age, a car is probably the worst to own with its cost of at least $7000 annually. Does everyone need parking? We’d probably [Read more…]
The Unknown Amsterdam by Bike – Part 2
Reading Time: 6 minutesLast week, we started cycling to Amsterdam north and checked out some great places. This week we continue the trip along the waterfront.
UN-Habitat: The New Urban Agenda in 1000 Words
Reading Time: 5 minutesA short primer in 1000 words on the New Urban Agenda for the United Nations Habitat III conference in Quito, October 17-20.
Designing the Innovative Greely Cycling Loop
Reading Time: 3 minutesLong considered Ottawa’s conservative heartland with black pick up trucks and Ottawa Sun readers, rural Ottawa is asking for bike infrastructure: “All our little neighbourhoods are separated by our big roads.”
Ottawa Input for Minimum Parking Standards
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn a previous post, I wrote about the eventual redevelopment of the South Keys mall. This week, there was a first meeting on the redevelopment of another mall, Westgate, which is much older than South Keys. I once had to pick up medication at Westgate around midnight. It is quite a desolate place. A woman jumped out of a car, kicking the car and swearing to the others in the car, then jumped into the car and they all drove away again. While all is still very conceptual, as councillor Jeff Leiper writes on his blog, this is the time to [Read more…]
Rotterdam: City Centre as City Lounge
Reading Time: 4 minutesRotterdam is taking a lane away in their downtown arterial to create more space for pedestrians and cyclists. The population had asked for it.
Is Parkdale's Median Curb Cut Sufficient?
Reading Time: 4 minutesAs it was finished late last year, this bit of bike infrastructure dropped off the radar screen somewhat. At the very north end of Parkdale, it is a bit of a pain in the neck to get to the Ottawa River Pathway/Trans Canada Trail. The northbound stretch on the east end of the Tunney’s Pasture buildings is usually OK to cycle ( I am never there during rush hour though), but then you get this onramp after the Indonesian Embassy to the SJAM Parkway eastbound (towards Downtown and Gatineau) and the off ramp coming from the parkway. This whole area is clearly [Read more…]