HALIFAX - About 25 people gathered in front on the Halifax Farmers' Market last Saturday to take part in Halifax's Jane's Walk. This year's walk, "Change of (s)Pace," wandered through the downtown, stopping to muse about all kinds of transformations the city is undergoing. photo by Alison Creba Hosted by Spacing Atlantic contributors, we followed the participatory principle that everyone is an authority on their community.  Anyone interested was given the opportunity to share thoughts and knowledge on their neighborhoods and city, taking up the megaphone whenever the urge arose.

A series that examines urban and architectural issues in Halifax by way of unbuilt proposals authored by different designers, this week featuring a project by graduate architect Paul Zylstra for a bus shelter at the intersection of Spring Garden Road and South Park Street. All drawings and images courtesy Paul Zylstra. Text by Dustin Valen HALIFAX - Criticism of public transit risks becoming a proverb for indignation. Notwithstanding long waits, bad moods, and iffy weather, public transit remains a necessity for many people. Languid discomforts taint our perception of public transit and sidetrack discussions about sustainability, the right to mobility, and the importance of economic diversity in our city. Not the least bit helpful is the searing objectivity that has inspired the design of our existing curbside bus shelters. More insidious than the status quo, these buildings do little to inspire the imagination and underscore the lack of value we invest in our public transit system. A more inspiring discussion surrounds a provocative first year studio project by graduate architect Paul Zylstra who, by creating a pragmatic connection between public transit and public space, transforms the humble bus shelter into an artful paradigm. A bus shelter personifies a community, signifying a place where people choose to live, work, and shop; a map of public transit across Halifax and its regional municipality reveals the densest and most frequented places in the city as well as daily routines of thousands of commuters. Although individually modest, each bus shelter is part of a vast network that is traveled in small segments by thousands of people every day — tiny outposts that safely negotiate passengers from streets to sidewalks.

HALIFAX - Wright Ave is the kind of place that makes Atlantic Canadian cities so great. An almost entirely hidden street in downtown Halifax, many people walk by it all the time and never even know it's there — a laneway-looking road leading off Morris Street full of family-sized semi-detached houses. Backing onto Fort Massey Cemetery, the houses seem as if they were all built at once. Their uniform shape and cladding, big wooden decks and similar paint jobs seem to point to the fact that some developer likely spotted this unused bit of land right smack in downtown Halifax and decided to throw up some houses.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="The three buildings that would be demolished under the Fortis proposal"][/caption] ST. JOHN'S - Newfoundland and Labrador has seen great economic benefit from offshore oil and gas developments in recent years. For the first time (since Confederation), Newfoundland is a 'have' province. With the province awash in oil money, Premier Danny Williams assures us that investments will be made with a vision for the future, and that we will come out of the oil boom stronger then ever before. In St. John's, the hub of the province's oil driven economy, the lasting legacy of oil will come from the development which occurs during the boom. Long after the jobs and prosperity brought by oil leave, the buildings they helped construct will remain. Fortis Properties, one of the largest companies in Newfoundland, has recently made a proposal for a redevelopment in downtown St. John’s. Fortis currently owns a 12-story building on the corner of Water street and Harbour drive (pictured below). The proposal includes plans to demolish the three buildings next to their exiting building to construct a 15-story tower. The proposed site for this new tower is in the closest block to the harbour, which makes many worry about its potential effect on views in the downtown, and the St. John's skyline.

HALIFAX - Who knew a plywood Oompa-loopma could cause such a stir? Since the City adopted the Temporary Sign By-law [PDF] in 2006, which placed strict regulation on street signage, sandwich boards have been an unprecedented source of contention in Halifax. Dedicated fans have rallied behind Freak Lunchbox, whose hand-painted signs are a beacon of creativity (and candy) on Barrington St — there was even a Facebook group created in defense of the candy store's then Oompa-loompa-themed sign. But beyond the Oompa-loompa hoopla lies a real debate about the control of public space in the city. Perhaps in response to this public objection, for the last three years enforcement has been purely complaint driven. But with the By-law now under review, small businesses are nervous about the impacts if the policy were to tighten up. Amendments proposed to Regional Council in November, would crank up enforcement of the By-law's complex licensing requirements for temporary signs, imposing strict — in some cases inhibiting — limitations to the size, style, and placement of the all important sandwich board.

HALIFAX - This past Saturday, the corner of Hollis and Morris was once again the city's epicenter of perverse entertainment. An impromptu post-market crowd of witnesses gathered to to watch the Victoria Apartments be demolished, one wall at a time; revealing its bright colours, arched doorways and quirky interiors one last time. Some people cheered as the bulldozer tore down the apartments, while others tried to hide their tears. Former residents pointed out their bedrooms and shared stories. Photographers had a field day. I tried to leave on three separate occasions, frozen and exhausted, but couldn't ...

HALIFAX - About one month ago, I wrote an article for the Dalhousie Gazette on the updated campus master plan [PDF], which is in the final review stages before being implemented. Dal has made some effort to get good public feedback — they've set up a blog dedicated to the plan as well as an official page on the University website — these discussions haven't gotten much press or sparked too much attention, on or off campus. This is too bad, since the plan will have a big impact not only on Dal students but the wider community. Included in the proposals are separated bike lanes, a pedestrian plaza, massive new buildings and a transit terminal on LeMarchant Street. While my article mostly focuses on the changes in store for Studley Campus, my hope is that re-positing it here will bring a little more attention and generate the much needed discussion these important plans deserve. Master plans are always exciting documents, and Dalhousie’s updated Campus Master Plan is no exception. Full of colourful diagrams, maps and tables, plans give us the rare opportunity to shape the future landscape of our communities to better reflect the goals and values we think are important. Judged from this perspective, there’s much to praise in Dal’s new plan. Students’ cries for improved active transportation and public transit infrastructure have finally been heard. The master plan proposes putting bike lanes along University Avenue and turning the now vacant corner outside the Student Union Building into a “landscaped transit terminal.”

Over the last month, Spacing Atlantic has engaged in an in-depth analysis of HRMbyDesign, the ambitious plan set fourth by the municipal government to transform the region over the next 25 years. This is the final segment in a series of weekly installments that has explored the plan's various nooks and crannies, carving out a unique and fresh perspective on the HRMbyDesign process. ________________________________________________________________________ HALIFAX - Aside from making our downtown more sustainable, economically vibrant and heritage-friendly, HRMbyDesign also intends to change the way we move. The Downtown Halifax Secondary Municipal Planning Strategy (Downtown Plan) section on transportation addresses issues such as the reorganization of downtown streets, active transportation, public transit, freight movement and parking. One of the main parts of this section is the Street Network Plan. The Street Network Plan designates primary uses for downtown streets with the goal of streamlining traffic . Under the plan, Lower Water, Hollis, Prince, Sackville, Duke and Brunswick streets are designated as higher traffic flow streets. Barrington and Spring Garden are going to be taking on a greater role for public transit, while Bedford Row, Granville, Argyle, and Market — amoung others — will take on greater roles for pedestrian and bike traffic. Motor vehicle traffic on streets that are to be primarily used for biking and walking will be discouraged by allowing only one direction of motor traffic. I like this element of the Downtown Plan. It provides a good foundation on which other improvements to downtown transportation can be made. When HRM talks about active transportation, they mean walking and biking. We took a brief look at pedestrian related improvements in the piece on HRMbyDesign and sustainability, so let’s take some time to look at cycling.