A weblog about urbanism, technology, & culture.
The OurYXE podcast sat down and interviewed Councillor Zach Jeffries (you may know him from such roles as Campaigning for Ward 10). We had a good discussion about suburban sprawl, the North Commuter Bridge, and his lucky campaign shirt. It’s worth a listen.
Of course if you can’t get enough of Saskatoon politics and policy, you can subscribe to the OurYXE podcast via RSS, iTunes, or just stop by every Monday and see who else we have tormented (next week it is Councillor Charlie Clark).
From The StarPhoenix’s blog. A note from the giant icicle before it was torn down. Luckily Jeremy Warren was there to get the story.
You must know a few things before they hack me apart and I melt into your memories. First, stop calling me an icicle. I’m more of an ice wall, no? You’ve seen the photos by now. My elegant curves run from the top of the apartment to the ground. I hang for no one.
Second, WHY? Why must you destroy me? There are more perilous icicles hovering above Saskatoon sidewalks and apartments, and yet it’s my ice on the firing line. I blame the media spotlight. Its hot glare is not good for my kind.
One afternoon I’m at home — in my case it’s just a wall but it’s still home — and a reporter comes around, lets neighbours talk garbage about me and then publishes a story accusing me of threatening innocent citizens. Did I get an interview? I was not asked for my side of the story. I got the cold shoulder.
But that’s how we are treated, my frozen friends and I. How many of you have snapped an icicle hanging from your windows and trucks? Those are our children cut down in their prime. This is ice-ism.I am not an old soul, but my young ice age has provided some insight into this world. Stuck to the same spot for months, I can’t help but notice the best and worst of you. I watched a young couple fight on the street, a blizzard of pent up resentment blowing between them. I watched two teens rush to the aid of an old man who slipped on the icy sidewalk. A microcosm of humanity has passed before me and I came to love you. Now you’re all left cold to my pleas of mercy.
I will likely die today. Think of me when you slip on your skates. Think of me when you drop a few ice cubes in your warm cola. I did nothing wrong and I am being punished. Justice is blind and maybe that’s why she moves at a such a glacial pace.
When it came to my turn, my answer took a big picture and perhaps surprising approach, depending on your definition of urban design. In Vancouver, a city often referred to as “a city by design”, the most important urban design decision we ever made, the decision I loved most, is actually usually referred to as a transportation decision.
In 1997, the city approved its first influential Transportation Plan.
It was a game-changer for our city-making model in many ways, most notably in its decision to prioritize the ways we get around, rather than balance them. The active, healthy and green ways of getting around were ranked highest – first walking, our top priority, then biking, and then transit, in that order. The prioritization then went on to goods movement for the purposes of business support and economic development, and lastly, the private vehicle.
Vancouver still spends a considerable amount of energy trying to make driving a greener and healthier proposition, with examples from electric vehicle charging station pilot projects, to policies and zoning incentives that have contributed to our incredible growth of car-sharing. However the private vehicle remains the last priority. I always note that we are not anti-car, and we rarely ban the car, but prioritizing it last has a dramatic effect on the way we design our city.
If you’re a driver who is worried about a “war on the car”, remember this – our model of city building understands the “Law of Congestion” and proves that when you build a multimodal city, it makes getting around better and easier for every mode of transportation, including the car. It makes our city work better in every way.
This decision to prioritize rather than balance our ways of getting around has affected everything in how our city has been designed since then. It’s a huge part of the essential DNA that our city has grown from. It’s guided every decision, from thousands of physical design decisions, to our budget allocation. Has every decision followed it perfectly? No – there are many illustrations around the city where the prioritization hasn’t been perfectly reflected. However, enough decisions have reflected this prioritization to make our city design fundamentally different.
So my answer to Gordon’s question “what urban design decision do I love?” It’s our ahead-of-the-curve 1997 decision to prioritize active transport rather than trying to balance ways of getting around. A decision we reinforced and are taking further in the recent Transportation Plan Update I had the pleasure of working on.
For the record, Saskatoon has gone the opposite direction in emphasizing the car.
If you are going to be mocked, you might as well be mocked by the best. Hilary blogs OurYXE’s podcast.
Jordon starts talking about Nenshi and how he’s not afraid to take a stand and defend his causes. In case you didn’t figure it out, I think Jordon really, really likes Naheed Nenshi. If you offered Jordon the choice between being Nenshi for a day or going to any in-camera meeting of the executive committee he would have a difficult decision
The anger over snow removal has dissipated somewhat. Hilary may have the answer.
We only have a handful of letters from people about snow removal. I speak from experience, you can only stay angry for so long. Then you need to conserve energy in order to leave your house.
If you aren’t reading Hilary’s blog on Saskatoon politics, you are doing the internet all wrong.
For those of you who are tired of reading what I have written; I have put together a new medium to grow tired of; a podcast. Sean Shaw, DeeAnn Mercier and myself (along with some soon to be announced contributors) are going to talking city politics, urban planning, and other issues that affect us as a city at ouryxe.ca. We have some great guests lined up and at times it can get rather testy but a great city needs a place to debate things and talk about new ideas. This just happens to be one of them. The RSS feed is live and we hope to hear back from iTunes in a couple of days and I can post that link. The first episode can be found online here. Expect to hear our episode with Councillor Zach Jeffries to go live as soon as our iTunes page goes live.
Sean Shaw has a great post on the proposed North Commuter Bridge and the process that surrounded it.
An internet search pinpoints an announcement on March 15th by the City Administration regarding the Integrated Growth Plan – the blue print that will guide Saskatoon’s growth for the next couple of decades – and the transportation plans included within that plan (Proposed Plan, March 2012 here). An article in the Star Phoenix the following day suggests that a North bridge has been on the planning books for Saskatoon since 1999. However, as recent as 2007, official City planning documents indicate only one proposed North Bridge, the provincially driven “North Perimeter” Bridge and Highway, which was originally proposed in 2000, with no mention of a second North Bridge (2007 University Heights Sector Plan – here – compare the map on page 2 to the Commuter Bridge Map). Moreover, the Sector Plan for University Heights has not been officially changed by City Council to include the proposed “North Commuter” Bridge or it’s connecting roadways, including the proposed arterial road that will now bi-sect the ecologically sensitive Northeast Swale (according to the Sector Plan no arterial roadways are supposed to cross the swale).
The lack of any historical documentation suggests that the “North Commuter” Bridge appeared out of thin-air early last year.
While researching this file last month, I made a request to City Administration to provide any public documents that outlined the feasibility of the proposed “North Commuter” Bridge – specifically traffic impact studies, like the one conducted for the Traffic Bridge, that demonstrated the requirement for the Bridge. I was told that no such study existed. Infact, the study (Transportation Functional Planning Study) that will determine the feasibility of different river crossings and how they will impact future traffic won’t be completed until later this month.
Furthermore, its commonly held in the local engineering community that the “North Perimeter” Bridge and Highway would be a better use of public dollars, in terms of addressing traffic movement for the City as a whole (funny enough, the same was said about the South Circle Bridge, namely that the North Perimeter Bridge should have been built first).
The entire post is worth reading until you realize that Saskatoon City Council has gone ahead and spent $100 million on a bridge that is going to be about 1/2 mile from another new bridge without understanding the impact of that bridge. If anything they are doing their best to make city council spending in Regina and Markham sound reasonable.
LUNAFEST is coming to Saskatoon
Join a Saskatoon celebration of International Women’s Day at a Women’s Film Festival!
The Betty-Ann Heggie Womentorship Foundation and the Edwards School of Business are pleased to present a screening of LUNAFEST, followed by a panel discussion at the Broadway Theatre the evening of Wednesday March 6th, 2013.
LUNAFEST connects women, their stories, and their causes through film. The program of nine short films will compel discussion, make you laugh, tug at your heartstrings, and motivate you to make a difference in your community.
Come out, pick up your free popcorn, drink, and a Lunabar and watch nine short films produced by and for women. Incredibly diverse in style and content, the films are united by a common thread of storytelling. A short description of each is as follows:
- Blank Canvas by Sarah Berkovich – Going through chemotherapy, a woman turns her baldness into a blank canvas for self-expression
- Flawed by Andrea Dorfman – An animated tale about accepting yourself, flaws and all.
- Lunch Date by Sasha Collington – Getting dumped hurts, especially for a woman whose boyfriends sends his fourteen-year-old brother to break the news.
- The Bathhouse by Jisoo Kim – Escaping the streets of the modern city, a group of women are transformed by a bathhouse paradise.
- When I Grow Up by Sharon Arteaga – A mother and daughter sell tacos and dream of a better life.
- Chalk by Martina Amati – A gymnast selected for an elite training camp makes new discoveries about bodies, boys and friendship.
- Georgena Terry by Amanda Zackem – How the founder of Terry Bicycles revolutionized cycling with bike frames designed for women’s bodies.
- Self-Portrait with Cows Going Home and Other Works by Rebecca Dreyfus – A rare and soulful portrait of the ironically camera-shy Sylvia Plachy, a renowned contemporary photographer.
- Whakatiki – A Spirit Rising by Louise Leitch – A day at the river awakens the spirit of a women held captive by years of broken promises.
Panel:
Betty-Ann Heggie (moderator)
TBA (watch for announcements)Admission is $10. All proceeds will be directed to tuition fees for Proteges from the non-profit sector to attend the Betty-Ann Heggie Womentorship Program at the Edwards School of Business, with a donation also being made to LUNAFEST (The Breast Cancer Fund). Seating is limited!
- Doors open at 6:00pm
- Seating at 6:50pm
- Screening starts at 7:00pm
- Panelist discussion at 8:30pm
25 years ago the Saskatoon Blades opened Saskatchewan Place with a game against the Brandon Wheatkings. That night I got a phone call with an offer to go to the game. Later that week I watched the Canadian Olympic Hockey Team practice in anticipation of some exhibition games they played at Saskatchewan Place. It was a big deal and an amazing stadium. Over the years I have seen a bunch of concerts, hockey games, World Junior Hockey Championships, and even some curling at now Credit Union Centre. The stadium is rather sterile but it’s ours and it’s fun to go tonight with some friends to watch the Blades play the Lethbridge Hurricanes (who when they were the Calgary Wranglers, where the first WHL team I ever saw play). It should be a fun game night. Monday I have a column out about Saskatchewan Place and stadium economics today. A lot has changed although I am glad the famous Blades Pac Man logo still makes an appearance from time to time.
When staff at the 33rd Street pharmacy learned that lack of transportation hampered many of their 250 clients from seeing addictions counsellors, they approached the Saskatoon Health Region, offering to renovate and build a state-of-the-art methadone dispensing and distribution system.
“Because people have to come here to pick up their medication, the idea came up – ‘Is there any way we can help these people access services?’” Carlson said.
The health region agreed to lease the 800-square-foot clinic, which will have a counselling space, a doctor’s office and examination room, and a children’s play area.
It is expected to open around the end of April, said Tracy Muggli, director of mental health and addictions services for the health region.
I think this is a good step for the Health Region, Mayfair, and of course those that use the services.
From today’s column in The StarPhoenix
As the city prepares to develop the north downtown and aspires to make significant progress toward Mayor Don Atchison’s plan of having 15,000 people live downtown, it also has the opportunity to deal with another problem: Making Saskatoon a lot more affordable place to live.
A recent StarPhoenix story quoted lobbyist Wendell Cox of Demographia saying Saskatoon is among the least affordable cities in Canada.
This might be an expensive place to live, but I am not sure that I agree with Cox’s idea that we can sprawl until we hit mountains. Unlike Cox, I don’t lobby for the auto industry, or oppose the expansion of public transit.
His point is valid that densification of cities drives up property values and home prices. There come to be more amenities as more people move in, and people pay more to be close to the things they love. If you doubt me, check out the housing prices in Nutana near the Broadway business area. You pay more to live on or near a great street or urban village.
With a north downtown plan that will bring more people and more companies to the area, the same thing will happen to housing prices there. People will pay more to live close to work and play, and it’s already being reflected in rising prices in City Park, Caswell Hill and, more recently, Riversdale. This will only intensify when there are more people downtown. We all expect better transit, more restaurants and maybe even food trucks.
In many cities, the market dictates the most expensive kind of housing or condos that are created.
The result is that high-end condos win out, which is great for developers and owners. The wealth in the city centre also adds to the downtown street life and culture.
Where the market fails is in producing the lower-end rental suites that make a city affordable to live, and to a degree puts some downward pressure on the market. As a city grows more prosperous, these kind of bachelor and single-bedroom suites become more scarce.
The economic result is that it hurts a city’s creative and startup culture. It also hurts the very businesses that move into a downtown core because it’s hard to retain staff who can’t afford the commute. I see that when I find myself in an unaffordable city centre where there are a surprising number of “help wanted” signs, even in a poor job market.
When staff can’t easily get to their jobs, they quit when they find something closer to home. We see that happening even in Saskatoon. Why commute downtown when you can find work within walking distance?
There are ways to deal with this.
Mississauga, Ont., just built a massive and ugly affordable housing project that has created such an outcry that the city is looking at how to fix what it has done. One councillor called the project an “industrial prison.”
It’s spacious housing, but no one is ever going to want to call it a home. Like most such large-scale projects, this one won’t age well and will be part of the problem within a couple of decades.
The other approach being taken in some other cities with a dearth of affordable apartments is to start building micro apartments which cost less but are still of good quality. These are 270-to 350-square-foot suites at an affordable price. Having seen videos of a 78-square-foot apartment in Manhattan, the 270-squarefoot ones look like an expansive ranch house and are the size of many bachelor suites in Saskatoon.
While such a micro suite would be cramped to hold a decent Super Bowl party this weekend, it could provide the essentials of life at an affordable price. Half of Saskatchewan’s residents say they spend less on groceries in order to make the rent payment. This changes that.
By going small instead of low quality, micro suites provide affordable housing without competing against other types of housing, and are targeted at single people who often are overlooked.
Such housing allows artists, fledgling entrepreneurs and low-income earners a chance to live and get ahead.
If we don’t have this kind of creative housing, we risk missing out on the next wave – whether that be the arts or the birth of a new industry. Other cities have made this mistake and have paid for it.
Developing the north downtown could be as big for Saskatoon as River Landing. We all know there will be some amazing spaces built there, but let’s also hope there are some amazing and affordable spaces being built as well, even if they are on the small side.
© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix
“America has never confronted a global challenge of the type or magnitude it faces today,” concludes Doherty. “If it does not change course, the United States will be racked by violent storms — both figurative and literal — as the global order breaks down. The country cannot delay. For a few short years, it has a window in which it can choose an incredibly prosperous 21st century, but that window will close. It is time once more to lead the world through difficult change.”
The U.S.’s economic engine, foreign policy, and infrastructure are all out of date, argues Doherty, and to meet the interdependent challenges of the 21st century’s strategic landscape – inclusion, depletion, depression, and resilience – the country will need to develop a new strategy: to “lead the global transition to sustainability.”
As part of that strategy he envisions a new economic engine for the United States oriented around walkable communities, regenerative agriculture, a revolution in resource productivity, investment in regional growth, and the transition to a reduced carbon emitting energy sector. This strategy will have major implications for the country’s foreign policy and governance structures.
Some lessons for Saskatoon and Saskatchewan in there as well.
My intention was to get into work early on Friday and so I could get out in lots of time to go to the gym. I also wanted to get into my office before the plumbers came in (no heat at all in my office this week) and get some work done in some peace and quiet. The good news is that the plumbers are gone and I have a brand new cutting edge radiator. The bad news is that I still have no heat. If there is some good news is that Chris’s office has heat (according to some) but it was still colder than mine which has no heat. Then again I think we call that a lose, lose situation.
We did rearrange our office. Both Jeff and I have our office set up so we are less approachable and harder to talk to according to experts. That didn’t work out so well as we still had a plethora of staff coming in to chat. We may need to install a moat. One idea we did have was to install a Les Nessman type wall in our office. The only staff that got the WKRP reference put on up and now we have a green tape line going down the middle of my office. The bad news is that my fridge is on Jeff’s part of the office now.
As I was about to leave our two complex needs support staff wandered in as they host a coffee house on Friday nights for our clients. Since they don’t actually report to me, the conversation is always pretty stress free. Our conversation moved over the other side of the building where I decided to stay for coffee house. After we were done serving I took an hour to sit down and talk with some residents who were all loitering around. I had helped all of them over the last couple of weeks and all had made some really significant process towards housing (they all had found jobs and were working). Over the next hour we just talked about hunting, cars, guns, rural life, how to cook wild game (I am told that you cook it in bacon), and life at The Lighthouse. I was also criticized for not liking the coffee at The Lighthouse. I criticized them back for liking the coffee at The Lighthouse.
I forget sometimes how much I enjoy this part of the job. There is paperwork, reports, and plans to make but they don’t really give anything back to you. Sitting down and chilling out with some residents and listening to them is what gives back. It’s not always like this, many times there are crisis’ and problems but on a night where I just sat back and listened to some people working hard and making progress, it reminds me that we are making a difference.
