Want to hear exactly how Windsor mayor Eddie Francis thinks drive-thru's are as natural to an urban area as cats and dogs are to a pet shop? Listen to his spin during his weekly talk with AM 800's Mike and Lisa here.When other municipalities, like the ever-successful London, Ontario, are putting forward progressive legislation in the hopes of making their communities better places to live, we have our Mayor essentially making fun of them.
Who do they think they are, anyways? These "outside experts" who run successful cities?
12 comments:
The community won here -- no drive through:
http://www.welivehere.ca/
Drive thrus out in areas with the room for car marshalling is one thing, but downtown-core areas really suffer when a place like Tim Hortons builds a drive thru on a postage stamp sized lot. With lineups spilling out onto narrow, crowded roads, motorists fighting for a place in line, making illegal turns and other stupid maneuvers. Anyone who has watched the traffic activity at the Tim Hortons on Kildare and Ottawa (for example) knows what I'm talking about!
as someone who lives near to the Kildare/Ottawa location, let me tell you it drives me crazy!! no respect for the rules of the road whatsoever. It is as if none exist, a free-for-all. Same goes for the location at Tecumseh & Howard where drivers turning North onto Howard from Tecumseh pull an immediate U-Turn while in mid turn onto Howard just to enter Tim Horton's.
My personal opinion is that, with the green movement growing, our city should take proactive steps and be a LEADER. Ban drivethru's completely to rid areas of idling vehicles. Can this not be fought on the angle of the health of pedestrians and people living in the vicinity?
Serious steps need to be taken in this city to make it livable. It seems we are currently moving in the opposite direction.
AC... oh yeah, I hear ya!! I see that all the time, the ones who make an illegal left turn into the drive-thru entrance by the median, forcing their way through the opposing traffic's left turn lane and two other lanes so they can get their precious Timmies. Then there's barely room in the cue for a handful of cars before the line spills out onto Howard ave. WTF is wrong with people?! Why the city planning dept. allows asinine configurations like this is beyond my understanding. And this intersection is bad enough as it is, with or without Tim Hortons screwing it up more. And yeah, I live near the Kildare SNAFU as well, which is why it came to mind first. I'm sure there are more examples.
Interestingly, the Timmies in Riverside seems to do just fine without a drive thru, non? Do we really NEED drive thrus everywhere?
drivethru's are nothing more than an easy way to make a profit at the expense of the livability of a neighbourhood.
I used to live just north of the Timmies at Kildare and Ottawa. It isn't just the drive-thru that makes for a bad neighbour, but the auto-centricity of the whole development. It isn't a place to hang out (just read the signs inside!), but rather a get-in, get-out joint. Traffic from the entire neighbourhood would use Kildare to funnel to and from Timmies. Walking to Timmies with the kids for donuts was always a frightening experience as cars shoot out of the drive-thru trying to make the light with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching their coffee.
So we moved... :)
I wish there was something we the people who have to live in the midst of this mess (and don't necessarily want to move) can do to fight back or somehow give Tim's a taste of their own medicine. I suppose it isn't all Tim's own fault, if only their thousands of drive-thru patrons acted like human beings in their comings and goings.
There is something we can do, John. And you're absolutely correct - this isn't Timmie's offence. It is resting solely on the doorstep of our municipal government. Tim Horton's, beholden to only their shareholders, care about their bottom line and will do everything in their power to make it grow. As a corporation, that is their natural drive - just like people need to eat, sleep and procreate.
Our municipal government, on the other hand, are "hired" to look after the welfare of our community. They are doing a very poor job of this and are confusing their role with that of the corporations.
It may be argued that the shareholders of the "Corporation of the City of Windsor" and it's residents are one in the same, but traditionally, the interests of shareholders of any corporation are interested solely in the monetary bottom line. They don't take all the ephemerals into consideration,like our air and water quality, noise polution, traffic congestion, monkey-butt ugly develoment forms, etc. Those are "externals" left to others to take care of. Unfortunately, that means us.
We need to remind our municial decision makers that they are working for us - the citizen residents of the city of Windsor. Not the "shareholders", nor the ubiquitous chain stores littering the city. They need to acknowledge some responsibility in the mess that has been created in this city, and damn it! We need to force them to do it.
Chris, I always thought of it as two basic groups under the 'shareholder' category being the resident citizen, and, the commercial citizen (big, small, or other). And yes, I agree with the huge imbalance re. representation by our municipal leaders. And I don't think these leaders get off the hook that easy by merely focussing on the bottom line, dollars and cents. I get the feeling that they sign off on bigboxes and culdesacs and 'monkey-butt ugly' streetscapes with a 'let-them-eat-cake attitude. So when do we storm the gates? What do we do first? Do we start with the drive-thrus?
Hey Sporto. The first thing (in my honest opinion) is to create a critical mass of residents demanding better of our elected representatives. I think it will always come down to that, for without our councillors receiving a telephone call from multiple citizens on a certain topic, they will always support the status quo.
That is why I love this forum so much. I am enjoying the hell out of discussing these issues with others, and am thrilled when someone new registers and voices their opinions. We need to organize a united front in this war against mediocrity.
We will continue to fight the battles (like the drive-thrus and big-box stores), but the war will not be won until we nurture this critical mass that convinces our populist municipal government to admit that these issues we bring up (and I really want our readers to bring up issues that they feel are important as well so we can discuss them) are a real threat to our quality of life.
...a noble effort indeed.. and i forgot a third basic group that sits at the trough--industrial-- also wanting to take a chunk outa the public realm....
And, speaking of our 'resident citizens', here is a small snapshot of our critical mass. Unfortunately, I would've liked to see the numbers reversed... from cklw poll today..
Should farms, regardless of size, be allowed to be rezoned for residential use by family members?
Yes 67.0%
No 33.0%
Sporto, I don't put much stock in the CKLW news poll. There are no controls over how many times someone can vote, nor any consideration given to the demographics of the voters. (This is the same poll that came out with a strong 89% supporting spanking children.) Bah.
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