The old Bailey Bridge on Niska Road is gone. I saw it. It happened. Don’t tell me it didn’t happen!
Having said that, it seemed clear last Thursday night that the fight was far from over.
The venue was the Fred Hamilton School just south of Stone Road, and the event was an open house to look at the planned two-lane bridge that will replace the old Bailey. A Bow-string Arch Truss Bridge to be precise.
Of course, this entire endeavour has been the subject of much controversy.
To begin with, let’s bridge this conversation (pun intended) with a note about my understanding that this is an environmentally sensitive area. Again, I’ve been there.
Despite that though, Niska Road is an increasingly important roadway in the south end of the city, much to the chagrin of the people living there. It was on this matter that City of Guelph project manager Ken VanderWal was descended upon at the open house.
Just a note here, again, that the open house was about the bridge, and not traffic on Niska Road.
One of the features of the new bridge is that it can withstand trucks passing over it. Although the City is going to be actively discouraging trucks from using the new bridge, staff have this ridiculous notion that if a truck does somehow use the bridge then they don’t want their expensive new construct to collapse into the river below.
This was a source of controversy. People don’t want trucks using the bridge, hence the dissuasion tactics, but it seems that people don’t want highly visible traffic diversion methods either. At least that was the result of a survey taken by the City at a previous town hall.
Or as some at the open house considered it: a massive government conspiracy.
You see, at that open house, there must have been people from Cambridge and Kitchener there, undercover, in order to override the neighbourhood desire to curb loud and fast-moving traffic.
That, and the saucer people. And the Rand Corporation. And the reverse vampires.
I jest, but in all seriousness it sounded to me like the people in the area of Niska and Ptarmigan think that traffic only affects them. I tried to point out that there are bad drivers making many neighbourhoods in the city unsafe, but I was shouted down as a west end interloper.
My aim isn’t to belittle these people, or their concerns, indeed I share them. Traffic should be a concern, and the idea that the City wagging a finger at anyone driving a big rig over the new Niska Bridge is going to be any kind of deterrent is ludicrous.
Of course, the idea that the people in the neighbourhood around Niska Road could have a “members only” bridge was also kind of silly, as was the suggest that the Bailey Bridge should be replaced by no bridge at all.
I’ve sat in a lot of planning meetings, and almost anyone that gets up to speak against a particular development usually starts out the same: “I’m in favour of development, but…”
The “but” is usually a long-winded explanation why their backyard is not the place for that development.
NIMBYism is not new, and it’s certainly not unique to Guelph, but I wonder how we can all work better to overcome this. Is NIMBYism the result of feeling shut out of the process?
I think there have been instances of developments coming to council and giving people in the proposed area shellshock by the concept. But working together with neighbourhood residents, changes were made to these proposals that allowed them to go forward.
I was talking with Dr. Ray Tomalty of the School of Urban Planning at McGill University for an upcoming episode of the Guelph Politicast. He said that the remedy for NIMBYism is to get into the neighbourhood ahead of time, talk to area residents about what kind of development they want to see, and what kind of amenities they need.
It’s why the proposed Planning Advisory Committee is so interesting. The point is to bring together average citizens to provide advice and feedback on proposed developments and land-use zoning, in the hopes of creating more collaboration between residents, City staff and council. Might this committee cut off some particularly difficult develop fights off at the pass by addressing problems in the early stage?
The hopeful answer is yes, but it remains to be seen if the PAC can be the go-between it’s set up to be, or if it will just be another layer of bureaucracy to pour our anger out at.
As for the Niska Bridge, it’s hard to say what of value came out of that open house. There was excruciating scientific detail about how careful planners are being so far as the environment’s concerned, not to mention the character of the bridge, but we still seem stuck on the idea of not having a bridge.
Unfortunately, planning can take into account everything, except, sometimes, human behaviour.
