Selina’s Perspective on Parking, Roads and the Homeless
It’s been an interesting week with lots of activities, photo ops, holiday lunches and gatherings. But two things have stood out.
On Monday, the Land Use and Economic Development Committee reviewed a request by Polygon for a parking variance. Their four story proposal fits with the higher density policies of the City Centre context. The specific request is to reduce the required 119 space for the 72 units to 98 spaces. The developers have proposed specialized bike lockers, and a designated car share parking space for a car share program. There can be tremendous anxiety about limiting the amount of space for automobiles but the truth is that if we are truly going to a) cut down on cars in city centre and b) have the densities required to support rapid transit, then we are going to have to make these tough decisions. We can’t continue to demand that we get a funtional transit system while at the same time sticking with 1950′s style policies that support moving around in a single occupancy vehicle. I think the Polygon proposal is an interesting and innovative one that we ought to support and monitor to see how the variance pays off.
And the week ended with an announcement by Federal Minister James Moore. The Federal government has committed $6 million to rehabilitate Lougheed Highway. This is a wonderful opportunity to take care of some aging infrastructure in complete disrepair.
The personal struggle that I have is that this announcement came on the heels of written notice from the Province that there are, in fact, no funds for the homeless shelter in the Tri-Cities…that perhaps there may be funding in the future. A couple of months ago Mayor Stewart and I met with Minister Coleman to see if there was any possibility of funding for the Homeless Shelter – at that time, Minister Coleman, without making any promises, said that there is a slight possibility of extra money now that building already funded projects was cheaper. I was a bit hopeful that maybe… maybe… there might be something and if not, it would be clear that our project was next.
Now, I know that these senior levels of government see that they each have different responsibilites, but there is a craziness when one level of government is pleased to rebuild a road in disrepair, but another level of government doesn’t have the money to shelter its citizens. Is it me? Does anyone else see this craziness? Is my passion colouring my perspective?
I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the attention that our major roads are getting, but there are people whose lives are at risk everyday because we have no dry, warm place for them to stay. How did we get to these priorities? What does this say about us?
hey Selina, great thoughts. It does some weird that the government can find millions, hundreds of millions for some projects, and others get a “sorry, broke.”
morningaftershow
December 7, 2009