The Granddaddy Of Bad Ideas - Close St. Anne Street?
28/02/2009 03:45
Local columnist David
J Climenhaga had a surprise for readers of his
Saint City News column yesterday concerning a
reported attempt by the mayor’s task force to
recommend the permanent closing of St. Anne
Street in downtown St. Albert.
David started off his column with these words:
“The Road to Hell, as the saying goes, is paved with good intentions.”
I too, am fond of using old sayings and the one I would choose to use regarding this stupidity is:
“There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.”
If you ask enough people in this city, you will find various opinions on the issue, but mostly you will find suspicion.
Who is behind this
nonsense and why? Who stands to gain by such
a move? Is the Grandin Mall development
involved? Is the Chamber of Commerce involved
somehow with their Farmers Market? Is the
city itself involved so city hall employees
would no longer have to wait for a light to
cross St. Anne Street?
In short, someone needs to step up and make clear what the real motives are behind such a questionable move.
David has summed it up nicely when he states in part:
“To quote Donovan Rypkema, a Washington, D.C., economic-development consultant, “Pedestrian malls are as close to a 100-per-cent urban design failure as there is.”
This is why cities all over North America that closed off business streets to create malls between the 1950s and the 1990s are now converting them back to normal streets – a day late and millions of taxpayer dollars short.
So it should concern us that when the Mayor’s Task Force on the future of St. Albert’s downtown reports later this year, it’s likely to recommend that St. Anne Street be closed and turned into some from of urban street mall.
That St. Anne is not lined with businesses should not comfort us. The same fundamental flaws with malls that wreck downtown business districts apply to the areas around government offices, public libraries, theatres and courthouses.”
Read the full column here.
Stop and think about if folks. All traffic that enters the city on 184th Street winds up using St. Anne Street to connect with the St. Albert Trail and it flows nicely right now past city hall.
To permanently divert that flow to the cumbersome intersection at Perron Street- Sir Winston Churchill Avenue - Greengrove Drive is asinine to say the least.
Hell you can hardly call Greengrove Drive a road. At best it is a awkward, lane and one half that was some traffic engineer’s afterthought to connect the downtown to the Trail. It is not and never was designed to carry any more traffic than it now does.
Imagine the traffic backups that will line Perron Street between the lights at Sir Winston Churchill and St. Anne Street if this goofy idea sees the light of day.
At the end of the
day folks, as Elmer Fudd used to say, “be
vewy, vewy suspicious” that this move is
being considered to profit someone or
something. There is no other reasonable
rational for such a recommendation.
If you have some thoughts on the closure, send them along and we’ll let the politicians know how local citizens view this move.
It’s bad enough they close the street for the Farmers Market each Saturday all summer long, when it clearly belongs out at $ervu$ Place where there is room for shoppers to park.
In short, someone needs to step up and make clear what the real motives are behind such a questionable move.
David has summed it up nicely when he states in part:
“To quote Donovan Rypkema, a Washington, D.C., economic-development consultant, “Pedestrian malls are as close to a 100-per-cent urban design failure as there is.”
This is why cities all over North America that closed off business streets to create malls between the 1950s and the 1990s are now converting them back to normal streets – a day late and millions of taxpayer dollars short.
So it should concern us that when the Mayor’s Task Force on the future of St. Albert’s downtown reports later this year, it’s likely to recommend that St. Anne Street be closed and turned into some from of urban street mall.
That St. Anne is not lined with businesses should not comfort us. The same fundamental flaws with malls that wreck downtown business districts apply to the areas around government offices, public libraries, theatres and courthouses.”
Read the full column here.
Stop and think about if folks. All traffic that enters the city on 184th Street winds up using St. Anne Street to connect with the St. Albert Trail and it flows nicely right now past city hall.
To permanently divert that flow to the cumbersome intersection at Perron Street- Sir Winston Churchill Avenue - Greengrove Drive is asinine to say the least.
Hell you can hardly call Greengrove Drive a road. At best it is a awkward, lane and one half that was some traffic engineer’s afterthought to connect the downtown to the Trail. It is not and never was designed to carry any more traffic than it now does.
Imagine the traffic backups that will line Perron Street between the lights at Sir Winston Churchill and St. Anne Street if this goofy idea sees the light of day.
At the end of the
day folks, as Elmer Fudd used to say, “be
vewy, vewy suspicious” that this move is
being considered to profit someone or
something. There is no other reasonable
rational for such a recommendation.
If you have some thoughts on the closure, send them along and we’ll let the politicians know how local citizens view this move.
It’s bad enough they close the street for the Farmers Market each Saturday all summer long, when it clearly belongs out at $ervu$ Place where there is room for shoppers to park.
