Saturday, August 28, 2021

Our City Hall has indicated it's ready to make investments in transit and urban public space. Good news! Plans released so far however suggest we have a problem...

The City has recently purchased a property of strategic importance in our downtown. There are indications also that our City Hall is ready to make important investments in transit and urban public space. Good news!
The newly purchased site is inherently urban in nature, more so perhaps than any other property downtown. It fronts the Terminal Avenue inter-city highway and is at the corner of the highway and Commercial Street, Nanaimo’s Main Street.
There is great potential here to repair much of the harm done by the highway to our downtown and to establish the urban design standards and specifications (building setback, build-to line, sidewalk width, the street wall, street trees etc ) that are laid out in our Downtown Urban Design Plan and Guidelines. There is potential here too to leverage improved connectivity by redesigning the intersections where Commercial Street and Esplanade meet the highway.
City streets create value, build community. Urban highways do exactly the opposite. All good urban design starts with the street and the most valuable part of the urban street is the street corner, the crossroads. (The corner bar, the corner store…)
The site itself all but dictates highest and best use. It needs a human scale streetscape, a safe inviting environment for people of all ages and abilities travelling at about 5kph. It needs to support the diversity of activities that make downtowns downtown.
The City may have secured this property however to create a public plaza and a transit exchange here. This would be a regrettable mistake, a lost opportunity. Renderings of plans released to date raise concerns that the highway environment would be not repaired but made worse by buses on open asphalt. And a public plaza with an uncalmed highway at its edge would fail.

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Everything marked on this photo will be either enhanced or diminished by decisions made now in regards to the Terminal Avenue- Nicol Street highway

These, marked in the picture below, are either in-play or in-need in downtown Nanaimo. None are independent, one of any other, they are all interrelated and interdependent. This is particularly true when it comes to the Terminal Ave - Nicol Street inter-city highway. Under Provincial Government jurisdiction, this urban highway forms a barrier between our south end neighbourhoods and a barrier between the east and west neighbourhoods of our downtown core.
Everything marked below on this photo will be either enhanced or diminished by decisions made in regards to this highway.
These and the urban design of the public realm, the traffic calmed streets, the street trees, street furniture and lighting, parks and neighbourhood squares, the diverse mix of uses, are also interdependent. Synergistic urban design that weaves it all together, the glue you might say. Nanaimo needs to commit to this principle and hire a proactive chief of planning and urban design to head up an empowered department, one decentralized to neighbourhood planning offices.
1. City owned downtown waterfront lands; 2. Port Place shopping centre; 3. Marriott Hotel; 4. Diana Krall Plaza; 5. Commercial Street; 6. Dallas Square; 7. Georgia Park; 8. Terminal-Nicol Highway; 9. Howard Johnson Hotel site; 10. Mill Street residential; 11. Caledonian Clinic site residential; 12. Telus site residential; 13. Island Corridor rail; 14. School District owned redevelopment site; 15. City owned 500 block Terminal site.

From the Downtown Urban Design Plan and Guidelines : Originally a tidal ravine along its southern extent, Terminal Avenue became the main route through downtown Nanaimo and part of the Trans Canada Highway in the 1960s. With the construction of the Nanaimo Parkway, the role of Terminal Avenue is changing. The design of Terminal Avenue with its unique curving geometry, continues to act as a barrier that disconnects the Old City from the downtown core and the waterfront. However, any proposed design changes to the streetscape will require extensive consultation with the road's current authority, the Ministry of Transportation.
Urban Design Strategies : Terminal Avenue is a major gateway to downtown Nanaimo, both from the north and south approaches. Emphasize on-street parking, which is required to ensure viability of ground-floor commercial. Recommend traffic-calming road design for 50 km/hr.
Street trees are to be located between every 4 on-street parking stalls. Sidewalk widths should be increased. Traffic patterns would be maintained but calmed by the proximity of trees and buildings at the setback/build-to line. Traffic bulges at intersections would be employed to reduce crossing length and further calm traffic. (A treed boulevard in the centre of the right-of-way would preclude on-street parking.)

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Synergistic urban design

Friday, August 13, 2021

Indy Economics & Blue Line: Dollars and $ense Development Patterns

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Sunday, August 1, 2021

Jane Jacobs. Downtown is For People Fortune Magazine 1958

The pedestrian’s level : Let’s look for a moment at the physical dimensions of the street.
The user of downtown is mostly on foot, and to enjoy himself he needs to see plenty of contrast on the streets. He needs assurance that the street is neither interminable nor boring, so he does not get weary just looking down it. Thus streets that have an end in sight are often pleasing; so are streets that have the punctuation of contrast at frequent intervals….
Narrow streets, if they are not too narrow… and are not choked with cars, can also cheer a walker by giving him a continual choice of this side of the street or that, and twice as much to see. The differences are something anyone can try out for himself by walking a selection of downtown streets.
Text : Downtown is For People. Jane Jacobs, Fortune Magazine 1958. Drawings Léon Krier
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