{"id":455,"date":"2006-04-08T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2006-04-08T04:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=455"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:49:05","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:49:05","slug":"ottawa-public-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2006\/04\/08\/ottawa-public-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Public Space"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I went on a trip to Ottawa in the fall, and noticed good, interesting, and bad public space initiatives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Good<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" align=\"left\" alt=\"Ottawa crosswalk\" src=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/images\/ottawa\/crosswalk.jpg\" \/>Ottawa has made many pedestrian-oriented improvements since I lived there a couple of decades ago. Ottawa&#8217;s residential streets, even in the central area, tend to be very wide, but they have been mitigated by extensive use of bulb-outs at intersections, which slow traffic, make for shorter crossing distances, and can provide a pleasing little public space (depending on how well they&#8217;re designed and maintained). Ottawa has also put a lot of effort into creating new pedestrian paths and stairs to create direct routes to destinations where pedestrians want to walk. Finally, in some heavily pedestrian areas such as the university (pictured here) it has created very visible and attractive brick crosswalks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Interesting<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/images\/ottawa\/poster1.jpg\" \/> <img decoding=\"async\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/images\/ottawa\/poster2.jpg\" \/> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/images\/ottawa\/poster3.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ottawa has also taken the idea of postering collars on utility poles seriously (unlike the sad and minimal Toronto proposals). There are large, durable metal postering collars at eye level on all four corners of every major intersection in central Ottawa. Certainly, if you are going to have poster collars, this is the way to do it properly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Bad<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ottawa has the advertising bug bad. Along Bank Street &#8212; a major shopping street billed as a &#8220;promenade&#8221; &#8212; there are huge advertising boards that do not even pretend to have a purpose other than ads. They take up the majority of the already narrow sidewalk, ruining the view and forcing pedestrians to squeeze by. Did they forget that &#8220;promenade&#8221; is supposed to mean a pleasant walk?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/images\/ottawa\/ad_board.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/images\/ottawa\/bikerack.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The ads extend even to the bike racks, each of which carries a little mini-billboard. As always, the necessity of making room for the ad undermines the effective design of the public facility &#8211; the racks are nowhere near as efficient as Toronto&#8217;s ring-and-posts, taking up more space while being harder to use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I went on a trip to Ottawa in the fall, and noticed good, interesting, and bad public space initiatives. The Good Ottawa has made many pedestrian-oriented improvements since I lived there a couple of decades ago. Ottawa&#8217;s residential streets, even in the central area, tend to be very wide, but they have been mitigated by<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2006\/04\/08\/ottawa-public-space\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Ottawa Public Space&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21757,21759,6],"tags":[11,1323,1321,1322,21,346,16,19],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-features","category-walking","tag-ad-creep","tag-advertising-bug","tag-durable-metal-postering-collars","tag-huge-advertising-boards","tag-other-cities","tag-ottawa","tag-posters","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ottawa Public Space - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2006\/04\/08\/ottawa-public-space\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ottawa Public Space - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I went on a trip to Ottawa in the fall, and noticed good, interesting, and bad public space initiatives. 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