Do you know this building? I saw it when I was walking around Amsterdam, and I just had to look up the floorplan. It's an office building that they retrofited for residential. They removed the internal staircases and put them on the balconies. End result = hybrid single-loaded corridor design

Meanwhile, in every Canadian apartment building 😭

Here's one of my favorite single stair designs from Paris. 13 floors, 91 units. Since there's no internal hallway, each unit runs the length of the building allowing cross ventilation and lots of natural light.

I love @sustainabletall.bsky.social posts but am saddened that this sort of accessible, family friendly, sustainable apartment building is impossible to build in Canada. We need our codes and standards to get with it @catmckenney.bsky.social @maritstilesndp.bsky.social we need code reform 1/

I was in Montreal this weekend for the opening of their pedestrian streets. The vibe was amazing. We stopped at a patio and asked the waiter if they get more business during pedestrian days, he says "oh ya, we are way more busy, we have twice the amount of staff on hand".

The City of Ottawa posted the raw speed data from before and after Doug Ford banned speed cameras and the effect is so obvious it's not even necessary put a line marking when that happened. This chart shows the percentage of drivers going 15km/h or more over the posted limit.

Hey #ottbike I have great news: OttawaByBike.ca is now a community wiki. Yes, that's right, you can go and contribute just like for Wikipedia. Anyone can edit!

Disappointment at council today. Council just passed a motion from Councillor Menard for the Bank Street bus lane study which will restrict bus lanes even further from staff's proposed 3 hours to 2 hours. This means we will get no data about how parking affects bus flow in the area.

Thank you to everyone who came to our monthly meeting last night to work on our push for Bus Lanes on Bank Street. What a great turnout! If you haven't been, anyone is welcome to join us for our monthly meetings! You can find info for the next one on our website, strongtownsottawa.ca

Shoutout to @derricksimpson.bsky.social for hosting the monthly Ottawa Urbanism Bookclub! I definitely think that attending the book club inspired me to take my reading ambitions to the next level this year 😎

💯

Who else thinks that folks like @sjamieit.bsky.social and @pbickerton.bsky.social and everyone at @strongtownsottawa.ca should be nominated for an Order of Ottawa Award?

The 2026 Draft Budget is out. The mayor was nice enough to instruct staff to include a donation link to help crowdfund additional revenue to make up for all the efficiencies 🙃 Who's gonna pitch in with me to make sure we have funding to repair water main breaks?

We're part of a group of organizations taking part in a rally this Friday, 8:30 am, against Lansdowne 2.0. If you're against the cuts to affordable housing, the lack of public transit improvements, the huge amount of debt that will be taken on and reduce spending for other priorities, join us!

Today at the #lansdowne 2.0 discussion, Darrell Cox, the Glebe BIA representative, spoke about how they think dedicated bus lanes would be amazing for the project, and how it'd improve getting people to Lansdowne events. Glad to hear such support from the Glebe BIA on how bus lanes improve the area!

City wide graphs of the effects of ASE camera installation on the percent of high-end speeders, and general speed limit compliance. These cameras work

This pilot project for SES building design is also featured here. Others of similar configuration have been accepted in Vancouver, Edmonton and Hamilton. singlestair.ca/Office-Ou

We heard from many groups today about the Tewin development. This is unfortunately going to be a development that further entrenches us into unsustainable sprawl. Property taxes have not and will not be able to provide long-term support for these types of developments. We have decades of evidence.

Does someone know the story behind this utter failure of a protected bike lane on Coleman St in Carleton Place? How was this approved?

I head again today from Ottawa By-law, they're no longer accepting reports for illegal driveway expansions or hardscaping or front yard parking. Apparently there are only 4 officers for these zoning issues and there are far too many reports than they can keep up with. They need more resources.

Is it a crime to bike on the MUP when the parkway is open to people/closed to cars? Probably.