I LIVE ON Argyle Street, between two of Halifax’s most talked-about vacant lots. The new central library and the proposed convention centre may be a few short blocks away from one another, but they represent very different ideas about the role of government.
The library serves hundreds of thousands of HRM residents, and has been doing so from a cramped old building for quite some time. Critics of the new library, including some of the commentariat on this newpaper’s website, have been quick to cry government waste. Fifty-five million?!? You can get books on the Internet if you want to waste your time — ew! — reading. Read more…
Downtownpaul just posted a pro wtcc2 article, linking resistance to WTCC2 to some kind of malaise and downtown death spiral. Here is my comment, spell corrected (paint fumes overcame me.. We shall see if this gets published on the DBTC site:
I am in favor of a new or expanded WTCC.
I do not, at this time support the current proposal.
Wanting more information does not make one a visionless small town hick.
I am waiting for an actual business plan, having concerns over the architecture, the SIP P3 model, worrying about giving the private developer office towers twice the size allowed on those blocks under HRMbD and ALSO gives the private developer $100 million of taxpayers dollars.
People talking about this as a “catalytic building” in down town are just using buzz words to paper over the lack of actual hard information. Show me, Paul, show me, WTCC, show me how our 4th largest CC in Canada will not lose money every year, will not cost additional millions, will not spiral down into disrepair like all the other P3 projects the province has launched.
Show me how our isolated, hard to get to, but beautiful and picturesque destination will succeeded, and not fail, like the recent Vancouver CC.
Asking hard questions and getting no answers and then digging in your heels is only natural. Pro-WTCC2 advocates trying to paint a picture of caution and inquiry as being backwards and timid is, at best, insulting.
The Coast HRM council twitter is reporting that city hall just voted for paving, but against bike lane extensions. Aparently 13 councillors all feel bike lanes are un-needed.
Anyone who follows me on Facebook or Twitter knows I just spent two weeks in Tuscany with my family, and being the nerd I am, I kept taking pictures of infrastructure. A photo essay will come later, with bus tickets, closed streets, etc, but tonight I want to show how the world class capital of the Tuscany region, Florence, a city of 400,000 people, a UNESCO world heritage site, does bike lanes:
Two Way Bike Lane in Florence, Tuscany, IT
Note that it was more important to this world class city to have two way dedicated, isolated bike lanes than to have two way traffic for cars.
Oh, it took a biggun to get past my couple of weeks of writers block following being unable to type (first diagnosed as Cubital Tunnel, later confirmed as simple tendonitis.) Oh and what biggun it is!
About 11:20 am this Friday twitter delivers this announcement from the @Chronicleherald – “BREAKING: HRSB super Carole Olsen’s husband leaked the Fells video to Frank, she admitted today. MORE LATER“
My immediate response was “SHE MUST RESIGN”. Moments later someone else on the web messaged me to say she offered to resign, and the HRSB Board did not accept her offered resignation. Read more…
We shall see if this gets published on the DBTC site:
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