For every light you turn off... (or how I spent my Earth Hour)

I don't know if you've heard about the latest fad called "Earth Hour". If you haven't, essentially it's a thing where regular people turn off all their lights for one hour of the year and pretend that they're granola-eating hippies.

I knew when I first heard about it that I didn't like it, and not just because Mayor O'Brien was supportive of it.

There is a Japanese saying: "Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare." As profound as this saying is, this Earth Hour event doesn't fit into either category. Earth Hour is more "action without action", and hence this post is deserving of the "yellowribbons" label (see "Support Motherhood and Apple Pie").

If you really cared about the environment, you'd make changes in your everyday habits (such as reducing your car use, eating less meat, living in a smaller and more energy-efficient home, etc.). Turning off your lights once a year at 8pm doesn't really mean very much if your TV, computers, and other appliances come right back on an hour later.

And if you really cared for the Earth, you'd give it more than just an hour.

I mean, shit: every night, most people do more than was accomplished in Earth Hour simply by turning off their lights and sleeping for six to eight hours!

Of course, as is reported in the Citizen, greenhouse gas emissions will probably not be reduced during Earth Hour, especially with many people burning candles. Even if they're more 'natural', candles put a lot more dirty shit into the air per unit of light than electric plants do. (Not that I care much for the GHG fad, either.)

So how did I spend my earth hour? Well, along these lines:



While all the suburbanites were sitting in their living rooms signing kumbayah and eating marshmallows, I turned on every light in my house, including the one in the stove. In fact, keeping with the theme of the image above, I ate three animals too!

Interestingly, when I was done cooking my "three animals" (two eggs and some strips of bacon--I hadn't had bacon in years. So tasty!), I turned off the stove, and my arm automatically reached for the stove light switch. I had forgotten that I was keeping my lights all on for the hour.

I guess energy conservation is just one of those pesky habits that dies hard.

- RG>

New multi-paper newspaper boxes for Bank Street

In January 2006, I complained to my councillor about the Auto Mart papers distributed for free at transit stations and in areas with high pedestrian traffic. It seemed contradictory to me that the City would allow advertisements that encourage car use in places where people are walking and using transit.
Apparently, the City isn't allowed to discriminate based on content. But there was a committee struck to deal with it.

Earlier this month, something reminded me of this e-mail response, so I asked for a follow up. I mean, two years later, the committee would have done something, right?

Well, sorta.

They still can't control content, but they do plan on having multi-newspaper boxes on Bank Street to reduce the clutter of newspaper boxes (if only they could also control the clutter that these papers leave after people toss them on the street!)

I was forwarded a PDF outlining preliminary plans for these boxes, including size, dimensions, and location. There are four of these boxes planned, in the following locations on Bank street:

• SE corner of Bank & Slater
• NW corner of Bank & Slater
• SW corner of Bank & Albert
• NW corner of Bank & Queen

As you can see in the image below, the boxes themselves will be between 2.25 m and 3 m long, and will be situated on the boulevard along Bank. (click for bigger version)



There are a few questions that come from this plan: Will the permanent boxes pose an insurmountable barrier to new papers? Will the papers on the bottom row have a lower pickup than those on the upper row? Will we end up getting more newspaper boxes for other papers anyway?

These answers will probably not be answerable until the boxes are installed. At least there's hope for more pedestrian space in this area.

- RG>

A. Whitney Brown Supports the Troops

Someone pointed this out, and I thought it was most relevant. Watching this video really opened my eyes to something I had taken for granted for my entire life up to this point.

From today forward, my life will be defined as that which came before, and that which came after knowing that A. Whitney Brown supports the troops.

I mean, I thought I supported Motherhood and Apple Pie, but nothing like A. Whitney Brown supports the troops.

I'll let him tell it in his own words:



(Also see the sequel: "I support the Troops Still")

- RG>

Fairness and balance at no cost?

I follow David Reevely's Greater Ottawa blog. After all the community newspapers (which I try to read whenever I can get my hands on them--even the suburban ones), David's blog provides pretty decent regular, local content.

Up until recently, David was an editorial writer with the Ottawa Citizen. This involved forming opinions and expressing them in print. Kinda like what I do, but perhaps with less vulgarity and with a wider audience. But in early February, David announced that his position was being changed to be (partly) in charge of the news content--that is, the stuff that's supposed to be "objective".

The focus of this blog post was put very eloquently by David when he said:

A bigger question: How can a person keep a properly freewheeling blog and still be responsible for impartial news coverage? For that matter, how can someone who's been an opinion writer ever do anything in journalism that isn't opinion?

My opinion is that he can't. The inherent irony of FoxNews' slogan--"Fair and Balanced"--is applicable to all news organizations, particularly large bureaucratic ones. If one individual in the organization claims to be balanced, and even if they somehow manage it, then the biases of the organization (and/or of other individuals therein) dominate.

Now, I don't have a clue how the Citizen's newsroom operates, or what goes on in the editorial offices behind closed doors. And I am not going to go commission a massive study to investigate the balance of the Citizen's editorial output to try to prove my point. I don't need to prove my point--it's my opinion, and that's all it is.

But I will give some objectivity/fairness/balance anecdotes that I hope will illustrate my point and help you make an opinion of your own:

• I don't know if you watch much of the Colbert Report, but Stephen Colbert, whose character parodies FoxNews pundits, frequently claims that he "cannot see race". And when you cannot see race, you cannot see that society treats some races a lot worse than others. In this way, balance/fairness is really just an excuse to not do something about an injustice, and it's actually dangerous.



• At University, I was involved with the student newspaper. While I was there, there was an ongoing debate about "objective" journalism. The main point--which I believe has survived--is that the student newspaper is there to represent the interests of students, and therefore should be biased towards students, both in the selection and presentation of topics. Using an example from the Citizen, were it not for the Citizen's intervention (i.e. not just sitting back and watching objectively), Ottawa residents would be oblivious to the breadth of the allegations against Ottawa's mayor, Larry O'Brien. In this way, the Citizen is biased against corruption, and that's a good thing.



• At City Hall, "fairness" reached a new low this past Wednesday. While 18 councillors voted in favour of a provincial moratorium on uranium mining, Councillor Gord Hunter voted against (which isn't out of character for him). Among the reasons he cited was "the city has only heard from uranium opponents and isn't getting the other side of the story." I'd hate to be in a room where he votes against making child molestation a crime because he didn't hear any words in support of child molestation!



• Going back to the Citizen, I was recently reading an article that referred to a think-tank as "left-leaning". If you use the Citizen's search feature to look for the words "think tank", you'll find qualifiers like "the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver free-market solutions think-tank", "The CD Howe Institute, an economic think-tank", which seem to me to be synonyms for "right-wing think-tank". While one would have to do a more thorough analysis to see if there's any bias in these descriptions of "think tanks", it's definitely a term that should flag closer attention to underlying bias when it comes onto an editor's desk.



• I have long been angered by the fact that "Auto Mart" magazines tend to be distributed at transit stations and in areas with high levels of pedestrian traffic. Back in 2005, I e-mailed my councillor about this, and her response included "The current Encroachment By-law, which licences all boxes with an annual permit, has the authority to regulate the position of the boxes but not their content" and "Constitutionally the City of Ottawa has limited powers to restrict freedom of expression." Since that time, large ads for auto companies and auto-related services have sprung up on the outsides and insides of buses (I keep a file of photos of such ads). But because the City is required to be 'objective', it must allow advertising on its transit vehicles that discourage people from using those very services!



• Getting back to the Citizen... It is not uncommon that I am reading a Citizen article, and the second half of an article tells the story from an angle that was entirely absent in the first half. Often, I find I agree with the opinion of those presented in one half, and disagree with those in the other. Now, assuming it's okay to go halfway through an article without mentioning the other side (even though many people only read the first couple paragraphs), one would expect that in a truly balanced newspaper I would agree with the side presented in the first half 50% of the time. However, in the Citizen, I usually agree with the second half of this type of article.



• As an extreme example of this, I turn your attention to the Nov. 25, 2007 story about the 'protest' at Bank & Somerset. This 450-word article described a 'protest' by business owners who were frustrated at the continued closure of the intersection of Bank & Somerset. There was a nice-sized photo, too, if I recall correctly. But it isn't until paragraph 8 that we learn that the protest "drew only about a half-dozen local business owners." Somehow, I doubt the Citizen gives every protest with six or more people a 450-word story with a photo. It isn't until the very last paragraph that we learn "Several anti-business protesters also gathered at the protest yesterday. They used a megaphone to chant 'Profits over safety,' often disrupting the business owners when they attempted to talk to people walking by."



• There's actually much more to that last bit than the Citizen would have you believe. These counter-protesters were louder, they had bigger signs, and there were more of them. In fact, one of them told me after the protest that the Citizen photographer had a hell of a time trying to get a picture that didn't have any of the counter-protesters in the frame. To me, that sounds like going out of your way to hide a significant part of the story. One of the local papers (likely the Centretown Buzz) had good, separate articles on both the protest and the counter-protest that made me understand what I would have seen had I been there.

Fairness, balance, objectivity--call it what you want, but when you get it only by surrendering your opinion, there is definitely a cost.

- RG>

A "Taxi Hands" Bagel? No thanks

A couple weeks ago, I went to the Kettleman's Bagel Shop on Bank Street. Wood-fired Montreal-style bagels are the best, and they're made right in front of your eyes--behind a Plexiglas shield, of course, for sanitary reasons.

Passing the "help wanted" sign on the door, walking toward the counter, I noticed a nice-looking bag of 15 assorted day-olds that I picked up for $3.50. You can't beat that deal.

In addition to the day-olds, I ordered a Breakfast bagel--a treat I first discovered at the Kettleman's on Carling Avenue when it first opened many years ago. Back at the Carling location, they'd ask you if you want ketchup on your breakfast bagel, so I was a bit surprised when I was brusquely told "ketchup packets are by the door," when I asked for it this time.

The strange things started when I was sitting down at the front window. After receiving my bagel and futzing with the little packets to smear it with ketchup, I watched the scenery.

A taxi came into the Kettleman's parking lot from the side street as though it was cutting through to avoid the red light. But the driver turned and parked in one of the parking spots. The non-sequitur that came next involved the driver getting of the taxi with his passenger still in the back seat. I could see the expression on the customer's face, and I could only imagine what the driver told her as he got out.

The taxi driver came in to the bagel shop, reached his hand over the glass, as did the man working the raw bagel dough. The two shook hands, and the man went straight back to preparing bagels.

Without washing his hands.

Eww!

As I told this story to a friend, he recalled a study which found that a steering wheel is the dirtiest place your hands touch on a daily basis. Not a toilet seat, not a door handle--a steering wheel.

And a taxi's steering wheel? Double-eww.

I decided not to eat the day-olds.

- RG>

The Ministry of Truth would like to present...

...Kindness week.

Kindness week.

...

I'm speechless...

...

"Kindness week."

...

That's got to be the most absurd thing I've heard of since...

since...

...since Motherhood and Apple Pie. Or Kindness meters, for that matter.

I can't even decide which angle to take on how obsequious this idea is.

There's the easy angle--"What, so the rest of the year we don't have to be kind?"

But then there's the more subtle angle. One that will play quite well for Mayor O'Brien.

Just as we were told (though perhaps not necessarily by O'Brien) to not question the mission in Afghanistan, because we need to "Support Our Troops", perhaps now Mayor O'Brien will ask taxi drivers (who are protesting the forced installation of cameras in their cabs by the City) will be asked to be kinder, because it's "Kindness week". Oh, wait. The Citizen already did that for him.

What kind of bullshit society do we live in, where if you are feeling oppressed, you're supposed to shut up, suck it up, and take it? And be kind while this is happening?

If you ask me, Kindness week can go and fuck itself. And that's putting it kindly.

- RG>

The skinny on Parking

So I attended today's Transportation Committee meeting to discuss the surprise change in the City's parking policy.

To recap, the surprise was that the changes to the parking policy were implemented as part of the 2008 budget, with scarcely any consultation. The changes were to eliminate the free evening (after 5:30 p.m.) and weekend parking, and to increase the hourly rate from $2.50 to $3. They would also introduce metered parking to three new areas of the city (on Wellington in Hintonburg, on Beechwood, and in Old Ottawa South).

As a cyclist, I really couldn't have cared less about this decision, except that petitions sprung up everywhere to retain free night and evening parking. I was surprised at how much fire erupted from changes to parking regulations, while the annual transit fare increases never really built up any critical mass of energy. I asked myself, rhetorically, "why aren't there any petitions for free transit service on nights and weekends?"

So two weeks ago, when I learned that there would be a meeting of Transportation Committee to discuss (and possibly reconsider) this move, I immediately e-mailed the committee coordinator and asked to be put on the speaker's list. Even though this was a week before the Committee's agenda came out, I still didn't get a chance to make my delegation until after lunch.

By the start of the meeting, 40 people or groups had registered to make a five-minute delegation, and that number approached 50 toward the remainder of the meeting.

Early on, I could tell that I wasn't going to speak at least until after lunch, so I decided to leave for the morning after the second or third delegation, until lunch. Nevetheless, here are some of my observations:

THE CIRCUS

The meeting started off at around 10:10 a.m. with a fifteen-minute-or-so procedural debate.

One councillor moved a motion to suspend the rules of procedure to consider the item in question (this is because it would be a reconsideration of an earlier decision--the 2008 budget--so required a 3/4 majority to be reconsidered). But another councillor (Jacques Legendre, I believe) wanted to defer this decision until after Committee had heard from the delegations.

Legendre's reasoning for deferral was that if Committee ended up not waiving the rules of procedure, Committee wouldn't be able to hear from the delegations. Of course, if they ended up not waiving the rules of procedure, and therefore couldn't reconsider the parking decision, everybody's time would have been wasted sitting through these delegations.

The motion to defer was defeated, and the motion to reconsider was passed.

Next, City Staff (primarily Michael Flainek of the Traffic and Parking Operations branch) presented their report, which was essentially an exercise in justifying this cash-grab after the fact. (Even though I don't mind the fare raises, I still have to agree that it is a cash-grab, and that it wasn't made democratically)

I didn't pay too much attention to it, but two things caught my ear:
- Apparently, evening parking is nearing capacity (which is a good example of a problem for which fee raises would be a reasonable solution. Revenue generation is a bad example)
- Also, apparently for every 10% raise in parking fees, transit use goes up by 1-2% (I didn't write that one down, but it was along those lines.)

THE DELEGATIONS

I took note of some of the more memorable points made during delegations.

Lori Mellor, Preston Street BIA: (paraphrased)
- "We want people who commute by car to stop by on their way to and from work" (Though isn't the City's vision to discourage people commuting by car?)
- "The problem on Saturdays is attracting more customers ... many of our stores aren't open on Saturdays" (So parking fares on Saturdays is going to scare away the customers who currently don't come to your closed stores?)

Peggy Ducharme, Downtown Rideau BIA, Mr. Blatherwick, consultant hired by DRBIA: (started 13:15)
- This BIA (and the merchants it represents) is actually calling for metered parking to be added to their area. This is what metered parking is all about: discouraging staff and lingerers from parking on the street all day, and encouraging opportunities for customers to park.
- They also want to "Reclaim curbside space", by removing bus bays and taxi stands. They later elaborated that they want more flexible street use outside of peak hours.
- They also commissioned Mr. Blatherwick (didn't get his first name) to do a study on parking in the area. The study started last spring and is ongoing.
- According to this study, there is an even split of people who park less than three hours and more than three hours. 55% of customers for the area arrive by car, 14-15% by transit. 1/3 of businesses have most business on weekends, 1/3 during the week, and 1/3 spread evenly between weekends and the week.

Jasna Jennings, ByWard BIA: (13:41-14:00)
- They had 5,000 people sign their online petition. This comment was immediately followed up by a comment that "tens of thousands of people" were getting involved in this debate.
- Jasna's spirited comments elicited applause from the peanut gallery.
- Jasna commented that the estimated increase in revenues is $4.1 million, whereas the cost to implement the changes is over $6 million. Councillor Bloess's responded with a comment that one is from the Operating budget and the other from the Capital budget, and Mr. Flainek pointed out that the Pay & Display machines (one of the bigger parts of the $6M figure) typically pay themselves off after 5 years, and last 10-15 years. Nevertheless, both are being incurred in the 2008 budget. I still don't understand this.

Rev. David Crawley, St. George's Anglican Church (Metcalfe & Gloucester):
- The church issue was a popular one. Churches' big day is Sunday, and their parking parishioners may now be forced to pay for parking. This is compounded because 60% of this congregation's members are from outside the core, and therefore "must" drive.
- Later on, on CBC Radio's All In A Day, host Adrian Harewood spent a lot of time talking about the Church issue (note to self: contact these people next time I want to do an SMAP event!)
- Crawley pointed out that it's not just a Sunday issue. There are events on all nights of the week, including choir practise.

Jacques Legendre played a really dastardly trick on the Reverend. He asked, roughly, "Do you have any suggestions to remedy the situation, specifically with regard to churches?"

He didn't specify what "the situation" was. But his question assumed that the fare increase and extension of hours would be implemented, and that "the problem" is that this will harm churches. Really, "the situation" is that this shouldn't have been done in the first place, and "the problem" can be solved by reversing it.

Unfortunately, Crawley took the bait and responded based on the assumption. He said he couldn't respond purely based on the church angle, because it was a much larger issue.

Doug Casey, Charlesfort Developments: (started 14:13)
- As a developer, Casey wants more people to move downtown.
- He promoted smart growth, perhaps the only presenter to use the term. I didn't hear the term "global warming" (or its variants) once the whole time.
- He pointed out that Kent and Lyon have become extensions of the Queensway, and it's difficult to get anybody to feel at home there, or to have a pedestrian-friendly retail area on those streets

It's interesting he talks about Smart Growth though, because one of the points of Smart Growth is that you put residents and commercial areas in the same place. One of the assumptions in this whole debate is that we apparently want people to live in the suburbs and travel all the way downtown to shop. Not only that, but we want them to take their cars to do it!

If you ask me, deterring people from driving downtown could actually encourage more places to open up in the suburbs, closer to where suburbanites live. After all, suburban houses aren't going to go away.

Gerry LePage, Bank Street BIA: (started 14:23)
- As much as I hate what this guy's BIA does and lobby's council for, his speech today was awesome. For once, I actually agreed with pretty much everything he said. Gerry gets the RealGrouchy Award for Creative Grouchiness for this speech. It was loud, angry, and didn't hold back for the sake of pleasantries.
- Gerry started off by pinning this move on suburban councillors. I'm too lazy to check the votes, but I suspect he's right. (The counterargument that "suburbanites pay when they park downtown, too! Is bullshit, if you ask me)
- He also questioned the attention paid on such a meagre figure, paraphrased: "You can't make $4 million out of a $2 billion budget and all of a sudden the City will stop?" (Though I've heard similar amounts of debate over a mere $50,000)
- "This is not a parking issue, not a financial issue, but a community issue." (paraphrased)
- "Bad policy, in part or in whole, is still bad policy." (paraphrased)
- Mr. LePage sits on the City's Business Advisory Committee, and the Committee was never consulted about this, other than the general consultation on the budget. If individual businesses were notified, it was by the BIAs, not by the City.
- The $6 million expense to implement the changes is a known figure, but how do we know about the $4.1 million projected revenue? Since we don't currently charge for those times, how are we able to predict the traffic patterns? Are the traffic estimates used for the revenue estimates from weekday counts or weekend counts? (an EXCELLENT point).
- The Innes Road area (where Mr. LePage owns a pharmacy) has a higher density of retail space than downtown. At what point does a built up area warrant meters? People who shop downtown are paying a surtax to shop there.
- This last point spurred some debate with Innes Ward Councillor Rainer Bloess. Bloess pointed out that these suburban stores have their own parking, which they must pay for, and that expense must be passed on to the customer.
- Unfortunately, Mr. LePage didn't respond as I would have: First, the suburban stores have lower property tax assessments, and therefore lower taxes. Second, (downtown) stores that don't provide parking have to pay cash-in-lieu-of-parking fees to the City.

- Diane Deans had a long response to Mr. LePage's delegation. In my notes, I summarized it with "boo hoo, my feelings are hurt by your tone." Technically, councillors are only supposed to ask questions of delegations, not make points. Deans' "question" went on for a couple of minutes, and Chair McRae didn't cut her off, as she should have (and often does for urban councillors). During her question, the person next to me asked where the question was. I replied to him "It's a suburban question; it has a long commute."

LePage's point, which he iterated in response to Deans' hurt feelings, was this: He wants an equitable parking policy. What is presented here is analagous to a surtax on downtown.

When you factor in the Province's recent refusal to address the property tax inequity, I must say that I agree 100% that suburbs are getting a free ride on the backs of downtowners.

THE RESULT:

I left after LePage's consultation, but the meeting disposition (a record of what decisions were made, which is available before the formal minutes) is available on the City's website here. The minutes will be posted on this page when they are available.

I saw them this afternoon, and I laughed out loud:

a. that the 2008 rates and hours for on-street parking be adjusted so that :

i. There is no charge for Sunday parking in commercial areas of the City;

ii. Hours are reduced for on-street parking to 7:00 p.m. Monday to Saturday; and

iii. The rate for on-street parking increase to $3.25/hour beginning October 1, 2008...

So, in order to solve the problem of an unexpected rate increase from $2.50 to $3.00, they raised it to $3.25! That is so hilarious I laughed out loud.

Now, this is just the Committee's recommendation to Council. Council will still have to go through the same rigmarole, but without the delegations.

And at the end of the day, I'm a cyclist who's only paid for parking once in his entire life, and I don't really care how this ends up. So all I can really do is sit back, watch, and laugh at the hilarious hole that Council will inevitably dig deeper.

- RG>