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That 102ave stretch by City Centre Mall is feeling pretty stale/cold to me. Part of it is the lack of street interaction and the empty corner lot where the BMO building once was, but it's also the lack of greenery and the materials they used. Would have liked to have seen soil cells for trees and "warm" materials used for ex. + better implementation of the winter city design guidelines overall.
 
That 102ave stretch by City Centre Mall is feeling pretty stale/cold to me. Part of it is the lack of street interaction and the empty corner lot where the BMO building once was, but it's also the lack of greenery and the materials they used. Would have liked to have seen soil cells for trees and "warm" materials used for ex. + better implementation of the winter city design guidelines overall.
You do have to be mindful about where you plant trees, with tall buildings all around would they get enough light to survive or thrive? There are more than a few spots downtown where trees are planted and later die. I suspect often there are issues with the location. More greenery could also come at expense of the space for pedestrians to walk. It can be a busy area, so having wider hard surface sidewalks rather than greenery makes some sense.

It is a central business district with mostly commercial office space and currently no street facing retail. Putting in a few trees or plants may not change that cold feel much and it comes with a bunch of other issues/problems.
 
I imagine there might be a restriction on trees next to the LRT. That said, the sidewalks could use some decoration.
Would the planters they installed on the right-hand side in my second picture be far away enough? Even if they were though, David does raise a good point about the availability of sunlight. I wonder what the city considered here when making their design guide.
 
Finally something that looks like progress. LRV's testing into the evening recently, including today. I can hear them from my kitchen, although I can't see them from here. I don't believe they are going any further south than the north side of 28 Ave as those signals south of there were not functioning yet. In fact, I'm not even sure the cars are going south of 31 Ave right now.
 

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