Rain Interventions - How to Get Out of the Rain During the Rainy Season!
As it gets into November in Victoria, the odds of there being rain increases greatly. Now I should stop and say that we are no Vancouver, in fact Victoria sits in the top 20 for sunniest cities in Canada, Vancouver sits at over 60th place. To further put a point on this, Victoria’s annual precipitation is significantly lower than Toronto or Montreal. Anyone that has lived in both Vancouver and Victoria can attest to the significant decrease in rain that you see here, but we do definitely get rain. The thing with rain in Victoria is that is all comes at once. We have a very dry late spring to early fall and then it rains. As it stands, most of us simply abandon being outside except to move between buildings during the much of the winter, but does it have to be this way? Isn’t there a way that we could activate our outdoor spaces so that even on a rainy January day we might want to spend some time in a public space? Now, in a time when limiting time indoors with people is more important than ever, the fact that we can’t retreat outdoors is a problem.
The need to get out of the rain seems to be a pretty common issue in many cities around the world, but to be honest there is a significant lack of impressive and practical ways for us to stay dry in public. I did find a great article out of Vancouver on the “This City Life” Blog. (A great urbanist blog if you are looking for another one to read) that goes over the 10 principles for a rain friendly city developed by the Vancouver Public Spaces Network. You can read the article here.
We do have some fringe rain interventions around the city and this seems pretty common across what I could find online. I think that you can break down the kinds of rain interventions into three kinds: basic, intermediate and advanced. Almost all cities have the basics, a few have started to implement some intermediate solutions, the advanced are hard to find though because they are necessarily big.
The Basic Intervention
Your basic rain inventions are so ubiquitous that we hardly notice them any more. These are the bus shelters, the sheltered alcove of a front door, the awning and maybe even the patio umbrella over a table. These interventions are simple and really exist so that you can do something else like get on the bus or enter a business with your umbrella collapsed. In Victoria, these shelters are everywhere and when you are out downtown on a rainy day, you see all of them being used frequently by those that are waiting for a bus or going into a store and also by those that are hoping hide out from the rain for a moment. There is no need to be doing better than we are here with the basics, we do, however, need to recognise that these interventions are just the beginning of making a city rainproof.
The Intermediate Intervention
A city will start putting in some intermediate interventions when it recognises that it has a problem with rain and that sticking to just the basic solutions is not enough to ensure that people can participate in all that the city has to offer. These more complex solutions might be permanent or they may just be temporary structures. This zone is where we have seen ideas start to flourish in Victoria over the last few weeks due to the need to both keep customers out of the rain while also keeping the numbers within a store at a safe level. Or in the case of the Parsonage on Cook Street to keep all the customers out but have them still be able to get their coffee out of their takeout window with a temporary rain shelter above it. There have actually been quite a few stores that I have seen with one of these line shelters. I expect that over the next few weeks we will also see some rain interventions built over some of the COVID parklets along the streets downtown so that customers will still be able to have dinner or drink safely but also be dry.
Another intermediate intervention you see around Victoria is the protected bike rack. There are quite a few of them though likely the most popular one is the one in front of MEC. That said, there is one on Yates at Douglas which in the past has been sparsely used but in the last couple of months seems to be picking up use, this may be because of the higher bike traffic downtown though it may just be changes in the way people are using downtown.
I think that this winter we will see a bunch of different intermediate interventions tried across the city and it will good to keep an eye on them as we will likely see some creative thoughts on where and why we need protection from the rain. If you have already seen a cool solution, please let me know in the comments!
The Advanced Intervention
The kinds of rain solutions I would put into the advanced category would be large permanent structures. These may be a portion of building that arches over a public space, a glassed over public square or a large rain shelter in the middle of an otherwise unprotected park.
Victoria has had some history with these types of advanced interventions. Perhaps the hardest one to find concrete information on is the 700 Block Shopping Mall which was along the 700 block of Yates Street. You can see a picture of it here. As you can see there was a significant rain cover put over the sidewalks along this block of Yates. The idea was to encourage people to visit the area rain or shine. At the same time, the indoor shopping mall was just beginning to take root and the traditional downtown shopping district was feeling threatened. This rain cover did not last long. I think it may have been in place for about a decade, there is really very little on it. Still it certainly is an advanced intervention and something pretty unique in Victoria’s history. If you know any more about this I would love to hear.
There is one absolutely massive rain intervention in Victoria, I am sure it is the largest one in the city and that is the glassed over square in front of the downtown public library. This is actually a great intervention, so good you are almost fooled into thinking you are inside. On the down side it is also in a private space so there is no possibility of it being open during the evenings which is too bad. Still on a rainy day there is an outside space that is perfect for reading the book that you just picked up at the library. It would be good again if the space was advertised as the public safe reading room, especially now. New furniture would go a long way to making it more exciting.
Centennial Square also has a couple of spaces that I would call advanced interventions, but here they are not being used as such. There is the space right under City Council Chambers; the new stage area at the west; the vaulted walkway along the north side of the square; and there is the large covered space in front of the McPherson Playhouse. I think that the space under the Council Chamber has the most opportunity to be activated. It simply needs some creative ideas. Imagine the space extremely well lit with some hard surface furniture like concrete chairs, couches or tables. Or perhaps turn it into a small used book market or winter vegetable market. The options are endless and the space is sitting empty (especially now that there is not camping happening there). Still here is an opportunity to create a community space where those Victorians that don’t have a home may be able to keep dry alongside others and enjoy a common animated space. I really think that this could be such an opportunity especially as we go into the cold wet months for a inexpensive solution that would be fun, safe and likely build some community.
I would like to see other large rain protected areas in parks around town, maybe even some that could shift their coverage from summer to winter. If you have any ideas or experience with any of these interventions I would love to hear about them!