Greenscaping bus shelters
This article is cross-posted from guest contributor Katherine Forster’s blog ‘dandelions and concrete‘.
My friend mentioned last year that she had seen green roofs on Philadelphia’s bus stops and I just got around to find out what they were all about. Here’s more information:
“The 60 square foot bus stop green roof at 15th and Market was based off of Roofmeadow’s idea to create a prefabricated kit that can be used to install a green roof on any standard bus shelter in Philadelphia and is meant to help promote PWD’s efforts to raise awareness around urban storm water issues. Any future replications of this first design will be paid for not by the city but by funds from advertising on the side of the bus shelter where the green roof has been installed.”
Found at Inhabitat’s website: Philadelphia Gets a Bus Stop Green Roof:
“In Philadelphia alone, 52 green roofs have sprung up, totaling 10.6 acres by the count of the Water Department, which is tracking them as part of its effort to amass data on storm water.
Storm water is a historic problem for Philadelphia because most of the city’s underground pipes combine rainwater and sewage. During storms, the system becomes overwhelmed and water polluted with raw sewage and road dirt overflows into streams and basements.
“Every acre manages or eliminates roughly a million gallons of storm-water runoff a year in the city,” said Chris Crockett, acting deputy commissioner of environmental services for the Water Department.”
More info at Philly Dot Com.
Images from Inhabitat.
Fifth Annual Regina Jane’s Walk
Only three more sleeps until we host our 5th Annual Jane’s Walk in Regina! This weekend, May 4 and 5, there will be seven free walks for people to participate in – Jane’s Walk is a walking discussion where participants should feel free to get in on the discussion and make connections with neighbours across the city.
Since we started hosting Jane’s Walk five years ago, it’s been great to see the event grow and change. The level of community support for the walks in our city has always been strong which makes it easy to want to keep the flame burning. It is also a total treat each year to see what the topics will be and who will come forward to share their perspective. To celebrate our 5th year we have walks that explore everything from modernist architecture to community murals, and timely discussions about heritage, booming development, and housing in our city.
This year’s walks include:
Saturday May 4, 2013
11am: Bike Regina hosting a ride through the downtown to discuss bikability in the city
2pm: Story-teller Vincent Murphy exploring the history of the Warehouse District
3pm: Jeannie Mah returning to host her popular tour of modernist architecture in the downtown
4pm: An exploration and celebration of the Central Library by a collection of dedicated patrons including heritage architect Bernard Flaman, and writer Florence Stratton
Sunday May 5, 2013
1:30pm: Jan Morier and Jessica Hannah providing a view of community murals created by new and established artists throughout North Central
2pm: Professor Marc Spooner leading a discussion about homelessness in Regina’s downtown and Heritage neighbourhoods
4pm: Martin Gourlie leading a discussion about the opportunities and challenges inherent in one of Regina’s biggest development projects, the Regina Revitalization Initiative
You can get a list of the walks with more details here.
You can also click here to download a pdf of the walks, including their start times and locations.
Thanks again to all of our community partners!
Jane’s Walk in 2009 photo by Michael Bell
The Value of Urban Trees
This article is cross-posted from guest contributor Katherine Forster’s blog ‘dandelions and concrete‘.
The Urban Forest Stewardship Network (UFSN) is an online resource for organizations, community groups and individuals working on urban forest initiatives across Ontario. It is a platform for sharing experiences and resources, and for capacity building.
The Urban Forest Stewardship Network was initiated by LEAF (Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests) in an effort to bring together community based urban forest groups from across the province.
One of their projects is to TAG URBAN TREES to show their value to those who benefit from them. These tags can be placed on street trees and trees in parks or even on your own front lawn to display the benefits in Air Pollution Control, Water Recycling, Oxygen Generation, etc.
Image via UFSN
Friday Feature: Love letter to your city
Today’s Friday Feature is a great public art project being launched by Spacing magazine. The project invites citizens in cities across Canada to share their feelings about their city. People can tweet their thoughts to @DearCityCanada with the messages to be displayed on digital billboards in select cities …. and Regina is one of those cities! Messages from all cities will also be displayed on screens in malls across the country.
Do you love your city? Or perhaps your feelings more complex? If you can fit it in 140 characters, we want to share it with the rest of Canada on a billboard as part of a new public art project. Your voice matters. Join other urbanists in a public dialogue about the issues affecting our daily lives in the cities we inhabit.
I think it’s a fun idea that allows people to share ideas and see what people in other cities are saying. What things are important to people Halifax, Montreal, Edmonton, and Hamilton? What things do we all have in common? What is unique about each place?
So Regina – what do you think? What do we love about our city? What do we want to love about our city? The deadline for tweets is June 1, 2013.
Have a great weekend!
Photo of back alley downtown by Aaron Hase
Friday Feature: 21 Balancoires
This week on my way home on the bus, I passed through the Quartier des Spectacles in Montreal – a district featuring a number of cultural institutions and located near to the Université du Québec à Montréal. As the bus stopped, I was delighted to see (and hear) one of my favourite playful public installations back in the city for the spring!
21 Balancoires is a very fun installation by the group Daily tous les jours (we covered another one of their projects as a Friday Feature a few years ago) – it’s part street furniture and part game. The project consists of 21 swings that make music while you swing. Whimsical and lovely? Yes! What’s better? The project is meant to encourage participants to cooperate with one another. If you cooperate and communicate with your fellow swingers, new melodies emerge. In this great interview, Mouna Andraos (one of the artists) says, “To make music, you need more than one person. And to make that music evolve, you have to communicate with the other person, in one way or another!” I highly suggest reading the interview to get more info on the artists and their collaboration with a professor of animal behaviour for the project.
The design of the swings is bright and colourful and at night, the lights on the bottom of the seats create fun effects as people swing. The project has been installed in Montreal for a few summers and I can’t wait to make the treck down there (maybe this weekend) to play again!
I’d love to see a project like this installed (even temporarily) in Regina’s City Square Plaza. Something that would provide a passive and fun activity for passersby (seriously who doesn’t like to sit and swing for awhile?) and add a sense of play and joy to such a key central space in the downtown.
Have a great weekend!
** Photos and video via Daily tous les jours
RUE collaboration with Bike Regina
Hey RUE readers – long time no blog!
School has been very busy over the last year finishing papers and wrapping up my final graduate project. As school winds down I’m looking forward to graduation and seeing what the future will bring… and hopefully a bit more time spent here.
But don’t think that because you’ve heard crickets on the site that we at RUE haven’t been hard at work – we’ve been actively working on developing a project in partnership with Bike Regina. After creating the Regina Cycles crowdsourcing map (now co-edited with Bike Regina members), we started looking for more opportunities to connect. It took a little bit of time to sort out the details, but Bike Regina and RUE are currently collaborating to get these great bicyclist’s accident report cards created and distributed in the Queen City.
The cards were the brainchild of Boston lawyer, Josh Zisson, who specializes in bike law and created the site Bike Safe Boston. He developed these great cards for cyclists to report if they are in an accident or close call. In addition to simple graphics and info on basic cycling laws (tailored to each city), the cards provide a place for cyclists to note important information (date, time, driver’s information, licence plate numbers, etc.)… largely the same info you would take note of if you were in a vehicular accident. Here is a great article about the cards and Josh at Fast Company.
We’re very excited to be working with Bike Regina on this initiative. They are a great group and we are excited to see that they are building their membership and gaining visibility in Regina. We hope to have the cards printed and distributed in the next few months.
** Our sincere condolences go to all those affected by the bombing in Boston yesterday. Josh from Bike Safe Boston shares his thoughts here. Stay safe.
Transit Changes
A Bus
There are changes happening to the Regina transit’s route system. There will be five public meetings for the Transit Route Review if you want to share your thoughts or ask questions about the transit changes.
Wednesday, January 30, 3 to 8pm at the Cornwall Centre
Thursday, January 31, 3 to 8pm at the Northgate Mall
Saturday, February 2, 11am to 3pm at the Victoria Square Mall
Monday, February 4, 5:30 to 8pm at the Albert Scott Community Centre
Tuesday, February 5, 10am to 2pm at the U of R Riddell Centre
