By Toon Dreessen – Architects DCA

The built environment plays a big role in how we feel about our city. We may not realize it, but when we see beautiful buildings or bridges, let alone experience them by walking through or across them, it lifts our spirits.

Whether that’s the beautiful stonework of our heritage buildings or the shining innovations of our contemporary buildings, what we build, and how we build it, matters. In many cases, we have one chance to do a good job and leave a legacy that will last for generations.

A few years ago, construction work started on the Belfast maintenance yards for the LRT. Construction barriers on Belfast Road went up and fencing was dropped into place. When the LRT opened last summer, there was hope this would be replaced. Ugly, pre-cast, concrete barriers, which would be more at home on a highway construction site, remain in place. Cheap chain-link fences topped with barbed wire create an unwelcoming environment. What could have been a vital connection to the bike lanes on Coventry Avenue is a mess of broken or missing sidewalk and unrelieved ugliness. We went to the expense of replacing the 417 overpass and it is still too narrow for safe biking or walking. That overpass, like others nearby, is a once in a generation opportunity to improve infrastructure and, without it, access to Coventry Avenue is severely limited. A detour over the Max Keeping bridge nearby is handy if heading west, but if your destination is east, a pedestrian or cyclist is forced to take their lives in their hands.

Further east on Belfast, past more of the barbed wire-topped fence, cars park along the road in a dirt shoulder, despite a large parking lot for OC Transpo staff. It isn’t clear if these cars are here because of insufficient capacity in the parking lot, or for simple convenience. Either way, it creates a dangerous condition for all road users: the cars are very close to the road, creating a “dooring zone” for passing cyclists (Belfast is part of the City cycling route). Drivers who park have to walk on the road to get to the cheap asphalt sidewalk, often a long walk in winter as the snowplows bury this stretch of the unpaved shoulder. Cars may be parked here for hours and are often here even when the parking lot is empty.

Unloved and unlovable, this bit of infrastructure isn’t going to make or break our tourism industry. Belfast Avenue is, after all, a bit of a short cut through industrial lands connecting St. Laurent Blvd and Coventry Avenue. But it also connects the Trainyards mall, where intensification targets anticipate multi-family housing, as well as the residential communities of Eastway Gardens and the communities south of Coronation Avenue (Riverview area) with rapid transit. This street should be a vital link between General Urban and Urban Employment Areas, with a well-designed shoulder, safe road infrastructure, and a Multi-Use-Path that supports multi-modal transportation to and from rapid transit. If parking on the street is warranted, it should be metered to urge short term parking while visiting a business in the area.

The built environment needs to be uplifting. Significant funds were spent on the maintenance building offices and landscaping around the parking lot, but the rest of the infrastructure was given no thought.

Keep reading this blog on the Architects DCA website