By John Chenier
The City of Ottawa has a bad case of the left hand being in blissful ignorance of what the right hand is doing. It seems that the elimination of the silo mentality which was supposed to be addressed by recent changes to the management structure at City Hall has not happened.
That point was made abundantly clear one day this month. In the morning, social media was buzzing with posts about an article in The Ottawa Citizen. A resident new to Ottawa, Anthony Imbrogno, wrote an Op-ed in The Citizen decrying the current state of affairs in the ByWard Market. Among the many points he made in his article was one about the fate of a pedestrian in the Market. He wrote: The constant battle between pedestrians and traffic, the noise, the pollution and the crowded sidewalks create an aggressive, almost hostile environment both day and night that wears thin pretty quickly.
The same day his op-ed was published, the city planner in charge of developing a new plan for the public realm in the ByWard Market, Jillian Savage, made a presentation at the monthly meeting of the Lowertown Community Association. During her presentation she noted that the study did not involve or include bylaw or zoning matters.
That struck many in the room as odd given that one of the most persistent complaints by patrons and residents of the Market is the lack of bylaw enforcement. It goes without saying that the main contributor to pedestrian-congestion problems in the public realm is the interpretations of zoning. Indeed, both these areas of City government seem blissfully unaware at times that there is such a thing as “the public realm.”
When Ogilvy Square — the public space to the east of the remodeled Rideau Centre — was first introduced, there were no provisions made for benches or places for people to sit. The argument was that the space had to be open and flexible for staging public events. It took a concerted effort by people who worked at One Nicholas to get a few flimsy benches put in along the side of the Square away from the Rideau Centre.
On the other side of the Square it was a different story. The new JOEY Rideau restaurant has put in an extensive outdoor patio. In the photo of the Square, you might also note that the meager row of public benches stops near where a new pub is expected to move in. Without a doubt it too will have a patio extending into the Square.
The privatization of public places is a real problem in this city. You will often hear complaints about the situation along Elgin Street, but nowhere in the City is public space more disregarded than in the ByWard Market precinct.
The City requires a sidewalk to offer 1.2 meters of unrestricted passage. In most places, such as the suburbs, that might be ample. However, with the crowds in the Market, a sidewalk that size is like having a one-lane Queensway with traffic attempting to flow in both directions. But of course Ottawa doesn’t adopt the same attitude towards its roads as its sidewalks. To make a safety comparison, it’s like restricting the exit from a crowded theatre to one narrow doorway.
Without a doubt, patios make a positive contribution to the ambiance in the Market. “The more the merrier,” some might say. However, these have been erected in a slapdash, ad hoc manner with little thought given to the side-effects. Patios zigzag in and out depending on the depth of the sidewalk at that point. If a section of the sidewalk is five metres wide, the patios will extend to four metres. If it widens to ten metres in places, patios will be allowed to extend to nine metres and pedestrians will have to go around. If there happens to be a sign or a hydrant in the middle of the sidewalk, that’s too bad — for pedestrians. The City seems to have forgotten there was a reason for the wider sidewalks in the Market. There are more pedestrians there!
Every walkability study in the Market conducted by or on behalf of the disabled has shown the sidewalks in places are impassable for wheelchairs or people with strollers: and that is when there is no one on the sidewalk. Ottawa needs to do better.
Before the City studies how to use the public realm, essential parts of the city administration need to learn what it means to respect it — something which its actions indicate it does not do. Certainly there are “public realms” created by the City that work well, the George Street Plaza being a good example. But the issue is not the new public spaces it can create, the City needs to re-evaluate the appropriate balance between public and private of existing spaces and give back to the public the space it needs and deserves.
Whether that means eliminating parking and narrowing or closing roads, or re-establishing pedestrian space on existing sidewalks is a matter for conjecture. Right now, it’s a matter of congestion.