Spacing Saturday highlights posts from across Spacing’s blog network in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and the Atlantic region.
Spacing reports on the bold plan by mayors in the Vancouver area to implement a small increase in the gas tax to help fund construction of the Evergreen Line. The debate highlights the need for new ways to bring sustained revenue to fund transit expansion.
Continuing the transit theme, John Calimente reviews Kenneth W Griffin’s 2004 book Building Type Basics for Transit Facilities, a comprehensive look at what makes the best stations around the world successful.
In a city lacking in common street furniture, Eric Darwin reports on a recent spate of shop owners setting out their own informal public sidewalk seating along the lines of the approach taken in New York’s Times Square. The project has been blessed by a blind eye from the City.
In cycling heavy downtown neighbourhoods, the City of Ottawa’s recent removal of parking meters is causing a chronic shortage of bike storage space, something that Spacing’s Eric Darwin predicted over a year ago.
Jim Guild analysis and explores the opposition to a controversial road widening plan that would significantly impact existing neighbourhoods for the benefit of suburban commutes.
My City Lives presents the sixth installment of the ‘David Miller, Transit Mayor’ series. This installment features a candid interview with Miller reflecting on the role of the automobile in the city during a winter drive to the lakeshore.
Perpetually stuck in 1973 Mayor Bert Xanadu takes readers through a thoughtful reflection on his experience with the conversion of Lower Yonge Street into a pedestrian only space in the summer of 1971. Xanadu shares the lessons learned from the project and plans moving forward.
Feet hit the pavement for Walk the Region last weekend and Alanah Heffez provided two posts this week reflecting on the experience. The first gives some initial observations about the walk itself while the second discusses some great revelations regarding density and intricacy.
Spacing profiles a new exhibit at the Centre d’histoire de Montréal which looks at the personal memories of three Montreal neighbourhoods that were swept off the map between 1950 and 1970 to make way for modernist megaprojects.
Photograph by: Andriy Baranskyy