A modest Christmas gift to the forum. If anyone is wondering what's planned for the fenced-off site on 14th in Kensington with the "Porte" signage on it, they've finally submitted a new DP for the site. Nothing exciting, but it would be nice to get that lot filled in. 104 units, architect is CTZN.
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Nice. I take it this is the former Sola site:

SOLA | 26.21m | 9s | Ocgrow | Riddell Kurczaba

Ocgrow is proposing to develop an 8 storey mixed-use development on the site of the current yellow National Transmission building on the west side of 14th St NW between Kensington Road and 2nd Ave NW. 22,500 sq ft total 12,600 sq ft retail 140 Residential units...
calgary.skyrisecities.com calgary.skyrisecities.com

It is great to see Porte going all in for Calgary. They have purchased a couple of the Sarina ones in Marda Loop I think, and have 3 development projects at least (this one, 17th Ave and Currie Barracks).
 
KensingtonLurker said:
It appears that they are planning to have on street parking on 14 Street. Hopefully that can spread to other spots on 14 St so that it doesn't feel like you are walking along the shoulder of a highway.
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While it's great if this project happens, this ad-hoc nature of parking lane additions development-by-development will ensure that 14th Street will never be a nice place to walk in our lifetimes. It's the same story that has played out again and again in the city centre. Not that parking lanes are bad, nor is it an easy challenge - it's just a tactical solution to a strategic problem about how streets are designed in Calgary, particularly in the urbanizing inner city.

14th Street has been a traffic sewer for so long, operationally we informally declared that it cannot not be a high-volume traffic sewer - therefore there's no way we'd do something like take a traffic lane for off-peak street parking like 17th Avenue SW. Traffic volumes are quite high. However we also want street parking for various access benefits and add a buffer for pedestrians, because we also recognize this isn't the boonies, it's a pretty urban main street corridor. Therefore we use the setback and push everything over for this parcel to fit a better sidewalk, parking lane and preserve the travel lanes.

Always keep in mind these are choices and negotiation positions and current practices, not immutable laws of physics. Not all these decisions are backed up by clear policy, standards or rationales either - or at least ones that have received any real public scrutiny or visibility. 14th Street like any street could be designed to be anything we want - it could be setup like 17th Avenue SW if we wanted to with 4 lanes that switch to parking lanes off-peak hours. We just don't want to - or at least the people in the rooms making these development decisions don't want it to.

Importantly, the people in the room are only looking development-by-development for the current problem. They try their best to align to a future-proofed vision - but there often isn't one, we just extrapolate today into the future.

This piecemeal approach, not only means that the 14th Street rebuild implementation will stretch for decades or centuries - we need to wait for each parcel to redevelop to "complete the corridor" - it also opens up inconsistencies as each development is negotiated individually with various compromises and design cultures influencing outcomes over time. The length of implementation will ensure that things are getting old and obsolete while new stuff is being built - the sidewalk will always have issues. The result will be a never complete public realm of consistent sidewalk widths, trees or anything else that is pretty common in other cities.

Even if we do everything right, we will still end up with weird choices that make the whole corridor inconsistent. like this, from a development only 15 years old on the same corridor. In this case, no room for street parking but decided to make the outside lane 30cm wider for reasons unknown:
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A possible solution? Treat sidewalks the same way we treat travel lanes.

Sidewalks become the city-owned, operated and maintained thing they are; managed independently of individual development decisions, all that development does is plug into the system. Sidewalk widths, consistency, directness of travel become immutable like 14th Street travel lanes - it's just a boring thing that's provided and rarely - if ever - change. Street parking v. travel lanes - a great debate to have, but that curb isn't moving. Trade off among the road lanes only.

Of course, fixing this is easier said that done because it's culture and ongoing practice standing in the way. But other cities have found a way - many places rarely move curbs, add parking bays, or rely so much on ad-hoc development negotiations to figure out what the street looks like. These cities are better for it.
 
Not just the sidewalk but the intersections which are mostly city are terrible in so many locations. The 14th/Kensington intersection, the 14th/5th/6th intersection is pretty bad too. Not to mention Kensington/10th. Not only do you have to constantly check for right turn on reds, but even waiting for the intersection, make sure a big truck doesn't turn too tightly because the sidewalk is tiny.
 
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