Julie McLaughlin
Plan It Calgary would reduce Calgary’s car dependency. That’s good news.
Finally a city plan that goes beyond more roads and ‘burbs
BEST: A plan for Calgary’s future. The city’s long-range Plan It blueprint isn’t perfect but it’s packed with solid ideas that would make Calgary a more livable and walkable city. The new blueprint puts pedestrians cyclists and transit users ahead of automobiles in planning decisions — a welcome change in our car-addicted city. Plan It would also keep the city from gobbling up more rural land to build cookie-cutter homes focusing instead on providing more high-density housing choices across the city.
It’s a gutsy vision for a city built around the fossil fuel industry. Predictably traditional developers and naysayer aldermen have denounced the plan as impractical and out-of-sync with Calgarians’ wants (cars single-family homes more cars and more single-family homes). These developers and aldermen are working to keep the me-first status quo but thankfully not everyone on council agrees with this unimaginative approach. CivicCamp a sprightly new civic advocacy group has also done an admirable job of promoting the plan.
For anyone who wants more than a car and house in life Plan It is a clear improvement from the current roads-and-’burbs approach to development. Now council’s just got to approve it. They vote on it later this month after a public hearing.
WORST: Aldermanic grandstanding and political posturing. You knew it was bad in November when city council stupidly axed the city’s entire waste and recycling budget. (Within hours most aldermen realized their error and reinstated the money.) The same cadre of aldermen led by Ald. Ric McIver and Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart scored countless glowing headlines throughout the year by repeatedly trying to spike minor inner-city projects including two pedestrian bridges and a one-day August street festival on Memorial Drive.
These manufactured controversies have scored political points for some aldermen but they’ve distracted from more pressing issues and have sunk council’s reputation amongst the public. Gerrymandering their own ward boundaries hasn’t helped either.
Mayor Dave Bronconnier is clearly incapable of unifying the divided council so here’s what we recommend. Council members should do a scavenger hunt. McIver and Ald. Druh Farrell will be a team and the most important thing they’ll find is that they’re not so different from each other after all.
