59 Carden St.

Relief coming for Carden Street businesses?

We heard through the grapevine this afternoon that something might be coming down the pipe to offer some sort of relief for Carden Street business owners living with the never-ending construction in from of their shops.

Right at the end of tonight's council meeting Jim Furfaro announced he would be bringing something forward thanking businesses around Market Square for their patience during years of construction.

I ran back over to City Hall to get more information but just missed Furfaro.

The mayor said she believes the Ward 1 councillor will bring his motion forward during the next council planning meeting -- one week from tonight.

We'll try Tuesday to get a better idea what Furfaro has in mind.

Who is ratting on whom?

Karen Farbridge began tonight's busy council meeting -- which is still ongoing as I write this at 11:02 p.m. -- by noting she has been approached by council members about reminding their colleagues the Procedural Bylaw allows council members up to five minutes to speak on any given subject.

I wonder who's been keeping an eye on the stopwatch?

Pump up the jams, boys

Bylaw officers were just dispatched to Little Shop of Guitars regarding, not surprisingly, a loud music complaint.

We heard the bylaw officers being sent to investigate Kris and Adrian Raso's audio protest. A short time later we heard a female officer reporting the brothers had agreed to turn the music down a bit, and adding, "There's no violation until twenty-three hundred hours in the downtown."

Even if the Rasos decided to crank their tunes after 11 p.m. I would like to see bylaw officers' reaction given that every downtown bar normally has music blaring -- and all their doors and windows open -- until 2 a.m. and I've never heard of any of them getting ticketed.

What other weapon would you expect them to use?

I was off Thursday so didn't have a chance to write a post drawing attention to a wonderful little protest unfolding on Carden Street.

Kris and Adrian Raso, the owners of Little Shop of Guitars, began on Wednesday blasting Led Zeppelin tunes from the doorstep of their shop to protest the seemingly-endless construction going on outside.

The brothers have been visited by bylaw officers, but so far have not been ticketed. They plan to continue their sonic protest.

Based on comments left under a story about the effort on our homepage it seems the Rasos have wide community support.

City Wants To Help Peverley Celebrate

Got a call from the city looking to make contact with Rich Peverley, the Guelph hockey player who helped the Boston Bruins win the Stanley Cup.

Peverley plans on bringing the cup to Guelph for a day this summer and the city is more than willing to help arrange a bit of a shindig to help the public celebrate.

Peverley indicated he was all for that, he just wants to make sure it's done right. There have been some not-so-great moments in cup history that have left people a little disappointed and upset when public viewings were a little overwhelmed.

Given that pro athletes aren't too eager to hand out their phone number, we put the city in touch with the Boston Bruins. Hopefully they can let Peverley know the city wants to help him make plans when the cup makes it here.

Frustrated skaters take their message online

We have a story in the paper today about frustrated skateboarders launching a petition asking the city to speed up the process to relocate the skating ramps formerly located at Deerpath Park.

Today we learned of a Facebook page established as a rallying point for local skaters. Check it out here

High schoolers share vision for sustainable city

Members of the planning and building, engineering and environment committee kicked off their monthly meeting earlier this week with a very thorough presentation by local high-school students enrolled in the Headwaters program.

The approximately 20 students presented their "Vision for a Sustainable Guelph," touching on a wide variety of topics including zoning, energy, local food supply, waste management, water usage, urban forests and transportation.

While many of the ideas and proposals contained in the presentation are already on the city's table, there were a few -- including satellite branches of the Farmers' Market to make local food more readily available and holding "sustainability workshops" for residents -- that certainly should be explored.

"We want a community that can rely on itself," one student told committee members.

Committee chair Leanne Piper noted the number of senior staff in the audience, some of whom were taking notes, "so your ideas are falling on the right ears."

 

City's official position on bike lanes

I've been swapping emails with city officials over a recent column critical of the city's messaging around bike lanes and the new bike boxes.

This morning City spokesperson Stacey Hare sent me the following email:

Hello again Scott,

 

Just to close the loop on yesterday’s discussion, I am emailing to let you know the result of this morning’s meeting of the City’s Traffic and Operations team.

 If you feel it would be helpful, please feel free to share this information with your colleagues who also authored articles on the subject of Guelph’s bike box.

 

The team reviewed the Highway Traffic Act and the City’s Traffic By-law to determine which rules and regulations would apply at an intersection where the traffic signal is green, a cyclist is traveling straight through the intersection using the bike lane and a motorist is turning right. 

The Highway Traffic Act is silent on the topic of bike lanes, but the City’s Traffic By-law recognizes bike lanes so, in Guelph, a bike lane in recognized as a lane of traffic under the Act. In which case, the team agreed that the following sections of the HTA would apply:

 

Section 141-2 Turning at Intersections

Section 144-19 Traffic Controls and Pedestrian Signals

Section 150-1 – Passing to right of vehicle

 

I accordance with these sections of the HTA, the City encourages motorists and cyclists to enter intersections safely and cautiously and to recognize the bike lane as a lane of traffic.

 

As shown in the bike box video, the City’s position is that the driver making the turn is responsible for doing so safely – before changing lanes and making a turn, the onus is on the driver to yield to traffic (the cyclist) already occupying the right-most lane of traffic (the bike lane).

 

If a motorist has already entered into the right-most lane to make a right turn (the right-most lane being a bike lane) a cyclist should yield to the motorist in that lane of traffic.The City does plan to review all website content including the instructions in the bike box video to ensure that we continue to provide helpful instructions for drivers and cyclists sharing the road.

 

Any further questions about traffic movements can be directed to Allister McILVeen, Manager Traffic and Parking, 519-822-1260 x 2275.

 

Busy committee meeting tonight

I'm gearing up for a busy meeting of the community and social services committee this evening.

Among the topics on the agenda are the future of the Bookmobile, funding for social service-paid funerals, structural repairs to city buildings and a proposal to build a new medical centre in the south end.

We'll likely have a couple of these in tomorrow's paper and a couple on Thursday.

The fun (?) gets underway in council chambers at 5 p.m.

Something seems odd about this

So, remember how the city wanted the Guelph Humane Society to agree to an extension of the temporary animal control contract so other agencies interested in getting that contract would have more time to make their pitch?

Yeah, I know.

Anyway, the city's CAFES committee is set to consider this afternoon a staff report recommending the city enter into a lease agreement with the GHS to use the Wellington Street property where it has been located since 1974 and has not had a lease since 1995.

Now, since the animal control contract is technically still up in the air, why would the city and humane society be talking about implementing a lease on a building which has not had one for 16 years?

Curious, no?