Intersection repaired 2009_082615082009420015000724
Portland's "Intersection Repair" is community building that can be replicated in other cities. From home in Victoria here's some thoughts on observations and the lessons learned.
Intersection Repair is a grass roots neighbourhood organization that pushed the city administration by taking ownership of residential street intersections where residents had grievances against volume and speed of traffic on their streets. It's a common problem in any city.
Roads have been painted with fantastic murals at numbers of intersections (and care must be taken to limit them to already low volume and low speed routes - arterials or busy collectors are not good candidates for this treatment for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the durability and cost of paint). Our issues include the type and colour of the paint, noting concerns about standards and traction for cyclists - how many more challenges can we find!
Community sharing services like a book exchange, coffee tables and cob benches sprinkle the corners to invite people out into the boulevards and streets, creating activity in the informal squares or plazas that the painted intersection is a focal point for.
Boulevards are cultivated or run riot with flowers and purposeful native plantings, creating more interest and potential habitat (fruit in particular must be well tended to keep streets and sidewalks clean (for cyclists, pedestrians and people with mobility challenges), and innoculated against rodents, raccoons - at home in Victoria it's the deer too).
Staff in Portland tell me that the projects don't slow traffic and even invite some new drivers into the neighbourhood; looky-loos and people browsing the book exchange. They do nevertheless, my contact admitted, help build community; and speaking to residents on the street, they were certainly proud and protective of what they had achieved.
I can speak a little more freely now as a citizen of Victoria, rather than as a councillor. Drifting back into some of my more traditional roles of advocate and critic, here's some of the ideas I'll bring to the discussion as we move forward on community design in Victoria.
A few locations around our city have the makings of a holistic model of reclaiming the streets, some more permanent and a few unregulated as well.
Some of the thoughts I brought to the discussion go back to my work as an advocate for cycling and walking, and working with community members who first connected with the intersection repair movement in Portland and brought them to Victoria to introduce the concept.
Council sent a boulevard review mandate to parks staff, knowing as we did, that the city's boulevard management system was fragmented and unresponsive to the aspirations of communities. The process is ongoing and certainly garden uses are being contemplated. Homegrown examples have the good, the bad and the problematic (how far do you go when neighbours want to "reclaim" remnant boulevards or greenspaces around an electically designed city? Tthe mayor had some very good cautions - if one neighbour is allowed to expropriate the space for gardens is the other also allowed to use it as a squat for an extra car, a boat or RV?
Campaigns are often short on details and taking on other candidates is risky business. At council, compromise or even consensus is always the best way to move forward and most often that is how it has worked (the resistance of the electorate to organized slates is a frustratingly at odds with a desire to see moderate governance and teamwork on council.
The most problematic voice on council and the new one runs similar risks, is that which is so independent or uncompromising as to block useful, if incremental progress on policies, issues or projects.
Too the issue illustrated, there was only some modest evidence of this in discussions of boulevards, but the broader intersection design issues will certainly have a tendency to strain relations, perhaps more so on the new council, where points of departure may be more sharp.
Community oriented councillors may be chomping at the bit to take on the mundane obstructions of partical engineeering and management of roads and greenspaces. They will find the issues and the challenges are grounded in sound governance rather than a lack of commitment to community engagement and empowerment. They may well have to climb down from some of their campaign rhetoric and need to be challenged, as the last council was, on those disconnects between their promises and practical realiies that turn them into defenders of their new status quo.
One particular irony will need to be supported in the evolution of the city's boulevard review. The review should carry on, and will of its own momentum, and hopefully too some community and council interest.
The last council included a voice of undue haste in advancing the food production potential of boulevards to the point of dismissing the labour and revenue implications of weaning the city off of $600,000 in taxed boulevards revenue and numbers of good city jobs.
My first reaction (and I'll defend my record and values ad infinitum I guess), was to ensure consideration of the labour implications of cuts to the program, not to mention the revenue implications, of turning over boulevards to community management. The objective may be sound, but rushing change is often not the best approach, and I was taken aback by the councillor's lack of interest in the jobs at risk.
Nobody was paying much attention to the candidate's record on labour issues during council's tenure, other than a few high profile issue campaigns, and to my frustration, (and constrained to the impotence of self-serving personal criticism), the candidate nevertheless earned the endorsement of labour and the misguided, in my opinion, support of many in our politically progressive community.
It will be useful to challenge the new council, and keep watch on how they perform on this and many other issues. Labour still has good strong voices on council, though they were less enthused with our record on some issues. New voices may well be less sympathetic and the routine protection of the interests of the city's workforce less certain.
During my tenure and through the course of my camapigns, I have both supported and been supported by labour interests - we do share values. More friciton was evident in waste management service reviews, but at this, through other projects (first arguing for apprenticeships, local hiring and first nations participation in the Johnson St. Bridge project), and of course with the boulevard review, I was careful to insist that labour impacts be considered, measured, and negotiated.
Portland's Intersection Repair is, I hope, the first of many random thoughts I'll put out into the public realm as I try and retool my career, picking up a few threads in cycling and walking again, but so many other issues too.
Here's where that may take you, at least from this picture, around my Victoria.
www.flickr.com/photos/luton/6339770340/in/photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/luton/3289240236/
Intersection repaired 2009_082615082009420015000724
Portland's "Intersection Repair" is community building that can be replicated in other cities. From home in Victoria here's some thoughts on observations and the lessons learned.
Intersection Repair is a grass roots neighbourhood organization that pushed the city administration by taking ownership of residential street intersections where residents had grievances against volume and speed of traffic on their streets. It's a common problem in any city.
Roads have been painted with fantastic murals at numbers of intersections (and care must be taken to limit them to already low volume and low speed routes - arterials or busy collectors are not good candidates for this treatment for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the durability and cost of paint). Our issues include the type and colour of the paint, noting concerns about standards and traction for cyclists - how many more challenges can we find!
Community sharing services like a book exchange, coffee tables and cob benches sprinkle the corners to invite people out into the boulevards and streets, creating activity in the informal squares or plazas that the painted intersection is a focal point for.
Boulevards are cultivated or run riot with flowers and purposeful native plantings, creating more interest and potential habitat (fruit in particular must be well tended to keep streets and sidewalks clean (for cyclists, pedestrians and people with mobility challenges), and innoculated against rodents, raccoons - at home in Victoria it's the deer too).
Staff in Portland tell me that the projects don't slow traffic and even invite some new drivers into the neighbourhood; looky-loos and people browsing the book exchange. They do nevertheless, my contact admitted, help build community; and speaking to residents on the street, they were certainly proud and protective of what they had achieved.
I can speak a little more freely now as a citizen of Victoria, rather than as a councillor. Drifting back into some of my more traditional roles of advocate and critic, here's some of the ideas I'll bring to the discussion as we move forward on community design in Victoria.
A few locations around our city have the makings of a holistic model of reclaiming the streets, some more permanent and a few unregulated as well.
Some of the thoughts I brought to the discussion go back to my work as an advocate for cycling and walking, and working with community members who first connected with the intersection repair movement in Portland and brought them to Victoria to introduce the concept.
Council sent a boulevard review mandate to parks staff, knowing as we did, that the city's boulevard management system was fragmented and unresponsive to the aspirations of communities. The process is ongoing and certainly garden uses are being contemplated. Homegrown examples have the good, the bad and the problematic (how far do you go when neighbours want to "reclaim" remnant boulevards or greenspaces around an electically designed city? Tthe mayor had some very good cautions - if one neighbour is allowed to expropriate the space for gardens is the other also allowed to use it as a squat for an extra car, a boat or RV?
Campaigns are often short on details and taking on other candidates is risky business. At council, compromise or even consensus is always the best way to move forward and most often that is how it has worked (the resistance of the electorate to organized slates is a frustratingly at odds with a desire to see moderate governance and teamwork on council.
The most problematic voice on council and the new one runs similar risks, is that which is so independent or uncompromising as to block useful, if incremental progress on policies, issues or projects.
Too the issue illustrated, there was only some modest evidence of this in discussions of boulevards, but the broader intersection design issues will certainly have a tendency to strain relations, perhaps more so on the new council, where points of departure may be more sharp.
Community oriented councillors may be chomping at the bit to take on the mundane obstructions of partical engineeering and management of roads and greenspaces. They will find the issues and the challenges are grounded in sound governance rather than a lack of commitment to community engagement and empowerment. They may well have to climb down from some of their campaign rhetoric and need to be challenged, as the last council was, on those disconnects between their promises and practical realiies that turn them into defenders of their new status quo.
One particular irony will need to be supported in the evolution of the city's boulevard review. The review should carry on, and will of its own momentum, and hopefully too some community and council interest.
The last council included a voice of undue haste in advancing the food production potential of boulevards to the point of dismissing the labour and revenue implications of weaning the city off of $600,000 in taxed boulevards revenue and numbers of good city jobs.
My first reaction (and I'll defend my record and values ad infinitum I guess), was to ensure consideration of the labour implications of cuts to the program, not to mention the revenue implications, of turning over boulevards to community management. The objective may be sound, but rushing change is often not the best approach, and I was taken aback by the councillor's lack of interest in the jobs at risk.
Nobody was paying much attention to the candidate's record on labour issues during council's tenure, other than a few high profile issue campaigns, and to my frustration, (and constrained to the impotence of self-serving personal criticism), the candidate nevertheless earned the endorsement of labour and the misguided, in my opinion, support of many in our politically progressive community.
It will be useful to challenge the new council, and keep watch on how they perform on this and many other issues. Labour still has good strong voices on council, though they were less enthused with our record on some issues. New voices may well be less sympathetic and the routine protection of the interests of the city's workforce less certain.
During my tenure and through the course of my camapigns, I have both supported and been supported by labour interests - we do share values. More friciton was evident in waste management service reviews, but at this, through other projects (first arguing for apprenticeships, local hiring and first nations participation in the Johnson St. Bridge project), and of course with the boulevard review, I was careful to insist that labour impacts be considered, measured, and negotiated.
Portland's Intersection Repair is, I hope, the first of many random thoughts I'll put out into the public realm as I try and retool my career, picking up a few threads in cycling and walking again, but so many other issues too.
Here's where that may take you, at least from this picture, around my Victoria.
www.flickr.com/photos/luton/6339770340/in/photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/luton/3289240236/