Controversy continues to rage over a proposal to site wind turbines in Lake Ontario off the Scarborough Bluffs.
According to November 25th Toronto Star more than 1,000 people turned out for an ”information” meeting at Wilfrid Laurier School on the Guildwood Parkway last night. It is not clear whether much information was conveyed but it appears there was no shortage of opinions.
At this stage, as I understand it, Toronto Hydro Energy Services is merely asking to place a small weather station on a platform in the lake to see if wind turbines in this location would be feasible.
Meanwhile, according to the St. Thomas Times Journal, residents are unhappy about a proposed solar farm that OptiSolar Farms Canada wants to build just west of Belmont near London. When complete the project would provide 20 megawatts of electricity, enough to supply 3,000 homes.
“Already, some neighbours are grumbling about it, ” reports the paper.
OptiSolar vice-president Peter Carrie concedes is the project presents "a great challenge." No kidding!
A little closer to us in Nanticoke radiation specialist Doug Boreham has been hired by Bruce Power as “a key player” at open houses related to the proposed construction of two nuclear reactors. Open houses will be held in Simcoe, Jarvis, Port Dover and Cayuga.
The Simcoe Reformer quotes Power: "One of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome on these projects are people's fears of radiation." Indeed.
I could go on. The news is full of this stuff but, hey, I’m too busy getting my objections ready to a site plan application for the redevelopment of the Appleby Mall – a property in my back yard. There is a meeting tonight.
I’m not sure what this is all about, but it can’t be good.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Public Transit in America
Jeff Gray writes a column in the Globe and Mail called Dr. Gridlock. Yesterday(November 17th) he talked about how in several state and local referendums on November 4th Americans actually voted to increase their taxes and put money into public transit.
The data was put together by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (go to www.artba.org and click on Economics and Research).
Thirty-two (32) ballot measures in seventeen (17) states asked for new or increased taxes. Twenty five (25) of these passed. That’s a 78% success rate. Interesting, isn’t it?
I was curious so I thought I’d look at this analysis to see what was going on south of the border.
A Look at the Data
By my count there were eight local initiatives to enhance public transit at taxpayer’s expense. (Many of the others were classified as “transportation” but I just looked at those that were clearly transit related.) Five of these passed. An example: Voters in the Puget Sound Washington area gave the thumbs up to a $17.9 billion to extend regional bus and light rail service in the communities of Lakewood, Tacoma and Seattle. The vote was 59% in favour.
There were also three statewide initiatives approved. Voters in California, Hawaii and Rhode Island supported projects that will cost taxpayers billions.
Jeff Gray quotes a former Toronto head planner who thinks we need to start playing catch up in Toronto and, I think, it is fair to say right across the GTA and Hamilton.
Paul Bedford says:
“I understand the politicians don’t want to touch any of those ideas in the current economic environment. All I’ve been saying is, let’s not wait five years to start talking about it.”
It looks like average Americans are beginning to appreciate the environmental and economic imperatives that compels us to invest in public transit. I’m thinking average Canadians probably feel the same way.
.
The data was put together by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (go to www.artba.org and click on Economics and Research).
Thirty-two (32) ballot measures in seventeen (17) states asked for new or increased taxes. Twenty five (25) of these passed. That’s a 78% success rate. Interesting, isn’t it?
I was curious so I thought I’d look at this analysis to see what was going on south of the border.
A Look at the Data
By my count there were eight local initiatives to enhance public transit at taxpayer’s expense. (Many of the others were classified as “transportation” but I just looked at those that were clearly transit related.) Five of these passed. An example: Voters in the Puget Sound Washington area gave the thumbs up to a $17.9 billion to extend regional bus and light rail service in the communities of Lakewood, Tacoma and Seattle. The vote was 59% in favour.
There were also three statewide initiatives approved. Voters in California, Hawaii and Rhode Island supported projects that will cost taxpayers billions.
Jeff Gray quotes a former Toronto head planner who thinks we need to start playing catch up in Toronto and, I think, it is fair to say right across the GTA and Hamilton.
Paul Bedford says:
“I understand the politicians don’t want to touch any of those ideas in the current economic environment. All I’ve been saying is, let’s not wait five years to start talking about it.”
It looks like average Americans are beginning to appreciate the environmental and economic imperatives that compels us to invest in public transit. I’m thinking average Canadians probably feel the same way.
.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Other Places
Someone once, I’ve forgotten whom, taught me about that there are really four “R’s” in the waste management hierarchy. Refuse actually trumps the better-known actions Reduce Reuse, and Recycle.
This seems to me now as one of those things we learned in life that is actually so basic that it is hard to believe that we really need to learn it in the first place. I could be wrong.
Take civic leaders in St. John’s Newfoundland who have decided, according to Canadian Press, that there’s not enough money in the coffers to start a curbside recycling program this year.
Yes, I said start.
The capital of Canada’s most easterly province (and a “have” province to boot) does not yet have a curbside recycling program. They are hoping to get started in 2010. For his part Danny Williams’ government is aspiring to have a curbside recycling in place across Newfoundland and Labrador by 2020, the year Sarah Palin completes her second term as President of the U.S.A. After 2020 when Newfoundlanders have mastered the least desirable “R” in the hierarchy perhaps they will move on to bigger things.
Maybe we’re not doing so badly here after all.
This seems to me now as one of those things we learned in life that is actually so basic that it is hard to believe that we really need to learn it in the first place. I could be wrong.
Take civic leaders in St. John’s Newfoundland who have decided, according to Canadian Press, that there’s not enough money in the coffers to start a curbside recycling program this year.
Yes, I said start.
The capital of Canada’s most easterly province (and a “have” province to boot) does not yet have a curbside recycling program. They are hoping to get started in 2010. For his part Danny Williams’ government is aspiring to have a curbside recycling in place across Newfoundland and Labrador by 2020, the year Sarah Palin completes her second term as President of the U.S.A. After 2020 when Newfoundlanders have mastered the least desirable “R” in the hierarchy perhaps they will move on to bigger things.
Maybe we’re not doing so badly here after all.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Making Our Community a Better Place to Live
In Toronto they are addressing a serious problem through a partnership of the Toronto Police Service and Henry’s Cameras.
To help make neighbourhoods safe you can trade in your pistol, assault rifle, operational rifle or shotgun and get cameras and imaging cards valued from $250 to $360 in exchange. The program runs from October 22 – November 23rd.
I don’t suppose there are many guns to be exchanged out here in beautiful by-the-lake and the escarpment too Burlington, but we, too, have problems that need solving.
Could such a program would work here?
Maybe if:
Anyone willing to sign a pledge that they will try to think of the wider world (or even the wider town) beyond their own street will receive something appropriate.
For example, promise to stop complaining about so-called empty buses (and take a look at your own single occupant driving habits) and you’ll get a Burlington Transit bus pass good for a year.
Put an end to your constant caterwauling that traffic isn’t moving fast enough because of various city-initiated traffic calming measures and you’ll get to stop and smell the flowers with a coupon redeemable at Burlington’s popular tourist attraction, the Royal Botanical Gardens.
And a free snow shovel will be available to those who stop phoning City Hall to bellyache that the other guy’s street is always getting plowed first.
What do you think? A good concept, right? The specifics might need some work.
To help make neighbourhoods safe you can trade in your pistol, assault rifle, operational rifle or shotgun and get cameras and imaging cards valued from $250 to $360 in exchange. The program runs from October 22 – November 23rd.
I don’t suppose there are many guns to be exchanged out here in beautiful by-the-lake and the escarpment too Burlington, but we, too, have problems that need solving.
Could such a program would work here?
Maybe if:
Anyone willing to sign a pledge that they will try to think of the wider world (or even the wider town) beyond their own street will receive something appropriate.
For example, promise to stop complaining about so-called empty buses (and take a look at your own single occupant driving habits) and you’ll get a Burlington Transit bus pass good for a year.
Put an end to your constant caterwauling that traffic isn’t moving fast enough because of various city-initiated traffic calming measures and you’ll get to stop and smell the flowers with a coupon redeemable at Burlington’s popular tourist attraction, the Royal Botanical Gardens.
And a free snow shovel will be available to those who stop phoning City Hall to bellyache that the other guy’s street is always getting plowed first.
What do you think? A good concept, right? The specifics might need some work.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Blogger Returns from Leave of Absence
Whither the blogger you may have wondered?
On a self-imposed leave of absence from When The Mayor Smiles engaged in partisan political activities your blogger is now recovering from a painful excursion into big league(?) politics characterized by potty mouths, pooping puffins and seemingly non-stop polling and analysis. Happily, we return today with the objective balanced blogging for which we are known. No partisanship here.
Today we are thinking about “sustainability” - a word the late Kent Gerecke, a professor of urban planning and editor of City Magazine, once said was used so much it had ceased to have any real meaning. He wrote this nearly 20 years ago but his insight is re-confirmed most every day.
Let’s take Sustainable Halton as an example. The Province’s Places to Grow Act forces Halton’s population to nearly double in the thirty years ending in 2031.
A plan is needed and Halton bureaucrats love to plan.
Staff and consultants are now engaged in what they call community consultation. But are they really consulting?
My friend Doug Brown, an informed and indefatigable community activist attended one of these consultations – a Public Information Centre - and described the session as “a disappointment.” Staff presented six scenarios that, according to Doug, are remarkably similar. Attendees then got to pick their favourite scenario. (There is probably a reality show that uses a similar format.)
The trouble that Doug and others like BurlingtonGreen Chair Kurt Koster see
is that there is no consideration of carrying capacity in this process. What amount of growth can the lands accommodate without being irreparably harmed?
To this blogger this planned greenfield sprawl doesn’t look any different than they way we’ve always done things.
Kent Gerecke edited a book called The Canadian City (Black Rose Books). It came out in 1991. I have a well-marked copy of it. In the book different authors talk about “green” cities, sustainable development and the trend in the eighties of dropping real community participation and substituting what Gerecke called “a charade of participation.”
We haven’t learned much, have we?
Go to www.halton.ca. for lots of colourful charts and graphics and to further enhance your appreciation of what is evolving into a preferred growth option for 2009.
On a self-imposed leave of absence from When The Mayor Smiles engaged in partisan political activities your blogger is now recovering from a painful excursion into big league(?) politics characterized by potty mouths, pooping puffins and seemingly non-stop polling and analysis. Happily, we return today with the objective balanced blogging for which we are known. No partisanship here.
Today we are thinking about “sustainability” - a word the late Kent Gerecke, a professor of urban planning and editor of City Magazine, once said was used so much it had ceased to have any real meaning. He wrote this nearly 20 years ago but his insight is re-confirmed most every day.
Let’s take Sustainable Halton as an example. The Province’s Places to Grow Act forces Halton’s population to nearly double in the thirty years ending in 2031.
A plan is needed and Halton bureaucrats love to plan.
Staff and consultants are now engaged in what they call community consultation. But are they really consulting?
My friend Doug Brown, an informed and indefatigable community activist attended one of these consultations – a Public Information Centre - and described the session as “a disappointment.” Staff presented six scenarios that, according to Doug, are remarkably similar. Attendees then got to pick their favourite scenario. (There is probably a reality show that uses a similar format.)
The trouble that Doug and others like BurlingtonGreen Chair Kurt Koster see
is that there is no consideration of carrying capacity in this process. What amount of growth can the lands accommodate without being irreparably harmed?
To this blogger this planned greenfield sprawl doesn’t look any different than they way we’ve always done things.
Kent Gerecke edited a book called The Canadian City (Black Rose Books). It came out in 1991. I have a well-marked copy of it. In the book different authors talk about “green” cities, sustainable development and the trend in the eighties of dropping real community participation and substituting what Gerecke called “a charade of participation.”
We haven’t learned much, have we?
Go to www.halton.ca. for lots of colourful charts and graphics and to further enhance your appreciation of what is evolving into a preferred growth option for 2009.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Trust The People
Today is the anniversary of the death of the first mayor of Toronto.
William Lyon Mackenzie died August 28, 1861. He was 66.
Remembered as an insurgent and a bit of a nutbar he was captured in Dennis Lee’s poem 1838:
“Mackenzie was a crazy man.
He wore his wig askew.
He donned three bulky overcoats
in case the bullets flew.”
But Mackenzie fought against the Family Compact and for people’s rights to have a say in government. I’ve written before about the way Mackenzie, a journalist, worked to put information into the hands of the people. (See my blog posting on Tuesday January 2/07 or better John Sewell has written Mackenzie, A Political Biography of William Lyon Mackenzie (James Lorimer and Company, 2002)
Mackenzie believed in trusting people to make the right decisions if they were given adequate information.
Ultimately Mackenzie felt the need to take up arms – not very effectively – as we know. Lee again:
"Mackenzie talked of fighting
While the fight went down the drain.
But who will speak for Canada?
Mackenzie, come again!”
An interesting thought. If Mackenzie were to come again what would you think of the state of local democracy in Toronto?
I imagine he’d be reconvening the boys at Montgomery’s Tavern over Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone comments recorded earlier this year in the Toronto Star.
On the issue of solid waste Pantalone said:
“You need to understand issues like that. They’re very complex. It would be better that we discuss these issues in private.”
Please Mackenzie, come again.
William Lyon Mackenzie died August 28, 1861. He was 66.
Remembered as an insurgent and a bit of a nutbar he was captured in Dennis Lee’s poem 1838:
“Mackenzie was a crazy man.
He wore his wig askew.
He donned three bulky overcoats
in case the bullets flew.”
But Mackenzie fought against the Family Compact and for people’s rights to have a say in government. I’ve written before about the way Mackenzie, a journalist, worked to put information into the hands of the people. (See my blog posting on Tuesday January 2/07 or better John Sewell has written Mackenzie, A Political Biography of William Lyon Mackenzie (James Lorimer and Company, 2002)
Mackenzie believed in trusting people to make the right decisions if they were given adequate information.
Ultimately Mackenzie felt the need to take up arms – not very effectively – as we know. Lee again:
"Mackenzie talked of fighting
While the fight went down the drain.
But who will speak for Canada?
Mackenzie, come again!”
An interesting thought. If Mackenzie were to come again what would you think of the state of local democracy in Toronto?
I imagine he’d be reconvening the boys at Montgomery’s Tavern over Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone comments recorded earlier this year in the Toronto Star.
On the issue of solid waste Pantalone said:
“You need to understand issues like that. They’re very complex. It would be better that we discuss these issues in private.”
Please Mackenzie, come again.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
RATS
There are RATS in Burlington. I know that for a fact.
And they have them in Ajax too. Ajax, located east of Toronto, is a town of about 90,000 and bills itself as a vibrant and caring community.
These Ajax and Burlington RATS differ from the despised rodent (rattus norvegicus.) Have you noticed those people who get hot and bothered about public transit vehicles; those who Rail Against Public Transit? They’re RATS. Get it?
RATS in Ajax are pained over Durham Transit Route 222 according to the Toronto Star’s Urban Affairs Reporter Carola Vyhnak.
Without boring you with all the details I am struck by the similarity to RATS in our community who rail against transit services in their neighbourhoods and most particularly on their streets.
Sandra Cassidy is quoted extensively in Vyhnak’s piece and I’ll share Ms Cassidy’s insights with you. Like all RATS she knows that:
*Buses are “mostly empty.”
*Buses roaring down her street are a “safety hazard.”
*Since “everyone in the area has at least two cars” we don’t really need public buses, do we?
If you have the misfortune of living on a bus route and even in you live in “the only custom built home in a very special subdivision” you’ll need to close your windows “because of the smell and the noise.” And don’t plan on picking up home improvement ideas from the Home and Garden Network. You “can ‘t even hear the TV” on these means streets. Oh, the horror.
RATS don’t like to sound like they’re bragging but typically “have more influence than the average person.” So let’s not fret but rather rest assured that the necessary reforms will be enacted and the bus pulled off the Ms. Cassidy’s street before inflicting further pain and suffering.
OR ALTERNATIVELY
In the unlikely event that Route 222 isn’t cancelled I’m thinking we ought to create gated communities for these RATS. These gated communities could lock from the outside and the RATS could live happily ever after without having to see a smelly old bus. And I’m sure they’ll be happy to live their lives free of other government services too.
And they have them in Ajax too. Ajax, located east of Toronto, is a town of about 90,000 and bills itself as a vibrant and caring community.
These Ajax and Burlington RATS differ from the despised rodent (rattus norvegicus.) Have you noticed those people who get hot and bothered about public transit vehicles; those who Rail Against Public Transit? They’re RATS. Get it?
RATS in Ajax are pained over Durham Transit Route 222 according to the Toronto Star’s Urban Affairs Reporter Carola Vyhnak.
Without boring you with all the details I am struck by the similarity to RATS in our community who rail against transit services in their neighbourhoods and most particularly on their streets.
Sandra Cassidy is quoted extensively in Vyhnak’s piece and I’ll share Ms Cassidy’s insights with you. Like all RATS she knows that:
*Buses are “mostly empty.”
*Buses roaring down her street are a “safety hazard.”
*Since “everyone in the area has at least two cars” we don’t really need public buses, do we?
If you have the misfortune of living on a bus route and even in you live in “the only custom built home in a very special subdivision” you’ll need to close your windows “because of the smell and the noise.” And don’t plan on picking up home improvement ideas from the Home and Garden Network. You “can ‘t even hear the TV” on these means streets. Oh, the horror.
RATS don’t like to sound like they’re bragging but typically “have more influence than the average person.” So let’s not fret but rather rest assured that the necessary reforms will be enacted and the bus pulled off the Ms. Cassidy’s street before inflicting further pain and suffering.
OR ALTERNATIVELY
In the unlikely event that Route 222 isn’t cancelled I’m thinking we ought to create gated communities for these RATS. These gated communities could lock from the outside and the RATS could live happily ever after without having to see a smelly old bus. And I’m sure they’ll be happy to live their lives free of other government services too.
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