I run into people all the time who have never visited the Pipeline Trail in the east end of our city – or have even heard of it. You can’t blame them because, surprisingly, there are no plaques or signs indicating where this unique bike/pedestrian corridor exists. The trail follows a diagonal north/easterly path over …
Continue reading "Pipeline Trail –
A horn player recently told me about how jazz colleagues are somewhat rusty from not having the gigs or the opportunity to jam during the forced isolation of the pandemic. Folk rocker, singer songwriter, guitar player and Crown Point resident Laura Keating had a different experience during the past two-years. “I turned to new ways …
Continue reading "Laura Keating, a working musician"There is an unfortunate phenomenon that seems to be part of Hamilton’s DNA: buildings torn down to make way for city-approved projects, only to fail to get off the ground. It happens for all sorts of reasons including uncertain financing. So, we end up with parking lots or other kinds of underutilized and empty spaces …
Continue reading "Crown Point artist at AGH"
This spring, Hamilton city council is expected to debate and pass a complete streets design manual to make roads friendlier and safer, especially for more vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists. Under the program, walking, cycling, and public transit will have a higher priority. The 2021 city transportation master plan (unanimously adopted by city council) states that …
Continue reading "Can a city be driven to change?"
November was an exciting month for the usually cautious city council in Hamilton. First, the city voted to freeze the urban boundary despite pressure from developers keen to build vast tracts of low-density suburban homes for automobile dependent commuters on agricultural land. A little more than a week later, the city transportation planners were unceremoniously …
Continue reading "Trucks, roads, and transportation reviews"Commercial and long-haul freight trucks are like modern-day dinosaurs. They lumber along and dominate the road networks they share with smaller vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. But we’ve learned to depend on these massive beasts which deliver vegetables, fruit, appliances and other goods to every community across North America, 24-7. In our fulfillment economy, they’ve been …
Continue reading "Truck Route Master Plan a wrong turn?"In late March the smell of burnt coal hovered over east Hamilton’s Crown Point neighbourhood, not far from the steel plants along Lake Ontario. A March 25 article in the Hamilton Spectator reported that a temperature inversion (two layers of air, warm on top of cool) was keeping pollutants in a holding pattern that posed …
Continue reading "That bad smell"A boarded-up building with a troubled history at 180 Ottawa St. N. at Cannon is coming to life. Contractors hired by social housing provider Indwell, are conducting restoration work inside a gutted interior which has experienced fire and water damage. To Councillor Sam Merulla the Indwell purchase of this property is nothing short of a …
Continue reading "The hex on 180 Ottawa street is finally over"
The Ottawa Street Farmers Market on Saturday is here to stay and there is no tension nor rift with the retailers and merchants in the Ottawa Street BIA. Nica vanBeuzekom, co-owner of the Branching Path Farm, is of the view that an opinion piece in the Hamilton Spectator on Feb. 27 paints an erroneous picture …
Continue reading "Updated: Family food, not feud"Two recent instances at Ottawa and Cannon last year, where drivers lost control of their cars and smashed into buildings, have highlighted the issue of road safety for local residents and merchants in the Crown Point area. Fortunately, nobody walking along the sidewalk during these incidents were injured or killed, but many residents are deeply …
Continue reading "Car crash central: Ottawa and Cannon"
