An Awesome NCC Announcement ... That Only a Few People Heard
A potential sea change in how this city thinks about pedestrianized streets
Last week, the NCC made a quite remarkable announcement. But the only people who heard it were the 50 or so participants on a webinar.
Jewel in Ottawa’s crown
The announcement had to do with how we use some of the most valuable real estate in the city. Our waterfront.
Some cities have had success in recasting their waterfronts as places for people. The San Antonio Riverwalk is the most popular tourist destination in Texas. Paris has ripped out a highway alongside the Seine and turned it into a linear park. Now Montreal is turning the Bonaventure Highway alongside the St Lawrence River into an urban park.
That’s what the NCC announcement was all about.
How we turn Queen Elizabeth Driveway alongside the Rideau Canal into a place for people.
Not just a closed road
The QED will be car-free 24/7 in July and August, between Catherine and Somerset. We’ve known about that for a few months now.
In past summers, the QED was little more than a closed road. Great for bikes, wheelchairs and pedestrians, but hard for some drivers to take.
This year is going to be different.
During a Parkways for People online community discussion, Help Make the Queen Elizabeth Driveway Sparkle this Summer, the NCC announced that they will create a Summer Zone / Zone Estivale along the Driveway north of Pretoria, designed to:
Bring events and activities right onto the Queen Elizabeth Driveway.
Allow the public to bring their own events and activities onto the road.
In other words, the QED itself will come to life this summer with attractions. It will not longer be just a roadway to get from one place to another. The QED will become the destination itself.
Allowing individuals and groups to help bring the roadway to life is a smart move. The community will come forward with all sorts of great ideas that we never thought of before.
Like these guys giving impromptu Canal-side concerts.
Overcoming the failure of imagination
Those who oppose the active use parkways see them as little more than closed roads that inconvenience driving routes. All pain, no gain.
This summer, people are going to see something very tangible in exchange for closing the road. We are going to see Ottawa’s prime waterfront real estate brought to life with events and activities.
This represents an opportunity to change attitudes among the people of Ottawa around pedestrianized roads. The QED Summer Zone will show what the City could do to turn a roadway into a dynamic public space.
At the webinar, there were a lot of great ideas that people came forward with, for how community-led activities can bring the QED to life. Some of those ideas require enabling support facilities and services from the NCC.
Ideas that came forward in the webinar are shown in the following two images.
Over to you
We are waiting for the NCC to announce the Summer Zone program more widely.
In the meantime, they are accepting applications from community groups to use sections of the Driveway. If you would like to put on an event or activity along the QED, watch last week’s webinar starting at about 23:30 where Bruce Devine of the NCC describes the program and how to put in an application.
Some of us are planning a cargo bike demo along with free ice cream one Saturday morning. Would you show up for free ice cream on the QED?