ScaleDown Radio, December 22, 2008
Have you ever tried to get around this city after a snowstorm? It’s not the best of times, but it gets even worse if you make the attempt ON FOOT! On todays show, we highlight the citys as well as the residents/business owners responsibilities when it comes to snow removal on the sidewalks, as well as repeating our call for a Pedestrian Charter of Rights to promote the idea of mobility without an automobile. This is a topic whose time has come.
Andrew and I also get back into the canal debate, as Dave Cooke, through Gord Henderson’s regular column, brought the idea back to the forefront in Saturdays Windsor Star. Not a big surprise, but we question the timing of such an initiative after going through the questionable history of the site and Windsor’s current economic outlook. Is this the right time to be digging ditches through our downtown? Do we honestly believe they will lure residents and businesses there? Those are the questions…
Music:
Enjoy!
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ScaleDown Radio is broadcast live every Monday from noon until 1:00 on CJAM 91.5 FM, redefining radio in Windsor and Detroit.
Tags: Alternative Transportation, Downtown, mobility, pedestrian, ScaleDown Radio
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I wish the City would create some terms on what is available, what they’re willing to offer and then create an RFP process for the downtown. Open it up to world wide competition. This would take six months to a year to complete. By the time we’re coming to when a decision is required it would most likely be early 2010. The time should be ripe then for development, as the economy (fingers crossed) will be back in a growth phase again.
…and then we would have electoral candidates scrambling to back any plan that would make them appear pro-Windsor! Brilliant!
Great program as usual guys! As a pedestrian and user of public transportation AND after twenty years of putting up with unshovelled side walks 24 and 48 hours AFTER a major snow storm, I seriously think under the Pedestrian Charter of Rights that a class action law suit under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be launched against the city of Windsor, Transit Windsor and every business and citizen that doesn’t shovel/clear pedestrian walk ways.
In this last storm, I had to use Transit Windsor and I watched in horror, seniors that are seventy plus, climb up off the bus over snow banks, then stand on top of them to climb down to unshovelled sidewalks AT BUS STOPS! As far as I am concern Transit Windsor is derelict in doing due diligence in providing a safe environment for those that are less mobile, or with disabilities or all users when using their service and putting customers in harms way! AND TRANSIT WINDSOR WONDERS WHY PEOPLE WON’T USE THEIR SERVICE! Every bus stop should be cleared the full length of a bus to allow safe use.
Talk about discrimination and the miss use of taxpayers dollars to a class of people who either by choice not to own a vehicle or by economic situations can’t afford private transportation and are taxpayers that aren’t receiving equal and fair treatment.
I call on every pedestrian, those less able to get under their own power to flood 311 with complaints and keep calling and jam the lines.
Andrew you are wrong about libraries and revenue generating. The province of Ontario about six or seven years ago, and most currently the states of Pennsylvania, Florida and several others, all did studies on the impact of public libraries on communities, states and the province. What they found was, on average for every dollar invested in public libraries, the average return for the economies of the municipality and or state or province was $7.00 of direct economic benefit!
When we came back into town this past weekend the first thing that I noticed, aside from the penchant the city has for knocking buildings down and building Big Box plazas, was the inability for the city to clear sidewalks. Coming from Charlottetown, where the right to freely commute on foot is upheld all year round, I was shocked (it has been 9 months since I was last in Windsor!) to see the snow from Walker Road piled high on the sidewalks. We walked around Walkerville and it seems that most residents in the area have taken their cues from the city when it comes to obligations to clear the sidewalks in front of their homes and businesses.
Of course, the true irony is that I came all the way from Charlottetown, PEI only to get stuck in the snow on Kildare Road
There is something seriously wrong when I can do 24 hours on the highway without an incident but can’t make it down a city street without getting hung up.
With our economy tanking into our crumbling sewers, luxury boats, personal watercraft are the first to go on the block when people have to cut back or have lost the jobs, their homes an idea of building a marina downtown is insane. Since the idea of marina was to attract boaters/tourists and their dollars from the Detroit area and Michigan, it must be reconsidered since the state of Michigan is in more dire straits economically than all of Ontario and is a national basket case of a tanking economy, with a very long road to any kind of recovery.
Oh, and for more ammunition, almost all public libraries in the United States are reporting now a very steep incline and traffic into their libraries, using everything from the internet because they can’t afford it at home, or they have lost their homes, looking for work, can’t buy their favourite DVD are now borrowing them with a vengeance, plus making use of all the programs offered by a library and all the FREE materials in the library and online!
Just in case you were wondering what a pedestrian-friendly city looks like after a heavy snowfall (remember, PEI got 12 inches) check out this link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/reinvented/3130318681/