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By CouldaWouldaShoulda (anonymous) | Posted June 22, 2012 at 12:32:08
"Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars might not seem a lot, but it can sure build a lot of roads that people have been waiting for over the last fifteen years and have been neglected..."
Councillor Duvall
GIC Meeting, June 20, 2012
"We do have public transit. We do have stores just outside of the core of the city. And that option is there to use public transit. But (maybe we should ask Councillor Farr how much calls he's got for a request for a grocery store downtown... I understand the need, I want the downtown to thrive, and grow, we need that, we have to change the landscape downtown, both physically and financially, but I'm on the fence right now about this. It's a lot of money..."
Councillor Robert Pasuta
GIC Meeting, June 20, 2012
To go along with these (and yes, I am the author of this piece), was the consistent theme of 'Hey; they have a supermarket at Dundurn and one at Barton!" and the connotation that there was transit, they could get to both locations...
*still shaking my head*
I'm willing to bet that none of our councillors have ever had to shop via transit. So they -presumably-don't know what it's like to have to a) lug four bags, b) get from the store to the bus stop, c) deal with getting on, being on, getting off bus, d) walking to wherever you live. I've done this far more times then I have plunked my shopping in a car. (In fact, I've done it via transit in NYC, London and I've walked a good half-mile in Collingwood.) It is a *grind*, and I'm a sizable and fit guy, thankyouverymuch. THIS is what pissed me off enough to write both posts in the past 24 hours. Not the action to send the notion back for 'tweaking'. (God bless Councillor Farr for his humanity even in this moment on Wednesday. And no, I'm not being glib.) This 'Let them eat cake' equivalent. And I'm not speaking from the vantage point of someone who is disadvantaged, merely as someone who recognizes that within this catchment area, there *should* be a solid, primary, not-teeny-independent choice. (Sorry to all those who cobble together their eating supplies, but that's *not* how I shop and it's not going to be how people purchasing new condos, etc in a revitalized downtown core will, either. Boutiques and indies of all genres and accents are great, but I want the freedom to make the choice *I* want to make, not the one that 'conscience' says I should.)
It's not City Hall's job to provide us the basic elements of living beyond the expected infrastructure. That's up to a free market to provide in reaction to free market demands. But it *is* the role of City Hall to provide proper stewardship of neighbourhoods, to go the distance to fight for the needs of said neighbourhoods, be it some peripheral development, or our downtown core. And frankly, anyone who's participated in the mess that's been made of the downtown core going back to the late-80s, with the dearth of vision as exagerrated by being distracted by the 'coolness' of accelerating sprawl ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Our city...the *entire* city...deserves much, much better than what it's been given. And this interlude on Wednesday is proof that our 'legacy malaise' is in fine shape. Ugh.
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