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As an urban society, we have to shift our focus away from exclusively serving motor vehicles as the norm, and towards serving people, regardless of the mode they use.<\/p>\n
Say you want to give directions to visit you. Giving driving instructions is quite straight forward. Take Albert Street to Bronson then turn right\u2026 etc etc. \u00a0Roads have names because people can remember them, sort them, and keep things somewhat straight.<\/p>\n
Now try giving \u00a0instructions to your house using pedestrian and cycling paths: \u201cWell, just past the bridge over the railway tracks, take the unpaved path on the right, the one under the hydro pylons, and follow it till you get to the fifth path that runs off to the left and follow it to get to my street. And don\u2019t take the fourth or sixth turn-off, or you will never get here.\u201d<\/p>\n
After all, we would never think of building streets without naming them, but we build paths without names. This lack of names denies them legitimacy. We name everything in our language; pundits and academics delight in putting a new name on some new trend or discovery. So why aren\u2019t people demanding names for our paths? Especially with 9-1-1 service being geographically address based, knowing a location is a matter of vital urban safety as well as a convenience.<\/p>\n
A few years ago I started lobbying for a proper off-road bike and pedestrian path along the north side of Albert and Scott Streets, from Bronson to Churchill. I got tired of waving my hands in the air every time I tried to describe where it is, and coined the name BikeWest. The word was adopted by the politicians and planners almost immediately. By branding<\/em> the path, and the concept of improving it, BikeWest got a life. It got respect. It became real. Now you won\u2019t find the name on a City map yet<\/em>, but lots of planners and people know where it is.<\/p>\n And names<\/em> are important. I am not a fan of numbering pedestrian and cycling paths or routes. If a route follows Bank Street, we don\u2019t need it to have a second identify as \u201cbike route 17\u201d. For routes that follow a maze of different streets, or run separate from streets, we do need a unique name.<\/p>\n Quite simply, every bike path and walking path should have a distinct name. Preferably a name that identifies where it is or gives a clue about where it goes. These could be directional (BikeWest) or by neighborhood (Little Italy, Westboro).<\/p>\n We would never think of building streets without street signs, but we don\u2019t hesitate to build pedestrian and cycling paths without signs. We don\u2019t have signs because most paths lack names. And that which is unworthy of a name is unworthy of respect, of being used in daily discourse, or being useful.<\/p>\n But without names, there is no easy way to identify a path. It is even worse if you are on it, and come to a street corner or intersection. Where it meets a cross street, the City will put up street signs for even the shortest little dead end. Motorists need to know where they are.\u00a0 But if you arrive via footpath or cycle path, apparently\u00a0the City either believes that you don\u2019t deserve to know where you are, or that you will somehow divine your location by osmosis.<\/p>\n Every time a path meets another, it should be sign posted. And every time a side path runs off to a local street, sign it! It is accepted that providing such signing, for motorists, is simply a normal cost of running a city. But why only<\/em> for motorists? <\/p>\n Fortunately, we have the NCC giving us a taste of what should be done \u2013\u2013 see the green signs in the slideshow above. A number of the NCC’s main pathways do have names, with occasional signs identifying them, but the path names are not yet widely recognized.<\/p>\n The NCC signs sometimes show streets, or attractions, or path names, or two of the three — just as we have come to expect in signage for drivers. These signs reassure users they are on the correct route, how far it is to their destination, etc. Still, not all NCC pathways have these signs, and the ones that do are not consistent in what they show.<\/p>\n Even better would be numbered posts every tenth of a kilometer on greenway trails (they can do it on highways\u2026) or putting up house-style numbers on each lamp post along the urban routes. If there is an accident, if someone is lost, if someone wonders how far they have to go, a glance at the nearest post would put them on the 9-1-1 map.<\/p>\n As a society we have a century of figuring out how to name and sign streets and install wayfinding signage for motorists. It is time to assign names to paths, then hand the job over to the City sign department who should develop appropriate signage standards and vocabulary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"