Bank Street Community Design Plan

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

This is a bit of a strawman. I’m pretty sure nobody said anything about 2 storeys at any point. What I said was not 20 in our primary shopping area, which is 8 blocks long. 4 storeys is absolutely fine anywhere in those neighborhoods (and is in the plan).

As for the argument that Bank doesn’t have the density for higher order transit, look at lines like St. Clair or most of the Eglinton line in Toronto. Or Ion. A few blocks of high rises, taller buildings at some major intersections with good transit, and then kilometres of lowrise storefronts. Kind of like Bank.

As for feeder buses, bus routes can be changed. Bank/Bronson are the major N-S transportation corridors in Ottawa, so the demand is obviously there.

Eglinton goes through some of the densest parts of Toronto, there is nothing comparable in Ottawa. It also has several GO stations and subway lines feeding traffic.

St. Clair was designed in the 1930s with a streetcar ROW. I don't think there is a way to fit a streetcar ROW on Bank, but I would certainly be supportive of such a proposal.

Ion ridership is extremely low for a rapid transit system; I don't think there was ever a transportation justification per se; it was designed to look good in recruitment brochures for the universities and local tech companies.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Eglinton goes through some of the densest parts of Toronto, there is nothing comparable in Ottawa. It also has several GO stations and subway lines feeding traffic.

St. Clair was designed in the 1930s with a streetcar ROW. I don't think there is a way to fit a streetcar ROW on Bank, but I would certainly be supportive of such a proposal.

Ion ridership is extremely low for a rapid transit system; I don't think there was ever a transportation justification per se; it was designed to look good in recruitment brochures for the universities and local tech companies.

St. Clair is definitely wider, but arguably less dense than Bank. But it’s not atypical of LRT lines outside of city centres.

In any event, I’m not even asking for that really. I was more referring to truly frequent service (an actual bus every 10 min or less, not OC’s favourite move of saying a bus on average every 10 min) and a few transit priority measures.

[J.OT13]

Much of the alignment along the Bloor subway reminds of Bank, with a low-rise traditionally mains street surrounded by SFH and a few high-rise nodes here and there.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Mass transit requires density or lots of bus feeders. Bank Street has neither. “We want mass transit but we want to keep our two story (streetcar) suburban neighborhoods” is not a viable approach to urban planning. European cities often don’t have skyscrapers, but buildings in the city centre are typically 4-6+ throughout. There are few 2 story detached houses with backyards, whereas that is pretty much the entire bank corridor south of Laurier.

This is not true. For an urban part of the city, Bank Street has the most feeder buses of anywhere in the city with the possible exception of the Confederation Line itself. Whether you include downtown, Billings Bridge or all the crossing routes, there are already a lot of feeder service. If Bank Street offered more than unreliable, painfully slow bus routes, it could be the main route downtown from the south end instead of the current indirect routing via Hurdman or Bayview. People's behaviour could quickly change based on the quality of service offered. Right now, Bank Street service is terrible.

We also seem to forget that Billings Bridge already has a cluster of towers with plans for much more, yet we would rather spend billions in bringing transit to Stittsville and Cumberland over arguably our most successful urban strip. We have an obsession with commuter transit supported by park n ride lots and little hope of decent urbanity at those distant locations. Even with Carling, a 1950s and 1960s car blighted street, it will take a hundred years to remake and make it a walkable strip (and still with single family homes a block away).

My original point on how successful we are designing Bank Street could be further enhanced with better transit. It could be an even better destination if we supported it with efficient transit.

I look at Claridge Icon at Carling and Preston, the entrance of Little Italy and frankly it doesn't add anything to that urban corridor. It would have been better located a couple of blocks over, so it was in the background instead of at the entrance of a prominent walkable street.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

This is not true. For an urban part of the city, Bank Street has the most feeder buses of anywhere in the city with the possible exception of the Confederation Line itself. Whether you include downtown, Billings Bridge or all the crossing routes, there are already a lot of feeder service. If Bank Street offered more than unreliable, painfully slow bus routes, it could be the main route downtown from the south end instead of the current indirect routing via Hurdman or Bayview. People's behaviour could quickly change based on the quality of service offered. Right now, Bank Street service is terrible.

We also seem to forget that Billings Bridge already has a cluster of towers with plans for much more, yet we would rather spend billions in bringing transit to Stittsville and Cumberland over arguably our most successful urban strip. We have an obsession with commuter transit supported by park n ride lots and little hope of decent urbanity at those distant locations. Even with Carling, a 1950s and 1960s car blighted street, it will take a hundred years to remake and make it a walkable strip (and still with single family homes a block away).

My original point on how successful we are designing Bank Street could be further enhanced with better transit. It could be an even better destination if we supported it with efficient transit.

I look at Claridge Icon at Carling and Preston, the entrance of Little Italy and frankly it doesn't add anything to that urban corridor. It would have been better located a couple of blocks over, so it was in the background instead of at the entrance of a prominent walkable street.

I know that we've exchanged on this in the past, but I completely agree, including with your comment on Carling. I do actually think that there is some hope for the stretch from Sherwood to Bronson, but again, transit is terrible or non-existent on most of that stretch.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I absolutely agree with you.

Where are people congregating? In our urban canyons dominated by high-rises or in areas with more human scaled development? It is almost always the latter, because there is still some sunlight reaching street level (and patios) and people are not facing swirling winds produced by the nearby towers.

I'd like to know where these swirly-winded bleak sunless canyons are. The Oak patio at Slater/Kent is as canyon-y as Ottawa gets, and it was frequently as bumpin' as public health rules allowed all summer and fall.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

I'd like to know where these swirly-winded bleak sunless canyons are. The Oak patio at Slater/Kent is as canyon-y as Ottawa gets, and it was frequently as bumpin' as public health rules allowed all summer and fall.

Are you arguing that the Slater (and Albert) street canyons are good people places? Because outside of that one patio, there is basically isn't a single place where people hang out or shop on either street. Lowrise Elgin Street on the other hand...

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that we don't want to design our mainstreets to look like Slater and Albert.

[silvergate]

Originally Posted by phil235

Are you arguing that the Slater (and Albert) street canyons are good people places? Because outside of that one patio, there is basically isn't a single place where people hang out or shop on either street. Lowrise Elgin Street on the other hand...

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that we don't want to design our mainstreets to look like Slater and Albert.

Not saying one is better than the other, but the main issue with Albert/slater is not the size of the buildings. Its the fact that they're basically 3 lane highways. Elgin is a much narrower roadway with much slower traffic and lower distance between pedestrian crossings, and this has a significant impact on "human scale", arguably more so than building heights.
That said, I agree that we don't need wall to wall skyscrapers on our urban main streets.