Saturday, May 7, 2011

Sunday 11am and noon: Rescue Bronson Avenue walking tour

This ain't your mother's Mother's Day Jane's Walk. Unless your mother lived on Bronson before they widened it in the '50s.

Sunday, May 8, 2011, at 11am, head on over to Bronson and Queen for a really exciting Jane's Walk on Bronson Avenue. If you're not the morning type, you can meet up with us at the Chinatown Arch/Raw Sugar where we'll get to the second half of the walk at noon.

This will be an illustrated walk. The photo below shows an historical photo of Bronson and Somerset. There are eight different location-specific posters of behind-the-scenes happenings along Bronson that you can't see while standing on location. I'll post copies of these posters on the blog on Monday, and hopefully the posters will stay up a while.

In honour of the occasion, the Mayor proclaimed Thursday May 7, 2011, Jane Jacobs Day in Ottawa:

Thursday evening, there was an event at Raw Sugar café called "Jane's Talk", where three urban planners, including Alain Miguelez (who wrote A Theatre Near You), spoke about human-scale urban planning. The wide shot below is to illustrate the deficit of bike parking spaces on the south side of Somerset at this corner.

There is parking on the North side of Somerset, including a couple unused ribbon racks hidden behind the fence in the parking lot by the Arch. The blue Velocity rack had room for more bikes, but cyclists don't like the idea of crossing Somerset here and prefer to lock their bikes to whatever they can muster on the South side. I warned of this when the city removed parking meters and replaced only a small fraction of them with ring-and-post bike racks.

Anyhoo, it was standing room only when I got there, with over 50 people crammed into the eclectic space.

There will also be a wrap party starting at 4pm at the Lieutenant's Pump for everyone who gave, helped with, or attended a Jane's Walk this weekend, and people who couldn't get out to a walk are welcome to come too!

Sunday, May 8, 2011, 11am
Jane's Walk Ottawa--Rescue Bronson Avenue
Bronson and Sparks 11am, Chinatown Arch 12pm

The Jane's Walk for Rescue Bronson Avenue on May 8 is confirmed! I'll be leading a behind-the-scenes tour of Bronson Avenue through Centretown, including upcoming road and building developments, highlighting problems and opportunities for fixing them highlighted by the Rescue Bronson Avenue campaign, and looking at some of the heritage and history on the street. We will meet at 11am at Bronson and Sparks and head down Bronson to the Chinatown Arch, where we will break until leaving for the second leg south to Arlington at noon. You can come to either or both sections. If you can't make the walk, please still sign the Rescue Bronson petition!

Jane's Walks, named for the late New York/Toronto urbanist Jane Jacobs, are an annual series of free walking tours of all different parts of the city. Ottawa's Jane's Walk is in its fourth year and the CCCA has participated in the past through the Trees & Greenspace Committee. See details for this tour at http://www.rescuebronson.ca/ and see a listing of all 2011 Jane's Walks in Ottawa at http://www.janeswalkottawa.ca/

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