Original source: Postmedia network
A decade ago, renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl inspired community leaders from around the world with his book “Places for People”. The book’s underlying principle, which is more timely than ever, is that instead of designing cities around cars, with more roads, parking spaces and parking garages… we need to put the needs of people first. Cities for people… instead of cars. And by doing so, create a more vibrant, more livable community.
One of the few benefits of the COVID-19 crisis, is that it has forced even the most car-centric cities to redistribute space previously dominated by cars, from creating slow streets for pedestrians and cyclists to allowing restaurants and other retail operations to expand out onto the streets. From the outset of COVID-19, one of the cities leading the charge to humanize their downtowns has been Hamilton. The city approved over 100 new patios in just over a month, to has quadrupling capital investment into the city’s bike lane network and reimaging public space in order to actively provide residents (and visitors now with Phase 3 underway) with unique outdoor places to relax and hangout (while still practicing safe social distancing).
Emblematic of Hamilton’s mindset of putting people first, is the John Rebecca Park – a former 170 spot car park that now features a mix of green space, benches, tables and walkways – as well as an ice rink in the winter time. Yet another project expected to come to fruition in the coming days, is to transform the rooftop of the downtown York Boulevard parking garage into an outdoor entertainment venue.
Jason Thorne, the general manager of the City of Hamilton’s Economic Development Department says whether its allocating more space for pedestrians, creating new parks or making better use of existing infrastructure, the driving force behind these initiatives comes down to a shared desire “to create an outstanding public realm.” And he is quick to emphasize the fact that the ultimate success of all of these projects comes down to the city, community leaders, local groups and the artistic and business communities all working together.
“We see the city’s role as an enabler for these projects,” Thorne presciently observes. One example he cites is the growing number of art installations that have sprung up throughout Hamilton, from painted switchboxes, to wall murals to the commissioning of new public sculptures. A common formulae designed to fast-track these initiatives, is the city antes up 50% of the costs with private funding covering the remaining half.
Similarly, Hamilton has an incentive program in place to encourage owners of historic buildings to restore the facades of these properties to help beautify the downtown and attract more retail and business tenants.
Thorne says Hamilton’s approach in catalyzing the beautification of the city, is to treat virtually any surface, be it building facade, streetlight switch boxe or sidewalk, as “canvases’’ with which to work with. Consistent with that mindset, just this past week, the city announced a new program designed to accelerate the transformation of crosswalks throughout the city into works of art. “They’ll be designed to make the crosswalks more visible and showcase public art. But they’ll also serve as a gateway into different neighbourhoods and help to create a sense of place,” says Thorne.
As a way to encourage more residents and visitors to explore Hamilton’s art scene and abundance of nature, the popular Mountain Climber program enables bikers seeking to go from the bottom to the top of the Niagara Escarpment (which bisects the city) to hop on a bus for free. And for heartier residents and visitors, $4 million has just been allocated to create a protected cycle track that the will run up the Escarpment as well. As well, to the relief of approximately 26,000 users, the SoBike bikeshare program which Uber first launched and subsequently pulled out of, has been resurrected as well.
For many years, Hamilton’s mark of distinction was as a Rust Belt city with a downtown core in disrepair and locals fleeing to the suburbs. However now, thanks to its multi-faceted approach to transforming the face of the city, Hamilton has become a proverbial poster child for urban renewal. So much so that last year, the city hosted the CanU conference, attended by a mix of architects, planners and other occupations from across the country with the shared passion of building great communities.
What excited Thorne about hosting the conference, was “instead of putting everyone into a conference centre, we moved them around in order to showcase various venues and to give them a sense of the different things happening here. We also intentionally incorporated a lot of the arts into the conference. A number of sessions were kicked it off with such things as local musicians, dance performances and poet readings… because you really can’t talk about city building and urbanism in Hamilton, without talking about the arts. Without talking about culture. And without seeing different parts of the city.” Much of which in Thorne’s words, have become “palettes” not only for public art and placemaking, but for civic pride.
Images Credit: Jason Thorne, City of Hamilton