Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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Jan Gehl presentation about urban planning in Ottawa - October 6, 2010

I am glad that NCC (finally) posted video of Gehl's talk online - it's great.

Here it is at giant NCC URL. You can also get the slides from his presentation (although you would never know this from navigating the cycling site).

Note: There's no way to make the video full-screen; I think the NCC should use a different player and put the content on YouTube or some other video site as well.

The NCC has also improved its Cycling in Canada’s Capital Region page with better links to the work it is doing, although they STILL don't link to the PDFs of cycling-presentations (including Gehl's) that they host on their own site.

Previously:

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 NCC cycling presentations - including PDF of Gehl's presentation

Saturday, October 09, 2010 Jan Gehl in Ottawa - my livetweets from the event

Labels: cycling, links to presentations, links to video, ncc, ottawa

posted by Richard at 07:55 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

NCC cycling presentations

You might think that the place to look for cycling presentations would be

http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/biking

but they're not there. Instead go to

http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/

and follow Plan->Transportation

NCC: giant ugly URL

to two slide decks:

What Makes a Bicycle-Friendly City? by Ms. Inge Molenaar, The Hague’s leading expert in cycling infrastructure. The presentation is called Cycling in The Netherlands and The Hague (PDF). From December 7, 2009

Cycling as Part of Urban Living: Public Presentation was the supposed topic of the presentation by Jan Gehl, but actually he gave a fantastic presentation about his new book, Cities for People (PDF).

I tweeted from this session, and I've asked the NCC now twice if they could post the video of Gehl online (I'm pretty sure they were recording it, I was sitting right next to the video cameras) - so far I've gotten no response.

UPDATE: These are some of the past and future cycling planning things from the NCC, Gatineau and Ottawa...

In addition to the many planned cycling projects undertaken each year by the cities and the NCC, the following initiatives will take place this fall:

• The members of the Capital Region’s delegation who attended the Velo-City Global 2010 Conference and visited cities in Europe where cycling is a dominant mode of transportation, will share what they learned, including best practices for integrating cycling facilities into urban environments. Public presentations will take place at Maison du Citoyen in Gatineau on September 21 at 7 pm and at Ottawa City Hall on September 22 at 7 pm.


• One of the world’s leading planning experts on sustainable mobility and cycling in an urban setting, Mr. Jan Gehl of Gehl Architects – Urban Quality Consultants, will speak on October 6, 2010 in a public session about his experience transforming major world cities into cycling friendly and sustainable communities.
  
• In addition, Gehl Architects – Urban Quality Consultants will conduct a workshop, lead by the NCC in collaboration with both cities, to better understand the opportunities and challenges related to integrating cycling as a sustainable mode of transportation in the downtown core of Ottawa and Gatineau.


• The group also agreed that an integrated regional cycling map will be developed incorporating on-road cycling lanes, shared-use recreational pathways and other cycling facilities such as Bike-Share stations throughout the Capital Region.

from NCC and Cities to Place Cycling at the Heart of Capital Region

Labels: cycling, links to presentations, ncc, ottawa

posted by Richard at 18:12 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Jan Gehl in Ottawa

Here's a transcript of my tweets about Jan Gehl's presentation on October 6, 2010.

Although it was promoted by the NCC as part of their bicycling planning (Cycling as Part of Urban Living: Public Presentation), he actually talked about the history of urban planning and related disciplines, and the thinking he has developed that led to his new book Cities for People (there were supposed to be copies of the book for him to sign, but they weren't there due to some snafu).

They were filming it, I hope they put it online. The NCC seems a bit social media challenged (no Twitter feed, no blog, no videos - not even a place online where you can sign up for a mailing list).

The first tweet was 6:58 PM Oct 6th, 2010 and the last one was 8:51 PM Oct 6th.
Other people tweeted as well, but they weren't using a hashtag.

Tweets from my account @rakerman:

at @MuseumOfNature for NCC Jan Gehl event. in absence of info I declare tag to be #nccgehl - good turnout.

Cities for People #nccgehl http://twitpic.com/2v8mrn

cool to see such a good turnout in #Ottawa to hear Jan Gehl speak #nccgehl

Wikipedia - Jan Gehl http://bit.ly/aTZd3j #nccgehl

Mayor of Gatineau is here #nccgehl

standing room only #nccgehl

new #NCC 50-year city vision plan will include urban mobility component #Ottawa #nccgehl

Jan Gehl talking about importance of human-scale space #nccgehl

Jan Gehl's book Cities for People http://amzn.to/bjkThO #nccgehl

"a good city is like a good party" - Jan Gehl #nccgehl

Jan Gehl is funny #nccgehl

Jan Gehl talking about his training 50 years ago - modernism - must always separate zones - cities bad #nccgehl

Jan Gehl talking about Le Corbusier #nccgehl

from very slow development concerned for people to very fast building around 1960 #nccgehl

big scale "professional" urban planners car invasion circa 1955 #nccgehl

cars arrived in cities like a tsunami circa 1955 - Jan Gehl #nccgehl

started thinking purpose of city planning was making room for cars #nccgehl

Gehl cites Jane Jacobs #nccgehl

"the Brasilia Syndrome" - city planning from 5km above the ground - technocratic #nccgehl

from the airplane Brasilia looks smashing - Jan Gehl #nccgehl

Brasilia completely ignored human scale - at human level it's "shit" - Jan Gehl (yes he said shit) #nccgehl

planners didn't help... #nccgehl

... but architects also became obsessed with form over function #nccgehl

Gehl has lots of criticism for "buildings dropped from the sky" architecture in Dubai #nccgehl

now we come to traffic planners - Jan Gehl #nccgehl - their purpose was to make cars happy

cities have traffic departments with wonderful statistics #nccgehl - cars very visible in planning process

landscape architects at least are working at eye level - but not so interested in function #nccgehl

who is left to look at the human dimension? #nccgehl

pedestrians tend to be invisible in city planning #nccgehl

Gehl flagging architectural renderings that show spaces full of happy people #nccgehl

Gehl is hilarious #nccgehl

the most important scale of all is People Scale - eye level at 5km/h #nccgehl

more and more private space lost public space #nccgehl

the number 1 attraction in cities is other people #nccgehl

Jan Gehl talking about about Copenhagenizing New York #nccgehl

300km of bicycle lanes added in New York in 2 years #nccgehl

I gave a standing ovation #nccgehl

Q about where funding came from. A bicycle infrastructure is cheap #nccgehl

Gehl talking about current cyclists in parts of North America : small percentage of cyclists high-speed cyclists on racing bikes #nccgehl

Thanks to TwapperKepper for the archive http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/nccgehl - I used Export to get the tweets into a spreadsheet so they would be in FIFO order.

Labels: books, jan gehl, ncc, ottawa, urban planning

posted by Richard at 21:29 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)