For those who were not at the presentation, or those who did not take notes, or those who did not get the hand-out:
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:
Planning and Urban Design in Canada’s Capital, 1800-2000
Urban Forum, March 21, 2012
David L. A. Gordon
School of Urban and Regional Planning, Queen’s University
Bad Ideas That Were Implemented Anyway
• Colonel By’s townsite plan, 1827
• Long-term leases in Wright’s Town and ByTown, 1827-57
• Sparks and Besserer’s subdivisions, 1842
• Lumber piles along the Ottawa River, 1874
• E.B. Eddy sulphite pulp plant, 1890
• Lemieux Island water treatment plant, 1912
• Green Island City Hall, 1956
• Place de Ville, 1965
• Hull megastructures – Portage / Centre / Monteferrand, 1970-77
• Barrhaven too close to the airport, 1974-
• The Palladium / Corel Centre / Scotiabank Place, 1990-96
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time…
• Stegmann’s township surveys, 1794
• The Bytown and Prescott Railway, 1855
• Damming the Chaudière Falls, 1856
• Central Experimental Farm, 1886
• Replacing the streetcar lines with buses, 1945-59
• Population forecast for the National Capital Plan, 1948
• National Capital Plan road network, 1950
• Relocating the railway stations, 1950-66
• Federal suburban office parks, 1955-85
• Low-density Kanata, 1959-68
• LeBreton Flats urban renewal, 1959
• Rideau Street Bus Mall
Bad Ideas That Were (Thankfully) Not Implemented
• Barrack Hill citadel, ca. 1830
• Noulan Cauchon’s Hexagonopolis, 1928
• Underground Confederation Square, 1962
• King Edward Expressway, 1965
• It’s The Downtown Distributor! 1965
• LeBreton Flats Redevelopment Plan, 1967
• Chaudière megastructure, 1969
• Lowertown East Urban Renewal Plan, 1970
• Metcalfe Street axis, 1915 / 1926 / 1948 / 1998
Missed Opportunities:
• LeBreton Flats passed over for the Rideau Canal Terminus, 1820
• Poor Wright’s Town / ByTown townsite plans, 1826
• Parliament Buildings not connected to the City, 1858
• No Capital City district at Confederation, 1864-7
• Frederick Todd not hired as OIC Landscape Architect, 1904
• Rideau River waterfront not acquired, 1911-14
• Not implementing Holt Commission, 1914-21
• Not connecting Gatineau Park to the Ottawa River, 1936
• Ottawa River bridges – 1974-
• Missing Ottawa River pathway / parkway extensions, 1980-
Sins of Omission – Good Ideas That Were Never Built:
• Wright’s Town plan, 1826
• Bennett’s Capital skyline silhouette, 1915
• Bank Street river terminus, 1915
• Gréber’s downtown plan, 1939
• Satellite towns instead of bedroom communities, 1950-74
• Vanier Parkway connection to Macdonald-Cartier Bridge, 1964
• Macklin Hancock’s ecosystem plan, 1967
• Tomorrow’s Capital rail transit plan, 1974
It Worked Out Fine in the End – Good Decisions for the Wrong Reasons:
• Lord Dalhousie’s purchase, 1823 (Parliament Hill, not a citadel)
• OIC Driveways, 1900-14 (bicycles, not horses)
• Preserving the Rideau Canal, 1900-40 (touring and skating, not a military canal)
• Uplands airport, 1942-60 (convenient airport, not air force base)
• Gréber plan road corridors, 1950-70 (Transitways and bike paths)
• Greenbelt purchase, 1959 (ecological feature, not sprawl girdle)
Great Planning Decisions:
• Parliament Buildings competition, 1858
• Todd’s parks system report, 1903
• Creating Gatineau Park, 1935
• Freight railway relocation, 1950-65
• Gréber’s parkway system, 1950-70
• Preserving the Mile of History, 1960
• Doing nothing to the ByWard Market, 1969
• Express buses from the suburbs, 1972-
• Ottawa Transitway, 1974-
• National Gallery and Museum of Civilization, 1982-89
• Confederation Boulevard, 1983 – 2005
• RMOC / City Hall at Cartier Square, 1990 & 2001
Extracts from Town and Gown: An Illustrated History of Canada’s Capital, (forthcoming 2013).
Further information at
www.PlanningCanadasCapital.ca or
david.gordon@queensu.ca