Thursday, October 29, 2015

—@slowstreets showcasing their research at @SFUPublicSquare Researching the City Oct 30. 5:30-6:45pmhttps://slowstreets.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/slow-streets-who-we-are-and-researching-the-city-showcase/

Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Thursday, October 29, 2015

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

@WorldVIU Days Nov. 2-6 —
Free keynote by Charles Montgomery @thehappycity

—@WorldVIU Days Nov. 2-6 features free keynote by Charles Montgomery@thehappycity @viunews

Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Wednesday, October 28, 2015
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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

We approach the 1st anniversary of #Nanaimo City Council, a Council more broadly representative of our community…

Submitted to @NanaimoBulletin as a guest column — (declined).
We approach the first anniversary of our new City Council, a Council more broadly representative of our community than previous ones. Our aboriginal community, the non-profit sector, a small business entrepreneur, a neighbourhood and anti-poverty activist. There’s been tensions, there’s been missteps. Interesting times, and you know what they say about interesting times.
It’s reminding me of the inner city high school where nothing much ever happened. It had been a stable, even boring place. Students attended, played on sports teams, graduated much as their parents had before them. It took pride in its uniformity and conformity. But then the neighbourhood changed. The high school found itself attended by students from different backgrounds, with different attitudes and styles. It was dynamic, anything but boring. To the school’s Principal and administrators it was also dangerous. It was unruly and rebellion was in the air.
The Principal, who previously had only to somewhat regally walk the well-behaved halls, appear at ceremonies and to cheer on the football team, found it suddenly hard to cope. In a panic a crisis meeting was called in a kind of war room. It was decided that order must be restored. Dress and behaviour codes were quickly put in place with warnings of harsh punishments for non-compliance. All student creativity and any excess of youthful energy were to defer without question to the authority of the classroom teachers..
And as you can imagine things quickly got much worse. The poor Principal and most of the administrative staff went into a kind of bunker mentality, many left for work in less challenging environments.
The story ends happily though. Wise replacements at the highest levels understood that the new dynamic presented great opportunity. Rules that benefited all were established with general buy-in by the students. Old rules that mostly existed to bolster the institution itself were loosened or jettisoned. The school became a place students looked forward to going to and staff were proud to work at.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Nanaimo’s current upheaval had a similar outcome.

Frank Murphy

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Monday, October 26, 2015

From Slow Streets —
Elements that Make Pedestrian Streets Work

We currently dedicate an excessive amount of our street public space for the movement and storage of automobiles. We can bring dignity to our streets where people live, work and play by reclaiming it for people. It has been shown that cities are significantly quieter when there are lower traffic volumes, or even when the vehicle traveling speeds slow down to a human speed (40-30kph). There are also fewer automobile related injuries and fatalities. It can also make us happier since we can spend more time outside and meet more of our neighbours.
So how can we reclaim some of this space? Pedestrian streets offer one way to do this, but it has been demonstrated that pedestrian streets in North America have failed in the past (see Buffalo’s Main Street, Ottawa’s Sparks Street, and other examples). But many cities feature widely-visited, vibrant pedestrian streets in different city scales, climates and cultures throughout Europe including Northbrook St. in Newbury, UK (pop. 31,331 in 2011), Calle San Jacinto in Seville, Spain (pop. 702,355 in 2012), Exhibition Road in London, UK (pop. 8.3 million in 2013). They also exist in various sizes either as a short section of one street or a network of car-free streets such as in Delft, Netherlands or the Stroget in Copenhagen. This article explores several of these successful pedestrian streets and breaks down several of the elements that make them work. Read more: Critical Elements to Make Pedestrian Streets Work | SLOW STREETS
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Saturday, October 24, 2015

Walking, Cycling, Transit
Tweets from a list by TheSidewalkBallet


Friday, October 23, 2015

From @StrongTowns —
Want growth? Get People

Thursday, October 22, 2015

From Project for Public Spaces —
Streets as Places -


Like few other places, streets are a public stage where life unfolds. From town parades and trick-or-treating, to markets and public gatherings, they’re where we celebrate and come together with our neighbors. They’re where we bump into friends, and one of the few places where we routinely encounter people who are different from ourselves. They’re where people have gathered to protest injustice for centuries. That’s why Project for Public Spaces has advocated for the idea that streets are more than just a means of mobility. Streets themselves are critical public spaces that can lend richness to the social, civic, and economic fabric of our communities. Read more: Streets as Places - Project for Public Spaces
A recent UN-Habitat report shows how “those cities that have failed to integrate the multi-functionality of streets tend to have lesser infrastructure development, lower productivity and a poorer quality of life.” With these issues in mind, how do we ensure that streets in our communities are living up to their potential?

From CityLab — The Invention of Jaywalking The forgotten history of how the auto
industry won the right of way for cars.

Twenty years ago, an out-of-control driver plowed through New York’s Washington Square Park, killing 5 people and injuring 27 others. That horrific incident caused a public outcry and galvanized advocates in what has become known as the livable streets movement. But the driver, a 74-year-old woman, was not charged with any crime.
It wasn’t always like this. Browse through New York Times accounts of pedestrians dying after being struck by automobiles prior to 1930, and you’ll see that in nearly every case, the driver is charged with something like “technical manslaughter.” And it wasn’t just New York. Across the country, drivers were held criminally responsible when they killed or injured people with their vehicles. So what happened? And when? Read more: The Invention of Jaywalking - CityLab
The Invention of Jaywalking - CityLab

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

From Bicycle Diaries / David Byrne —
"Our cities are alive, just like us..."


Our cities are alive, just like us; they have both a deep intelligence that guides them and a physical presence....
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Tuesday, October 20, 2015
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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Nov. 4th: #Victoria
Walk the Talk with @BrentToderian
@GVCC @VicPlacemaking

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Saturday, October 10, 2015

@APEGBC Victoria Branch Seminar —
"Waterfronts and Livable Cities"
with @BrentToderian

Friday, October 9, 2015

"...a textbook example of how to create a centre and sense of place, a task many Cdn towns, cities trying to confront"

ALEX BOZIKOVIC For decades, the main spot to find your neighbours in Newmarket was at the mall. This town of about 86,000, just 50 kilometres from Toronto, saw the same pattern of car-oriented growth that gutted many of Canada’s Victorian streetscapes. Upper Canada Mall, which opened in 1974, prospered; the dense, handsome Main Street, which dates back to the 1850s, was full of vacant stores. Now, the town’s leadership sees a need for change, trying to create public spaces where citizens – both millennial parents and youthful retired boomers – will want to hang out together. Read more: Urban park signals renewal in Newmarket
Ontario Association of Landscape Architects

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Pedestrian friendly street redesigns in Halifax


Thursday, October 1, 2015

From Waterfront Toronto — Plans for protecting and revitalizing the Port Lands


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