Spur Line Trail is "officially" open

On Friday April 15th, politicians, Municipal and Regional Staff and a few residents gathered to block the Waterloo Spur Line Trail for the official ribbon cutting ceremony.  This irony was not lost on Mayor Vrbanovic, who commented on it.

It was great to see so much support for the trail from the politicians.  Catherine Fife’s representative specifically mentioned the support the Mary Allen Neighbourhood Association and the Mt Hope Breithaupt Park Neighbourhood Association have given to the project.

Tom Galloway, one of our Regional Councillors, also took the opportunity to announce that there has been a resolution regarding the ‘jog’ in the trail between Roger and Moore.  This is good news for everyone.

Eventually, the multi use trail will run parallel to the rail corridor and into the Transit Hub at King and Victoria.  Through some new funding the Spur Line trail will be continued through Uptown to Waterloo Park in the coming year.

There is still some tweaking of the lights to be done.  By the end of April, the software that controls the lights should be able to dim them in the late evening hours.  The LED lights installed have a very intense light that is tightly focused on the ground.  This helps to minimize overall light pollution. 

Join us next Saturday (April 23) to celebrate Earth Day as we join forces with the Mary Allen Neighbourhood Association to clean up the trail.  We will be meeting at Wilhelm and Weber St at 9:30am and the cleanup will end with a BBQ hosted by the MANA at Mary Allen Park at 11:00am.  Bring gloves if you can, we will supply bags.

Lane Burman
CoChair MHBPNA 
photo by "Joan"

Do you like to write? We can help.....

As you may recall in 2015 MHBPNA worked with residents on the "Pen Pal" project which was a great success. It ended in a final picnic.

Guess what? We still have paper, envelopes and stamps left over! Do you like to write? Please email us at mhbpna@gmail.com if you would like any of these very cool packages. You do not need to have participated in the Pen Pal project, you just need to be a MHBP resident who enjoys writing.

Sometimes Ice is Nice

As we wind our way towards the promised land of summer we should remember the terrible beauty of our 'mini-icestorm' of a couple of weeks ago. Certainly it was not as brutal as a few years ago but some trees did lose branches. One thing that always occurs after the worst subsides is that our neighbourhood fills up with photographers hitting the streets. 

Ice storms offer unusual  and exciting photography opportunities. Nature covers itself in a potentially deadly sheath of ice, threatening the existence of trees and shrubs. Yet, eventually it melts and the majority of the landscape survives.

Here are some photos that MHBP neighbours shared (we put a callout on our Facebook page). Enjoy these photos (from Sharon, Lane, Joan, Ted and others) and think ahead to the end of this week when the forecast is promising to be +10c and sunny!

As always, "click to enlarge".

50K is here to stay!

We are very excited to have new 50 K signs on Weber Street! To understand this excitement some background is necessary. 

As we all know, the Weber Street widening, along with King St. closing due to LRT construction, has meant more traffic, at higher speeds, is coming through the MHBP area. Many of our residents have complained about speeding drivers from Union down to Victoria. Of course much of Weber in Waterloo is 60K but in Kitchener it is 50K.  

We borrowed a speed gun and recorded many drivers in excess of 60K and MHBPNA reported this to Regional Police who increased their patrols and they have caught many speeders and ticketed them.

Still, we have always felt one problem is that there was only one sign saying “50K Begins” and many people simply miss it. They are used to driving 60K in Waterloo and now that Weber has four lanes past Guelph,  they don’t see much reason to slow down.

Our Neighbourhood Association contacted Regional politicians and staff and initially we were told “the default is 50K so we only post signs when it is not that speed” and we want to avoid “an over abundance of signage in built up areas”.  We were disappointed with these responses and kept bringing up the issue whenever we met to discuss other topics like the Transit Hub and Waterloo Street. 

Guess what? Our persistence paid off and we now have additional 50K signs installed on Weber! Of course this does not mean all drivers are automatically going to slow down. But the signs encourage slower speeds and we will continue to talk with police about enforcement. 

A week ago (when it was, uh, sunny and warm!) several residents got together and took this neighbourhood photo to show how much we love our regional speed limit signs!

As always, click on the image for a larger, and even more vibrant, photo!

Thanks to Stephen Edgar for the photo!