First Avenue – a better idea

OPINION

By Chris Leggett

The recently installed speed camera, officially known as automatic speed enforcement (ASE), near Glebe Collegiate is an excellent first step in making First Avenue a more people-friendly street. However, due to the teacher parking area on the north side of the street, it remains an unsafe place for kids, students, elderly people and pedestrians in general. Cars and trucks should not dominate pedestrians on our streets.

Funds generated by the ASE are mandated to improve road safety, and some of it should be used to address the problems on First Avenue. The fact that more than 2,100 vehicles in just one month have been caught speeding here clearly demonstrates a serious problem. The City is reaping a vast amount the money (2,100 x $175 = $367,500) from speeding fines on a badly designed street. Money from AES could be used on a demonstration project to show how a street can be changed for the better.

This stretch of First Avenue encourages speeding. There are no street narrowing measures, no bike lanes, no crosswalks or extended curbs, no on-street parking and no speed bumps on the block from Percy to Bronson.

While attending an on-site meeting last year with Jonathon McLeod from councillor Shawn Menard’s office to discuss the speeding issue, it was determined that access to and from the teacher’s 36-vehicle parking area on the north side of the street compromises most street calming options. As long as this parking area exists, it seems City planners believe there is nothing that can be done to make the street safer for pedestrians. Also, parked cars in this location create serious environmental concerns for ground water management, reflective heat-generating materials and the potential green space it takes up.

This parking area would be illegal under current zoning bylaws. Today, the area would have to be totally landscaped. Also, according to current bylaws, the school is required to have only 81 parking spaces, whereas it now has 104. That’s apparently more than are needed because on average, there are 26 vacant parking spaces every day. We have confirmed this.

As indicated on site plan A-2, teacher parking could be moved to the west side of the building and entirely located on school property (which would meet current zoning requirements). The existing walkway would be expanded to accommodate both a pedestrian walkway and a roadway access to parking. The overall dimensions of the field are slightly reduced; however, the dimensions of the regulation football field are unaffected.

With parking relocated, street narrowing could be put in place along First Avenue through a variety of interventions, such as street parking, a stop sign at Chrysler Avenue, elevated crosswalks, traffic markers, painted lines and a segregated bike lane (see A-2). Also, trees and landscaping can replace the environmentally offensive, impervious, non-filtering, reflective heat-generating asphalt and concrete, as in Sketch C-2, which shows what a more people-friendly First Avenue might look like.

To our knowledge, there is nothing on record to indicate that the school board has ever obtained written authority to allow vehicles to occupy the area on the north side of First Avenue. A search of the zoning provisions Glebe Collegiate does not indicate an “exception” to the parking requirements for the property. As such, it appears the non-conforming uses have never been formally accepted and could be returned to their original condition.

It’s time to take back our street from dangerous fast-moving vehicles, and now we have the funds to do it!

Chris Leggett (OAA, MRAIC) is an architect and Glebe resident.