It's very easy to write a post when something gets up in my urbanist junk. I see red and the words flow. Recently I've been pretty critical of our municipal governments.
But here's the thing: by and large, and more so than most anywhere else in this province the region of Waterloo gets it so very, very right. I'm proud to live here, and it is the general positive direction we are in, and the vision this place has, that makes me happy to get involved. Because a man has hope living here.
Here's a couple of things, just from today.
The region got hammered by a ruling from the Ontario Municipal Board, the entity that former BC premier Mike Harcourt has called a "medieval abomination". The OMB has sided with developers-- who often direct much more legal resources at OMB hearings and seem to (almost) always come away with the upper hand-- against the region in its bid to limit greenfield development (i.e. sprawl.)
But the region is not going to take it lying down, and will appeal the ruling. I don't know if they'll win, but it will cast a stark light on the OMB's heavy, undemocratic hand in municipal planning. If nothing else, we'll go down fighting for principles.
Let's not forget, as quoted in the appeal article: the region of Waterloo has maybe the most aggressive growth management strategy in Ontario. It is the only municipality that is defining a countryside line to limit sprawl (and this, too, is going to be the subject of an OMB ruling.) We are blazing a trail. The Ontario "Places to Grow" act is based in no small part on the work done by local governments here in this region.
Along these very lines, today the Central Transit Corridor project presented to regional council on its draft community building strategy, apparently published just a few days ago. (I got listed as a stakeholder, thanks to one day in May I got to work with them on the Midtown vision.) It is pretty inspiring stuff, not exactly a prescriptive document but a descriptive one of where we can go from here. And it's heady stuff. The stuff cities are made of.
On a much smaller scale, today council decided to put aside the quantitative analysis by staff and support a pedestrian signal crossing at Weber and Wilhelm, where some major widening is happening and the Spur Trail will eventually intersect. The Mount Hope - Breithaupt Park neighbourhood association went to bat, and councilors took a more strategic view of the situation and almost unanimously supported aiding pedestrian movement across a widened Weber.
As a bonus to all of this, some measured progress is also being made on pedestrian infrastructure for the vision impaired.
So, let's not all be doom and gloom? I want to compliment the region for getting it right and heading in a positive direction.
Showing posts with label the record. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the record. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Just give bikes some space
On Saturday, the Record published Jeff Outhit's latest column, in which he turns a reasonable statement ("bicycles need their own space") into a wedge to argue how bikes don't belong on the road at all. It is a breathtaking exercise in short-sightedness and black-and-white thinking, and it deserves a rebuttal.
First, let's start with his stated assumptions:
If politicians wanted us to, say, wear bicycles as hats, we could chuckle and say that people will never wear bicycles as hats because they don't want to. It's a perverse and unnatural thing to do with bicycles.
This is the implication from Outhit when he creates a false dichotomy between some of the reasons people bicycle and some of the goals of government. He sets them at odds against each other to establish a position that people bicycling to work (or perish the thought, to run errands) is some sort of unnatural thing that only weirdo bicycle-hat wearers would do, as opposed to what actually happens when you build cycling infrastructure that takes people where they need to go.
I think it would be a lot more interesting to find out how many people would like to bike to work or for errands, and ask them why they don't. That may tell us something useful. But we're not actually looking for facts here, we are busy constructing pillars for Outhit's argument.
"Weather and suburban form" are trivially rebutted in one word: Minneapolis.
No, it's the last sentence that's the meat here. Some people feel unsafe cycling on busier or faster streets that are best suited for commuting and errands. ("By car" is implicit here. A sly reinforcement of that false dichotomy we just talked about.)
Because these streets are designed to be bike-unfriendly, people don't want to use them on bikes. Since they are also the roads that actually go where we need to (as opposed to the cul-de-sac mazes and the toy trails that connect to nothing) we have some people who are unwilling to take their bike for errands or commuting when they might have otherwise.
And because of this, we shouldn't bother improving those streets to be at least somewhat bicycle friendly. Because some people might actually start to bike on them, and be in danger, and lots of other people still wouldn't, or would bike on the sidewalks. So... bicycles need separate space.
I agree with the statement but not the argument. Also, once again, Outhit has taken a very narrow viewpoint that because bicycles need separate space and roads are dangerous, bikes don't need space on the road.
And this is where he's got it all wrong. Bikes need separate space, and bikes need shared space too. In fact, bikes just need space.
Firstly: if people are going to bike commute or run errands, bicycles need to be able to reach where people need to go. It's basically impossible to build a separate trail network that's as dense as our major road network in our lifetime. And we have to contend with some major barriers, like the expressway, where arterial roads are the only crossing points.
People have different comfort zones, but there are a lot of potential trips out there that could already be made mostly by trail, but aren't taken because it requires crossing a gap through some staggeringly unfriendly and dangerous terrain. Fill those gaps with something reasonable-- even if it's a "cheap fix" like a bike lane-- and these trips gradually come into more people's reach.
For example: I don't think of Fischer-Hallmann as "fun cycling", but the presence of bike lanes on it allow me to use it for a kilometre where nothing else will do. The other 90% of my route is a lot more relaxed and makes up for it. On the other hand, the expressway crossing is still a man-eater, and on its own is often enough to turn me off.
Secondly: the best thing for bicycle safety is more bicycles on the road, not less. Shown over and over again, and clearly visible in that Minneapolis link, is how more cyclists on the road decreases accident rates per cyclist. Once people get used to the presence of bicycles, they're less likely to have an accident with one.
As the number of bicycles increases, so too does the attractiveness of bicycling infrastructure as an investment. More bikes on the road will, ironically, make it easier for us to build a rich separate cycling network! And in the meantime, we get the traffic, health and environmental benefits from shifting these trips away from cars, blah blah blah, you've heard it all before.
The number one thing in the way of most potential cyclists and their destination is our roads as they are. Bicycles need separate space before we'll see Dutch cycling rates, but a prerequisite of building this in the future is for bicycles to have a rich and dense network of trails and roads now.
Even if parts of that network are just paint.
Now, let's reflect on this article and its timing. This column was the result of a horrific weekend for cyclists (pedestrians too!) locally, with a cyclist dead and another seriously hurt in separate collisions. In both incidents, the driver's actions played the main role.
Every day, in this region, people on bicycles (including myself, sometimes) have their safety threatened inadvertently, and occasionally with intent, by vehicles being driven by people who refuse to make allowances for bicycles. Despite the fact that bicycles have a right to the road in law, there is an opinion among many that these things are toys and "you're gettin' what's coming to ya" if you're hit by a car.
This is, essentially, Outhit's thesis. And in a public forum, he reinforces an attitude that we should instead work against. He has written an article on the back of a dead cyclist, in which he licenses the ongoing disdain and carelessness that costs lives.
I just hope he sets a better standard while out in his car.
First, let's start with his stated assumptions:
My sense is people ride bicycles for fun and exercise. Often they choose trails or quiet streets where they do not have to contend with traffic.
Politicians want us to use bicycles differently, to ride them to work and to run errands.Jeff is being very selective about his facts: People ride bicycles for fun and exercise, and also to get from place to place. Politicians want us to use bikes to get to work and to run errands (something called Utility Cycling) but are they really the only ones?
If politicians wanted us to, say, wear bicycles as hats, we could chuckle and say that people will never wear bicycles as hats because they don't want to. It's a perverse and unnatural thing to do with bicycles.
This is the implication from Outhit when he creates a false dichotomy between some of the reasons people bicycle and some of the goals of government. He sets them at odds against each other to establish a position that people bicycling to work (or perish the thought, to run errands) is some sort of unnatural thing that only weirdo bicycle-hat wearers would do, as opposed to what actually happens when you build cycling infrastructure that takes people where they need to go.
I think it would be a lot more interesting to find out how many people would like to bike to work or for errands, and ask them why they don't. That may tell us something useful. But we're not actually looking for facts here, we are busy constructing pillars for Outhit's argument.
I can think of several reasons why residents are unlikely to embrace this kind of cycling. Weather and suburban form work against it. Also, some people feel unsafe cycling on busier or faster streets that are best-suited for commuting and errands.
"Weather and suburban form" are trivially rebutted in one word: Minneapolis.
No, it's the last sentence that's the meat here. Some people feel unsafe cycling on busier or faster streets that are best suited for commuting and errands. ("By car" is implicit here. A sly reinforcement of that false dichotomy we just talked about.)
Because these streets are designed to be bike-unfriendly, people don't want to use them on bikes. Since they are also the roads that actually go where we need to (as opposed to the cul-de-sac mazes and the toy trails that connect to nothing) we have some people who are unwilling to take their bike for errands or commuting when they might have otherwise.
And because of this, we shouldn't bother improving those streets to be at least somewhat bicycle friendly. Because some people might actually start to bike on them, and be in danger, and lots of other people still wouldn't, or would bike on the sidewalks. So... bicycles need separate space.
I agree with the statement but not the argument. Also, once again, Outhit has taken a very narrow viewpoint that because bicycles need separate space and roads are dangerous, bikes don't need space on the road.
And this is where he's got it all wrong. Bikes need separate space, and bikes need shared space too. In fact, bikes just need space.
Firstly: if people are going to bike commute or run errands, bicycles need to be able to reach where people need to go. It's basically impossible to build a separate trail network that's as dense as our major road network in our lifetime. And we have to contend with some major barriers, like the expressway, where arterial roads are the only crossing points.
People have different comfort zones, but there are a lot of potential trips out there that could already be made mostly by trail, but aren't taken because it requires crossing a gap through some staggeringly unfriendly and dangerous terrain. Fill those gaps with something reasonable-- even if it's a "cheap fix" like a bike lane-- and these trips gradually come into more people's reach.
For example: I don't think of Fischer-Hallmann as "fun cycling", but the presence of bike lanes on it allow me to use it for a kilometre where nothing else will do. The other 90% of my route is a lot more relaxed and makes up for it. On the other hand, the expressway crossing is still a man-eater, and on its own is often enough to turn me off.
Secondly: the best thing for bicycle safety is more bicycles on the road, not less. Shown over and over again, and clearly visible in that Minneapolis link, is how more cyclists on the road decreases accident rates per cyclist. Once people get used to the presence of bicycles, they're less likely to have an accident with one.
As the number of bicycles increases, so too does the attractiveness of bicycling infrastructure as an investment. More bikes on the road will, ironically, make it easier for us to build a rich separate cycling network! And in the meantime, we get the traffic, health and environmental benefits from shifting these trips away from cars, blah blah blah, you've heard it all before.
The number one thing in the way of most potential cyclists and their destination is our roads as they are. Bicycles need separate space before we'll see Dutch cycling rates, but a prerequisite of building this in the future is for bicycles to have a rich and dense network of trails and roads now.
Even if parts of that network are just paint.
Now, let's reflect on this article and its timing. This column was the result of a horrific weekend for cyclists (pedestrians too!) locally, with a cyclist dead and another seriously hurt in separate collisions. In both incidents, the driver's actions played the main role.
Every day, in this region, people on bicycles (including myself, sometimes) have their safety threatened inadvertently, and occasionally with intent, by vehicles being driven by people who refuse to make allowances for bicycles. Despite the fact that bicycles have a right to the road in law, there is an opinion among many that these things are toys and "you're gettin' what's coming to ya" if you're hit by a car.
This is, essentially, Outhit's thesis. And in a public forum, he reinforces an attitude that we should instead work against. He has written an article on the back of a dead cyclist, in which he licenses the ongoing disdain and carelessness that costs lives.
I just hope he sets a better standard while out in his car.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Delegation afterthoughts
Prepping the delegation speech for last night didn't take a lot of time-- I write quickly and can serialize my thoughts well when I sit down and do it, thanks to years of LiveJournal use-- but it occupied a lot of my "writing energy", whatever sump from which I draw the motivation to state my opinion. So since registering as a delegate, I haven't touched this blog.
And there's a big difference between hammering out a first draft and delivering a polished final version. That part took substantially longer. I even ended up writing a second speech with a different focus, and then tossing (most) of it out when I read it through from top to bottom and realized that while on the surface it said what I wanted to, it "flickered" on its way from start to finish. Vital links were missing.
It probably didn't help that when I wrote that draft, we were on our way through a second bottle of wine. I think I found the point at which I couldn't hang a sensible argument together anymore, and the frustration sent me away for another glass and to enjoy the last light of that glorious evening to watch urban bats out on the deck with Erin.
Most challenging of all, however, was dealing with the fact that I had a tremendous amount I wanted to say, but a personal mandate here to try and deliver a message that was unique. Council would hear a reiteration of staff facts, figures and conclusions from other supporters. The disconnect, as I saw it, was between dry facts and visceral instinctive understanding. What does the effect of transit improvement on lifestyle change look like at a personal level?
And that's where I felt that I could contribute. iXpress on its own isn't going to have the broad transformative effect we need, but it has affected some, and Erin and I are among them. And that's where having an archive of six years' worth of LiveJournal was extremely helpful: I have posts written about my perspectives and experiences going through that phase of transit adoption.
Still, there were things that I had to cut out of that story. For all that iXpress serves as a proof of concept for a higher order transit line, I wanted to talk more about its limitations:
1. iXpress, as a bus service, doesn't register on our radar. It did not prevent my workplace from moving from its old location on Parkside and Weber to where it now resides out at Northfield and Bridge. (This move partly precipitated Erin and I to relocate so that I could access a different bus to reach it.)
Even though there was some transit use at the old location, our office did not deem access to iXpress to be different than access to the wandering neighbourhood slow bus that is the 35. And we gave up on what would be a fabulous location in an LRT world.
2. I no longer take iXpress, even though I could. I frequently opt for a 35 to 7 connection at Conestoga Mall but never a 35 to iXpress connection. The reason is that iXpress isn't so quick anymore, because it has tremendously long loading times around the universities. It also remains absolutely cheek-to-jowl past Grand River Hospital. I can sit safely ensconced by a window for that trip, but disembarking is a difficult and annoying and elbow-inhaling and knapsack-dodging affair.
iXpress definitely has more headroom available to it, as it is only now moving from 15 to 10 minute headways, and could reasonably double its capacity one more time. The key thing is, though, that its capacity end is already in sight-- not helpful for long term planning. And my experience would be echoed by others. A crowded bus is not a transit attractor.
I felt that these were important points to make to Council but I just couldn't make them fit without breaking the flow. So I decided to stay focused on the story of how I got to where I am, and accept that I wouldn't get to say everything I wanted. And from the commentary I've heard since, it sounds like I made a strong point. Certainly the Record borrowed from my speech this morning, and the twitter pundit feedback was very positive. Of course, with the latter comes the warning about preaching to the converted...
It was a tremendous experience, though. A decade on stage gave me the confidence and my voice, years of workplace idea evangelism gave me the words, but I was still a bundle of nerves and freezing cold from the stress response (and, as well, the overactive air conditioning) until I was done.
And then, there was beer.
And there's a big difference between hammering out a first draft and delivering a polished final version. That part took substantially longer. I even ended up writing a second speech with a different focus, and then tossing (most) of it out when I read it through from top to bottom and realized that while on the surface it said what I wanted to, it "flickered" on its way from start to finish. Vital links were missing.
It probably didn't help that when I wrote that draft, we were on our way through a second bottle of wine. I think I found the point at which I couldn't hang a sensible argument together anymore, and the frustration sent me away for another glass and to enjoy the last light of that glorious evening to watch urban bats out on the deck with Erin.
Most challenging of all, however, was dealing with the fact that I had a tremendous amount I wanted to say, but a personal mandate here to try and deliver a message that was unique. Council would hear a reiteration of staff facts, figures and conclusions from other supporters. The disconnect, as I saw it, was between dry facts and visceral instinctive understanding. What does the effect of transit improvement on lifestyle change look like at a personal level?
And that's where I felt that I could contribute. iXpress on its own isn't going to have the broad transformative effect we need, but it has affected some, and Erin and I are among them. And that's where having an archive of six years' worth of LiveJournal was extremely helpful: I have posts written about my perspectives and experiences going through that phase of transit adoption.
Still, there were things that I had to cut out of that story. For all that iXpress serves as a proof of concept for a higher order transit line, I wanted to talk more about its limitations:
1. iXpress, as a bus service, doesn't register on our radar. It did not prevent my workplace from moving from its old location on Parkside and Weber to where it now resides out at Northfield and Bridge. (This move partly precipitated Erin and I to relocate so that I could access a different bus to reach it.)
Even though there was some transit use at the old location, our office did not deem access to iXpress to be different than access to the wandering neighbourhood slow bus that is the 35. And we gave up on what would be a fabulous location in an LRT world.
2. I no longer take iXpress, even though I could. I frequently opt for a 35 to 7 connection at Conestoga Mall but never a 35 to iXpress connection. The reason is that iXpress isn't so quick anymore, because it has tremendously long loading times around the universities. It also remains absolutely cheek-to-jowl past Grand River Hospital. I can sit safely ensconced by a window for that trip, but disembarking is a difficult and annoying and elbow-inhaling and knapsack-dodging affair.
iXpress definitely has more headroom available to it, as it is only now moving from 15 to 10 minute headways, and could reasonably double its capacity one more time. The key thing is, though, that its capacity end is already in sight-- not helpful for long term planning. And my experience would be echoed by others. A crowded bus is not a transit attractor.
I felt that these were important points to make to Council but I just couldn't make them fit without breaking the flow. So I decided to stay focused on the story of how I got to where I am, and accept that I wouldn't get to say everything I wanted. And from the commentary I've heard since, it sounds like I made a strong point. Certainly the Record borrowed from my speech this morning, and the twitter pundit feedback was very positive. Of course, with the latter comes the warning about preaching to the converted...
It was a tremendous experience, though. A decade on stage gave me the confidence and my voice, years of workplace idea evangelism gave me the words, but I was still a bundle of nerves and freezing cold from the stress response (and, as well, the overactive air conditioning) until I was done.
And then, there was beer.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
LRT, polling, and false majorities
Early this morning I fired off another letter to The Record editor. It was in response to this brief letter, which claimed that the Record's opinion poll's 38% in support of LRT was a clear majority decision against it.
Given recent events, my irony meter peaked, and I wrote the following:
I got a confirmation call from the Record, so it will be up soon-- and a rare bit of extra feedback that they think I make good points. But since I've received a few requests already, I've posted the original letter contents here. It's always interesting to see the editing, and summary title, the published version receives.
Given recent events, my irony meter peaked, and I wrote the following:
When I saw the letter titled "A Majority Said No", I thought it would be about our recent election. Instead, it was a claim that the Record's poll on Rapid Transit should be interpreted as a rejection of LRT, because only 38% picked that option. And yet, more respondents picked the LRT option than any other single alternative.
It is very ironic that we have chosen a government with virtually the same level of support. Supporters of the Conservatives say this is a clear mandate, while opponents claim a majority rejected them.
In either case, the truth is somewhere in between. When presented with multiple options, people's opinions are divided. And when interpreting the results, people tend to see what they want to see.
I think we can draw one conclusion from this poll: the results are mixed enough to give our regional councilors the freedom to exercise their best judgement. It is, after all, what we elected them for: to make difficult decisions on complex issues in the best interest of our community, where a referendum would simply reveal a broad spectrum of opinion and disagreement.
I got a confirmation call from the Record, so it will be up soon-- and a rare bit of extra feedback that they think I make good points. But since I've received a few requests already, I've posted the original letter contents here. It's always interesting to see the editing, and summary title, the published version receives.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Art in the online comment forums
I made a grave error this morning...I read the comments on an online Record article. I should really know better.
I'm talking about this article: http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/506278--new-arts-leader-announced-for-waterloo-region
The article itself is great news for the arts in Waterloo Region. Any organization whose mandate seems to be attracting creative talent (and funding for said creative talent) to this area is good news in my books. And it sounds like Ms. Sinclair has the credentials to pull this off. I'm not sure how it will benefit me directly as an individual artist (I'd suggest you go read this extremely well-written article to understand what I mean...go read it, I'll wait...all done? ok...) but anything that encourages the arts as a whole in this area will certainly benefit me indirectly, both as an arts practitioner and an individual citizen. I can see that. Unlike the people in the comment thread, it would seem.
I don't mind if an individual person "doesn't care" about the arts. That's their prerogative. But I get so tired of people who use supposedly incomprehensible public statues to claim that the arts are useless and shouldn't be publicly funded.
This particular one caused a lot of controversy. It is called "Aporia" by artist Edward Zelenek and is installed outside the Kitchener courthouse on Frederick Street. Lots of people don't "get it" but personally it is one of my favourite bits of local public art. I'm sorry to hear that people don't like the fact that their tax dollars go toward things like this. It benefits me and improves my quality of life. I certainly don't begrudge them the fact that my tax dollars help to pay for many services that I don't use that might be relevant to them. Isn't that kind of what living in a community is all about? We pool our resources to create a living space that benefits all residents, not just you. Unfortunately that requires a bit of compromise, because you can't make everyone happy. If you can't get behind that, maybe you should go live in a cabin in the woods.
But, I digress. Arts! Culture! I shudder to think what a cold, dark world this would be without art. I just wish the naysayers could see it too. And in the future, I think I'm just going to stay away from the comment threads on online news articles.
Photo courtesy Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery
I'm talking about this article: http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/506278--new-arts-leader-announced-for-waterloo-region
The article itself is great news for the arts in Waterloo Region. Any organization whose mandate seems to be attracting creative talent (and funding for said creative talent) to this area is good news in my books. And it sounds like Ms. Sinclair has the credentials to pull this off. I'm not sure how it will benefit me directly as an individual artist (I'd suggest you go read this extremely well-written article to understand what I mean...go read it, I'll wait...all done? ok...) but anything that encourages the arts as a whole in this area will certainly benefit me indirectly, both as an arts practitioner and an individual citizen. I can see that. Unlike the people in the comment thread, it would seem.
I don't mind if an individual person "doesn't care" about the arts. That's their prerogative. But I get so tired of people who use supposedly incomprehensible public statues to claim that the arts are useless and shouldn't be publicly funded.
But, I digress. Arts! Culture! I shudder to think what a cold, dark world this would be without art. I just wish the naysayers could see it too. And in the future, I think I'm just going to stay away from the comment threads on online news articles.
Photo courtesy Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery
Monday, March 21, 2011
The story so far...
Erin and I have debated setting up this blog for a little while. As they have for others, recent events have prompted us to move from silent semi-apathy into a more involved, and more vocal stance.
We both have our own particular areas of interest and concern when it comes to what we want to be vocal about. There is a strong local bent to many of those topics, though, and that lets us weave with a common thread. We have some ideas of where to take this, but as always the proof will be in the pudding. For every blog with even a couple of dozen readers and regular posters, you probably need both hands to count the dead-on-the-vine abortive attempts that didn't meet up to their optimistic First Posts.
The problem with starting a blog up is that it's hard to just jump in and start blathering about the topic-du-jour in midstream, with no context. So, I'll use this post to explain my context.
Not long from now I'll have to admit that I'm no longer in my mid-thirties, and it doesn't seem like very long ago that I was engaged in the same numerological dogfight with my twenties. One thing that has come to me in the last decade is the understanding that the future really does exist: I know it does, because I'm living in it. So preparing for the next batch of future weighs more heavily on tail-end-of-mid-thirties me.
The number one issue that brought me out of my shell and prompted things like attending slightly self-conscious rallies, or writing quixotic annoying-the-pig letters to the Editor and pleas to my regional councilors, is the current debate on Rapid Transit. We can discuss the details later, because a fair percentage of the embryonic posts in my head deal with how we get around our fair Tri-Cities. But I can sum up my overall stance as follows:
1. Waterloo Region needs a Rapid Transit solution for its central corridor, and a more robust express transit network to connect that corridor to the areas surrounding it.
2. Of the options for Rapid Transit that have been presented, I am strongly supportive of the Light Rail based alternative for a number of reasons, the most compelling being the ridership projections which make Bus Rapid Transit look unsuitably short-sighted.
There's a ton more to it than that. I'm resisting the temptation to start diving down any of the rabbit holes that surround those two points like some sort of Dodgsonian minefield. Instead, a little primer on some of the other topics that have my attention as well:
So now that I've got the preamble out of the way, it's time to start making pudding!
We both have our own particular areas of interest and concern when it comes to what we want to be vocal about. There is a strong local bent to many of those topics, though, and that lets us weave with a common thread. We have some ideas of where to take this, but as always the proof will be in the pudding. For every blog with even a couple of dozen readers and regular posters, you probably need both hands to count the dead-on-the-vine abortive attempts that didn't meet up to their optimistic First Posts.
The problem with starting a blog up is that it's hard to just jump in and start blathering about the topic-du-jour in midstream, with no context. So, I'll use this post to explain my context.
Not long from now I'll have to admit that I'm no longer in my mid-thirties, and it doesn't seem like very long ago that I was engaged in the same numerological dogfight with my twenties. One thing that has come to me in the last decade is the understanding that the future really does exist: I know it does, because I'm living in it. So preparing for the next batch of future weighs more heavily on tail-end-of-mid-thirties me.
The number one issue that brought me out of my shell and prompted things like attending slightly self-conscious rallies, or writing quixotic annoying-the-pig letters to the Editor and pleas to my regional councilors, is the current debate on Rapid Transit. We can discuss the details later, because a fair percentage of the embryonic posts in my head deal with how we get around our fair Tri-Cities. But I can sum up my overall stance as follows:
1. Waterloo Region needs a Rapid Transit solution for its central corridor, and a more robust express transit network to connect that corridor to the areas surrounding it.
2. Of the options for Rapid Transit that have been presented, I am strongly supportive of the Light Rail based alternative for a number of reasons, the most compelling being the ridership projections which make Bus Rapid Transit look unsuitably short-sighted.
There's a ton more to it than that. I'm resisting the temptation to start diving down any of the rabbit holes that surround those two points like some sort of Dodgsonian minefield. Instead, a little primer on some of the other topics that have my attention as well:
- Active transportation-- primarily cycling and walking, both of which I do a lot of,
- Local economy and the high tech sector (which has buttered my bread for the last thirteen years),
- Community theatre,
- ...And whatever other shiny something prompts me to start writing of a given day.
So now that I've got the preamble out of the way, it's time to start making pudding!
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