The laneway attracts the attention of urban planners
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| Robson Street, Vancouver. More alley photos | |
Urban life sees the return of the back alley
BY AVI FRIEDMAN
CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
In the last 50 years, Canadians have fallen in love with the culture of big.
"I live in a small house which is attached to a big garage," one acquaintance told me when we talked about our respective homes.
Suburban streets pay homage to what Canadians are more concerned with nowadays: the happiness of their cars. Oversized streets have replaced the human scale fondly recalled in old neighbourhoods.
For many years, garage doors shoved aside the front door and the living room windows.
Builders, however, have begun to realize the bleakness such a development creates, and have started to address remedies. One tool that helps is the alleyway, an urban feature that only a few decades ago everyone believed we could do without.
Alleys or laneways were a prominent feature in Canadian neighbourhoods decades ago. They provided access to a rear stable and for deliveries and pickups to be made. Coal, firewood and milk were brought from the back. Garbage was left in the lane for collection.
From kitchen windows or a back porch parents could watch their children play. The paved surfaces also served as basketball courts, with hoops installed over garage doors.
With the introduction of power and utility lines at the rear of the house, and the elimination of home deliveries, alleys began to lose their appeal. Municipalities soon discovered money could be saved by not building or maintaining laneways. Developers liked the idea of adding the back land to the lot, making it longer. It also appealed to homebuyers who got bigger backyards.
But times are changing again. Chief among the concerns of city planners is urban sprawl and the disappearance of neighbourliness. A few years ago, they began to reconsider how we house our cars: The rear used as a place for a carport or a garage, the lane reinstated to drive a car in and out from underground or rear parking. This allows for narrower lots, with taller homes and increased densities. The width of the street front can be narrowed from 12 metres to, say, eight metres, saving on infrastructure and snow removal costs.
Another advantage lies in providing access to a unit for an aging parent who wishes to live independently. Seniors will not feel like a burden, yet they will be able to seek their children's assistance if needed. It can be a ground level unit or one built above a garage with an entry door from the lane.
In most Canadian municipalities, homeowners are not legally permitted to have a business at home. Officials fear high traffic volumes on residential streets and the overloading of already loaded utilities. Allowing the top floor of a rear structure to be used as a home office with laneway access could help ease traffic concerns.
Then there is the social value, in that children playing in the lane are likely to be safer than playing in their streets. The lanes can also provide a secondary network for bicyclists and joggers.
In recent years, we have pinpointed many of our urban and social ills. We have failed, however, to take measures to curb them. The solutions, it seems, are clearer than we think, and a few builders have begun to pay attention. We simply have to look back to the future and bring back the lane on a larger scale.
(Dr. Avi Friedman teaches architecture at McGill University and is co-author of Peeking Through the Keyhole, published by McGill-Queen's University Press. He can be reached at avifriedman@mcgill.ca)
Used without permission from The National Post