Spacing Saturday is a new feature that highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region. Spacing Saturday replaces the weekly features Montreal Monday and Toronto Tuesday.
• Spacing Ottawa’s Evan Thornton recently brought along his omni-directional microphone on a walk through the city’s Byward Market and Rideau Centre. Check out Spacing Ottawa for Thornton’s detailed description of the “audio footprints” he captured and to listen to the city’s soundscape.
• Spacing’s Evan Thoronton ways one of a number of commentators invited to CBC’s Ottawa Morning radio show to discuss was to revitalize the city’s “dysfunctional Sparks Street Mall”. Spacing Ottawa hosts links to this lively and productive discussion.
• The winner of Spacing Atlantic’s “Best and Worst of Bike Parking in the HRM for 2009” poll have been announced. Check out Spacing Atlantic to see what made the cut and why.
• The Halifax Regional Municipality’s Governance and District Boundary Review, slated to be completed by December 2010, aims to assess the Halifax Regional Municipality’s (HRM) municipal structure and propose changes for the future. Spacing Atlantic’s Emma Felts looks into the public consultation while untangling the many dense issues at stake.
• Josh Fullan, who teaches English and Civics at the University of Toronto Schools (a private high school affiliated with the University of Toronto), organized the Jane’s Walk School Edition featured in the “Walking” column in the Summer-Fall 2009 issue of Spacing. This week he writes a guest post on Spacing Toronto following up on what he and his class observed. Fullan discusses how youth interact with urban space and how to get them excited about the process of community planning and improvement.
• The Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway (DVP), two of Toronto’s most used roadways, are, as Spacing’s Dylan Reid points out “”city assets that don’t earn any revenue but have revenue-generating potential”. Reid muses on how leasing this fundamental infrastrucutre could have the double benefit of reducing car-use in the city (through the use of road tolls) while leading to much needed transit improvements (through re-investing the city revenue generated).
• Spacing Montreal’s Adam Bemma has produced an informative mini-doc on a contentious Montreal proposal that would see a bus corridor run through the city’s historic Griffintown neighborhood. Check out Spacing Montreal for the fascinating video where Bemma speaks with engineer and Griffintown property owner, Sami Hakimand , and L’Université du Québec à Montréal urban planning professor, David Hanna.
• An upcoming community forum will bring together Montreal residents and eight different city organizations to discuss options for Greening the Plateau. The ideas generated at the conference will then “be directed to the [Plateau Mont-Royal] borough council and the newly created Advisory Committee on Greening”.
photo of Ottawa’s Sparks Street Mall by Pierre Tourigny