counterproductivity of driver culture

We have a subdivision where all the names of the street are "Wascana Estate" somethingorother.  Really tough to find an address out there.  They also have brick walls with no gate - so you get the impression of a gated community without it actually being one.  Very weird.  And all the houses have the same colour palette.  Sort of a neutral/pastel/muted thing going on.  And all the houses look like people live in garages.

I remember the first "lake" subdivision they put up here in the '80s - Lakewood, they called it.  Fake lake, no trees. 

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And all the houses look like people live in garages.

Yeah, I call that design the two-car garage with attached house.

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At least "wascana" is an accurate description, though.

Yabbut, they're dog bones.

Interesting too, that most cities spend their growing time getting rid of natural waterways, then they try to recreate them with fake ponds, lagoons and fountains.

I read an article by Vince Leah about 20 years ago about all the creeks and rivers that used to flow through Winnipeg. There were over 20 of them that were big enough to be named. He mentioned Colony Creek, one of the larger ones. The former stream bed is the depression on Broadway between Great West Life and that Church across the street. At the time he wrote the article the river still flowed underground, and occasionally created seepage in the basement of Manitoba Hall at the University of Winnipeg.

Vancouver also has Brewery Creek, which is just a bunch of commemorative signs now.

al-Qa'bong wrote:

I have fun in class with these nonsense terms used to describe motorbound subdivisions.  "Harbour Landing" beats all the sylvan names we have for our concrete jungles.  We've mentioned "Stonebridge" hereabouts already.  There is no stone bridge - but there is a concrete overpass.

Langenburg, Sask. has a couple of rows of houses called "River Heights" that is at the same level as the rest of town, and is adjacent to a drainage ditch.

Self-aggrandizing, but there's at least a nod to reality - ie proximity to water...

The older areas have pretty straightforward names:  Cathedral Area ('cause there's a great big cathedral), the Crescents (because at the time they were the only non-grid neighborhood), General Hospital and Pasqua Hospital neighborhoods (next to the hospitals).  Most of the nutty naming phenom seems to have started in the late '40s and early '50s and just gotten worse over time.

Land developers get to name the streets, yes.

Some have a sense of humour, some a sense of history and others a inflated ego to judge by the street names

In Saskatoon they're building these curvy, wheelchair-ramp extensions on sidewalks at the corners of intersections.  I'm not sure of the rationale behind these things, but they stick out into the right lane of the road and create a very narrow area for bikes to pass.  They are doubly dangerous when they're covered by snow, as a cyclist can't always see them clearly.

For all the talk about making the city greener, the hot air coming from City Hall would be better expended in thawing bike lanes in winter.

Hmm except in Toronto most people live 30-50km or more from their jobs (If you live in the suburbs like etobicoke and work downtown its about 35km more or less one way). That leaves transit(if you live in toronto) or car (if you live outside toronto but need to go there) or Go train(if you are near a station or the parking is ok for you to drive there)

A GO train has just been promised for Cambridge, KItchener and Waterloo, connecting to the Big Smoke, two triips daily, each way, starting late next year.  Four trips each way sometime later....

This is progress. Unfortunately it is not emulated within Waterloo Region, where big real estate had convinced regional council that an $800 million light rail project is needed to trundle down the main streets of Kitchener and Waterloo, connecting two shopping malls.  It would, of course, attract big money for the developers of high rises appealing to the retiring Boomer bulge.  What it would NOT do is provide transportation to and from work for a workforce facing service jobs to replace the vacating industrial work.  And you can't own a car while paying the other bills on those incomes.  It was argued that that would be the only way to keep development from expanding on the fringes (while, of course, it would only be necessary for Ontario's municipalities to rise up and join Toronto's planners in calling for the abolishment of the Ontario Municipal Board).

A huge protest has gone up, aided by the fact that federal and provincial governments are suddenly not able to fulfill their financial commitments to the project, made way back in the salad days of 2007.

What is dawning on the politicians who were wined and dined by developers and their academic lackeys in planning, is that expanded bus routes and decreased intervals between buses will be the only means of serving the new local economy which, without the presence of RIM and Toyota, would look like Hamilton. My daughter wanted to bus but found the 3-hour daily commute (six kilometres)  would not work, with a youngster in school. At least, the second-hand Echo she took on was incomparably better than her earlier old timer.  Powered by "butterfly farts" , in comparison, apparently. She hopes to bus, someday.

And at the same time, the province has admitted that it must again put off the construction of a four-lane highway across farm and wetland between Kitchener and Guelph, at a  ridiculously conservative extimated cost of $400 million.  Who said there aren't any benefits to a major recession?

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

I'm not in a "small town"!!!  Gad, you mega-city-dwellers piss me off, sometimes! 

My point is that your numbers are possibly a little off, and may actually be irrelevent to most people living in this country, given that you don't acknowledge other conditions.  And given that roughly two-thirds of Canadians live in rural or smaller/medium-sized centres, you are inflexibly dismissing a rather large piece of the issue.  That's my point.

So you are calling every city in Canada except the largest three cities medium or small?  Because the numbers I've seen show that about 50% of our population live in cites over 600,000 while about a third live in the three biggest metropolitan areas. 

Your definition of medium sure looks like a large city to me but then I grew up in a mid sized city of 80,000.  I would say medium in my world might include cities like Saskatoon or Regina but not Calgary or Edmonton or Quebec City.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_urban_areas_in_Cana...

Fair point and in my world, I'm inclined to agree with you, although in comparison to the big three, medium isn't so out of line.  I'm not familiar with Quebec City, so I'm not sure about population density - however, Edmonton and Calgary, even though they are larger, have a similar density to space ratio to Regina and Saskatoon - and Calgary has very serious 'burb spread, which I'm sure is a major challenge to public transit in the outlying areas.

Still, my main point was that neither Regina nor Saskatoon qualify as "small towns" - although our little centre-of-the-fucking-universer over there seems to think they do.

Bicycle lights are indeed mandatory fore and aft in the Netherlands, but not any specific type, and now the law has been changed to accept lights on one's person rather than the bicycle itself.

I travel to Amsterdam at least once a year and have almost never seen a cyclist wearing a helmet. About the only exception was a couple of Mormon missionary types. I have seen helmets on small children being carried on parents' bikes, but it is rare - the Dutch prefer other means of ensuring child safety, especially bakfiets - cargo bicycles similar to the ones dépanneurs use here.

The safest places for cyclist have the highest modal share rates of cyclists - and the lowest rates of helmet use (I mean among everyday cyclists, not athletes).

I was in Amsterdam late February early March this year (last winter) and it was considerably colder and icier than in Montréal! Think the weird weather phenom was due to "Arctic oscillation" or something like that. We had scarcely any snow and several Western European countries got whallopped. There were fewer cyclists than usual but many still cycled - yes, major streets have dedicated bicycle lanes. But other safety factors are the fact that all Dutch schoolchildren have to take a cycling course as part of phys ed, meaning that all local drivers also know how to cycle and are attuned to it, and the strict onus law - you'd better not hit a cyclist or pedestrian (or if a cyclist, you'd better not hit a pedestrian) or you'll pay something, even if the more vulnerable road user is drunk, stoned or otherwise careless.

I'm in my mid-50s and have cycled for at least 40 years, most of the year (cycled all last winter, but weather was exceptionally mild). Never worn a helmet, never will. Always use lights after dark or in waning light. It amuses me when I see helmeted lycra types zipping along at night, completely invisible!

Amsterdam also has excellent public transport, with many, many tram lines. They also have something of a metro and are expanding it, which seems odd for a city built on water. But smaller Dutch cities - and I mean smaler than Regina or Saskatoon - even Amsterdam is not a very big city - have good public transport too. The problem isn't the size of the cities and towns; it is sprawl.

The core of Québec City (the Old City, St-Jean-Baptiste, St-Sauveur, St-Roch, and even Limoilou) is relatively dense, especially the historic city, as there were no cars and most people walked, rather than using horses or steers. Québec also had a good tram system which they are attempting to bring back now. Unfortunately, even historic cities built centuries before cars such as Qc and Halifax are now ringed with cancerous sprawl.

Unionist, I don't care what you or anyone wears, as long as you cycle, and don't tell me what or what not to wear!

All is well, but my home computer and rabble software don't get along. I constantly get logged off. Now I'm at a friend's place feeding and petting her cat + watering plants, so I'm using her computer (with her permission).

If you look at the Amsterdam video, you might be wondering why so many people ride the crappy slow old style bikes.  Well that works for commuting up to about 8 klicks each way per day. And they are pretty reliable. And a lot cheaper.

And bicycle thieves (which are a big issue) tend to not go for those bikes as much.

My first bike was like that (Max distance I did on it in a day was about 70 miles). On a better bike with the racing or touring handlebars, max went up to over 130 miles in a day.  Unfortunately, I hardly ever cycle.  Lazyness, I guess.

Very nice video.

Cycling is a great idea, but unfortunately, owning a bike either means having to spend more on a lock than you did on the bike, or else just somehow be OK with the idea that sooner or later someone is either going to steal your bike, steal your tire, steal your seat, or (I've actually seen this) steal a $4 brake cable.  If I had my bike right now, I'd be riding it.  But guess what happened to it?

We treat auto theft seriously, but I don't think we treat bike theft seriously.  If Igor Kenk had, in his possession, 3000+ stolen cars, would he already be out of jail?

Old or new upright city bicycles are not « shitty » they are well-adapted their purpose and environment. I have a Raleigh Sprite mixte from the 1970s. She is a 6-speed – we do have some hills here, but I could make do with a three-speed. Actually racing handlebars and frames, not to mention those ghastly mountain bikes, are far less adapted for urban riding, and not as safe for that purpose as upright bicycles. There is good reason the latter are making a comeback.

I am getting interested in getting a bike again.  I used to ride but when I moved to the Lower Mainland there were no bike lanes or paths to speak of and every other week a story of a cyclist being hit by a car.  

We now have extensive bike lanes and paths so I am not scared but I have back problems.  Any one know the plus and minuses on recumbent cycles?

No drop handlebars for me, especially not in city traffic. Yes, the Sprite is a fairly light bicycle for her category, and she now has much lighter wheels than she was born with. I have very good gears - 6, not five, and a super-low gear for climbing hills without hurting my arthritic knees. A high bar is also a poor choice for anyone, male or female, with that kind of joint problems. She fits me really well and doesn't give me back pain. She is an urbanite - has been to Laval, Longueuil and to both ends of Mtl Island, but she is not intended for touring.

Wouldn't those cutaway seats (with a hole where the privates are, obviously in a different place in male and female designs) also mitigate risk of prostate cancer? Though I think you are talking serious athletic use to entail such a risk, not everyday commuting.