Grocery Stores

[danbrotherston]

It would be interesting to try to consider what changes could be made to make plazas like that more comfortable and attractive to pedestrians and cyclists. It's one thing to build something new from scratch, but how can we adjust existing spaces to be more friendly?

Looking at Stanley Park Zehrs, which is near me:
- tighten the turn radius for the car entrance and exits in order to narrow the space pedestrians have to cross.
- close the extra entrance off River Rd.
- put a walkway from Ottawa along the back fence so that pedestrians aren't repeatedly crossing car traffic with restricted visibility
- have walkways with curbs separating them from parking from the mall entrances to the street/rear sidewalk so that the main walking routes are better protected from drivers (the only one now is painted and is not a primary route for pedestrians)

There are a whole lot more drastic things that could be done, but the turn radius one, speaking from personal experience, would probably be the best improvement that could be done relatively cheaply.

This is a great train of thought, and some really good suggestions.

It is simply astonishing the number of large residential buildings which abut large commercial plazas, where a concerted effort is made to prevent customers who live in those buildings from getting to the stores in the plaza.

The problem with a lot of these types of suggestions though is that they require a level of cooperation between private and public interests which is....not common in our community.

The sad thing is you have some private interests, like the Cadillac Fairview, which are seeking to make their developments better in this regard. Unfortunately at least in Fairview's case, it seems they don't have the slightest clue how to do so. They are developing the pedestrian features in their property facing the most unpleasant least walkable area, where a major arterial with crap sidewalks meets a highway interchange. Who do they expect to enjoy walking near there? Mix this with the irony that they also forced a transit terminal off the side of their property which not only had many pedestrians because of transit, but also faced onto a dozen high density residential buildings and developments. Such a missed opportunity.