Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

[CalgaryTiger]

Not to double post or change the subject but they're starting to put things back together at Suncor. Large beams have been installed on the southside of the block and the sidewalk is open! Good thing too because the sidewalk on the southside of 6th Ave was closed in the morning for utility upgrades to Hanover's conversion.

 

[potatopizzafan]

Where do the housing start statistics get posted? Can't seem to find them

 

[Surrealplaces]

Where do the housing start statistics get posted? Can't seem to find them

I've been posting some in the Statscan thread

 

[outoftheice]

In terms of Stephen Ave, the issue as I see it is that these businesses are going to push the City into repeating their past mistakes with 17th Ave and Marda Loop. In both cases the initial plan was a fast and furious rebuild of the street. Then the businesses along there complained that it would be too much disruption and asked for a slower, less intense, build process. The City relented and as construction progressed the businesses all started to realize that people hate construction whether it's minor or major and stretching out the timelines for construction make it worse... to the point where the Marda Loop businesses are now suing because of the impacts of the longer construction timeline that they, themselves asked for!

So here we go, about to make the same mistakes with Sonya Sharp cheerleading the way. I also question how much of this concern is being raised in good faith given the fact some of the businesses are complaining about parking and paving stones from Vietnam. Stephen Ave hasn't had parking on it for years and if you choose to set up a business there, it's a bit rich to complain about no parking around your business. And unless the designers have made a totally dumb decision on material choices and forgotten that Calgary is indeed a winter city, complaining about foreign made pavers being extra slippery just seems like a wedge issue and an excuse to complain.

 

[CBBarnett]

In terms of Stephen Ave, the issue as I see it is that these businesses are going to push the City into repeating their past mistakes with 17th Ave and Marda Loop. In both cases the initial plan was a fast and furious rebuild of the street. Then the businesses along there complained that it would be too much disruption and asked for a slower, less intense, build process. The City relented and as construction progressed the businesses all started to realize that people hate construction whether it's minor or major and stretching out the timelines for construction make it worse... to the point where the Marda Loop businesses are now suing because of the impacts of the longer construction timeline that they, themselves asked for!

So here we go, about to make the same mistakes with Sonya Sharp cheerleading the way. I also question how much of this concern is being raised in good faith given the fact some of the businesses are complaining about parking and paving stones from Vietnam. Stephen Ave hasn't had parking on it for years and if you choose to set up a business there, it's a bit rich to complain about no parking around your business. And unless the designers have made a totally dumb decision on material choices and forgotten that Calgary is indeed a winter city, complaining about foreign made pavers being extra slippery just seems like a wedge issue and an excuse to complain.

Yeah the "foreign-made" paver thing and the fact people will be unsafe walking near construction fencing near homeless people is where they lost me - it's a total shotgun approach to cast doubts on the project. There's legitimate construction timing and impact concerns that can be discussed, but credibility goes out the window with references like that.

More productively, one idea that I was thinking about in these street rebuild sagas is we always try to do it all at once with utilities and surface stuff. Perhaps we either:

1. Make all streetscape projects dependent on a trigger by a utility projects (e.g. sorry your drinking water pipe is broken and lives depend on it so we have no choice - we are digging up your street. As a bonus when we put back the sidewalks they will be upgraded).
2. Ignore utility projects altogether (all we are doing is quickly fixing the bricks and adding nice trees, we don't need to move utilities for that and save 50% of the construction time).

Obviously #2 results in extra costs that the utility coming in later and ripping everything up again, but public perception is often how this is works anyways. It's not clear that either of these would stop the complains or result in a better public realm though!

My other thought is surely construction impacts is a universal problem the world over - how do European cities maintain they're stellar/far more busy walkable public streets with centuries of utilities, metros and infrastructure needing maintenance underneath them? Is there anything to learn about construction phasing/length that can help us out?

Or is the whole world forever condemned to have construction impacts and grumbling locals - so best to just get on with it and let people complain?

 

[darwink]

Is there anything to learn about construction phasing/length that can help us out?

Weighting construction time as a cost in the evaluation of bids.

Prioritizing time can seriously push costs, as it causes sub-contractors to schedule a fair amount of idle time to ensure their workers and equipment are ready when the project is ready for them.

A good part of it we can't change is how deep our utilities need to be, and how engineered out streets need to be, to deal with regular freeze-thaw cycles and frost heave.

In my experience in Europe, I'd note that streets need to be quite wide before they're programmed with as many elements as we want on 8th, especially street trees.

We might also not be conducting full life-cycle analysis on material choices, prioritizing low maintenance versus capital costs above ease to remove and replace as piecemeal work is done, or cost of repairs versus projected service life without repairs.

In many parts of Europe, water utilities are quasi privatized (assets and operations are leased to private companies), and when they open up the street, they have to pay rent to the municipality, to incentivize speed and innovation (smaller work sites, less digging).

 

[trtcttc]

Yeah the "foreign-made" paver thing and the fact people will be unsafe walking near construction fencing near homeless people is where they lost me - it's a total shotgun approach to cast doubts on the project. There's legitimate construction timing and impact concerns that can be discussed, but credibility goes out the window with references like that.

More productively, one idea that I was thinking about in these street rebuild sagas is we always try to do it all at once with utilities and surface stuff. Perhaps we either:

1. Make all streetscape projects dependent on a trigger by a utility projects (e.g. sorry your drinking water pipe is broken and lives depend on it so we have no choice - we are digging up your street. As a bonus when we put back the sidewalks they will be upgraded).
2. Ignore utility projects altogether (all we are doing is quickly fixing the bricks and adding nice trees, we don't need to move utilities for that and save 50% of the construction time).

Obviously #2 results in extra costs that the utility coming in later and ripping everything up again, but public perception is often how this is works anyways. It's not clear that either of these would stop the complains or result in a better public realm though!

My other thought is surely construction impacts is a universal problem the world over - how do European cities maintain they're stellar/far more busy walkable public streets with centuries of utilities, metros and infrastructure needing maintenance underneath them? Is there anything to learn about construction phasing/length that can help us out?

Or is the whole world forever condemned to have construction impacts and grumbling locals - so best to just get on with it and let people complain?

The problems I see with 1, is that they'd need design/consultation. Very hard to do detailed design then wait until some emergency to do the work since the design may no longer work.
And 2, I think cost is probably the main reason. If it came out that they're ripping up a street they did 2 years ago, you can imagine all the political pandering about waste at city hall.

I'd say it's a framing problem. The city obviously wants to show off the fancy redesign, but maybe we should position things as utilities work first, especially after the recent water crisis. "We have to replace the aging pipe here to avoid the same situtaiton that happened last year, and while we're doing that, we'll put the street back nicer". It's what I've noticed with Toronto construction when I was living there, they'd always mention replacing the however old water main, along with the infrastructure work.

"According to the city, a 100-year-old water main below the street needs replacing and the replacement presents an opportunity to redesign the iconic street."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/proposed-redesign-yonge-street-college-carlton-queen-streets-public-consultation-1.5727353

 

[shermanator]

I've gone out of my way to support Marda Loop businesses throughout construction as I know it hurts them. That includes Annabelle's Kitchen, which has been a good experience each time I've gone. People have been able to drive right to their doorstep the whole time but I get that some will avoid going as getting there is more inconvenient than usual and that hurts their bottom line.

Threatening to sue the city to prevent replacing aging infrastructure is something I can't support. So I don't think I will be going to Annabelle's any more. More money for other places in the neighborhood I guess!