The Black Bench -The Downtown Public Realm Plan
I am going to guess I am in the minority when I say that I look at almost every lamp post, bench, garbage can, sidewalk and crosswalk I come across in the city. That said, since all of you do keep coming back to Sidewalking Victoria, I am also going to guess that this minority is bigger than I may have first thought. The amazing thing is that it is not only us but also a group of people working at the City of Victoria. It is these great planners that created the city’s public realm plan. I know it is unlikely to make the top-sellers list but the Downtown Public Realm Plan that was presented to the city in April 2017, is a pretty amazing and comprehensive document on many of the topics I write about on this blog. So I know it is a bit late, but here are some of my key thoughts on the Public Realm Plan.
Overall (and a little history…)
“Ensuring a unified, cohesive, legible and high quality public realm environment is therefore an essential component of supporting a vibrant, pedestrian oriented and memorable downtown environment…”
Downtown Public Realm Plan, 2017
For those of you that have been in Victoria a long time, you will be aware of some of the distinct eras we have had in setting out our public space. For me the clearest piece is the colours. For the longest time and certainly when I moved to Victoria in the 1990’s, the street fixtures were all the same colour, a light dusty blue. I am not sure when this colour became dominant, but for a time it was as identifiably Victoria as the globe light standards in Old Town. That blue was everywhere and certainly by the 1990’s the colour was getting tired. At about the same time, Douglas Street was getting a complete makeover and there was a plan to modernise the street furniture and city poles. One of the key elements of this modernisation was an idea that the different areas of town should be identifiable through the colours used on the street infrastructure. The colours were quite indicative of the time and I am sure I am not going to remember all of them, though there was definitely burgundy, dark blue and teal. I can imagine that the work to keep all of the different colours in storage at public works was a challenge and really even after a very long time the colours were never completely implemented across the city. Even now you can find the odd light pole with the old powder blue still on it.
The current public realm plan is meant to do two things, first standardise the colour across the whole city to black ( with the one exception of Chinatown) and simplify the paving treatments downtown. For this I think that the plan is a great one if it can be fully rolled out over the next ten years and then can be maintained without change for a few decades so that maybe we don’t see those errant powder blue poles any more. As you look through the plan what is truly amazing is the in-depth detail, from the very descriptive drawings of the different types of lamp standards to the places where brick pavers will go and where they won’t too.
Despite all the detail, a key consideration is the simplicity of it, like a black city bench. I will add that I am a huge fan of using black because it is timeless, forgiving and so very urban. Overall, what I think is so amazing about this plan is that it exists. That it feels like in this one instance at least, it has all been considered in some way.
Street Furniture
The street furniture plan is likely to be the least transcendent over time. Styles change and more importantly, suppliers change, but as they are laid out now, I think that the furniture that has been selected has timeless look. There is a lack of anything distinctly modern but there is a variety to look at between the heritage forms that are meant for Old Town and the Legislative Precinct, and the more contemporary forms of those destined for the newer parts of downtown. One element that I am pleased with is that as far as I can tell, we have moved away from the more hostile street furniture, with their centre arm rests meant to discourage the homeless from sleeping on them or the painfully raked back of chairs. Making street furniture uncomfortable really just means that no one will use them and that kind of defeats the purpose right?
Traffic Bulbs and Crossings
It is weird to think of a time in cities where the corners and crosswalks were perhaps the least considered part of the pedestrian environment, but it wasn’t that long ago. Going back to the Douglas Street improvement plan of the 1990’s, it was only with this plan that the city first started to add the traffic bulbs to corners. These little offerings to pedestrians in the grand scheme of things improve both the safety of the pedestrian and also create a larger public space to spend time in. The new plan has created a well thought out layout for almost every type of corner that you are going to find in the city and created a plan for them that includes street furniture and a significant bulb when ever possible. These little urban squares that exist at each intersection actually create one of my favourite places in the city. To feel the difference a significant corner can make, visit the west side of the 1300 block of Blanshard Street (between Johnson and Yates). Spend some time standing on the corner next to Shine, but not too long because it won’t be comfortable and now try the Yates corner by the old library where the space makes you able to hang-out and not feel like you are in anyone’s space except your own. The new plan is thinking this out and where possible encourages new traffic bulbs to be created.
Timeline
When you are making your way through this comprehensive document, it is easy to start thinking about how it will all come together. Later in the report, there is an implementation plan and it is one of my biggest concerns with the entire thing. While it makes sense to try and be as fiscally conservative as possible when replacing street infrastructure, it also means that we may never see it fully realised. While the simplicity of the plan lends itself to being in place for a long time, just the last thirty years in Victoria show us that styles change and so does any one government’s willingness to implement a plan brought forward by a predecessor. I would have preferred to see at least a couple of main areas focused on beyond what is to be updated through redevelopment projects and regular replacements but that is not the plan for now. A significant boost of the black paint around the city would go a long way to cementing this scheme into out psyche.
If you have had a look through the Downtown Public Realm Plan, I would love to know what your thoughts on it are and where you think the City could be doing more to implement it.