"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Saturday 2 June 2012

Good M-o-r-n-i-n-g Bathurst Blasphemer

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*Bathurst Blasphemer has left a new comment on your post "Bathurst Discussion Continues":

To be brief, I have no idea how the Region would collect money either.
As to your other Where and How questions, the answers are in the Regional policy document.

Now Traffic Calming is a different situation because it is controlled by the Town.
I believe that Kennedy Street residents have requested calming measures.
Are there plans to set a policy or simply debate the need on a case by case basis?
Should we all pay or should the neighbourhood pay all or some of the cost?

Growth has its advantages but sometimes causes problems too.

GO has already announced that in the not too distant future we will have weekend train service, and eventually all day service if the demand is there.

A GO train rumbling through Aurora possibly every hour.
That should make for interesting debate about level crossings and whistles.
*************8
Thank you again for your response.Council rules don't allow in-depth  discussion.  Rules of Order were reviewed, thirty minutes were reduced to ten. Thirty were seldom used but ten  is ridiculous.
I am frequently  cut off by the Mayor before I have fully stated my position.
Last term I contended  with sneering. jeering,insufferable condescension and abuse at the hands of the Presiding member.
This term the situation is vastly improved
.It was eight months into the last term that I started the blog.
Now I  have the satisfaction of continuing to debate with whoever chooses to join.
It means people have a  new source of information. They don't have to be content with truncated Council debate on television.
They can comment. Ask questions. Share information and  gain a perspective not heretofore available.. Like yourself.
This morning I  challenge the  contention that  character and function of Bathurst Street has changed since homes were built twenty years ago.
Bathurst  was a county road before it was Regional. Distinction  from  municipal  lies in its  purpose. A regional road carries traffic from one municipality to another.
Municipal roads carry traffic within the municipality.Even they are classified. .Kennedy Street West  is an arterial collector. meaning it collects traffic from side streets. 
Provincial Highways carry traffic throughout  the Province.     
The Trans-Canada Highway traverses the nation.
Bathurst Street has always been a County road . Opening roads were the first  function of government.
It was never a local road.
Road allowances taken in the mid -seventies  at the time of paving   Bathurst.clearly delineated its  future.
The Region  has planning jurisdiction over 10, I thought it was feet but it might be metres, on either side of the road. 
They always had the jurisdiction to require developers to erect noise barriers between homes and regional roads. 
I have seen them in Woodbridge, probably thirty years ago.
I would be very surprised if the Region paid for that construction.
On the issue of trains and railway tracks  North of the north- east traffic calming imbroglio, I once stood in a field  proposed for development and wondered  who would buy a home abutting a railway track.
But they came and they did.  Later they argued there was only one train using the track at the time.and it was during the day. They didn't  realise it  would change. 
I can understand  purchasing a  first home, a  buyer, without  experience, might overlook certain possibilities and disregard others.  
I've done it. Anyone privileged to own a home has. 
I don't understand why, years down the road,  after discovering dis-advantages of the choice, that  entitles an owner to expect the problem to be solved at public expense. 
 The train whistle is a dead issue.
You now have the acoustic barrier. As I watch it grow, it seems the project must have expanded. 
The Region is two billion dollars in debt. Daily interest on the debt probably costs millions.
Constructing noise barriers after the fact sets a precedent hard to reverse
On this single observation,I would opine ( I picked that word up from a past solicitor) regional fiscal management is in the pits.
It is out of control. If it was an American bank it would fold.
Every property-owner in the Region, including residents having expensive noise barriers built at public expense, has reason to be concerned similar decisions  are being made we are not aware.

I see blue sky through the foliage on my maple tree. Maybe the week-end will be better than forecast.. 
Have a great one anyway. It will not come again.
Enjoy the rain. It's a blessing.      

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are a blessing, too, Evelyn. Enjoy the weekend.

Anonymous said...

The request for calming on Kennedy Street West is more than a bit ironic. The people who bought houses in the last phases of the last development did so because Bathurst was so convenient for them and the schools were nearby. Their numbers added to an existing small problem and turned it into a larger one. They objected because they thought Bathurst was for THEIR convenience. Turned out to be a sniper. But it isn't as though today's Bathurst was a surprise. It has been under construction for years - not a state secret.