JMB: More distinctive even than the 5km/hr lower posted speed limit in urban areas, snowmobile and all-terrain quads on the streets join float-planes and boats on the lakes to create an urban experience entirely unique to Yellowknife.
Moreover, the road system in Yellowknife is its greatest strength for urban design and stands to support one of the most successful urban form anywhere.
The urban network could be otherwise unremarkable for those who neither ride nor fly, with a hierarchy of roads typical of suburban cities, if it were not for the amazing choice given by lake-covered bedrock the city calls home, with ice surface in the winter and green shortcuts in the summer.
Pathways are usually a less efficient alternative to the vehicular network, but here in Yellowknife, lakes must be circumvented by roads, so lakeshore pathways in the summer, and iced lake surface in the winter, provide shortcuts for pedestrian and snowmobile alike.
Pathways are usually a less efficient alternative to the vehicular network, but here in Yellowknife, lakes must be circumvented by roads, so lakeshore pathways in the summer, and iced lake surface in the winter, provide shortcuts for pedestrian and snowmobile alike.
In Old Town, the lake is part of the network to the point where even in the summer, it is the site of houseboats that sit off the shore.
Networks and the road system are the "seams" in the "urban fabric."
Yellowknife is a much different town whether you walk, ride, boat or fly, or whether you commute. All the same, Yellowknife is a pocket size metropolis, with one - just one - of everything. A divided urban arterial links downtown to the subdivision which it bisects with the Strip. On the other side of downtown, road access into Old Town is a winding delight of narrow one-way lakeshore access, which culminates with the bridge across the peninsula at the iconic Old Float Plane base.
Yellowknife is a much different town whether you walk, ride, boat or fly, or whether you commute. All the same, Yellowknife is a pocket size metropolis, with one - just one - of everything. A divided urban arterial links downtown to the subdivision which it bisects with the Strip. On the other side of downtown, road access into Old Town is a winding delight of narrow one-way lakeshore access, which culminates with the bridge across the peninsula at the iconic Old Float Plane base.
The progression of the urban network in Yellowknife as it winds and weaves around the Lakes is perfectly suited to a well orchestrated experience of urban space. Views unfold at selected locations, while the pattern of urban districts is distinct and recognizable. The hierarchy of roads matches well both the change in urban texture and the sequencing of districts. And road design is significantly distinct to express a unique reference to each urban space.
If this really successful network were to be adequately supported with focal points and nodes, the experience of urban form in Yellowknife would be greatly enhanced to the point where blighted areas would be de-emphasized and given an incentive for revitalization.
Functional traditions in Yellowknife would also find numerous outlets as a result, through urban form, given the unique components of our northern lifestyle, the best example of which is currently the iconic buses that make the transit experience in this city.
No comments:
Post a Comment