West LRT | 7 Stations | 8.0 KM | In Service

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Mike Wilhelm

I think there are a lot of young enthusiastic people on this forum and a few "authoritative" posters, who seem to "guide" the discussion towards the city party line. Take a look at the city's communication budget and you might get the picture.

This is "spin"

I can state with good authority that very few people here are being "guided" in their opinions or their comments. What you're seeing is an end result of a diverse group of people with a common interest coming together. I wouldn't say that there's anything resembling agreement with the city's plans; if anything people here are far more critical of most Aldermen and Bronconnier than then average Calgarian. But with the nature of Internet forums, it may come out seeming as we're all one hive-mind - trust me, that isn't the case at all. It's a remnant of the nature of the Internet.

If anything, the city's current planning aligns with what folks who frequent sites like this already tend to think.

And people here certainly aren't "anti-community". Let's get someone like furrycanuck or ramsayfarian to weigh in on that one.

[freeweed]

I'll comment further on the anonymity angle, because people who haven't been using the Internet long don't often understand this.

Imagine living in a society where every single conversation you ever had, say over a beer in a pub with some friends, or in the privacy of your own home with your spouse, was recorded and searchable - by anyone, anywhere, any time. Do you think you might restrain your tongue?

In today's times potential employers have been known to Google a person's name, and dredge up things they said 15 years ago as a stupid teenager, and use that in hiring decisions. I can just imagine not too far down the road where what's posted to a person's Facebook profile, no matter whether it's true, said in jest, or just something to get a rise out of people, is used as evidence in criminal court - oh wait, that's already happening.

Do YOU want every single offhand comment you've ever made in your life to be used completely out of context for the rest of your life? I certainly don't.

Chat rooms and Internet forums are a place I come to shoot the breeze. Not to make some grand political statement that will follow me around for decades. Just as I wouldn't expect an off-colour joke made to a buddy in high school to be plastered up on billboards across the city, I don't have any intention of every minor argument or silly comment being used against me in the future.

Canada has incredibly strict privacy laws for a reason. I don't see any reason why that motivation doesn't extend into our personal lives.

I'm not a city Alderman trying to back-peddle and lie about public statements. I'm a private citizen who deserves the right to be able to discuss things in private with my friends without fear of repercussions. Unfortunately the nature of the Internet doesn't lend itself well to that, so... nicknames and pseudonyms.

[lubicon]

Swithcing gears to the actual WLRT project itself, the seniors lodge (at least that's what I think it is), the one north of Bow Trail and east of 26 St. is now fenced off with chain link fence. I'm thinking demolition of these homes is not too far off.

[mersar]

Quite possible. The city seems to want to have all the demolition completed before they award the contract

[You Need A Thneed]

The tender is out for demolition of the Science Centre parkade and related work.

^Re NIMBYs

I still maintain that the BestWestLRT group made a big stink about the city not involving the communities in the discussion, they made that stink without even giving the city an opportunity to do so. They were really early in the design stage (before they would normally go to the communities for discussion) - as usually you bring something to show the communities to be discussed. I'm pretty sure the community discussion was going to happen anyway shortly after BestWestLRT brought the whole thing up. The city has always had discussion - sure, it hasn't always been communicated the best.

[Mike Wilhelm]

Kyle,

Here's a couple lazy acronyms for you:

INSIDER - Intellectuals with Nothing at Stake Impose their Direction on Every Resident

SPIN - Superior Psyches Inform Neighborhood

If your premise is that we are self interested, clearly you are not. There seems to be a lot of self interest in your biases -the implication here is only you know the difference between a good and bad idea. I see very little original thought in your posts, just cynical predispositions and the regurgitation of facts.

I again ask - why somebody with the exact same name as the President of the Alberta Young Liberals take the trouble to put a negative spin on a community volunteer's op-ed piece under an alias in a forum? I would think running the Young Liberals or working for a living would be a priority.

Freeweed,

I am sympathetic to your argument concerning anonymity. However, it is a waste of a good mind to spend time debating on the internet. To the extent that you are not doing so already, why not work in a field that supports your views? Why not get involved with your community? Why not write opinions in your own name and publish them in the print media?

I'm almost 50, and have said many things that have come back to haunt me. Making mistakes is part of who I am. If you are interested in politics, think of some of the nonsense Pierre Trudeau spounted early in his life. Or Nelson Mandela (apologies to the Anders folks here - redemption through action is beyond them).

Take a RISK, buddy.

[MalcolmTucker]

What self interest? What bias? You're the one reaching with circumstantial ad hominem attacks. You could have refuted my arugments, but have not.

[Wooster]

Originally Posted by Mike Wilhelm

However, it is a waste of a good mind to spend time debating on the internet.

If you feel this way, why are you spending time debating on the internets machine? Just sayin'...

[Mike Wilhelm]

Wooster - fair enough. However it didn't become a priority for a year and a half.

Kyle - I am not a public figure, and the original ad hominem comments where made by you. You can't have it both ways - put yourself forward as a public figure, post under an alias and not expect criticism. You are fair game; probably others are not.

You made no arguments, you simple regurgitated facts you thought relevant. As to bias, we intentionally never made the "thinking about the children" argument, but you want to create that impression. We simply wanted to preserve the existing bridge to both area schools. We've always argued against "path dependency", but you seen to want to create the impression that our changes created this problem. We reduced the "path dependency" within our immediate neighborhood by eliminating a "heavy rail" elevated design. Words like "mistake" and "bad ideas" also illustrate a predisposition, don't you think?

You expressed opinions which were not connected to your facts, and many were based on hypothetical future developments - reduced land value (maybe - who's buying land right now?), increased passenger volume (probably at Sirocco, unlikely at 26 St). Your arguments frankly made more sense prior to the financial meltdown, and the fact that you are hanging on to them in light of new information is interesting.

Don't overbuild, focus development at Westbrook and Sunalta, and when those projects are finished, integrate station upgrades with future development (and have the developers pay for them). As it is - Bridgeland TOD is now pushed back 3-5 years and Brentwood and Westbrook are behind them. Developers with deep pockets are not going to overbuild in Calgary when better opportunies currently exist in London and New York.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Mike Wilhelm

Freeweed,

I am sympathetic to your argument concerning anonymity. However, it is a waste of a good mind to spend time debating on the internet. To the extent that you are not doing so already, why not work in a field that supports your views? Why not get involved with your community? Why not write opinions in your own name and publish them in the print media?

I'm almost 50, and have said many things that have come back to haunt me. Making mistakes is part of who I am. If you are interested in politics, think of some of the nonsense Pierre Trudeau spounted early in his life. Or Nelson Mandela (apologies to the Anders folks here - redemption through action is beyond them).

Take a RISK, buddy.

I think you misunderstand the fundamental reason why some of us are here. I'm not trying to direct public policy, I'm not interested in convincing people to my side. This forum is where I (and most forumers, I imagine) come to see pretty pictures, find out what's going on, and yeah - have some lively debate on issues. We're not out to save the world here.

Again, it's pub talk. I don't think idle discussion is ever a waste of a good mind; everyone does it all the time. I find great value personally in rhetoric, and in this particular forum there's just enough diversity in opinion (and certainly far enough from the mainstream) that it's a great place to get new ideas and challenge my own beliefs. The fact that it happens on the Internet is to me no different than dinnertime discussions with the family - there's value in that for most people, no?

In short, I use this place to grow ME. Not to have any impact on the city or its residents. That I do through completely different channels.

Sorry for the continued off-topic folks. I just don't want to have some community association viewing this forum as some authoritative source of information or planning decisions. I think I'm safe in saying that many if not most of us are just here to shoot the breeze.

[Mike Wilhelm]

freeweed - good post. I wouldn't be posting here at all if Kyle wasn't using this forum as a soapbox for his policy expertise and opinions about our group. Maybe I should simply flag his original post as inappropriate and move on.

On reflection, I'm sorry if I was too personal. I've been fighting infrastructure "idea guys" for a while, and you are the first I've run across that was honest about his interests. I'm dead wrong on this one - I'm the cynic now. Thanks.

[MalcolmTucker]

I think you misunderstood what I meant by path dependency as meaning a dependence on paths. The 2007 city proposal through Sunalta and up over Crowchild was created for a couple reasons:
1. The WLRT project was no longer a concurrent project to the Bow Trail connector.
2. The WLRT should not preclude a future project to implement the Bow Trail connector.

Having the WLRT run in and around the existing interchange makes it harder to fix in the future. Therefor by making the decision today, we have put ourselves on a path that prevents us from taking a future path. Therefor: path dependency.

Re: Thinking of the Children argument. Don't kid yourself, don't you remember the horror stories about what a bridge pillar on the school yard would do to the Sunalta School? Having homeless people and graffiti across from a school in a rendering is definetly an attempt at the 'think of the children' argument.

Who is buying land now? The winning bidder of the project is buying land now. They are buying all the land the city has assembled for the project. If the percieved value is lower, they might put in a higher bid than would have been the case.

Re: financial crisis changing passenger volumes. During the boom transit ridership increased. Now during the recession transit ridership is increasing. There is little evidence that something will happen that will cause a stagnation in transit use, or a drop.

I have never presented myself as a public figure on this board, or more importantly that my opinions were any more valid as a result of that. I would hope that everyone would be held to a high standard of debate, but I don't know why a volunteer position is relevant at all. Now, if this was a forum on provincial or federal politics, that would be different. But it isn't, so it is not.

I am on the forum because it is a soapbox, because I like debate. I wrote a senior thesis on LRT planning so I like to think I add something to the debate, and provide the 'City's' perspective when no one else is defending it. Sometimes this is because I believe in the city's perspective, and sometimes it is just to advance debate.

I believed your letter was using language that was indicative of the very problem you claimed to have avoided so I pointed it out.

Turning reactions into a vision is never easy. It requires a path through "not in my backyard" to "not in my neighbours' backyard." Hopefully it then moves from "not in my community" to "not in my neighbours' community."

The later most statement is indicative of 'CAVE People' in my view.

[freeweed]

Actually Mike I appreciate the commentary and viewpoint, by all means welcome and continue posting. You may be the first person from your area to not come off as some anti-development raving nutbag that I've heard from - admittedly I haven't been exposed to much other than this forum or whoever the Herald can dig up to complain. You're certainly more coherent than the last BWLRT guy we saw (at least I think it was someone from BW, maybe not?) - he/she used to ramble on about how TOD meant Brentwood was going to lose community pools, that sort of thing.

Anyway, the more the merrier in this pool. While I'm as pro-development as anyone, I do sometimes have to fight against the 100% pro-urban types who think that the suburbs should be razed and replaced with 40 storey condos, that shopping malls are evil, and that private automobiles are the downfall of human civilization (seriously, read some of the other Calgary threads here ).

[Mike Wilhelm]

Kyle,

Who said a couple kids with a skateboard were homeless? It could be my son. More bias - you saw what you wanted to. Is the rendering not otherwise accurate in relation to the city's plans at the time? The house would be gone, I guess.

We asked for and couldn't get an accurate rendering before this went up (other than the one we copied from your post, which was refused to us). We immediately asked the city communications group to give us a more accurate rendering if they had issue with this. They agreed to do this - but elected to set up their own web site on westlrt.com. Hopefully our efforts moved them in this direction.

I don't like the "thinking of the children" thing – don’t like it; not my style. It was formally used once in our first position letter sent to aldermen, when I was peripherally involved. We intentionally did not include the school in the Scarboro rendering. We didn't mussle anybody that wanted to say how they felt about it - we just didn't want it in our formal communications.

I didn't know about the contractor using the land to offset costs - if so, and the land value is down, the project may be over budget if this is true. Lower construction costs won't matter. Direct me to your publically available source on this one.

On ridership volumes, my point is that most of the increase will come from TOD, which won't happen soon. This is a development friendly project, designed specifically to densify the West side. That objective may not be met in the near term. Your fact on ridership is interesting, but again irrelvant.

As to my quote; after I submitted the letter I regretted not adding the line "Nobody wants a bad plan in their back yard; but a good plan often doesn't need to be sold." The quote doesn't work at all for other issues, like social agencies. This became clear in the context of the the Braeside letters on the same page. Hopefully everybody here takes this quote in the context of the overall piece.

As to your objectivity; nice try. Your political role raises the bar. You are a self-professed wonk, and in the future may run for office, or become a policy advisor to someone running for office. It would be important to establish any biases you might have in connection with planning and community input. Your role would increase your access to information. The President of the Young Liberals would would have better access to insiders needing votes than, say, Mike Wilhelm, homeowner. Your posts may be reflective of the views of people you associate with. These biases may be commonly accepted at city hall.

I too am willing to advance debate, but want to ensure a level playing field where roles and interests are understood. That was the whole point of the op-ed piece.

[MalcolmTucker]

From: C2007-78 West LRT Alignment Budget and Project Delivery.pdf pages 21 & 22 Available at: http://www.westlrt.ca/contentarchive...ilmeetings.cfm

To realize the opportunities for Transit Oriented Development at the Ernest Manning High School site (17 Avenue/35 Street SW) and for City owned lands at West MarketSquare (17 Avenue/Sirocco Drive SW), these lands will be vended in with the Design/Build procurement for the West LRT Line. The proceeds realized from redevelopment of these sites would be used to offset some portion of the capital costs for constructing the West LRT Line.

The Design/Build approach would result in lower overall costs and will maximize and accelerate transit oriented development as part of the West LRT.

The rendering from my post was from a presentation to council. It was seen by someone on here on the news one evening, and we eventually found it on the city website. It is on the first page of West LRT Presentation to Council (4.6 MB) which is now available here: http://www.westlrt.ca/contentarchive...ons_1njkkw.cfm

As for other things, anyone can run for office, anyone can help on a campaign. You yourself are quite likely to be involved in a big way in the next municipal campaign in someway due to your civic activism. Let me tell you, my role in no way increases access to information. I may know how to run a good google search on the city site, and can pull old articles off of Lexis Nexus to prove a point but I don't have any insider access at city hall.

[freeweed]

I admit, I had to look this up:

Wonk, slang for a person preoccupied with arcane details or procedures in a specialized field.

[Mike Wilhelm]

Kyle,

True - anybody can run, but I think that the Young Liberals President and a guy with a Poly-Sci degree would have a higher probability of being a long term political operative than a 50 year old B.Comm finance guy with 20+ years in the oil and gas business. I'm not sure you can equalize our interests, but nice try.

I have no aspirations for politics, but will advocate for good policy. I'm more interested in the protection of property interests generally and good thinking specifically than aligning myself with anybody in power. I’ve worked in a third world country, where the lack of strong property protection forces citizens to treat loyalty interests as a substitute for property.

[Dado]

Fascinating...

I follow the Calgary forums since I lived in Calgary a couple years ago and because there is plenty to learn from in Calgary that may be of benefit to people who live in places like Ottawa.

I would echo the comments about the BestWestLRT group not being taken seriously due to the graffiti pictures. I just about burst out laughing when I first saw it. It looked like a caricature that an anti-NIMBY group would put up to mock a NIMBY group, except it wasn't. Nevertheless, I went along and looked at the plans anyway with an open mind, because here in Ottawa we have groups that suggest changes that are improvements over what the City generates. But when I did what I saw was an attempt to add a lot of extra curvature and climbing - in Ottawa our community/transit groups fought against that kind of thing! After that I simply wrote BWLRT off as NIMBY. And for what it's worth, where I live (and grew up) in Ottawa is very near to where the [bus] Transitway ends in the west end and goes onto a riverside parkway. In the future the Transitway will be converted to LRT (at long last) and I can tell you that plenty of people around here are going NIMBY about it because the Parkway might be used for LRT. Here's the kind of site they put up:

http://www.savetheparkway.ca/

It's classic NIMBY. They put up a picture of the pathway along the Ottawa River Parkway (actually used as an expressway like Memorial Drive) with the words "Stop light rail in its tracks" plastered over it - yet everyone here knows that any LRT would not touch the pathway and would be put on the other side of the Parkway - closer to people's backyards. You don't see the Parkway itself - probably because it is always has buses and getting a bus-free (i.e. unspoilt) picture would be next to impossible. Meanwhile, the LRT picture is that of a bridge and is hardly representative of what it would look like (and doesn't even look that bad to me anyway). The blurb is also inaccurate - a lot of the Parkway was built on fill so much of the shoreline is just a rubble embankment, the corridor is already fenced-in along its entire length from the neighbouring communities with limited entrance points and they ignore that the CPR mainline (ultimately the same one that Best West LRT wanted to use!) used to go through here until the feds decided to rip it out in the 60s. Claims of LRT being a barrier to use are false - even at peak periods there would be 2-3 minutes between trains compared to the constant flow of cars and buses. To add to the irony, there actually is a better route not too far away using a former tramway corridor that would have development on both sides but the same people don't want that used either!

I don't share the view that NIMBYism is normal. I live right in the same area and don't have it. The sooner the buses are gone and replaced with LRT the better. Better ride, less pollution, less noise, better reliability, and so on. There are others around here who feel the same as I, many of whom have used LRT elsewhere as I have. Why don't we have it? Probably because we use the bus at present and experience how miserable it is. It's notable that those who came up with the above website don't take the bus (one of my friends has talked with them). I've seen NIMBY close up and to me this site and Best West were just manifestations of the same thing.


As for Kyle, he has posted in the Ottawa forums too. Mike, your contention that he is somehow a City of Calgary insider is, frankly, absurd, along with innuendo of a large communications budget. Why would he bother posting stuff in cities far away in which he has no direct interest if his motivation is as a City of Calgary insider? One thing can be pretty much assured: if municipal governments were concerned about what people on this forum (be it Calgary or Ottawa or anywhere else) thought, then they wouldn't do half the things they do. They would just get into arguments with people. As someone who follows these forums in Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary I can tell you that the reason you see a fair degree of agreement with the City of Calgary 'line' on LRT planning here is because the City of Calgary actually does a decent job with LRT planning. Go to the Ottawa forums - it's all out war on the City of Ottawa's transit and transportation planning there (and when we have time, we take aim at la Ville de Gatineau for repeating Ottawa's mistakes - dumb and dumber - and at the federal National Capital Commission for not doing anything about either). When it comes to LRT/transit planning, you are fortunate to live in one of the better cities. The West LRT line will be a project that advocates in other cities point to as an example to follow.

[Mike Wilhelm]

Dado,

Our objection was never over West LRT or the route past Crowchild Trail, it was over the sudden introduction of a new route over Crowchild Trail using an elevated alignment. Three alternatives were prepared by administration; two of these did not use this concept. Only one was presented to council and the new concept was voted on without communication or consultation with the communities.

To give you an idea of the politics at the time - a new concept was implemented without communication or consultation with elected officials or affected communities. A NIMBY response, valid or not, might be normal in that circumstance.

This is quite different from claiming a "right" to a park. We willingly gave up part of our park to accomodate a substation. Golf course land which faces as much as a third of our community was incorporated into the project without incident. The golf course was gone anyway, and a view is not necessarily a "right". I'm not sure your example is relevant here.

Your personal response to the Ottawa issue is also irrelevant. Resident property owners don't always find your level of enlightenment on these issues, and it is disingenuous to brand people as self serving when they are in fact unaware. The NIMBY label is an easy out; you can’t possibly assess people’s motivation for reacting.

The curvature and climbing issues were identified by us as problems, and were never advocated by us. Our LRT engineer and infrastructure architect advocated for a completely different at grade route under both Bow and Crowchild, which I’m not going to re-debate again here. Suffice it to say that our route likely failed due to property interests on the right of way (mainly CPR) and existing, but undisclosed development expectations along the line. What I learned is that it is madness to advocate a solution which the city can rebut, and I don’t think we’d do that again.

Calgary has a very successful LRT system, which is supported by its centralized core. Its success has fostered a relatively good planning process. Based on people I’ve talked to concerning both Edmonton and Ottawa, your thoughts are likely correct. Vancouver may be a bit ahead, simply because of the extent of and related experience with, their system. I’m not sure the elevated concept really works there, but there were land considerations involved.

As to my posts on Kyle - If he claims not to be an insider, and has no ongoing communication with insiders at city hall, I’ll take that at face value. The issue is then with optics. It is my view that somebody in his position would not normally be expected to be posting opinions about individuals and community groups on a public blog using an alias. If he is interested in the issues, he should keep it to the issues.

My implication was that there may be other insiders on this board, but perhaps cynicism about community groups extends beyond city hall.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Mike Wilhelm

My implication was that there may be other insiders on this board, but perhaps cynicism about community groups extends beyond city hall.

In spades. While I won't say I'm always at odds with every community group in existence, let's just say that in my personal experience I find myself disagreeing with the majority of what I hear from them.

Community groups can and often do approach the dreaded US homeowners' associations in their level of stupidity. Wanting to tell other residents what colour is OK to paint their house, or what kind of wood you're allowed to build your fence out of, that sort of thing. Pure, textbook definition of NIMBY, with 2 major arguments over and over again - 1) my property values might go down! and 2) won't somebody think of the children?? I've never once heard a legitimate argument using either of those tactics.

Calgary certainly isn't in those leagues yet (usually), but I do see signs of it and it bothers me every time. It's the same mentality that leads to gated communities, which are a good sign of civilization's downfall if you ask me.

I think I've mentioned that I have zero to do with city hall, politics, or anything else of that nature. I'm just an IT geek with far-ranging interests and a lot of experience with human behaviour.