Concerns on cycling

What a packed month for activities at London City Hall!  Monday saw the approval to exempt Rockin' New Year's Eve from the fine for exceeding the maximum noise level, and Tuesday's decision to continue the study for the Blackfriars-Petersville heritage conservation district met (mostly) happy agreement.

This coming Monday, December 16th, the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meets at 4:00 PM (16h00) and the gallery should be packed:  a group of London cyclists have a delegation to encourage City Council to form a Cycling Advisory Committee (or "CAC").  

Photo courtesy of London Cycle Link

The City currently has 12 advisory committees.  These committees consist of community members who volunteer their time to give direction to the the standing committees - made up of city councillors - on items that fall into their purview.  (As an aside, I sit on the Advisory Committee on the Environment.)

Currently, many topics relating to cycling get discussed by the Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC).  Of course, TAC also covers traffic, roadways, public transit, and so forth, and many feel that cycling gets lost in the mix and cyclists have requirements that differ from motor vehicles.

Most other cities of comparable size in Ontario have a CAC.  London has made great strides toward endorsing active transportation (walking, cycling, etc.) and having a CAC created will help greatly to achieve the established goals.  In essence, the City must embrace the idea of prioritizing transportation in the following order:

1. walking
2. cycling
3. public/mass transit
4. commercial vehicles
5. commuter traffic

Using this order of precedence reduces the number of commuter vehicles (normally single-occupancy travellers), which alleviates traffic congestion.  Less traffic means less wear and tear on the roads, eliminates the need to expand/add lanes (which only causes more traffic), lower pollution levels, and more room on the road for cyclists and busses.  It also means more money in the pockets of the everyday citizen:  33% of our energy costs in London (that's everybody who lives and works here) go toward powering vehicles at a cost of $433 million per year, and the vast majority of that money flows out of the city.

Young people also tend to avoid purchasing a vehicle - and who can blame them with thousands in student debt and trouble finding a job?  The need for a car to get around provides one of the biggest problems for London as a whole.  Students will choose to go to another city with adequate transit and access to safe cycling.

With cycling at #2 on the list above, the approval to create the Cycling Advisory Committee should receive unanimous consent on Monday.  Anyone voting against will require a darned convincing counter-argument (and it had better not contain the words "zero percent").

London's next heritage district - TONIGHT

Tonight at City Hall, staff will present a draft report on the Blackfriars/Petersville Heritage Conservation District Study to the Planning & Environment Committee.  The public participation meeting will commence no sooner than 5:15 PM (17h15), so if you have any interest in this study, make sure you get there in time.  The report holds much fascinating information, but I'll boil things down here.

Below shows the original study area undertaken by the consultants:

and this map shows the area proposed for heritage designation (in pink):

Basically, this adds heritage designation for the former villages of Petersville and Kensington (once amalgamated as London West before joining London).  The consultants decided that this area meets the criteria required for designation, while the other areas in yellow and blue remain strong contenders for future study.  Staff will request London Council to endorse this tentative boundary and to give authorization to prepare conservation guidelines for the proposed area, while asking that the other areas remain in consideration for study.

Should this pass, the study would recommend heritage status under the Ontario Heritage Act, and would make the Blackfriars/Petersville district the sixth such in the city.  This important move protects the architectural, cultural, and environmental features of the neighbourhood.

If you have any comments and can't make tonight's meeting, do send me a line as I am one of the community members acting as a resource to the consulting team, which includes getting feedback from residents to pass along for consideration.

For more information, check out the City of London's Web page for the study at:

http://www.london.ca/business/Planning-Development/land-use-applications/Pages/blackfriars-petersville-study.aspx

Hope to see a good crowd in the gallery tonight!

Let's make some noise!

Thank goodness for today's break from Winter: it gave me the opportunity to swap out the all-seasons for proper winter tires (the November squalls caught me unawares).  If you drive, make sure you have your vehicle properly equipped for our the impending snow and ice.  Today's respite will not last long, so I hope you can take advantage of today's higher temperatures to do whatever needs doing before the snow's return.

In my previous post about the proposed removal of mandatory composting at festivals in Victoria Park, I mentioned that we received much more information beyond that important topic. On the evening of Tuesday, October 22, the Special Events Public Consultation Meeting took place at the Civic Garden Complex.  Scott Stafford and Krista Kearns of the Community Services Department did an excellent job of going over the policies and procedures that will change in the 2013 manual for the 2014 season (with Ms. Kearns's assistant taking minutes). 

Ms. Kearns informed us that 180 events (including road closures and events at off-city property) in London attracted over one million people (locals and visitors) over the past year.  Of those, four events broke the noise policy outlined in section 13 of the manual by exceeding 90 decibels (dB): Rockin' New Year's Eve, Pride London Festival, Sunfest, and Rock the Park.  This means that they lost their $500 security for exceeding the noise level, and left themselves subject to by-law prosecution.

Ms. Kearns also announced that two of the organizers of Rockin' New Year's Eve, Ed Holder and Bruce McGuffin, made a request to have a complete exemption for noise during their event.  The existing exemption for this event reads:

• New Year's Eve Event will be limited to the hours of 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 midnight
• Announcements for the gathering of participants, on your mark, get set go and the singing of the national anthem at sporting events (not sound level not to exceed 90 db between 8 am - 9 am). All other amplified sound (ie: music) could not begin until 9 am)

It sounds like a reasonable request:  a vast majority of folks celebrate New Year's Eve in some fashion.  Music and other exciting noise coming from the bandshell to bring in the new year should pose no threat to anybody's enjoyment of the downtown.

A public participation meeting to discuss the proposed noise exemption (click for report from City staff) for the Rockin' New Year's Eve event at Victoria Park takes place on Monday, December 9 at 7:00 PM (19h00) at the Community and Protective Services Committee meeting, taking place at City Hall.  If you wish to have your input, don't miss this meeting.

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Also of note from this meeting, a gentleman who lives near the river in Blackfriars (making 66% of the audience residents of that neighbourhood - him and myself) suggested that Gibbons Park get used for festivals as an additional option.  Of the 92 days in June, July, and August, Victoria Park hosts events for 44 of those days.  The events schedule allows time (an "administrative week") to give the grounds a chance to recuperate.  Existing turf protection requires replacement, which allows this extended use of the park.

What do you think about opening Gibbons Park to festivals, to either give relief to Victoria Park or to facilitate even more events?