Sacred cows make the best burgers, or why we should stop worshipping parking

When I took Eldest to Paris in April one of the things she remarked was how easy it was to move around without a car. The picture above was taken in the fourth arrondissement somewhere near a thrift store she wanted to visit and where, incidentally, she did purchase something.

Businesses are crucial in any city, and Ottawa is no different. I sympathize a lot with merchants on Bank Street in the Glebe who worry that a redesigned street (for example, one that includes bike and dedicated bus lanes) might affect their bottom lines. Store owners’ bottom line is what determines whether they’ll still be in business six months from now. Those of us who shop in those stores and who enjoy a vibrant street life need those store owners to do well, for all kinds of reasons.

Most store owners aren’t urbanists or experts in active transportation. That’s why the city, which does employ such experts, needs to take its fingers out of its nose (as we say where I’m from) and work with business owners to show them the incredible benefits they stand to gain by making the streets where they are located places where happy people enjoy spending time in a relaxed manner – not worried that their kids are about to get run over.

For that we need to make some streets “destinations” instead of just a way to get somewhere else. The Glebe is, clearly, a destination but it doesn’t feel like it thanks to all this traffic snarling miserably all over everywhere. We’re asking those four lanes of road to do too much. We need to focus on making that stretch of Bank a place for people, and this starts by removing most on-street parking and prioritizing transit and active transportation over individual cars. But it doesn’t stop there.

As we’ve experienced on Wellington Street, simply removing cars doesn’t make a stretch of asphalt into a people magnet. Nobody makes a plan on the weekend to go somewhere in order to stand around doing nothing.

A Better Ottawa on Twitter recently noted that Sparks Street had improved in recent years precisely because it had added things to do.

I don’t claim to have the perfect solution for that awful portion of Bank Street between the Queensway and the Rideau Canal. But I do know what the main ingredients are: Space to walk safely, things to do, games to play, places to eat, stores to shop in, clean and plenty of accessible public toilets.

In my Ottawa Citizen column this week, I express concerns over the city’s consultation exercise to improve that stretch of Bank St. I conclude by asking what, other than the disappearing illusion of wasted time, we have to lose by trying something different for a change.