The Parkdale Avenue Plan: Let’s Start Here (with these 7 actions)

The Parkdale Avenue Corridor Plan prepared by a team from McGill University’s School of Urban Planning, identifies 34 actions to be taken in support of 8 principles of good planning.  In order to get the community discussion going, here are seven possible projects from the full list that could offer a starting point for changing the way people experience Parkdale Avenue:

Taking a stand for a better Parkdale (from Spacing Ottawa)

Friend of Parkdale - Michel Frojmovic

It’s got a farm at one end and a gorgeous stretch of riverbank at the other, and a name containing the work “park”. With those kind of credentials first-time visitors to Ottawa might be excused for expecting Parkdale Avenue to be a meandering lane through a shady glade, and not a fume-filled arterial road functioning as an on-ramp to the busiest stretch of expressway in Eastern Ontario.

But even long-time Ottawans are taken aback at just how many functions the City of Ottawa and the Ministry of Transportation expect a narrow neighbourhood two-lane street to fulfill. It’s a passage for emergency vehicles, a bus route, a commuter thoroughfare for thousands driving to Tunney’s Pasture and the Civic Hospital, and a local street for homeowners whose driveways give out onto the avenue…( read full post at Spacing Ottawa)

Dear Friends of Parkdale Avenue:

In 2009, Creative Neighbourhoods engaged a team of Urban Planning students from McGill University to produce a plan for Parkdale Avenue. The Parkdale Avenue Corridor Plan identifies long-, medium – and short-term opportunities & actions, relating to local issues such as land use, streetscaping, traffic management, and air quality monitoring.

With your input, a draft Plan was prepared and presented in December at Parkdale United Church, and finalized by the McGill Team shortly thereafter.

Where do we go from here? Well, it is an election year in 2010. So…