Mountain Man
Senior Member
The making of a future main street here !
Yeah that seems likely. As I mentioned, we typically talk about raised front steps as it relates to the floodplan (driven by all the tower discussions over the years in Victoria Park primarily). But there is more going on here all over the city where we build pedestrian-oriented but (ironically) inaccessible retail on our main streets.I'd hate to think what would happen to the rest of the inner-city if flood waters ever reached 19th and 1st Ave NW. That part of Hillhurst is probably about 5 m above the river. Are the extra two steps of elevation going to make the difference?
That's why I think it has to do with an elevation change between the back alley and the street. Better to have a raised front door than a sunken back door, perhaps? Not from a customer's standpoint.
I'd hate to think what would happen to the rest of the inner-city if flood waters ever reached 19th and 1st Ave NW. That part of Hillhurst is probably about 5 m above the river. Are the extra two steps of elevation going to make the difference?
That's why I think it has to do with an elevation change between the back alley and the street. Better to have a raised front door than a sunken back door, perhaps? Not from a customer's standpoint.
While I love seeing this stretch of 19 St getting built up, it's very unfortunate that all the new buildings are raised off the sidewalk. I assume they've all been designed to be level with the back alleyway, which seems to be a little higher than the street. Either way, it's not great from a streetscape perspective.
Thanks for sharing your experiences.Pretty sure it's because that dip in 19th St North of Kensington Rd runs the risk of becoming a giant puddle if there's a drainage problem.
As a wheelchair user, a newly built block with all the shop entrances having steps is a nightmare, with at-grade disability access and parking at the rear of the building- like the Dentist next door - the practical solution.
Of course having 'out of sight, out of mind' disability access in the rear service entry space increases the risk that changes messing with it will slip by unnoticed..
Finding rear-of-building wheelchair paths newly blocked by garbage/recycling bins and bollards, badly remediated trenching, impossible slopes left after repaving or drainage repairs or doors blocked by maintenance trucks, cables and tools is surprisingly common, and much less likely to happen at a shop's main entrance.
You nailed it. Side story: We designed a dental office building, which was to be located on 14t street NW in Hillhurst. The accessibility to the front entry was significantly degraded, an certainly not code worthy. The elevation differential if I recall was about 3' from entry to sidewalk. Our design mitigated that with an accessible ramp, and we included an accessible entry to the side. The story in this case, relates to the owners ambivalence towards those accessibility requirements, and frankly not understanding that accessibility is a right. That was one of the "falling off " points for us, and eventually went our separate ways. Later on at the City, I requested a review of the permit drawings, and saw that whoever he hired not only appropriated parts of our design, and distilled down the design, but neglected to provide an adequate accessibility solution to an existing condition, ( required code upgrade). How the hell that passed, I have no idea.Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I don't understand why we are willing to allow such inferior and random outcomes that directly impact people so severely as to prevent them from using a building reliably. We leave so much up to random chance (e.g. someone making sure bins and debris aren't blocking things) rather than enforce designs that allow anyone to use a front door of a building for 50 to 100 years.
We shouldn't allow slight and well within the margin-of-error (especially over the 50 to 100 years of a building's life) drainage and water flow assumptions guide our development to the extent it excludes the building from being used by any human with any degree of mobility.