Now-closed methadone clinic in Braeside (CTV.ca)
We don’t just live in our community — we live in the whole city. Every time we take the bus, go shopping, see a movie, take the kids to their hockey game, we step out of our protected zone and wade into the dark morass of the infected, the perverse, the poor, the addicted. Them.
The Tsuu T’ina Nation have voted to reject an offer from the province to build the southwestern portion of the city’s ring road through their territory. These negotiations have been ongoing for nearly half a century, but after seemingly reaching an understanding, the members of the nation shut it down with a majority vote.
Now the city is scrambling to come up with viable alternatives that still strive to maintain automobile connectivity; many of these plans will revist the controversial idea of bridging or tunnelling under the Weaselhead Flats on the Elbow River. (Read more about possible “Plan B’s” via The Calgary Herald)
But some aren’t sure that it’s even necessary to build more roads. The following link will take you do a documentary hosted by CNN’s Miles O’Brien while he examines the way various mobility options have dictated the form of Denver, Portland, and New York. It’s an excellent film, and one that presents compelling evidence for smart growth from several different viewpoints.
Click here to watch PBS’ “Blueprint America: Road to the Future”.
Both Andrew Sedor and Derek Pomreinke presented their ideas to council on Tuesday during the Plan It Calgary hearing.
Sedor , 20, is going into his fourth year of the University of Calgary’s urban studies program, while Pomreinke, 23, has just graduated from the same program.
“I thought it was very important that people my age, and the younger generation who aren’t typically known for being very proactive in stuff like city governance, to point out that there are people from my generation that do care,” said Pomreinke.
June 25th, The Toronto’s Star:
New York and San Francisco call it Sunday Streets, and Portland residents know the concept as Sunday Parkways.
Now Vancouver is joining the growing number of North American cities declaring car-free Sundays. Its new Summer Spaces program will close off four neighbourhoods to cars to create 20 car-free routes on Sundays in July and August.
The idea of reinventing street space for pedestrians and bikes is an offshoot of the original Ciclovia, which started in Bogota, Colombia, in the 1980s.
What do you think? Could this work in Calgary? And if so, where should be implemented?
Watch the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation video about the Riverside Project
We reccomend using Mozilla Firefox, Opera or Google Chrome to watch the video properly. Alternatively, the video can be found at the CMLC website.
The letters sent in by Calgarians about Plan are now available to the public. There were 585 letters sent to the city either in support or not in support of Plan It. After reading a portion of the letters it looks like some of the main opposition to Plan It involve the River Crossings, the Airport Tunnel or people from within the development industry.
We encourage you to check out the submissions for yourself.
Public Submissions 1-26
Public Submissions 27-52
Last week, the Calgary Herald published an article regarding the difficulties which Aldermen were facing to fundraise in times of economical crisis. The article focused on Ald. Joe Connelly, who specifically addressed the Urban Development Institute for donations. It is well known that most aldermen accept donations from developers and specific-interest groups. However, limiting the funding sources to a certain lobby group while facing the Plan It Calgary Public Hearing on June 23rd rises some issues. While not being an illegal move, his financial strategy casts a shadow of suspicion on his position towards Plan It:
Will his vote be influenced by the donations received?
Should he recuse himself from the vote to avoid a conflict of interests?
Is it healthy for our City Council to accept donations from the industry?
The Connelly situation finally rises a bigger issue: aldermen funding. A funding system that accepts donations from any source, without a balanced origin and, in some cases, with dubious purposes, will keep casting doubts on the objectivity of our City Council.
Finally, a nice quote from a related article by Naheed Nenshi in the Calgary Herald:
What ruined by mood, though, was the story around Ald. Joe Connelly. As reported in the Herald over the last week, Connelly, like all aldermen (me, too, when I ran for Council in 2004), accepts donations from the development industry. Where he went further is that he asked the umbrella group for the industry–the Urban Development Institute– to advertise a fund-raising event for him.
They did so. Indeed, the head of UDI, Mike Flynn, implied that some of his members would no longer support all aldermen, as they had done in the past.
“It will definitely lead to a larger discussion down the road, whether we want to look at who’s been supportive of our positions and who hasn’t,” he said.
Guillermo Guglietti
June 18th, 2009. Byron Miller’s opinion piece at the Calgary Herald:
When it comes to planning cities, we frequently act as if the future will simply be “deja vu all over again,” to borrow a phrase from the great social analyst Yogi Berra. In many ways it would be nice if it were so. The future would be clear and we could keep doing the same old things that worked pretty well in the past.
But, as Berra also insightfully observed, “the future ain’t what it used to be.” Turn the clock back 60 years and the future was large families with lots of kids, fuelling the growth of the suburbs.
By contrast, today the average Calgary household has about two-and-a-half people and that number is dropping. Six decades ago marked the beginning of our largest demographic cohort, the baby boom generation. Now baby boomers are nearing retirement and looking to downsize their housing.
Sixty years ago we didn’t think about the environmental effects of our lifestyles. Now we know our greenhouse gas emissions threaten the integrity of the planet’s life-support systems. And sixty years ago we thought cheap fossil fuel would go on forever. Now we know expensive energy is right around the corner. No, the future is not what it used to be.
To continue reading, please click here.
Jeffrey Simpson’s editorial for the Globe and Mail.
A decision will be made in the chambers of Ottawa City Council that speaks to whether tomorrow’s city will look like yesterday’s. Cities across Canada make decisions like this all the time. Too many have made the wrong one, as Ottawa might do tomorrow.
At issue is urban sprawl, or the spreading suburbia of single-family housing.
Cities of yesterday planned for and encouraged sprawl.
Developers liked sprawl, because they made more money on single-family dwellings. Families liked sprawl, because it provided space for kids.
Municipal councils liked sprawl, because councillors believed in letting market forces prevail and market forces (developers and consumers) wanted sprawl.
The City of Calgary is facing in the next few days one of the most important decisions in the last decade: the Plan It Calgary initiative. UrbanCSA endorses the proposed transportation and development plan, regarding it an important step towards the shaping of a socially, economically and environmentally sustainable city.
We do wish, however, for our tax dollars to subsidize spaces that can accommodate a multiplicity of uses and varying densities. We want higher levels of transit service, and communities where all citizens can walk or ride to the basic services, empowering the public’s ability to subsist through sustainable means. These ideals can exist in healthy, natural environments which stimulate active communities and dynamic public spaces.
It is our opinion that Plan It can steer growth in Calgary towards meeting these objectives. It is also our belief that Plan It is being threatened by the voices of special interest groups who stand to profit from further development on the fringes of the city. These special interest groups do not have our mandate, nor do they represent our interests.
Fragment of the Official UrbanCSA Position
On June 10th, UrbanCSA presented the official endorsement for the consideration of the City Council. The letter can be found in the Opinion Section of the website.
Bicycles as viable commuting system in Copenhagen. Calgary counts with one of the most extensive recreational bike paths in North America. However, daily commuting cycling in Calgary remains an utopian ideal. Cities like Portland, Paris, Freiburg and Copenhagen, have developed dedicated infrastructure, allowing their citizens to effectively use their bicycles as their main medium of transportation.
Calgary tour de nuit Society constitutes a newly formed organization in Calgary, which focuses in getting more people cycling more often. As stated in their website:
The Calgary tour de nuit Society is employing a community-based social marketing approach for its program to develop sustainable and active transportation options in Calgary through on-street, closed-road bicycle rides that offer a glimpse of what dedicated bicycle commuting infrastructure can achieve, offering citizens real alternatives to single occupant automobile commuting.
We encourage all those interested in cycling in Calgary to visit their website and, from UrbanCSA, we extend our support to Calgary Tour de Nuit.
Guillermo Guglietti
New York City, NY – On Sunday, the Bloomberg administration put a plan, “Green Light for Midtown” into effect to reduce traffic congestion in Midtown by closing two sections of Broadway to vehicles, from 47th to 42nd Streets and 35th to 33rd Streets. The idea is to eliminate the crosscurrents Broadway traffic creates on nearby avenues.
You can read about it here as well.
The past week has been fairly eventful with regards to city council taking action (or at least postponing it only slightly) and the voices of citizens lobbying them to go further. First, a motion opposing the closure of two of Memorial Drive’s four lanes on Sundays in August was defeated. This expansion of the pedestrian realm onto our city’s riverfront parkway should provide an interesting experiment that will hopefully spur further pedestrian-friendly zones.
Also, the date for Plan It Calgary to go before council was pushed back a week to June 23. This gives all citizens of Calgary additional time to prepare to speak before council, and we encourage everybody to send in their written comments to the City Clerk’s office by 10 am on June 11 and to prepare a few words for the public hearing on the 23rd. The City Clerks office can be reached at Mail Code #8007, P.O. Box 2100, Station M, Calgary, AB T2P 2M5. We’ll keep you updated about Plan It!
One of the most driving forces in support of Plan It and a new direction for the city in general is the newly formed Civic Camp. What is it, and what is the organization’s stance on Plan It?
“Plan It Calgary,” Calgary’s new municipal development and transportation plan, has finally arrived. As most of you involved in imagineCalgary already know, PlanIt is the direct outcome of the imagineCalgary process and reflects a great many of the wishes Calgarians have expressed for our city. Foremost, PlanIt seeks to guide the growth of the city in a way that is sustainable. As infrastructure, maintenance and service costs rise, peak oil approaches, the population ages, and housing affordability becomes an ever-bigger issue, it is clear that we need to chart a new and better course for Calgary. The new municipal planning documents that will shape how the city grows for the next 50 years will go to Council for approval in late June, but that approval is not assured. Getting City Council to listen to the voices of its citizens is now more important than ever. Please consider taking part in the public discussions around PlanIt. If you would like to join a group of concerned citizens concerned with PlanIt and other civic issues, consider joining CivicCamp Calgary, a non-partisan citizens’ organization asking Council to support a more fiscally, environmentally, socially responsible city when it votes on Plan It this June.
If you still have questions or would like to get involved, check out the Civic Camp website, join the mailing list at Google Groups, or follow them on Twitter. The time for action is NOW.
I am happy to report over half of the volunteers at Gaining Ground were UrbanCSA members.
The highlight of the conference was a speech by Robert Kennedy Jr. who spoke on the Obama administration, the declining health of America lakes, rivers and streams, electric automobiles and the future of sustainability globally.
The energy in the room during the speech was incredible.
There were also great speeches by:
Peter Tertzakian Author, A Thousand Barrels a Second
Daniel Lerch Author, Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty
Michael Cleland President and CEO, Canadian Gas Association
Gary Holden President and CEO, ENMAX Corporation
and many others…
For more information on the conference see http://www.gaininggroundsummit.com/
May 5 and 6 will bring the second Gaining Ground Summit in Calgary. Those of us who have volunteered have received our work schedules, and it looks like there will be some highly interesting speakers and material for all attendees.
We’ll be sure to post a full recap of the conference as soon as we can!
The “Civic Camp” held on Saturday was an opportunity for citizens with a vested interest in a sustainable future for the city. It was a great experience overall and it looks like it could really get something started. Plus I had an excuse to use Twitter.
Check out the news coverage on CTV, and follow this link for more information on Civic Camp.
Hope everybody’s doing good on finals and projects.
A big thanks to all of you who came out on April 2 to see what Plan It has to offer Calgary! This was hands-down the biggest event put together by the UrbanCSA and the culmination of a whole bunch of hard work. It was great to see so many people showing up to see what the future of the city might hold, and also how much free pizza can be handed out at a single event. Check out some of the photos below!
Also, word on the street is that our hoodies have arrived, so be on the lookout next week. Enjoy your Easter weekend, and be sure to check your inbox to see the status of the UrbanCSA’s first year-end party.
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There have recently been some great letters in the Calgary Herald about Plan It. UrbanCSA encourages everyone to voice their opinions on this plan whether negative or positive. This is a time when your opinion can make a huge difference.
Here are some of the letters:
Guillermo Guglietti wants a say in his future.
As the president of the Urban Calgary Students Association at the University of Calgary, Guglietti said he was dismayed by the overwhelming ratio of senior citizens to youth he’s seen at open houses for Plan It Calgary, the city’s long-term urban development strategy.
“We always saw the same faces and a lot of them were in their 60s and 70s,” said Guglietti.
“But I’m 23 right now and I’ll be 83 when this finishes, so I am the one inheriting this plan.”
Urban CSA approached Plan It Calgary last week, saying city planners should garner more feedback from teens and 20-somethings, as they will be affected by the 60-year-plan for most of their lives.
“We thought, ‘Why not bring this to the youth?’ ” said Guglietti.
To continue reading click here
When city officials promote a vision of Calgary’s future and developers jeer the long-range blueprint, they often jokingly admit they probably won’t be alive long enough to see that denser city which the document envisions 60 years from now.
Twenty-something university students are more likely to survive to see that future.
At a University of Calgary campus event Thursday, dozens of them embraced Plan It’s new vision for limits to further sprawl and a quadrupling of the transit system’s service levels.
To read more click here
