Rethinking streetscapes after Yonge St.
Look past bollards for safe sidewalks, planners urge
MONTREAL• On Thursday, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante announced plans for a “transformation” of the main downtown drag, Ste. Catherine Street, to make it pedestrian friendly. In an architect’s drawing, smiling people enjoy a summer day, strolling the widened sidewalks as a bicycle, car and delivery truck share the roadway.
Coming just three days after the driver of a van killed 10 pedestrians along Toronto’s Yonge Street, it seemed like a picture of a world that no longer exists. Plante was asked if the project included any particular safety measures to protect pedestrians from such an attack. The answer was no.
The mayor noted that Montreal installs barriers during outdoor festivals, but an attack of the sort seen in Toronto — and before that New York, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Nice, Stockholm and Jerusalem — had not factored into the city’s Ste. Catherine Street planning.
She said she would talk to colleagues in Toronto to see what measures they are taking.
“Maybe we can learn from other cities, as well. … We want to keep the experience right. We want to make sure people feel free to go in places and walk and feel safe, and at the same time we need to keep in mind those threats,” she said.
Len Hopper, former president of the American Society of Landscape Architects and an expert in security design, said the use of vehicles as weapons has escalated in the last two years, and there are already plenty of examples of how protective measures can be incorporated without ruining a streetscape.
A quick look at the Ste. Catherine Street drawings told him it was a missed opportunity.
“It does not include enough site elements or amenities to prevent a vehicle from gaining access to the sidewalk,” he said. “Based on the recent tragic events in Toronto, New York and elsewhere, this proposal for Ste. Catherine deserves to be revisited with an eye toward increasing pedestrian security.”
In the United States, he said, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, prompted a change in mentality like the one that accompanied 1988 legislation requiring buildings to be accessible to the disabled.
Security considerations need to be part of the planning process, just as wheelchair ramps were. And designers have to account for new threats as they emerge.
“Rather than having a bomb-laden vehicle, the vehicle itself is now the threat and the weapon. We need to adapt to that and change how we address it,” he said. “My main purpose here is to try to get people to think beyond bollards and create wonderful cities and spaces where people are protected against crazy incidents.”
When an attack happens, authorities’ initial reflex is to reassure the public with visible signs of protection. Hence the concrete blocks placed near Toronto’s Air Canada Centre before Monday’s hockey game and the Jersey barriers installed around the city’s Union Station.
“It’s understandable that there has to be a short-term, immediate protection so that citizens of Toronto feel safe initially,” Hopper said. “The problem we have in this country is that temporary measures remain in place for years. That’s what you want to avoid.”
A city spokeswoman said design work had begun well before Monday on a Union Station project to enhance physical security, and interim mitigation measures that “fit in with the streetscape” were planned for installation this spring.
The city has not decided whether to keep the Jersey barriers in place until the interim measures can be installed.
Hopper, who recently took part in a panel on security design at the American Planning Association’s annual conference, said he is not aware of Canadian counterparts who focus on security questions. “You’re lucky you haven’t had to focus as much,” he said.
Earlier attention could have conceivably saved lives this week. Hopper said he was surprised to see how far the alleged driver, Alek Minassian, was able to drive along the Yonge Street sidewalk.
“I find that totally incredible, that there was no impediment that stopped him before he even finished going down one block,” he said.
With attention turned to the issue in Canada, Hopper said there are plenty of positive examples to draw on.
One of his favourites is New York’s Wall Street, fortified after 9/11. Instead of the standard pole bollard, the design incorporated slanting bronze blocks that invoke gold nuggets. They block vehicle access while doubling as a place where people can sit.
He said the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., opened in 2004, is another inspiration. Instead of bollards in an unbroken line, they are interspersed with boulders coming from tribal territories and planters containing plants of particular significance to Indigenous peoples.
Hopper called it an “interesting and attractive and exciting urban landscape that doubles as a site security design.”
On a less grand scale, Hopper cited a street in Salt Lake City where a clock, a lamppost, benches and mature trees combine to shield pedestrians from the road.
“The primary objective is to create a rich and delightful pedestrian experience, not necessarily for security,” he said, but the resulting arrangement leaves few areas where a vehicle could drive onto the sidewalk. He calls it “promoting security in a way that people don’t even realize they’re being protected.”
As an example not to be followed, he pointed to New York City’s response to a truck attack that killed eight last October.
The mayor announced that 1,500 bollards and concrete planters — which Hopper said can barely hold any soil — would be installed at key locations.
“People jump to install bollards because that’s all they know, but there are so many more options,” he said. One response has been to create stylized bollards.
“Even ones that are very nicely designed, they sort of lose their esthetic value when you see 100 or 200 of them in a row,” he said.
It is too soon to know whether Monday’s attack will prompt a change in thinking among planners in Canada. Toronto did not make available anyone from its planning department to discuss how security considerations are incorporated in the design of busy public spaces.
In an emailed statement, a city spokeswoman said “the need for security is planned and designed at a public realm level to balance security, accessibility, and comfort for residents and visitors.”
Already, the concrete barriers outside Union Station have attracted criticism. Jennifer Keesmaat, former chief planner for the city, wrote on Twitter Wednesday that the barriers were nonsense.
She said they “create the perception that our city is less safe than it was three days ago. It is not. This was not terrorism. The Monday tragedy we mourn was an unfortunate, random, criminal act.”
Richard Roark, a landscape architect in Philadelphia who appeared on the American Planning Association panel with Hopper, said it is important to keep in mind that the risk of dying in an attack like Monday’s remains incredibly low.
He questions whether the $1 billion a year the United States spends annually on bollards is a sound investment. “We may think we are winning against the terrorists, but in a way they have actually controlled and focused our behaviour, spending enormous resources that may not actually be in our best interests,” he said.
RATHER THAN HAVING A BOMB-LADEN VEHICLE, THE VEHICLE ITSELF IS NOW THE THREAT AND THE WEAPON. WE NEED TO ADAPT TO THAT AND CHANGE HOW WE ADDRESS IT. MY MAIN PURPOSE HERE IS TO TRY TO GET PEOPLE TO THINK BEYOND BOLLARDS. — LEN HOPPER