Is Ottawa a walkable city?

And do we want to walk indoors, outdoors, below ground or above? It seems to me that Ottawans love the idea of western-European-style walkability in THEORY but once it comes about, they (or the people with clout, anyway) decide that it doesn't fit with their lifestyle.

I was about six when the Sparks Street pedestrian mall first opened as a summertime mall. That first year, there was a children's play area, including seesaws (which I hadn't yet had an opportunity to see and experience in real life). Several years later, perhaps as a centennial project, they decided to make Sparks Street a year-round pedestrian mall. In its heyday, it had a couple of major department stores (Morgan's and Murphy-Gamble); a cinema (where I went to see "You are what you eat" and possibly "Wild in the Streets"); The Treble Clef, which sold LP's and tickets to all the major rock concerts in town, as well as sheet-music and instruments downstairs in the Bass Clef; a Coles bookstore as well as the W.H. Smith up by Elgin Street (now known as "Smithbooks"; in its days as W.H. Smith it also had a basement which sold toys); the Green Dragon (still there, but more junky and touristy); the Arcade at Sparks and O'Connor, which had numerous little boutiques as well as a Nate's restaurant; Birks; several shoe stores (including Armstrong and Richardson) and women's clothing stores including Middleman's; The Snow Goose (still there); Four Corners (ditto, although they used to also hold concerts upstairs in their gallery); several dimestores - a Woolworth's, a Metropolitan and a Zellers (which is still there); a Davis Agency; E.R. Fisher menswear; Dover's hardware and sporting goods; Sherman's record shop; at least one drugstore; O'Shea's Market Ireland (which only disappeared quite recently); a United Cigar Store; Morrow's nuts and candy; Orientique; a Honey Dew coffeeshop (with mirror-tiles on the walls so I could see myself looking at myself in the mirror looking at myself in the mirror looking at...); and probably much much more that I don't remember.

Nowadays, I sometimes walk along the Sparks Street mall on Wednesday mornings after my Toastmasters meetings. But alas, it cannot really be called a pedestrian mall any longer. Because even on weekday mornings after the stores are open, there are ALWAYS vehicles on the mall that I have to dodge as I go about my business! I e-mailed councillor Diane Holmes to complain about this, but never got a response, and that's sad as I always thought her views were generally in keeping with my own - something that cannot be said about most Ottawa councillors these days. And the mall is basically deserted except on weekdays between noon and about 1:30 when people are on their lunch breaks, and perhaps for a week or two in the summer when the tourists come and the buskers hold their festival.

Round about the centennial, when the year-round mall came into being, St-Laurent Shopping Centre was built. It was the first above-ground all-indoor shopping centre in Ottawa but existing outdoor malls like Billings Bridge, Carlingwood and Westgate soon rushed to follow suit and become indoor spaces. The one existing indoor mall in the downtown core, Place de Ville, was thriving at that time. It was modelled after Montreal's Place Ville Marie but unfortunately seems to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ottawa in its wisdom moved the inter-city bus station from Albert and Kent, and moved the train station from downtown (converting that space first into the "Centennial Centre" and then a government conference centre). That's all very disappointing now that we're finally getting light rail in downtown Ottawa, because these spaces could have been the centrepieces of a wonderfully cosmopolitan downtown capital.

The Rideau Centre led to further decline on the Sparks Street Mall. But even it started with some high ideals. We had a glassed-over pedestrian walkway on either side of Rideau Street and once again, no general traffic was allowed on Rideau, though we did have buses and taxis.

But unfortunately, when the enclosed sidewalks became havens for winos and the homeless, the hue and cry of businesspeople was to scrap them altogether - and that's what eventually happened. I would have much preferred that they had spiffied up the existing enclosed sidewalks, had good lighting and security, a few more plants, fountains and so forth - but I guess that would have been too logical.

Then there's the Congress Centre. I can remember how impressed everyone was with it when it was first built. I still think it could have been improved instead of torn down. I couldn't believe how rapidly it was demolished and a new one put up in its place, particularly when you consider how long it takes to get anything done anywhere else in Ottawa (think Lebreton Flats and Lansdowne Park, for example). I guess it was well-heeled business-people with major clout who lobbied a very business-oriented mayor and city council and then... well, you can't fight city hall or a wealthy and influential Business Improvement Area.

Most new shopping centres these days are Big Box Cities, the big boxes being made out of ticky-tacky and all looking just the same. Will we ever see a return to smaller, more interesting, more unique shops with superior customer service? I'm not holding my breath!