Round and round, to the edge of town

Bus terminals are fixtures of Downtowns across Canada’s cities. Without fail, you can travel from coast-to-coast and manage to see what every city has to offer the moment you step off the coach. Wherever you are, arriving and departing from Downtown you’re guaranteed a first impression and last look to remember.

There’s Victoria’s, steps from the Inner Harbour, across the street from the Royal BC Museum, and kitty-corner from the Legislature

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Vancouver’s is co-located with the train station – fantastic ambience, and easy access to the Skytrain

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Edmonton’s is just at the edge of Downtown

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and so is Calgary’s

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Saskatoon’s is within a block of the city transit interchange

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and Regina’s across from the Casino – chance to cash in on a quick stopover

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Winnipeg’s brings you within spitting distance of Portage and Main

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while Toronto’s gets you right into the thick of the action at Dundas Square

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Ottawa’s is a bit of a hike from Downtown, but at least Bank St is entertaining as you head uptown

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Montreal’s drops you off in the middle of the Village

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and Halifax’s train/bus station, like Vancouver’s, makes for classic arrivals and farewells like you see in the movies

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It’s not just about giving travellers an attractive welcome to the community; nor is it just about making life convenient for rural commuters from the area to work Downtown; or promoting environmentally-friendly public transport by making it more attractive or useful; or supporting financially-conscious passengers like students who can’t afford hidden costs like taxi transfers to inconvenient stations.

Downtown terminals are part of what distinguishes destinations and places to be, from mere waystations you can’t wait to move on from. Even if it’s not your destination, city planners know that if you get a good impression of the place as you pass through and stop over, you’ll probably at least get off, look around – and spend – and maybe even want to come back. More importantly, you won’t think of the place as just another crappy highway backwater stop between real cities.

Since bus travellers truly are a “captive audience” as they cross the country, bus terminals are a fantastic opportunity for vibrant, desirable cities to establish and maintain their positive vibe. Comparison and competition between communities is inevitable when you’re on the bus – you see them all. Even moreso than airports – aircraft on hub-and-spoke routes cast all the attention to the big three (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal); but bus terminals are where every Canadian city has a chance to make an impression.

Fredericton, however, is looking to lose its textbook-perfect Downtown bus terminal – with all the convenience, aesthetic appeal and tourist/traveller services like restaurants and cafés (ie, opportunities to spend money in the local economy) that comes with a Downtown location

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in favour of a middle-of-nowhere rental space at 150 Woodside Ln – with all the convenience, aesthetic appeal and services that come with a highway pullout (ie, none of the above)

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According to CBC Radio, taxi fare to the proposed site could run around 20$ or so depending on where you’re coming from. Seeing as how the bus fare to, say, Halifax is only 67$ (57$ for students and over 60s), that’s not just a minor inconvenience – you’re making travel 25-30% more expensive, just like that.

It’s not the bus company’s fault – after twenty years at Regent and King, they “would love to be downtown, but we just can’t find accommodations” since their landlord ended their lease this April. There is the abandoned train station site that would be perfect – walkable to Downtown, lots of open area, maybe an opportunity to get that same ambience as Vancouver and Halifax – and even the Planning Advisory Committee says it “might be expensive to redevelop, but it would be a choice location”.

I don’t know what’s stopping the City of Fredericton from coming up with a solution, intervening and making it happen. It could offer a loan, mediate with the current landlord, buy the land itself and operate a city-owned terminal (just like an airport), or even pull off a land-swap trade deal as it has before to secure the space – maybe another business that doesn’t really need to be Downtown would sell or exchange for a more appropriate plot the City might happen to own already.

Hopefully there’ll be some public outcry about this – too bad it’s come up just when a big chunk of the terminal’s primary users (ie university students) are all away for the holidays. (Hmm, coincidence?) It’s not just about making life convenient for us residents – but promoting a positive image and leaving a good impression with our visitors, and providing facilities you’d expect from a Capital City.

Seriously, a middle-of-nowhere highway pullout – “Welcome to Fredericton”? Definitely not what a city should be.

Blues and twos

The police is running a contest to design Fredericton’s Next Police Car. Right now it looks like

PoliceCanada.ca

The public image of a police department isn’t usually part of urban planning discourse, but I think it’s actually one of the most visible contributions cities make to the community fabric. Quick – name the first municipal service that comes to mind. For most people, it’s the city’s police department.

Out on the street, police cars are probably the most-often seen tangible product of municipal taxation, other than traffic lights or street signs. As such, they’re also the service that lends best to branding with the City’s identity. (Of course the streets themselves are City products – but you can’t really put logos or colours right on them.)

Unfortunately, there’s only one city I’ve seen that actually does this well: Ottawa manages to coordinate its police, fire, ambulance and even parking authority with the signature O-swoosh logo and consistent fonts on street signs and such

But I digress – back to police cars… On film and on TV, producers go to great lengths to match prop police cars and such with the look of the real thing. Though Toronto’s CN Tower or Montréal’s Place-Ville-Marie might show up in a scene trying to pass for New York or Los Angeles, a passing white-and-blue NYPD or black-and-white LAPD cruiser is enough to suspend reality and keep the plot on track.

Of course there’s no pretense of Fredericton’s police vehicles making it on the big screen anytime soon, but every time a car runs a patrol or attends a scene, it’s not just ferrying constables across town – it’s establishing a presence, asserting authority, making society’s values and laws tangible. And when bad things happen, it’s extending the community’s concern, keeping a promise To Serve and Protect.

I remember biking by a crime scene in Vancouver. Some store got robbed, and it looked like the bad guys beat a few people on the way out. The police must’ve just arrived, because constables were rushing in, escorting injured people to ambulances, blocking off traffic with their cars and sealing off the area.

The Vancouver Police recently re-did their cars, and I guess some of those freshly-done cruisers were on the scene: a thick blue waving ribbon – I think it was a Aboriginal stylised animal head – ran down the side like racing stripes; a jaunty half-maple leaf peeked towards the tail; and the door was open, announcing the “Vancouver LICE” were on the scene – they made the word “POLICE” too big to fit.

You could tell the officers were definitely doing their jobs professionally and taking the time to help everyone that was hurt; but with the sirens wailing and people still yelling and crying in shock, the gaudy, happy ribbons and racing stripes really looked odd. Almost trivialising, insensitive in such a terrible situation.

I don’t know what goes into police car marking design, but some of them don’t look like police cars at all! All the fancy racing stripes and swoopy swooshes look like any other commercial truck or car trying to catch attention and sell itself. Even the word “Police” is dolled-up with bubble letters, multicolours and drop-shadows. There’s a new pattern up the highway in Miramichi

PoliceCanada.ca

I guess it looks festive and happy and friendly, but if there was an emergency and you needed to wave a passing cop over, you wouldn’t recognise that as a police car. It just doesn’t scream “Police” when you look at it – a big white Impala or Crown Vic with multicolour stripes is mostly likely a taxi, trying to catch your attention and make fares. You’d have to actually read “Police” on the door, see the constable in the driver’s seat or the flashing lights and sirens to tell what it really is.

And most of all – when you need the police to come over, you don’t go looking for festive or happy or friendly. You need something authoritative, solid and trustworthy – something that says professionals are on the scene, things are under control, and everything is going to be ok. Nike swooshes and Photoshopped gradients when people are in distress – at best, it’s just a little awkward, no?

Anyway, threw together something mock-ups: nothing fancy, but I think they’re cleanly and instantly “Police”, there’s no mistaking them for a taxi or a courier service; the blue-and-red are already recognised police colours, and the black-and-white is pretty obvious; there’s the City logo; with the doors open it won’t say “ICE” or “LICE”; and if it shows up in a newspaper photo of a crime scene or carrying Fredericton’s Most Wanted, it’s not looking trivialising or insensitive

I also re-drew the badge – current on the left, edits in the middle and right. The middle one switches the leaves for a standard radiating shield, police tradition since the first modern force, London’s Metropolitan Police Service; on the right, trying to match the official Canadian Heraldic Authority style

Also re-did the City’s coat of arms – the existing triple-shield-within-a-shield coat of arms seems a bit wonky

According to Terrence C Manuel KStJ CD FHSC (don’t know who that is, but lots of letters after the name, so he must be an expert), “the arms for the city were designed by Dr James Robb, a professor at King’s College (now University of New Brunswick), who was also a member of Fredericton’s City Council. The arms were drawn without regard to the laws of heraldry and were not recorded nor approved by the College of Arms in Britain”. Instead I wonder if simply dividing a shield in four would work, like

Anyway, we’ll find out soon how that contest turns out.

The “real” Bylaw Z-2.645

I stand corrected. Bylaw Z-2.645 was about neither the Costco nor the gas station to go along with it on the UNB forest preservation lands – both were already quietly approved years ago by the City’s internal planning committee, before all this drama came to light – but a carpark extension to cover up part of the wetland. (And, in the end, Fredericton votes unanimous “yay” to more parking lot.)

As has been pointed out, it would’ve been kind of nice, and less frustrating and time-wasting – and, of course, professional – for the City to’ve been clear from the start what we were actually debating. Since Council’s now voting on a different issue, it would make sense to re-open submissions of public objections and support – if Council didn’t know the subject at hand, obviously the rest of us don’t either, and all the hearings to date can’t count for anything.

I remember back when I was on Council – high school Student Council – something like this happening after we switched our vending machine supplier from Pepsi to Coke. There was a mix-up and the details were wrong. Fair enough – we were all caught up planning the Hallowe’en Dance at the same time. But this is when you would shelve the issue, and come back to it once everyone had a chance to review the topic, get class feedback, and actually debate the merits of the case with at least some sense of due democratic process.

If Fredericton could’ve done the same, they might’ve done some research (ie, Googled “big box store parking”), and could’ve quickly found that “developers routinely build more parking spaces than required by zoning… Research now shows that typical zoning regulations require more parking spaces than are actually utilized” (University of Connecticut). In 2001 – well before the word “Costco” were spoken in Fredericton – the US Department of Transportation already completed studies to retrofit 1990s big-box retailers.

Closer to home, Toronto City Council established design guidelines for parking lots – part of Toronto Green Standard – which, unlike Green Matters Fredericton, establishes concrete zoning and design mandates to achieve actual performance measures. And this is in 2007 – right about the time the City planning commission would’ve (should’ve?) been doing their research on urban design standard practices.

If Council couldn’t let the public have a chance to review once they figured out what was really going to the vote, surely they could’ve delayed the vote for 10 minutes just to check online if there’s better ideas than rubber-stamping more parking; they’ve got free wi-fi in the city, after all. Seriously, if you just Google around for 10 minutes before you decide something – I do this all the time before seeing patients, just to make sure they don’t whip out “something they read from the Internet” they didn’t teach in med school – you make more informed, better, safer choices.

This is not an ideological, political, anti-development issue at all – it’s just common sense. There’s actually a lot of good things they could’ve gotten for us if they pondered it a little. Like one of my Trauma Surgery preceptors said, “Don’t just do something – stand there and think!”

Bylaw Z-2.645

Bylaw Z-2.645 – alias “Municipal Plan Amendment, Rezoning, and Subdivision – 1600 and 1650 Regent Street (Terrain Group Inc – Costco)”, or the plan to build a Costco and gas station on the UNB forest in the south end – goes to City Council for final yay/nay tonight. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt; most everywhere else in the country has long caught on that big box stores and suburban sprawl make for crappy neighbourhoods – moreover, unsustainable and more expensive ones at that.

Now one could excuse blank-slate Regina for sprawling no-holds-barred over wide open Prairie; but Fredericton, “Noble Daughter of the Forest”, you’d think razing mature forest and wetlands for such blandness would be a non-starter. Especially with people nowadays tripping over themselves to be so green and enviro-keen – Council debating over chopping down a woodlot for a Costco is like the College of Physicians and Surgeons deliberating on, say, shaking babies for colic.

So the fact that this actually led to local controversy and is even being considered for a vote is kind of depressing.

Unfortunately, it looks like it’s not just the city planners who dropped the ball on nipping this plan in the bud, but Frederictoners at large too. Concepts like good urban design, sustainable planning, what makes neighbourhoods and communities work, comparing ourselves to other cities, or adopting best practices from the rest of Canada – other than this one blog post there’s no sense of self-reflection or vision at all in reading the paper, eavesdropping on conversations around town, or at the last Council hearing two weeks ago.

Most everyone’s been using a straight-up environmental argument – either because of the UNB Woodlot’s important ecology, or that the project encroaches on an 80m buffer that’s required in the plan, or the dangers of having a gas station over wetlands that lead to our water supply, climate change and “death by a thousand small cuts” like this, etc. Some tried to remind Council of its own “Green Matters” commitment, to protect irreplaceable resources like wetlands and woodlots. You can always put a Costco somewhere else, but you can’t rebuild a forest.

Some tried out political stances, like big box stores just pacify us with cheap imported goods we don’t need, and some raised the doomsday spectre of peak oil, but otherwise not much ideology or anything far out. I actually tried to play the medical perspective – hey, it’s in the Principles of Family Medicine after all, to be “community-based”, and “a resource to a defined practice population” – and wrote out a letter to point out the obvious:

For reasons of public health, and based on personal experience with urban planning best practices in varied places from Kingston to Toronto to Victoria to Vancouver to Singapore, I suggest Council reject such placement in favour of a more central location.

Let me make clear I don’t oppose the establishment of a Costco in Fredericton – on the contrary, I believe it will be a useful addition to the city’s retail scene, and in particular know many of my patients desperately need any opportunity to find cheaper options for their shopping needs. However, because a Costco would be such an important commercial “magnet”, its location in the city must be carefully considered.

The proposed placement in the city’s extreme south end will exacerbate Fredericton’s urban sprawl. Its pronounced disconnection from the city’s centre of mass undermines an efficient, compact urban form. As a retail anchor, it will have a snowball effect and encourage further commercial encroachment in the area, forcing residents to travel even greater distances. The site is accessible only by car; it is beyond walking distance from any established residential community, and any potential bicycle routes force users through heavy, high-speed traffic.

Urban sprawl is associated with several public health risks. The Ontario College of Family Physicians recently completed a review of research illustrating the hazards cities impose on residents when they fail to restrain such development, and the benefits individuals and communities can enjoy when alternate plans are made. The “Report on Public Health and Urban Sprawl in Ontario: A review of the pertinent literature” indicates:

- Urban sprawl leads to increased motor vehicle use not only because of greater distances, but also because it makes adequate public transit services less financially feasible;

- Greater dependence on personal vehicle use leads to an increase in air pollution. The effects of air pollution include increased respiratory diseases (such as asthma) and cardiovascular disease;

- Air pollution has also been linked to reproductive health problems and rare cancers (such as childhood leukaemia);

- Compared with people in more efficient and higher density communities, people in car-dependent communities walk less, weigh more and are more likely to suffer from obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular problems;

- Longer commuting distances lead to increases in traffic fatalities (one of our population’s leading causes of death), injuries and disabilities to motorists, pedestrians and cyclists; and,

- People in sprawling communities are more likely to suffer from mental health problems due to long commutes, isolation and loss of social capital than people in better planned communities.

Four brief summaries emphasise the health impact Council should consider in its decision:

1) Air Pollution
2) Road Injuries and Fatalities
3) Obesity
4) Social and Mental Health

Because of the importance a Costco will have on the city’s commercial scene and overall development, choosing its location provides an opportunity to implement good planning practice. Alternative sites should be considered, such as the Two Nations Crossing complex, or the abandoned train station Downtown – sites within close, convenient proximity to established neighbourhoods and readily accessible to the greater area.

They would make use of already-open areas, reinforce existing focuses of development, and are more consistent with a compact, environmentally-sensitive urban form. They are already reached by transit, would not require expensive extensions of city services such as sewage or refuse collection, or strain emergency response times due to distance. Moreover, they would not entail the ecological damage of the current proposal at the Woodlot.

Other cities, such as the ones I have lived in above, are actively curbing sprawl and directing projects away from suburban/decentralised development, with direct health benefits to the community, and I believe Fredericton can and should do the same. For example, Vancouver’s EcoDensity and Kingston’s Urban Growth strategies have measures that would relocate projects like our Costco proposal.

In medicine, we often talk about “evidence-based” decisions: research and known outcomes must inform our treatment choices. And of course, to “first do no harm” to those for whom we are responsible. As a physician and city resident, I believe the same mindset should guide Council in its decision – and leads to the conclusion that this development, as currently located, is not good practice.

No doubt – Fredericton is sprawling. And urban sprawl is a health issue too; I definitely see people here less healthy than where I’ve worked before. The local stats speak for themselves: 64% of men and 45% of women in Fredericton area are obese or overweight (vs 40% nationally); only 50% of residents themselves feel they’re in good health. This is part of the cost that Council is imposing on citizens by allowing sprawl to continue.

I guess this is so frustrating, because otherwise, Fredericton’s actually been a pretty great place the past year.

Neither functional nor fashionable

Crazy weather the past few days, but I guess it’s the new “normal” living out East. Recipe for crappy icy dangerous streets and sidewalks: take 30cm of snow one day at 10-below, bring to 12-above the next day, then glaze with freezing rain at 0-degrees the day after that. Mix well with gusts of 40km/h winds. Serves 10 855 New Brunswickers without power, and springs transport and police to battle stations. Also brings together two drunk drivers – literally, head-on. (Darwinism at its best – I guess they cancel each other out.)

Keeping off the roads and leaving the car safe at home is a good, insurance-saving thought… but catching the bus isn’t much fun either. The wet slushy weather highlights how unsuitable Fredericton Transit bus “shelters” are for actually providing shelter – completely open to the elements, just a 1m roof that’s not much help if the rain/snow is anything but coming straight down, and only two little flat planks for seats

Weak show, Fredericton – even sorrier than the mess of markings on the buses themselves. Extending the roof just a bit, and even just making just one side of the shelter solid would be so much more useful. Then at least you could hide behind it as oblivious cars unleash torrential waves in their wakes driving past and wash out the sidewalk and anyone unlucky to be standing on it.

Even in ever-rainy Vancouver a one-sided shelter like that works fine – plus they’ve got some style to it, adds to the streetscape and makes public transit less “ghetto”

Patterned glass, location marker, maps, a “City of Vancouver” brand, and a neat “floating” ergonomic hardwood bench that curves to fit your butt – very nice. And just in time for the season

Christmas bows! And who said TransLink was no fun? They’re hip, they’re cool, they’ve even got their own blog! They could even put mistletoe along the shelters too – that could make for some fun bus stop encounters.

Of course the ideal would be fully-enclosed – these new ones in Toronto were the cat’s meow in the breezy urban canyons last week

Like the good old 70s-futuristic streetcars, I love how the shelters are designed to be part of the City’s “signature” on the streetscape

People always say glass shelters become targets for vandalism, but other cities (eg Toronto) have these all over in ghetto neighbourhoods and they survive fine – I was waiting for buses in Scarborough uh… “East Toronto” in places I was basically fresh meat for the grinder, but sure enough, intact glass bus shelters. I would’ve taken a photo if I wasn’t so scared of getting jumped as a tourist.

Toronto actually seems like it’s getting its act together with transit identity since I was last there – still more ghetto than grace, more egregious than elegant, but at least the iconic subway font previously confined to the station walls

and endangered with station “renovations” and “improvements” is now breaching out to the surface signage too: where the signs used to just have the TTC logo and “Toronto Transit Commission” – what did that mean? This is the TTC HQ? Or some other office? – now it tells you what and where this actually is

Nice. Fredericton: see and do.

Here’s looking at you

Never thought I would see the day – since I was here last the police have set up surveillance cameras in Downtown Toronto

It’s only a pilot project ’til the end of the year, and the cameras aren’t actually being monitored live: “Recorded images will be viewed by police only in the event of a reported incident. Images recorded by the camera will be retained for a period of up to 31 days, and then recorded over unless viewed in relation to an incident.” So Big Brother’s not really watching, unless you ask him to, after the fact. The reassurance/deterrent value’s not so much that a cop is actually watching you and will jump in if someone robs or rapes or kills you, but rather that if you get robbed or raped or killed, they’ll have a picture to print around and try to track down your attacker. Naturally, when they first came out Torontoners weren’t so sold on them, and for good reason.

It looks like it might be working though – they don’t say anything about increased arrests or convictions with the cameras, but according to the police stats crime in the area is down 12,2% over the past year (“crime” = murder, sexual assault, assault, robbery, break and enter, auto theft and theft over $5K), so maybe it’s helping. Then again, crime in the city overall is down 11%, so maybe it’s just part of a general safe-ing trend. British police – they’re the world leaders in setting up cameras on every corner – haven’t really noticed a big impact in crime solving or evidence collection despite billions worth of equipment; though cameras did make some good terrorist pickups, and of course if you ask any victim of crime who gets justice thanks to those grainy photographs, it’s worth it. Plus, the more and more you use cameras, the faster and better technology gets as suppliers come up with better kit to sell to police.

The area’s pretty empty until nightfall when the clubs start up and the city’s hedonists descend to the area – some presumably armed and angry and ready to snap to rage, road or otherwise – I wonder how well the cameras work at night? I wonder if the cameras also have deterrent value for traffic violations – red-light running and pedestrian/cyclist hits/kills, that sort of thing. Answers to that and more (maybe) when the pilot project wraps up at the end of the year.

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Speaking of security – lucky hospital security here isn’t so strict: tried out my old med school student ID from 3 years ago (almost a lifetime!) to get into the computer lab

Sure enough – open sesame!

The only thing sneakier than sneaking onto the Internet on someone else’s network with your computer, is sneaking onto the Internet on someone else’s network, with someone else’s computer lab.

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And speaking of hospital security, and the police, there’s a neat FAQ in Emerg now about what to say to the police when suspects end up becoming your patients – not an uncommon occurrence in a busy Downtown hospital. As much as we always look out for our patients’ “best interests” and protect their privacy and confidentiality, it’s nice to see that the powers-that-be have some reassuringly common-sense takes on what can be messy situations

The police call the Emergency Department and ask: “Do you have a GUNSHOT victim at your site/in your Emergency Department?”
Once you determine that it is the police enquiring, respond to their question. Information disclosed to the police is restricted to that required by the Mandatory Gunshot Wounds Reporting Act, 2005: the fact that a person is being treated for a gunshot wound, the person’s name, if known, name of our facility/site and location of our facility/site.

The police call the Emergency Department and ask: “Do you have a STABBING victim at your site/in your Emergency Department?”
Once you determine that it is the police enquiring, respond to their question with the following standard responses:

- If the individual police is describing is NOT in the emergency department, tell the police that they are not. You are not violating anyone’s confidentiality by responding ‘no’ to the police if the individual described is not in or has not been in the Emergency Department.

- If the individual IS in the Emergency Department respond to police by stating – “I am not authorised to disclose that information.” There is no law requiring the hospital to report stab wounds to the police. Hence patient confidentiality is paramount unless safety is a concern or the patient consents to the disclosure.

The police call the Emergency Department and ask: “There was a break and entry several blocks from the hospital. During the suspects escape he/she may have cut their arm and may be requiring stitches. Has someone that meets this description presented in your Emergency Department?”
Firstly, as indicated in the question above, you would ask for the officer’s name and badge number etc to verify that the caller is in fact the police. Secondly, in this situation you should advise the police that they should obtain a warrant if they require information.

You must balance this against the fact that you would not want the police to waste time in getting a warrant if there is/was no one in the Emergency Department that meets/met this description. If there is/was no one matching the description in the Emergency Department (and of course you have verified that it is the police inquiring) you may inform the police that no, we do not have anyone in our Emergency Department matching that description, or no it would not be worthwhile to obtain a warrant.

Back when I was here, it turned out there was pretty much always a cop around Emerg, either bringing in a suspect for medical clearance or taking one to jail once I’d signed off, so police never had to call us to check; they’d just radio their buddy already here to take a look around. Maybe another sign of crime rates going down: cops don’t come to Emerg so often anymore, hence the need for policies when they call us on the phone?

Québec City to Fredericton

Day 12: Québec City to Fredericton

Well, I wasn’t able to sleep after all. But staying up for a late-night look at the fortifications was worth it

You really could just stroll around and take pictures all day in a place like Québec. To mix medical and military metaphors, it’s such a high-yield target-rich environment. When you’ve got a camera, it’s impossible to resist

All levels of government pulled out the stops for the 400th anniversary of Québec – municipal, provincial and, kind of controversially, federal too. Controversial not because there’s any doubt about the importance of Québec to Canadian culture and heritage, but there really are people who say Ottawa should mind its’ business and let Québecoises and Québecois programme their own celebration. (Probably the same people who also think Paul McCartney’s free concert at the Plains of Abraham is like reliving the English “conquest” over the French and wanted it shut down.) So I wasn’t too surprised seeing this defaced Heritage Canada sign

If anything, I’m impressed whoever did it used red paint (instead of the usual Québec blue), which actually “erases” the Canada wordmark quite effectively, and settled for a clean, simple “X” instead of spray painting the usual obscene anti-Canadian hysterics and vitriol. It’s as classy and “respectful” (for lack of a better word) example of graffiti I’ve ever seen, to be honest. I’m surprised they didn’t “X” over the English text specifically, but maybe they were in a hurry.

Back on the road – no rush, it’s only a few hours on to Fredericton. It’s a chance to appreciate the subtleties of the Québec highway signs. Even though they’re all in outdated Series E face, the symbols are better-executed than, well, the rest of North America. Back in Montréal, the first thing you see

So simple: the “no right turn” symbol, and a red light, and “Île de Montréal” to tell you it’s the rule on the whole island. Clean and easy. No big messy panels that have to spell out “NO RIGHT TURN ON RED LIGHT” (or whatever the French equivalent would be – maybe “VIRAGE À DROITE INTERDIT SUR FEU ROUGE” or something). It would’ve been even more elegant if they just had a graphic to indicate Montréal, but since the metropolitan de-merger I guess they can’t just use the city logo.

On the panel signs, numbers are easy to read on the colour-coded shields, and instead of spelling out “EXIT” or “SORTIE”, there’s a branching symbol with a corresponding junction number – way clearer

And more of a cosmetic detail, curves in the road are marked with white-on-red chevrons instead of the usual white-on-yellow

English returns to the highway when you cross into officially-bilingual New Brunswick – I guess I’m home!

The highway signs aren’t as nicely done as Québec, but they’re pretty clear here too: no need for “EXIT / SORTIE”, the numbered tabs get the point across; junctions are marked not only with the connecting routes, but also the ones they extend to further down (here, the (2), leading to the (7); and the overhead arrows actually line up with the lanes below!

Coming from the Imperial glory of Old Québec, New Brunswick is so bucolic, pastoral – the registration plates used to say “Picture Province” on them, it’s postcard-pretty

though there must be something eating away at the trees around here

The Delta Fredericton – feels like I was just here, I think the staff are starting to recognise me. It’s going to be home for the new few days ’til my apartment’s ready and my stuff arrives from Victoria. Better get comfortable

Table and floor lamps abound – I wouldn’t expect any less. In fact I think my eyes might be getting used to it, dimming as soon as I’m in the room, expecting the overkill illumination. Better add lamps to my shopping list when I finally get to my apartment – whenever that will be.

Ottawa to Québec City

Day 12: Ottawa to Québec City

Ottawa to Québec City via Montréal. I lived in Montréal for four years but never once drove in it, so I have no idea what to expect. All I remember is that, along with New York City, it’s the only place in North America that bans right turns on red lights, because drivers were killing pedestrians all the time. And, highway overpasses tend to collapse in the area nowadays, because of the growing heavy traffic overloading the 50s-60s era design capacity and loads. Plus the signs will be in French.

The first overpass…

Phew.

And ahead – a double-overpass. Double-danger…

Phew, phew.

Actually, like Calgary was it’s a pleasant surprise driving on the Montréal autoroutes. Maybe I just lucked out on the timing getting in. As long as you keep up your speed and can keep traffic moving in tight packed spaces, you’re fine. Other drivers seemed to recognise the out-of-province plates and give a little – little – chance to squeeze in and join the lane. Again, as long as you’re keeping it moving, c’est parfait!

Circulation fluide – smooth sailing, easy-peasy.

The welcome sign sets the mood – fêtons nos 400 ans, Happy Birthday Québec! The rain might’ve thinned the crowds but it couldn’t dampen the charm

Definitely the best way to take the place in is just to walk around, soak up all that UNESCO World Heritage Site ambience.

Where most cities put their dumpsters and throw their garbage, Québecers put sculptures and art – only at a leisurely walking speed do you pick up on these little details that make this place so special

Though if you look hard enough, there are bus shelters camouflaged amidst the fortifications – OC Transpo red definitely wouldn’t fly around here

but if you can manage the steep hills, bikes are best for the narrow streets – wish I had mine along

Not that buses can’t get around 16th-century carriage width streets though – Québec has its own fleet of minibuses just for that. You can see they’re not much longer than a regular minivan or Toyota Camry. How cute! And better still, they’re free! And even better, they’re eco-friendly and electric-powered!

But if you have to have a car, I think these European streets are where my Rabbit feels at home

And of course, checking in at the Delta Québec – throwing hotel standards to the wind, distinct society that it is: no bedside table lamps at all!

I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight. Those wall-mount lamps are just off the wall, I’m totally thrown off!

Sault-Ste-Marie to Ottawa

Day 9: Sault-Ste-Marie to Ottawa

Around the hotel it didn’t look like much – where is everyone?

Then I found out where everyone was hiding – the Sault-Ste-Marie Rotary Club fair! Tilt-a-Whirl and un-named generic portable roller-coaster for the kids

and for the older kids down the street, the Rotaryfest Second Stage – “Celebrate Original Music in SSM”

I never would’ve guessed I’d stumble on an entire festival and street fair like that. That’s what makes cities great, they’re full of surprises. Even in far-flung “Northern Ontario”. I guess when you’ve got your own brewery

and brewery retail store, of course

and the world headquarters of Ontario Gambling

you’re guaranteed to have a happenin’ town. Not that it’s all fun and games though – they’ve got the essentials down pat too: street signs in proper Clearview face

and courtesies to the elders (or any men who wear hats and women with hair in prim, proper buns, too)

and banks in proper, trustworthy, stand-alone buildings – none of that strip-mall branch-banking-on-the-cheap here

It does look like the town’s seen better days

and I’m not sure what else there is to find in Sault-Ste-Marie, but I love it when cities catch me off-guard and surprise me like that. Wish there was more time to poke around… maybe next time.

The Sault-Ste-Marie to Ottawa segment is the longest chunk of this Trans-Canada tour, and I thought about getting a fancy GPS system for segments like this, to help count down the kilometres and chart the progress. EL’s handy hand-held portable model would’ve been perfect for these stretches; with the location tracking and mapping it can figure out exactly how fast you’ve been going, including those inevitable construction delays (more of that “Prosperity for the North” at work), and tell you how much longer you’ve got to go. But then again, there’s still something to be said for a good old stack of maps

It’s the closest you can get to being, say, Magellan – struggling with the oversized paper, folding/spindling/mutilating it into a manageable size, working off of these outdated charts passed on from explorers before you, trying to get your bearings off of the natural cues around and translate them onto the map to figure out where you are. Well, navigating off of highway signs isn’t quite the same as following stars in the sky, I guess, but you still have to watch out for them, they can be just as fleeting.

Google Maps can be handy too – sort of a grey hybrid area between the traditional map and the automated plotting of a GPS system

It’s easy to get tempted to race along on stretches like this, especially when the highway builds out multi-lane as you get closer to the city – so the police have kindly put up some reminders as you approach town

I’m not sure if they actually reduce speeding at all – most everyone was still running at least 130Km/h anyway. Maybe Ontarians just look at it as a menu. “Hmm, can I afford 140Km/h today? Or should I settle for the 110? Nah, it’s payday – 160 it is!” I don’t know if keeping up made me miss another sign, but all I saw coming in was the standard MTO panel

Checking into the Delta Ottawa – there’s the overkill bedside lamps again

and here – being the national capital, I guess – they up the ante: an entire living room suite, with side table and floor lamp

It’s nice to be back in familiar territory, Ottawa. CJ just moved into a new apartment – actually, back to his old apartment building from four years ago, but in a different room. With a car this time it might be a good chance to do another IKEA run and actually buy something other than food, and stop by the old Critical Care stomping grounds. It’s all so familiar, like home…

Regina

Back in the ‘gina. Last time I was here they were still hard at work at decentralising everything away from Downtown – business, shopping, entertainment, dining, anything that might be a draw. Looks like it’s coming along: Victoria Av E is the city’s new “restaurant destination” – by design, pulling people away from Downtown and the rest of the city. One of the new restauranteurs welcomes the change

The more competitors that locate out here, the more it creates a restaurant destination. When that happens you’re more likely to draw from all over the city. We’re already seeing that in what our competitors are doing

There’s our new Chili’s – patio overlooking Vic Av E and the Husky Car/Truck stop. Sweet

There’s also a new TCU bank – real stone and back-lit glass!

It’s got to be the only bank left in Canada that actually builds its own buildings. Back in the day (eg, the Gold Rush) no self-respecting bank would transact in anything less than a free-standing marble-columned stained-glass temple to the virtues of wealth and saving – the building was a symbol of strength and trust, that the bank wouldn’t just collapse overnight (as many Gold Rush banks would). But today? I do my banking at a rented branch in a strip mall, next to a porn store.

Decentralising the essentials complements the de-urbanising the Downtown, making room for more parking lots and low-rise office plazas that befit a modern, sprawling city, eager to make its mark (literally) on the Prairie horizon, spread out in sheer leisure and decadence, and pave the plains into submission. No tall, crowded brick-faced peaked-roof gargoyle-topped sidewalk storefronts here – no sir, that would be living in the past, so anachronistic. Here, only the newest stucco’ed slabs, with plenty of parking in front, all the comforts of the suburban boxes Reginans know and love! None of those frills, like sidewalk shopping and patios and terrasses other Downtowns waste their time on. This is a booming economy, after all – better build cheap and fast, and cash in while it lasts!

So, one year later – welcome to Downtown. We’ve got parking!

On the lot for visitors, right in front – because putting the parking underground, or in the back, or behind some trees, would be too confusing. Workers get their own garage: solid block concrete to protect the precious contents within (ie cars, and the fuel they contain) and camouflaged to distract passersby. The coloured wavy pattern pacifies deviants and anachronists who claim something about “greenspace” and art being essential to city living

Seriously though, now that the building’s done I think Regina’s picked up on the crap they’ve let slide, and now they’re doing the best they can to salvage the mess. I’m told they’re planning to put some trees along the front, and pull off some 3D landscape trompe l’oeil effect. Putting lipstick on the pig, as it were – still a pig, but hey, the city still has no design oversight standards. You can’t expect too much from Regina.

Things are looking up though. They are starting to think about good design – not nearly as self-aware, -reflective or -critical as Ottawa yet, but at least they’ve come up with a new Downtown plan that isn’t just “more parking”

Wow – does that say “Walk to Work”?! What a concept! They’re also thinking about cycling now too

and building a new bus station Downtown helps make alternatives to air travel more attractive and convenient

There’s at least a little landscaping now around the many gravel car parks

and a few public spaces – here, a reclaimed back alley

and even a full-on restoration project – lucky, it’s one of the only pre-war buildings left

And the free wireless Internet might help Downtown cafés and restaurants get an edge over the suburban spots

And, despite Regina’s suburban restaurant focus, there’s still new places opening up Downtown. A Thai restaurant – Regina’s Asian cuisine scene is now 2G! (“G”s roughly matching the waves of immigration leading to critical masses of ethnic groups – 1G being Chinese (or “Chinese-Canadian”); 2G Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc; 3G Cambodian, Mongolian, etc.)

It was lunch time, and the place was reassuringly packed, all twenty or so seats taken, and another dozen takeaway people being tortured watching us eat as they wait. Which would definitely be worth it

So maybe there’s still hope yet. I even finally got a reply to a letter I wrote way, way back about Regina’s street sign mess – for some reason, they always made a mix between ALL CAPS and normal text, and played around with their abbreviations willy-nilly

so I wrote a letter and showed how it’s supposed to be

and voilà, problem solved – or at least, prevented in future

DS – where are you? We need to meet up!