The public art bike racks reflect the unique identity and character of the neighbourhood and exhibit the talent and diversity of Ottawa’s artists. As a series, they encourage cycling and movement up and down the street as people explore and discover the clever and exceptional designs and make connections to the vibrant community.

I’ll spare you a snippy comment about “unique identity” of that stretch of Bank, but I think we can all be happy that there will be more places to lock up your bike. Now, let’s all look forward to when the current phase of reconstruction is finished and Bank becomes usable all through Centretown!

What follows is my entry and I’d encourage anyone reading to head over to Greater Ottawa and post your thoughts. There are already some interesting comments, such a one pointing out the dangers of the Eagleson overpass at the 417. As someone who grew up in Kanata I can testify that this one is hell to cycle. While a cycling plan certainly has to focus on urban issues, I think it is important to fix other problem areas outside the core. Especially with questionable local bus service being availalbe, cycling is certainly a cost effective part of the solution to community traffic problems facing areas like Kanata. Yet if you want to encoruage people to ride their bike when they go to Future Shop to buy a DVD, they need to feel safe while doing it. Currently this simply isn’t the case.

Adam Wrote:

“Bank Street south of the Canal is problematic. While at least in Old Ottawa South parked cars in the right-hand lane create a defacto cycling lane its still a problem as you have to watch out for people opening car doors or just pulling out when they don’t see any cars coming.

However I would say it gets worse once you reach Billings Bridge. As a previous commenter noted, the bridge is narrow and cars don’t/can’t move over for a cyclist. When there are bike lanes on Bank they are poorly maintained and frequently disappear. This is especially problematic on the Bank street overpass right before the Greenborough O-Train station/South Keys shopping complex. “

The  closure also extends one block north and south of Somorset on Bank, and is essentially the same closure as we saw with the collapse of Somorset House during the winter.

Now, presumably this will open up within a couple of months (they seem to be doing some sort of sewer work under bank), and when it was a pain in the ass when I was driving on saturday and found out that it had closed.

But again: traffic seems to be moving on Kent and I imagine bus delays are predicated on this being unusual. Parts of Bank are closed, and downtown Ottawa isn’t burning.

Given the fuss that businesses have raised, I’m surprises that this didn’t happen months ago. It really doesn’t make sense to move bus routes more than a block away from Bank, especially given that the one-way streets work conveniently in the city’s favour. It’s unfortunate that it’s taken this long to make the change, but a change for the better is still a change for the better, even if it is terribly belated.

There are three ways in which the current obstruction is potentially a hassle, all of which are because it is temporary and so we have ineffective work arounds:

1) For the businesses in the area. I feel bad for the people that work at businesses in the area, but would posit that any decline is because the street is blocked off to everyone (not just vehicles) and there is much uncertainty as to what is going on. I also point out that anyone that drives there to shop would all but certainly park on a side street or at Hartmans, both of which are still possible.

2) For commuters on the Bus. Frankly, it sucks if you are taking the bus down bank right now, but mostly because having the southbound route two blocks from Bank doesn’t make much sense. Any permanent action such as this would obviously come with redesigns of the routes that serve the area (perhaps a Kent/O’Connor split?)

3) For motorists. Now, as I said at the other blog, congestion encourages people to take mass transit, and increased mass transit use is a good. But the hassle of the current situation is not that bank is closed, it’s that Somorset is closed, meaning that you are stuck on side streets that often don’t let you cross the north/south streets. That problem doesn’t extend to the Kent/Lyon or Metcalfe/O’Connor pairs. Again, that’s a hassle because of the ad hoc nature of the current situation, not the inherent situation of Bank’s closure.

In any case, I think we need to start looking at what Bank in Centretown could be. The Market is a lot of fun precisely  because it is so pedestrian focused, and the shops and restaurants have adjusted accordingly. It’s also important to note that with a good residential core surrounding it, there is a sufficient critical mass that realistically could walk to a Bank Street pedestrian mall.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have my heart set on kicking the cars of Bank, but I do think that it is something worth talking about, even if we only block traffic on Sunday, as per the parkways in the summer.  So rarely do cities get to experiment with what happens in these sorts of situations, and yet here we have a potential data set forced upon: pity us if we waste it by not thinking outside of the box.

Photo available under CC-BY-NC-SA.

Two curious things about the bank street closure:

1) It was really weird to see people stick to the sidewalks, even when it was perfectly safe to walk on the road. Habit, I suppose.

2) Traffic didn’t seem that much more congested than usual, though I imagine that residents of nearby side-streets were not too pleased with buses running down their usually-quiet streets. This, combined with things going more-or-less fine during the multiple closures of Bank St. north of Laurier over the past year, makes me really wonder when people preach stories of doom and gloom should we ever think of building an above ground light-rail line why such fears are given the credence that they are.