Traffic Calming That You Know and Love
Anytime there is a new plan to limit cars on a road there is a loud and concerted outcry from a portion of the population. And to be honest, I totally understand it. Changing the way our city functions is frustrating and sometimes might not be obvious in its goals. I can certainly feel this way too. I will also say that sometimes the first implementation of changes is not done as well as it could be. The best recent examples for me are the bus stops along Pandora or the west sidewalks along Wharf Street. That said, we need to give the changes time to have an impact and see how they will or won’t integrate into the city. Since the implementation of the bike lanes, we have seen a dramatic increase in biking downtown. I expect that this increase in ridership will continue as the system in built out.
The funny thing is that while the introduction of bike lanes and the partial closure of Government Street are the current concerns when it comes to limiting car access in our city, we have actually been doing these type of things for for a long time. Some of these implementations are now cherished parts of the city; others are not remembered as places cars could access at any point. This is a list of just a few of the big pieces of traffic calming in the city that over time have just become part of our city’s fabric.
Centennial Square
I am starting with perhaps the most controversial of the places on this list. Centennial Square is also perhaps the largest example of traffic calming in the city (I am not counting the recent changes to Government Street, as that has only a partial closure each day). I say it is controversial because I don’t think to this day Centennial Square has truly lived up to its potential as a people place. Still, it is hard to imagine Cormorant Street continuing through there now (You can see a bus turning onto the old street here). The square was created as part of the City’s 100 year celebration, though I believe it was a couple of years late, finally being opened in 1965. I know that there have been recent discussions (again…) about improving Centennial Square and making it more of a draw with a potential water park and some food carts; I truly hope that we actually see some of this happen. When the square is activated by a festival it becomes such an amazing place to visit and enjoy the city and could be like that on almost any day with the right changes. The potential is there and only exists due to the closing of streets.
Bastion Square
Bastion Square is of the same time period as Centennial Square, the design and building really came about in the early 1960’s. It actually ended up being completed ahead of Centennial Square. Today Bastion Square is a tourist draw during the summer and such an integral part of Victoria’s downtown that it is hard to see that it used to be just a road and parking space. Originally, View Street carried right down to Wharf (hence the name View Street) and the broader part of the square at its western end had a significant amount of street parking on the sides and in the centre. There are aspects of the design (much like Centennial Square) that are very much of the era, with lots of irregular shaped steps and awkward pockets, but overall it is so cohesive that it is near impossible to imagine it as a car space. It looks so integrated into the street scene that it has even played the part of a European city pedestrian space in more than one movie. You can get a good idea of just how big a change it was by looking at the photo here from the archives.
Fernwood Square
Walking through Fernwood Square today, it is hard to imagine the world in which it was created. In the 1970’s however, the area around the square just barely survived being bulldozed as piece of urban blight. The Fernwood neighbourhood was a low-rent district that many thought the only way to improve was to flatten it and start again. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and some urban renewal was proposed instead. One piece of this plan was to close off Gladstone Avenue to through traffic (there were actually a couple of other streets closed off in the neighbourhood at this time as well). Initially called the Gladstone Pedestrian Mall, in June 1978 it opened to the public. It is hard to imagine today Fernwood Village without the Square. It is truly the jewel of the neighbourhood because it adds an amazing focal point for the area. Walking through here on most days you will find people talking or just relaxing in the square, and on summer weekends you can often find it full of vendors in stalls selling their wares.
The Bay Centre
I think we might be finally at a time when a large portion of the city not only doesn’t remember what it was like before the Bay Centre was built (Originally known as Victoria Eaton’s Centre), and also doesn’t remember what a huge controversy it was. For the road network it meant splitting View Street into two parts and removing north/south car access. That wasn’t even close to the most controversial part of it though, because the addition of the mall also bulldozed two full blocks of Old Town and replaced it with fake replicas of some of the buildings. In the intervening years Victorians have gotten used to the fake facades along the street and many don’t even think twice about the loss of the heritage buildings here.
Speaking specifically of Broad Street, before the mall, you could drive all the way through to City Hall, there was a pedestrian bridge above the road that connected the two former Eaton’s buildings together. Afterwards, at the points of the mall that intersected with View Street, there are now two huge pedestrian entrances. Many are not aware that there is actually a provision in the title that allows for pedestrian access through this part of the mall outside of mall hours (I think it is 7am to 7pm) though I am not sure if it is still followed by the mall. This provision was added to the title to make up for the loss of public access through here. It may be a bit of a stretch to say that the mall was a large piece of traffic calming, but certainly it was in part a little of the outcome of this massive addition to downtown Victoria.
Pioneer Square
The changes to Rockland Avenue next to Christchurch Cathedral and Pioneer Square is definitely the most recent traffic calming on this list. The original closing of the street was in 2014 as part of a trial. Due to the lack of significant concern following the trial, it was made more permanent. With the exception of the closing of Academy Close (another completely forgotten piece of traffic calming itself), it was one of the few big changes to the road network in Victoria in the first few years of the century. While the space is definitely a piece of traffic calming, I would say that it is unfortunate that the City has not put much more effort into making it seem permanent since the original project. You can almost barely tell that the pedestrian area is meant to be painted green at this point. The addition of the park benches along here are nice, but it could be so much nicer if the current roadway was actually integrated into the Pioneer Square park space. Hopefully this is something the City has on its long-term plan for the area.
Are there any other major pieces of traffic calming in Victoria that we are so used to that we really don’t see them anymore? Let me know in the comments!