It's easy to romanticize the oldest parts of Europe's built environment. But we all know they were built during a different time. A more fair comparison would be to look at how new neighbourhoods are being planned and constructed today.
So let's exit Vieux-Nice and venture to an entirely new community currently under construction to the north of the airport called Nice Méridia. When complete, the mixed-use community expects to welcome 5,000 residents, 5,000 students, and 5,000 jobs.
I don't know much about the surrounding area, but I do find it noteworthy that the transit infrastructure is already in place. Here's the tram line that runs on the eastern edge of the community, on its own dedicated lanes. Transit is the clear priority here.
The community itself is a mix of different street designs. Here, for example, is a narrow street where traffic is controlled by mechanical bollards. North America really needs to get with the bollard program.
Here's a pedestrian-only street that, at its narrowest, is roughly 12.5 meters. So a fairly generous mid-block space.
Here's what seems to be a fairly typical through street, which clocks in at around 19 meters from building face to building face.
20 meters is not an atypical right-of-way width. It's the dimension of most of the streets in the core of Toronto. But here, most of the space is allocated to sidewalks and green space. The space allocated to cars is roughly 6.5 meters. (I'd like to emphasize that this is a rough dimension as I was using my suitcase to pick up the endpoint of the laser.)
Finally, there's this incredible green space bisecting the entire community. I don't have any dimensions for it, but I can tell you it's a spectacular amenity. With the all-white buildings in the background, it feels a bit like Miami.
Tomorrow I'll share photos of the architecture. Stay tuned.
The Azorean adventure is over. But it wouldn't be a trip to Europe without some sort of post about street dimensions.
So here's a primary retail street in downtown Ponta Delgada — 6.7m from building face to building face, or about the size of a standard two-way drive aisle in Toronto.
And here's the narrowest street/lane that I came across on the island. I couldn't find a street name, but it did have utility meters on it, and it was about the size of a residential building corridor.
We also stumbled upon quite the street party in this same area. There's a lot happening in this photo.
I did also manage to find a memory card reader for my camera at a Continente (supermarket) along the way. So make sure you're following Globizen's Instagram page.
Regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.
If you're familiar with Toronto, you'll know that one ubiquitous feature of its urban landscape is street poles and overhead wires. They're everywhere. And even if you aren't acutely aware of their presence, they're probably impacting your experience in some way. It's one of the reasons why some streets just feel nicer than others.
As an example, here are two AI-generated images that show what the same street in Toronto might look like if you (1) removed the street poles/overhead wires, (2) added some trees, and (3) expanded the boulevard on one side. The AI images do look like AI — and that helps them appear broadly cleaner/nicer — but even still, the streetscape impact is dramatic.
As Toronto expands its Avenue network and works to rethink its Major Streets, we should also be thinking about bringing beauty and grandeur to our most important arteries. As it stands right now, many of our urban streets do not reflect the kind of global city that we have become.
Cover photo by Dmitry Gerasimenko on Unsplash