What happens when a city council puts priorities for big box shopping centres and cars ahead of safety for pedestrians and cyclists- it’s called the South Keys Shopping Centre in Ottawa. Today’s review checks out the challenges –and bad design from a pedestrians, transit users and cyclists point if view- of this shopping centre. We can only hold our breath at what emerges at the newest shopping centre planned downtown at what undoubtedly will be called the “Lansdowne Park Shopping Centre”, big box stores and all.
Key Quotes:
“One kilometre to cross a shopping complex. Yeah, I kind of had to see this for myself.The South Keys Shopping Centre is a behemoth, no doubt. Its total area is more than 500,000 sq.-ft., or slightly greater than 11 acres” “a study out of Texas A&M found that older pedestrians and cyclists were about eight percent more likely to be injured or killed in a vehicle accident if they were moving through big box stores”
“And the best way to improve connections to the shopping centre for walkers and cyclists is to complete the Airport Parkway pedestrian bridge—a $5-million bridge that was approved by city council in 2010….Without a bridge, residents wanting to walk or bike to South Keys have followed an unmarked dirt path, darted across the busy Airport Parkway, and crossed through a tunnel beneath the CNR rail line.. the completion of the bridge's tower, north of Hunt Club Road, will be delayed until at least 2013.”
“mall access for O-Train riders. The O-Train line ends at Greenboro Station. So if a train passenger were interested in, say, checking out the new Batman film at the Cineplex Odeon at the centre's south end, they'd have to hoof it more than 1,300 steps—which is indeed about one kilometer”
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