The street furniture on Sherbrooke is fantastic - planters are built into them, and they feature an interesting design. The benches are nice, cozy, and shaded by the trees on the street.
In a couple areas of Montreal, the street and sidewalk were forged together, creating an area that was mainly for pedestrians, but also allowed for cars. The cars are forced to drive more slowly, as the whole street is essentially a sidewalk.
Two or three parking spaces were removed in a street to allow for bike parking.
On a one way street, a whole lane was taken out that was strictly for bikes. The cars next to the bike lanes were parked.This kind of development could easily be done on a road like Adelaide or Richmond through downtown Toronto. It would create a nice bike thoroughfare.
And Habitat was beautiful and fascinating. On its own, it is an incredible piece of dense housing and architecture (and a neat place to live). It is impossible to tell where one unit ends and another begins. What is not told in these pictures, however, is that Habitat is severely isolated on a peninsula. It is virtually impossible to walk there and is located on what is essentially a highway. While it may be served by buses, it is unfortunately not easily accessible.
2 comments:
these are all amazing solutions to make a better city for cyclists/pedestrians. but i wonder if it's viable in a large city like toronto.. probably. nice photos, french people are smrt.
I think so. All it takes is one major route where one lane of traffic taken out and then feeder routes that go to the main route - like a bike route through downtown on Richmond or Adelaide, with North-South routes to Bloor on say, Sorauren, McCaul, University, Sherbourne, and Parliament. It's doable.
While Kensington Market is already pretty pedestrian friendly, the whole neighborhood could get an amazing facelift with a new, simple cobblestone style street and sidewalk, where those delineations between pedestrian, bike, and car are further diminished. This could even stretch into part of Chinatown too.
The same thing can be done around the Distillery, as it grows and expands. Wouldn't it be awesome if that cobblestone stretched through Cherry street and into the West Donlands?
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