Social semiotic analysis of Waterloo Street

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ENGL 792 Social Semiotics

April 9, 2008

The Rhythm of Streets: Design and Ideology in the City of Waterloo

The layout of streets should profess the logic of a city. Whether walking, driving,

or using public transit, streets create rhythm; intersections and street corners measure the

pulse of movement. Streets also mark the surface of a city with spatial patterns that

situate – Where am I? How do I get to where I am going? How long will it take? Finally,

city streets serve as part of the code that signifies the ideology of the people who travel

them. To serve these purposes, cities around the world have developed numerous street

layout designs: the grid for its logical simplicity and familiarity; the hub and spokes for

its aesthetic appeal and centrality, are a few examples. The grid design of New York and

the spoke design of Paris manifest the ideologies of each city: free market capitalism and

navigability of the former, and the social democracy and aesthetic openness of the later.

The grid assures in both a cognitive and abstract sense, one is able to know where 49

West 57th

Street is without being able to see it or having access to a map – knowledge of

numbers is all that is required. In a similar fashion, a street in a spoke design always

leads to a hub that serves as a common starting point with clear and open views up each

spoke street. Not as simple as a grid (after all social democracy is more complicated than

free market capitalism), but ultimately navigable. If we accept, for now this semiotic

correlation between street design and ideology, what does the psychotropic street system

of Waterloo say about the people who live and work here?



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There are traces of a grid in the city’s centre, but the streets are all named and not

numbered. The rectangles formed by the cross streets are of varying shapes resembling

the irregular tiles of a fresco with some streets running northwest and others southeast.

Even at the city centre, the heart of “uptown” Waterloo, it is impossible to find one street

that has a distinct and linear north-south or east-west orientation.

Satellite view of the streets of Waterloo (courtesy Google Earth)

The two major streets of the city have a somewhat north-south orientation, but travel east

west in places and intersect each other three times. The major east-west streets swing

violently north and south as they move away from the city centre. The major streets

resemble cooked spaghetti fallen on a floor. Side streets seem to have been designed

with the same precision. Meandering through roads that, like an intestine, would be three

to four times their length if pulled into a straight-line, traverse pockets of small streets.



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Dozens of cul de saques with enlarged turn-around sections swelling their dead-ends

emanate from the through streets.

Twisting through streets and cul de saques (Courtesy Google Earth)

The major streets resemble arteries and veins with the through streets and cul de saques

serving as capillaries. The problem with this analogy is the complete lack of a

recognizable flow. The chaotic street design of Waterloo appears to kill the rhythm of

movement within the city. Intersections and street corners appear as surprises, not

measures; they are not markers of spatial cognition. It is almost impossible to develop a

mental image of a pathway to get from here to there.

There are a number of theories as to how the street system grew to be so messy:

the collision of growth with Kitchener caused many streets to be diverted from their

initial direction; the city grew organically rather than as a planned community, buildings

and natural obstacles altered the direction of streets as they were expanded; housing

developments based on cul de saques and winding drives forced main streets to meander.



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All of these hypotheses have merit, but none provide a definitive answer. There are too

many cases of rogue streets that change direction for no perceptible reason. Decisions on

street layout were, either consciously or unconsciously, made that matched the ideology

or spirit of the city.

Driving and walking in Waterloo is akin to exploring a river. The winding nature

of the major streets, the meandering tributaries, and dead-end creeks remain semi-

mysterious to even long time residents. When one gives a taxi driver an address, the

inevitable question is “which way do you want to go?” There are usually three or four

completely equivalent ways to get from one point to another in the city of Waterloo.

Directions from a local will always include landmarks and distances: follow University

past the Tim Horton’s, make a left at the Esso station and turn right at the Sobey’s. Here

is what I think is the most effective way from my house to the University of Waterloo:

take Beechlawn a few hundred meters to Faraday – follow Faraday to where it cuts off

from the cul de saque and veer right – take Craigleigh a hundred meters or so on you left

– go around the big bend on Craigleigh and turn left on Old Post Crossing – go fifty

meters and turn right on Old Post – turn right on Westmount – turn left on University and

travel two hundred meters to the university entrance on your right. The entire trip, with

its nine part directions is less than two kilometers. There are, of course, three other ways

to get there all of the same distance. One is always searching for the ultimate route – the

best way to get somewhere. The streets of Waterloo are a constant challenge; moving

through the city is exploration.

It is this sense of exploration created by the seemingly unintelligible street design

that manifests the ideology, or sense of self of the citizens of Waterloo. The city is home



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to two universities and a college, numerous high technology companies including world

leaders such as Research in Motion, Open Text , and Sybase, as well as three

internationally renowned think tanks: The Perimeter Institute (Physics), The Institute for

Quantum Computing , and The Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Invention, innovation, and exploration have been inherent qualities of the city for almost

half a century. And all three of these characteristics are needed to navigate the streets of

Waterloo. Just as in high-level academia, and the invention and creation of technology

and software, there is no easy way to get there from here. And just as in moving about

the streets of Waterloo, new paths must be conceived and explored, some successfully

and some not.

From this perspective, the street design of Waterloo does have a rhythm; an

unmeasured rhythm that is as different from the stop and start pulses of grids and

constant circles of spokes, as jazz is from hip-hop. The twisting turning streets create the

jazz like rhythm of invention and exploration in moving through the city. Stoplights can

be avoided with a few well-chosen side streets; there is a never-ending search for the

better way. Even as the city expands and existing buildings and natural barriers no longer

force the meandering of streets, the design of roadways maintains this unmeasured

rhythm. New streets framing the new subdivisions and technology parks have traffic

circles at their intersections rather than stoplights. Traffic circles maintain movement;

there is no stoplight or sign, only a yield sign slowing traffic as it enters the circle. If

traffic lights have a metronomic effect on the rhythm of movement through a city through

measured stops and starts, a traffic circle anticipates the flow of cars and maintains

movement through a slowing of the rhythm of driving. Through the construction of



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traffic circles, the non-metronomic jazz like beats of movement that are created by the

irregular streets of the older city are preserved and renewed.

Traffic Circle located in Technology Park (Photo courtesy of Google Earth)

Grids and spokes support linear thinking. The grid of New York with its logic and

numerical precision manifest free market capitalism; the circular and open spokes of

Paris display it’s cultural aesthetic and social democracy. The seemingly nonsensical

streets of Waterloo manifest innovation and exploration. They are the pathways of lateral

thinkers, who conceive of connections between disparate entities that result in the

Blackberry, solar cars, advances in nanotechnology, and the thousands of other

discoveries, inventions and patents created and devised in the city of Waterloo over the

past half century. The connection between street design and innovative thinking does not

have to be true, in other words there is not statistical evidence of correlation. Whether



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traffic circles are the new choice of intersection because they maintain a sense of

exploration and unmeasured rhythm of movement, or because they are simply less

expensive and environmentally sustainable; they accomplish both feats. Streets are part

of the code that signifies our ideology; they create solidarity – while driving in Waterloo

can, at times be frustrating, it is never dull or monotonous and citizens never tire of

relating their experiences of better or agonizing routes. Above all, the streets of Waterloo

signify our love of exploration, innovation, and discovery.

Social semiotic analysis of Waterloo Street

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