http://www.canada.co... ... 0b&k=24780Harbour front walkway plan taking shape
Ambitious plans for a new waterfront pathway will give tourists and residents alike access to Victoria's harbour
Carolyn Heiman, Times Colonist
Published: Monday, November 05, 2007
Norm Hotson was a youthful 26 years old and working for the renowned architect Arthur Erickson when he put his thumbprint on an iconic piece of Victoria's landscape.
Looking back on the Inner Harbour Causeway he designed in 1974, Hotson says he wouldn't change much about the arced pathway walked millions of times every year.
"It has worked out beautifully. I've been down there on days when there were events and it's been jammed," the Vancouver architect said, adding he likes the mix of impromptu seating and art display areas that the space also creates.
Hotson is now putting his touch on Victoria's Inner Harbour waterfront as lead architect on a project that one day will result in a seven-metre-wide multi-use pathway winding from Ogden Point to Rock Bay.
The pathway will be like Vancouver's seawall but only "in a way," says Hotson. Talk is focused on keeping the diverse flavour evident in the parts of the route now in place, such as the wooden boardwalk portion at the foot of Fisgard Street and the meandering mixed surfaces that braid in and out around Laurel Point.
Victoria Coun. Pam Madoff, the council's parks liaison, wants the resulting path to still have a sense of happenstance.
"Vancouver's walkway (along Coal Bay) is considered to be a success. But it is so overly planned that it's sterilized. ... Perhaps because of our limitations there will be more a sense of discovering and meandering to our pathway, rather than a prescriptive experience."
*snip* (2 more pages!)
I don't know why anyone would want to walk to Rock Bay but this is a cool idea nonetheless. This would really be a waterfront walkway from Rock Bay to the eastern end of the Ross Bay Cemetary, not just Ogden point. They should do the same on the other side of the harbour also. I know about the plan to extend the westsong walkway past the West Bay marina to MacAuley Pt; they should go the other way also, towards the Selkirk Trestle & beyond, maybe all the way to Gorge Park. Well if they go all the way to Gorge Park, they might as well go all the way to the Craigflower Bridge, but if they go that far out they might as well build it around Portage Inlet to the other side & end at Rock Bay!