---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Christie Nairn <Christie.Nairn(a)umanitoba.ca>
Date: Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 12:00 PM
*Please distribute widely.*
Join us for *Sustainability Night 2023* at the University of Manitoba on
March 8 to connect with other sustainability-minded members of the UM
campus community.
Enjoy an evening of sharing sustainability ideas, learn about ways to get
involved, and take part in a panel discussion on gender equality and
sustainability. Cap off the night by meeting and sharing ideas with other
sustainability-conscious community members during the networking
wine-and-cheese.
The evening’s panel discussion will complement International Women’s Day on
March 8, by examining the links between sustainability and the UN
Sustainability Development Goal #5 — gender equality and empowering all
women and girls.
6 PM – Doors open
6:30 – 7:30 PM – Speed networking
7:30 – 8:30 PM – Panel discussion
Moderator: *Adele Perry*, Director, Centre for Human Rights Research
Panelists:
- *Tracey Peter*, Vice-Provost (Academic Affairs)
- *Larissa Kanhai*, Research Lead ‘Bridging the Gender Gap’
- *Mekenna Coldwell*, undergraduate student, UM Engineering Society
group and executive member for the Women of Manitoba Engineering Network
(WOMEN)
- *Vanessa Lillie*, Director, Cultural Integration (Indigenous)
8:30 PM – UM Sustainability Award winners announced
8:45 PM– Networking wine and cheese
*Tickets are $5 each. **Purchase your ticket now!*
<https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/um-sustainability-night-tickets-547764878497>
Winnipeg finally embracing ‘winter city’ tag
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2023/02/19/winnipeg-finally-…
WINTER has always defined Winnipeg. Mountains of snow, icy roads, biting
windchill and temperatures that plunge to dangerous lows. It’s a season
that prompts residents to question their life choices and causes whole
flocks of people to opt out entirely and head south for warmer climes.
In recent years, however, Winnipeg has started to define winter in new
terms.
This year, the city has seen an unprecedented number of events encouraging
citizens to get outside and embrace the cold. It’s a positive trend with
promising and wide-ranging societal implications.
While there have always been pockets of people who look forward to winter
for its seasonal activities — skiing, skating, tobogganing, snowmobiling,
ice fishing — for many, the months between November and April were to be
endured, not enjoyed. Attitudes seem to be shifting among the general
population.
The Forks can take some of the credit. The organization has offered winter
programming for decades, but receiving a Guinness World Record designation
for longest naturally frozen skating trail in 2008 sparked a newfound sense
of seasonal pride.
Today the Nestaweya River Trail attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors
every winter. The free and accessible skating, walking and skiing paths are
used for pleasure and as active transportation routes. The temporary
landmark has become a site for world-class dining and creative public art
installations.
Festival du Voyageur is another trailblazer. Since 1970, the francophone
arts and culture festival has been offering Winnipeggers a reason to
celebrate the season with snow sculptures, maple syrup taffy and music.
This year’s event, which is currently underway, boasts new programming and
more than 200 artists.
Yet nothing has impacted attitudes more than the COVID-19 pandemic. With
indoor spaces posing serious health risks, the population was forced to
venture outside. Socializing en plein air became the norm year-round and
ushered in a new era of cold-weather community-building.
Residents in Wolseley banded together to create a community park on the
Assiniboine River, ice rinks and snow castles cropped up in yards across
the city and the municipal government promised better winter maintenance of
pedestrian and cycling pathways.
This year, even as public health orders have lifted, the urge to enjoy
winter remains.
An expanded licensing program has allowed restaurants and bars to keep
their patios open year-round, if they so desire. Business improvement zones
in Osborne Village and Downtown have hosted ice-sculpting competitions,
public art showcases, outdoor concerts and frosty beer-athalons. The
Manitoba Marathon saw hundreds of people take part in its inaugural Hot
Chocolate Hustle on one of the coldest weekends of the year thus far. A
Maze in Corn has added a fine-dining snow restaurant to its roster of
winter activities.
All these innovations are proof that if you build it — especially out of
snow — they will come.
Last week, Winnipeg played host to the Winter Cities Shake-up Conference, a
gathering of experts designed to highlight how northern cities can make the
most of winter and tap into economic opportunities through urban design,
public policy and novel experiences — something local businesses and
individuals are already capitalizing on.
Edmonton has a dedicated strategy to make winter more enjoyable for
residents through better snow management, city-wide outdoor events and
accessible recreation. The City of Winnipeg would do well to pursue a
similar vision to make this place livable and vibrant year-round.
Winnipeg will always be a winter city. The way residents and officials
approach this polarizing season could make that a selling point, rather
than a disadvantage.
*Bizarre backlash greets 15-minute-city proposal*
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/editorials/2023/02/15/bizarre-bac…
IT has often been said that good ideas are hard to find.
What isn’t difficult these days, however, is locating darker corners of the
internet in which conspiracy-minded dispensers of misinformation are
working overtime to turn any idea they seize upon — good, bad or
indifferent — into the central premise of yet another
soon-to-be-widely-spread theory that casts any progressive plan or proposed
development as part of a sinister plot by government or “the deep state” to
control people’s lives by stripping away freedoms and rights.
Such has been the experience of late for some Edmonton city councillors and
planners who have touted a shift in urban-development philosophy that
favours walkable neighbourhoods offering residents convenient access to
everyday goods and services.
Under the banner of Edmonton as a “15-minute city,” the plan proposes to
make the Alberta capital a city in which employment, entertainment,
recreation and retail amenities would all be available within a
quarter-hour’s walk or bike ride from anyone’s front door.
It’s a common-sense idea, particularly at a time when many urban dwellers
are looking for ways to live in a more sustainable and time-efficient
manner. But it’s hardly a groundbreaking notion; the idea of creating
walkable neighbourhoods and incorporating a “town square” ethos in city
planning has been bandied about for at least a couple of decades.
In its most recent comprehensive city plan, released in 2020, Edmonton
(pop. 1.1 million) seeks to prepare itself for a population of two million,
with 50 per cent of new housing being infill development and 50 per cent of
residents’ trips being made by public transit or active transportation.
In that pursuit, the 15-minute-city concept and the notion of “a community
of communities” are core elements of the plan. The plan does not, however,
include any reference to restrictions on how and where residents move about
the city, as several online conspiracy theorists have attempted to suggest.
One went as far as to distribute a colour-coded city map with the attached
claim that residents would not be allowed to drive their vehicles into
other zones. “You’re going to have to apply for a … permit to leave your
zone,” claimed another misinformed commentator.
As is typical with such online nonsense, the claim was untrue and the map
did not even depict the city whose wildly imagined restrictions it was
attempting to outline (the map was, instead, of Canterbury, England, which
had released its own 15-minute-city plan several years earlier).
Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi sought to downplay the online backlash,
stating the majority of Edmontonians “are a very smart and sophisticated
people who will not believe this conspiracy theory being promoted online.”
But here’s the thing: there clearly exists a not-insignificant minority of
Edmontonians — and Winnipeggers, and Canadians in general, and residents of
every other constituency in which internet access is readily available —
who are drawn into such cyber-spread silliness and, having unwittingly
plunged down a wormhole of misinformation, become convinced that what they
have found in the course of “doing their own research” is true.
Sometimes, the outcome of the dissemination and embrace of online
misinformation is as benign as a loopy claim about a city-planning concept.
Other times, it’s as sinister as an armed insurrection that seeks to block
the peaceful transfer of power after a democratic election in a major world
power.
These are not issues that can, or should, be blithely waved away. It would
be a very good idea to recognize they are symptoms of a much larger, and
growing, ill that must be confronted if civil societies hope to remain
intact.
The City of Winnipeg’s Reduced-Speed Neighbourhood Pilot website is now
live: https://engage.winnipeg.ca/reduced-speed-neighbourhood-pilot
The website contains:
- Information on the pilot
- Information on what we already know about speeds on residential
streets in Winnipeg
- Case studies from select Canadian jurisdictions that have reduced
speed limits
- Highlights from previous research on the impacts of reduced speed
limits
- A travel time estimator tool
- A mechanism to sign up for project updates or ask the project team a
question
Councillor pitches pilot project to scrape snowy sidewalks
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2023/01/31/councillor-seeks-…
ONCE winter conditions set in, Tom Jones rarely leaves home, unless he’s
headed to work.
If sidewalk snow and slush threaten to trap his wheelchair in place, the
Winnipeg resident prefers to avoid the risk of travel.
“I stay home all weekend. I just won’t venture out because you just can’t
take that chance of getting stuck. If I wanted to walk over to the store,
half the time I can’t get there because the sidewalks aren’t cleared
properly,” said Jones.
Friends and family regularly help him run errands during the winter;
however, if the city could clear sidewalks right down to the pavement,
getting around independently would be much easier, Jones said.
“(Then) I could still travel without having to worry. If it was complete
concrete, I would have no problems. I could go out in -20 C weather because
I could just dress for it.”
Ideally, he would love to see the city raise its snow-clearing standards to
that level for all walkways, all winter. Jones believes any added cost
would be worth the benefit for all Winnipeg pedestrians to travel safely.
“Even a healthy person (without mobility challenges), with the way
sidewalks are, you even see them slip and slide. Everybody has fallen or
slipped on this ice,” he said.
Lori Ross, who also uses a wheelchair, said snow- and ice-covered sidewalks
create a major impediment to getting around with any kind of mobility
device.
“The reality is that this is one of the barriers to people with
disabilities functioning in the community,” said Ross, noting even crossing
the sidewalk outside her condo to reach a Transit Plus stop can prove
challenging on some days.
A Winnipeg councillor hopes a new pilot project could mark the first step
toward making the city more accessible for anyone who uses sidewalks.
If council approves, Coun. Matt Allard’s motion would have city crews clear
one sidewalk per council ward to bare pavement next winter then report back
on the benefits, challenges and costs of doing so. Allard also wants city
staff to then provide options to expand the pilot project using city
equipment and staff.
“Currently, the standard for streets is (snow clearing to the) pavement. I
would like to see a city where a person can safely walk on a sidewalk all
year round, without fear of slipping and falling,” he said.
The St. Boniface councillor said convincing more Winnipeggers to walk
instead of drive could pay off through improved health and reduced vehicle
emissions.
Allard began to call for a higher standard of sidewalk clearing a few years
ago after some of his own walks proved treacherous.
“I don’t have a mobility issue and I was making the choice to walk on the
street more often than not because the snow-clearing bylaw wasn’t being
respected,” said Allard, who believes sidewalks are often cleared long
after city policy dictates.
“In terms of level of services, if we want people making choices other than
driving, then we need to create the conditions in which it’s desirable to
not drive.”
The former public works committee chairman noted conditions can become even
more treacherous following freeze-thaw cycles that lead compacted snow to
melt into odd, uneven layers before refreezing.
Allard said he believes his request for the small pilot project can be
funded within the city’s existing budget. “This would be a special
assignment per ward that I believe the public service could handle
internally.”
Last year, Allard proposed a pilot project that would have had city crews
clear all sidewalks deemed to be in “good” condition to bare pavement. That
motion was rejected.
Winnipeg policy calls for sidewalks along major routes, non-regional bus routes
and collector streets to be cleared to a compacted snow surface following
about five centimetres of snow. Such sidewalks in the downtown are cleared
to a paved surface whenever conditions allow.
Snow-clearing officials declined to weigh in on the feasibility of Allard’s
new motion Tuesday, deeming it premature to comment on the impact or cost
of the potential pilot project.
The proposal would require full council approval.
joyanne.pursaga(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga
Congestion, safety concerns outside school pickup zones prompt calls for
change
‘An accident waiting to happen’
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2023/02/01/an-accident-waiti…
VEHICULAR traffic concerns outside a Winnipeg elementary school — in no way
an outlier in a city with sprawling suburbs, inconsistent sidewalk
infrastructure and frigid winters — is reigniting calls for more 30 km/h
streets to promote safe and active transportation.
Throughout the last three months, Pat Burgess has reported the issues she
witnesses daily after the final bell rings at 3:30 p.m. at Westdale School
to anyone willing to listen.
The grandmother has contacted school leaders, trustees and City of Winnipeg
officials — but she said no one is willing to intervene and rectify the
situation she describes as “an accident waiting to happen.”
“I hold my breath every day when I see students running out between parked
cars onto the roadway,” said Burgess, who has been picking up students from
the Betsworth Avenue middle school for the last five years.
“I know this situation is not unique to Westdale, but there has to be a
better solution for the safety of our students.”
A portion of the parking lot was historically designated for caregivers to
use during pickup and drop-off. Citing local traffic being a safety hazard
to students, school administration closed the concrete pad to the public at
the start of the 2022-23 school year.
The shift has simply moved danger from the lot to surrounding streets with
faster-moving cars and few sidewalks, Burgess said, noting the decision was
made without consulting drivers and she has obtained recommendations from
the city that promote on-site school pickup.
The grandmother noted her safety concerns have heightened after hearing a
J.H. Bruns Collegiate student was taken to the hospital after being struck
during morning rush-hour two weeks ago.
Westdale staff have urged families to drive part-way and have students walk
the rest of the route to school, and try dropping off or picking students
up outside of peak times, among their advice to reduce congestion.
Following dismissal Tuesday, middle schoolers climbed over snow banks and
dodged a combination of parked, double- parked and moving motorists to
locate their rides. Many of them failed to check both ways before running
across the roadway, whose visibility was obscured by the exhaust of idling
cars.
Several irritated drivers shook their heads as they squeezed between the lines
of cars stopped on either side of Betsworth Avenue, despite the
south-facing stretch being a no-park zone. One motorist honked at the
backup of illegally-parked drivers.
Ian Walker of Safe Speeds Winnipeg said the major impediment to more
students commuting on foot and via bicycle is parent fears about
car-pedestrian collisions, which ironically prompts them to drive children
to class and increase the total fleet on the street.
“We need to make driving harder. We’ve made driving so easy that everybody
does it,” said the parent, teacher and chairman of the local advocacy
organization.
While noting many neighbourhoods do not have sidewalks, Walker said
installing traffic-calming measures and reducing speed limits to 30 km/h on
all routes near schools is critical so drivers, pedestrians and cyclists
can share the road.
“There’s no shared responsibility when cars are going 50 km/h. It just
doesn’t work,” he said, adding school divisions and trustees should be
advocating for changes to protect children and youth in their care.
The Pembina Trails School Division indicated it has worked with city
officials to reduce speed zones on Betsworth Avenue, instituted stop-and-go
areas with signage and ensured an adult monitors the flow of traffic during
busy times of the day.
Superintendent Lisa Boles said “some close calls” in the school lot
prompted Westdale administration to make a change to drop-off and pick-up
routines.
“The division takes all concerns about safety seriously and has engaged in
an extensive review,” Boles said in a statement, which noted the division
has used both internal and external resources to observe activity on
surrounding streets and within the school parking lot.
City communications officer Ken Allen said municipal officials are aware of
traffic concerns and “actively working with the school.”
maggie.macintosh(a)freepress.mb.ca