[ShonTron]

View from my friend's apartment. The War Museum is plainly visible. Looks like development is finally happening on the LeBreton Flats.

The old paper mills and Hull's bureaublocs behind.

St. Patrick's Basilica.

Another new development at Bank and Slater.

The new CBC building. The first pic shows the Queen Street side, the other, the Sparks Street side.

Parts of Sparks don't look that vibrant.

I forgot about this faux "Changing of the Guard" ceremony. It's cute. I just happened to see a parade going up Wellington before realizing what it was.

The Visitor's Centre has a neat model of the Ottawa/Hull downtown area.

After that silly thing, I decided to explore the rest of Ottawa a bit, including Westboro, which was on the first thread.

Nothing like riding a busway in the middle of farms (this is the new Woodroffe section to Barrhaven).

From Westboro, I got pics from the #2 bus (the bus routes there don't have names) down Wellington, Somerset, Bank, Wellington, and Rideau.

Nominee as one of the ugliest government buildings in a city full of ugly government buildings. At Rideau and Prince Edward.

I decided to check out Rideau Hall, one of the best bargains of the city - it's free to check out the G-G's front rooms. She also gets a whole crew of gardeners.

Of course, when I get there, the facade is covered by tarp.

Funny how the Beefeaters guard an open gate.

Nice house across Sussex. What's with all the security?

Old Ottawa City Hall.

Foreign Affairs. Also known as Fort Pearson.

Time to go home (on a mode of transportation less guilt-inducing than Porter)

 

[Skeezix]

Another great set of photos!

But isn't that building on Rideau a condo building, not a government building? I thought that was the old Caplan's site.

 

[Hipster Duck]

I used to live around the corner from this intersection by Parkdale market and I did a double take when I saw this new condo.

Ottawa has a few nice neighbourhoods but it feels hopelessly small and architecturally low-slung, especially for a capital city. I am not asking for Haussmann boulevards and giant Beaux Arts victory columns, but a visual clean-up of Bank and Rideau streets, reopening Sparks street to traffic, and having an architectural review board to prevent more of those hideous mirrored glass "Are Be Centres" from popping up would do wonders.

 

[lobbby]

Ottawa has a few nice neighbourhoods but it feels hopelessly small and architecturally low-slung, especially for a capital city. I am not asking for Haussmann boulevards and giant Beaux Arts victory columns, but a visual clean-up of Bank and Rideau streets, reopening Sparks street to traffic, and having an architectural review board to prevent more of those hideous mirrored glass "Are Be Centres" from popping up would do wonders.

Yah it is a shame...I have to admit I would have liked to see more elements of Edward Bennett's City Beautiful plan for Ottawa come to life.. I think Ottawa would feel more like a capital city today if it had adopted his proposals for around Parliament Hill...obviously this kind of makeover is out of the question these days, but I hope something is done...

 

[ShonTron]

I think Chretien wanted to turn Metcalfe into a grand boulevard with Parliament Hill and the Nature Museum as its view termini, as his legacy in Ottawa. It would have resulted in the destruction of a lot of buildings, craptacular and heritage.

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

Nice thread Sean. Good to see Ottawa getting a bit of representation from time to time.

I agree with the general comments that for a capital city Ottawa is rather underwhelming. But I don't think that will ever really change. It is Canada and generating interest in Ottawa is something that isn't easy too do.

I do think there are some bright spots on the horizon. Bank Street is probably going to change quite a bit in the next 5 years. You have Mondrian, which is about to start in a week or two. You have a 4 storey building further down (a flagship store for Galaxy camera), the James Street Pub proposal which will see a 6 storey building go up, and a 9 storey proposal that will most likely be released in the next month for the Metropolitan Bible Church. You also have a healthy amount of development 1 or 2 blocks east and west of Bank, and several sites on Bank itself that are either rumoured for development or look as though they are winding down leases. Bank Street will almost certainly be quite an interesting place to watch over the next few years.

And other parts of the city have seen positive change too. Dalhousie is one street that comes to mind and is changing for the better. The rest of the market too obviously. Lebreton will probably do a lot too, not only in extending in the 'capital' feeling of the city, but also bringing together the exisiting Lebreton neighborhood, the CBD, and Hull too a certain extent. Rideau and King Edward however are still little more than blight and hopefully something is done in the coming years too address their issues in a serious and constructive way. Ottawa will probably never be a capital city like most capital cities are, but that isnt a bad thing necessarily and at least there is some positive development taking place.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Ottawa has suffered from a lot of short-sighted planning including that bogeyman that affected pretty much every Canadian downtown during the wretched 1970s: the downtown mall. In Ottawa, the Rideau Centre seems particularly offensive - there are those skybridges that obscure the view down Rideau and, I think, contribute to making that street the low-rent skid-row that it is today. Then, the backside facing U of O is completely unsympathetic to its surroundings looking like an industrial warehouse.

Making a grand boulevard out of Metcalfe would have been silly; if I remember correctly, the sight lines of the Peace Tower aren't exactly matched with Metcalfe, so it would have been somewhat pointless.

Ottawa does have a nice emerald necklace in the form of the canal and parks system and it's a great city to bike around in the summertime. Byward Market is a small gem, even if parts of it have a frat-boy atmosphere. Is Zaphod Beeblebrox still kicking around?

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

Ottawa has suffered from a lot of short-sighted planning including that bogeyman that affected pretty much every Canadian downtown during the wretched 1970s: the downtown mall. In Ottawa, the Rideau Centre seems particularly offensive - there are those skybridges that obscure the view down Rideau and, I think, contribute to making that street the low-rent skid-row that it is today. Then, the backside facing U of O is completely unsympathetic to its surroundings looking like an industrial warehouse.

Another problem with that area is Nicholas St. and the unfriendly flyovers and intersections which further adds to the negative effects that area has. Unfortunately there really is not a simple problem to it all because with the canal some crossing is necessary and once you start redesigning streets it gets messy quick. Add into that the Transitway, the need to address interprovincial truck traffic (part of the overall Rideau-King Edward problem) and now the prospect of new rail services, and it is easy enough to see why no one wants to bother with the problem right now. The bright side is that development in the Sandy Hill/U of O area and in the Market are at least spilling over and could start to create some more positive effects on Rideau at least. But it is not an area I expect to suddenly become an urban star anytime soon without some real effort put into fixing a lot of the problems.

And Zaphods is still around. I haven't been in a while so I am still not sure if it is the same crowd of hipster wannabes and trashy rockers but it has seemed busy enough the few times I've walked by there at night.

 

[Skeezix]

In Ottawa, the Rideau Centre seems particularly offensive - there are those skybridges that obscure the view down Rideau and, I think, contribute to making that street the low-rent skid-row that it is today.

The Rideau Centre may have contributed to the decline of Rideau Street, and perhaps even the skywalks added to it, but there real factor was the disastrous Rideau Bus Mall, which truly damaged the street. Rideau Street is still in recovery-mode, years after the removal of the bus mall.

 

[MisterF]

the need to address interprovincial truck traffic (part of the overall Rideau-King Edward problem)

I've heard that there's a new bridge proposed connecting St. Laurent Blvd with Monte Paiment in Gatineau, which would connect the 417 and Autoroute 50 and be the only bridge in the east end. And I've heard rumours of a freeway bypass going north of Aylmer, crossing the river and connecting to the 417 around Carp. Any truth to those?

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

I've heard that there's a new bridge proposed connecting St. Laurent Blvd with Monte Paiment in Gatineau, which would connect the 417 and Autoroute 50 and be the only bridge in the east end. And I've heard rumours of a freeway bypass going north of Aylmer, crossing the river and connecting to the 417 around Carp. Any truth to those?

And there is also a proposal for a bridge (or tunnel might have been an option too) that would meet with roughly the 416/417 interchange and then over into Aylmer. Usually once every 6 months the topic comes up, someone makes a proposal, it is discussed in the paper for about a week, and then nothing is done. Same is true of interprovincial transit, though it just isn't brought up as often. So at the moment there is no serious discussion or planning being done for new bridges.

 

[Tranplanner]

So at the moment there is no serious discussion or planning being done for new bridges.

Actually, there is an EA study underway right now on new crossings...the main problem is getting all the players on the same page. I think the City and the NCC have selected their "preferred" locations (via Kettle Island in the east) but not a peep from Gatineau and the Province of Quebec yet. I don't think they are nearly as interested in the project as the City of Ottawa is.

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

Actually, there is an EA study underway right now on new crossings...the main problem is getting all the players on the same page. I think the City and the NCC have selected their "preferred" locations (via Kettle Island in the east) but not a peep from Gatineau and the Province of Quebec yet. I don't think they are nearly as interested in the project as the City of Ottawa is.

EA's seem to be a favorite pastime of Canadian cities. When politicians start doing press releases and photo ops and trying to take credit for a new crossing, then I will probably take it a little more seriously.

I make sense that Gatineau has little interest in the projects though. There are still many projects that they would probably rather undertake first, such as the extension of Autoroute 50 to the west, Autoroute 5 heading north, better improvments on local streets and roads. Part of the reasoning too might be that they don't think it will be necessary once the eastward extension of Autoroute 50 is complete and Quebec transport companies can just avoid the 417 and Ottawa together (which could to some degree be the case).

 

[interchange42]

It makes sense that Gatineau has little interest in the projects though. There are still many projects that they would probably rather undertake first, such as the extension of Autoroute 50 to the west, Autoroute 5 heading north, better improvements on local streets and roads. Part of the reasoning too might be that they don't think it will be necessary once the eastward extension of Autoroute 50 is complete and Quebec transport companies can just avoid the 417 and Ottawa together (which could to some degree be the case).

...but Gatineau doesn't have to undertake the extensions of any Autoroute - those are provincial responsibilities. (Autoroute 50 is soon to open to Aylmer as Boul. des Allumettières, and the extension of Autoroute 5 to the north has been announced.) The studies regarding new bridges are not meant for traffic from Gatineau wanting to get quickly to Montreal via the 417 - they are meant for ease of travel around the Ottawa-Gatineau region itself. The area's population has been growing, and has been growing significantly to the east and west of the existing bridges, and has been causing delays on all the roads leading up to the existing bridges at peak hours.

42

 

[salvius]

I'd have to disagree with the general tone posted here. I think Ottawa is a wonderful place, and one of the rare and few successful mid-size cities in Canada. Ottawa's amalgamation is rather artificial, and if it feels small, that is because it IS small--around 500,000-600,000 people live in the 'urbanized' areas, and the inner city would amount to no more than around 200,000 people. I mean no slight to Calgary or Edmonton, but at a comparable population, which city delivers more?

Ottawa's urban core is a success repeated in few other cities, and a greater proportion of downtown Ottawans walk to work than in any other city in Canada (although it's a close race here). While it does sprawl, the inner city feels tight and intimate; aesthetically, it's rarely hideous and quite often beautiful.

I have no qualms with Ottawa, though I used to deride it as the city with nothing else than the Hill before I really got to know it. Although replete with failures from modernist era, these failures are on no more of a grand scale than failures from other Canadian cities (certainly including Toronto). The only main downtown street which I raise serious objections with is Rideau. LeBreton Flats are a current eye sore, but will be filled in with tasteful, if not earth-shattering, development. On the other hand, the Byward market area is easily the most successful neighbourhood in Canada, and I can only wish that Toronto had anything comparable.

I'd have no objections to living in Ottawa aside from having to experience hideous winters.