Weber Street Widening Culture Walk

On September 30, 2012 John MacDonald led members of the Mount Hope Breithaupt Park community on a "culture walk" to discuss the implications of the Weber Street widening. This walk was a result of our neighbourhood winning a "cultural" prize at a Festival of Neighbourhoods event a few years ago.

The MHBPNA would like to thank John for his time. We appreciate his insight into how neighbourhoods work and the many questions he encouraged us to consider about our area.

We met at Lippert Park and talked about some of the issues around what builds a community and the different types of streets and traffic movement that can encourage or discourage people talking to each other and interacting.

John asked us to talk about our patterns of walking, biking and driving and it became clear that Weber street is a dividing line within our rather large neighbourhood. There is a "Mount Hope" side and a "Breithaupt Park" side but many people cross this divide to attend school, walk to Central Fresh Market to shop, or walk or drive over to the Breithaupt Centre.

After discussing some of the general traffic patterns through our neighbourhood we walked over to the west side of the Wilhelm and Weber intersection (The MHBP Blog recognizes that using words like "west" and "north" in the Kitchener/Waterloo area is controversial, but we will use them anyway!).

It quickly became clear this intersection is a "hot spot" for problems with the widening. In the short time we were talking more than a dozen people crossed Weber street including two people in wheelchairs! As far as we know, the plan is to have Weber Street expanded to four lanes with no additional crossing lights from Victoria to Guelph streets. Yet we know children cross this street every day to attend KCI or Margaret Avenue schools and many others cross for different reasons.

We all agreed that we needed an additional crossing, perhaps with a light. Councillor Dan Glenn-Graham attended our walk and said he would discuss this issue with council.

Here is a view looking "south" on Weber Street towards Victoria Street. Lippert Park is on the left and a used car dealership is on the right:

Two big questions were raised about this:

1) What happens to Lippert Park when the road is widened? Apparently it will become a bit larger but it would be nice to have some influence on what gets added. We would like it to be attractive and invite people from both sides of Weber to use it, in spite of the busy street right next to it.

2) The used car dealership on the right will be torn down and Weber street will be straightened so Lippert Park will gain some land. But there will be a strip of land (where the car dealership presently sits) between the road and the train tracks. What will this land look like? Will be be a park (or "parkette") with grass and flowers? Or will it be a vacant "no man's land" with discarded coffee cups?

There will also be a bike trail along the present railway tracks which will end around the new railway bridge to be built over Weber.

It has been very difficult to find any solid information about how this is all going to look. In contrast, the Transit Hub project has invited lots of public input and has elaborate Information Boards they have put on the Web. I have searched the City and Region websites and there is almost no information. Searching for "Weber Street" on the Region's website found a document mysteriously titled MHSW Background which contains several swell "artist's renderings" of what the bridge might look like, including this one:

The Mount Hope - Breithaupt Park Neighbourhood Association is committed to finding out more about the widening which will have a huge impact on our area for many generations to come. We would like to have input into traffic calming, street crossings, making the railway bridge area inviting and "pedestrian and bike friendly" and many other things.

There are lots of questions with few answers so we hope to sponsor an information session in the near future.

Stay tuned to this Blog!

Ted Parkinson
Communications Director
MHBPNA

Annual General Meeting -- Come One, Come All

OK, so if you have been following our NA you might have noticed that the General Meetings have not quite been "annual". But we think it is time to have one and we hope you can join us.

Here is the basic agenda:

We will meet in the Solarium at the Breithaupt Centre at 10 am, Saturday, October 13.

Agenda is:

1. welcome and introductions
2. report on activities in 2011-2012
3. Financial report
4. Appointment of Board
5. Discussion of Priorities for 2012-2013
6. engaging participation in Festival of Neighbourhoods

Please come and bring a friend. This is your change to meet the current executive of our MHBP Neighbourhood Association and perhaps get involved. Or at least, become informed.

For more information about our group, our website with documents is here.

Our constitution is here.

Please drop by at 10 am, Saturday morning.

FREE FRIDGE MAGNETS for the first 150 people!!!

Thoughts on the Transit Hub

Ambitious

Ambitious is the best way to describe the plan for the new Transit Hub, or the ‘Gateway to Downtown Kitchener’, as it was described. This original rendering is WAY beyond what I had anticipated, and the vision is exciting!

Last night the School of Pharmacy hosted an open house and presentation for the Transit Hub.  Kevin Eby warmed the crowd up with a great explanation of The region’s vision for the area.  Glenn Scheels, gave us the meat of the whole thing.  He talked about some of the important changes regarding zoning for the site.  Then John Hill took over to cap off all the things that we were thinking of, but never thought the planner would think of.

I have to say, after listening to each of them speak, I was inspired by their vision.  You can tell that these people are invested in this project.  They are not looking for this to be a ‘building’, they genuinely seem to view this as a Landmark.  The vision is for ‘DESIGN EXCELLENCE”.  It’s exciting!

One of the residents asking a question, referred to taking his great grandkids to the site.  That thought is exciting.  They are not looking for today, or tomorrow, or even 50 years from now, this will be a landmark in our city. 

While I could drone on about the specific plan laid before us, I won’t.  I felt while listening to the questions from the residents that they were debating the final plan.  It is not.  It is the seed, the DNA, of what will be grown in this community, and indeed in our neighbourhood.  You can see the plan here, TRANSIT HUB PRESENTATION BOARDS

I could sense a real fear from some of the questions, that there is some skepticism as to whether the Region, City, and Province can pull this off.  I suppose I understand (remember the Kitchener Market), but there seemed to be sense of responsibility for this project.  Like they (Planners) know they can’t screw this one up. 

The important parts of this process that will make or break it are this.

• We must have our best people working on this.  We need to have people that deeply understand our region as well as regions around the world that have taken on this kind of ambitious Landmark/Transit/Downtown projects.  We need to use local workers and materials wherever possible, and we need to have a spectacular design.

• We need buy in from the residents.  We need everyone that was at the open house, to submit his or her comments.  We need all of our residents, and especially those in our neighbourhood, to take the time and look at the plans, and tell them what you think.  Good, bad or indifferent.  Sometimes a little kernel of a comment can pop into something brilliant.

• We need to understand that this is not the final plan, nor is there a price tag attached to it.  We need to remember that this is a public space, and it will cost us money.  There are no two ways about it.  But remember this is a Landmark, not a building.

I’m excited, and I hope you are too.  This is a great boost for our community.  We need to all participate in this process. The planners seem to be listening, and in my past experience in these kinds of processes, they do listen.  Would you want to build something that the residents don’t want? 

So please come out to all the meetings, answer the questionnaires and have your say!  You’ll be paying for it, so might as well get a hand in the process.  Most of all, keep an open mind.  I heard a lot of negativity last night, and a lot of questions that no one could possibly answer.  We must remember, this is the step after the City told us they have assembled the land for a Transit Hub.

Lane Burman

MHBPNA Cultural Walk, September 30, Come join us

The MHBPNA is pleased to announce a culture walk, led by John MacDonald, in our area. 

The main focus of the walk is the Weber Street Widening and how it will affect people in our neighbourhood. A new transit bridge will be built, businesses will be re-located or closed, houses will be torn down and these events will all affect how we travel to work, form neighbourhood communities and experience our lives in Kitchener.

Another topic will be about "living with regional transit."

This walk is generously provided by John MacDonald as part of a "cultural prize" MHBPNA won at the Festival of Neighbourhoods a couple of years ago.

The walk will begin at Lippert Park at 1:30 and end there at 3:30. Lippert Park is located at Weber and Louisa Streets. 

This will be "interactive" and we hope to have many neighbours attend and provide their perspective on Weber Street and how we walk though our area, places we visit etc.

The widening of the street and the construction of the transit hub will change our area forever and while it is mainly positive, it is difficult to imagine how profound the changes will be.

This walk is sponsored by the Mount Hope -Breithaupt Park Neighbourhood Association, but there are no limits on who can attend. Anyone who is interested in these issues is welcome.

Sunday, September 3o, Lippert Park, 1:30.

MHBPNA Culture Walk, September 30

The MHBPNA is pleased to announce a culture walk, led by John MacDonald, in our area. The main focus of the walk is the Weber Street Widening and how it will affect people in our neighbourhood. A new transit bridge will be built, businesses will be re-located or closed, houses will be torn down and these events will all affect how we travel to work, form neighbourhood communities and experience our lives in Kitchener.

Another topic will be about "living with regional transit."

This walk is generously provided by John MacDonald as part of a "cultural prize" MHBPNA won at the Festival of Neighbourhoods a couple of years ago.

We will publish more information later but please keep September 30, 1-3:30 in mind and mark it in your calendars.

Election --- Candidates --- Questions

The Kitchener-Waterloo electoral district will go to the polls on Sept. 6. It is only a few weeks away! 

We have PC, Green, NDP, Liberal candidates.

Let's ask them some questions. For the next few days the MHBPNA Blog will accept questions you send in. We will look them over and ask all the candidates the same two or three questions we select and then we will publish the answers.

The Blog did this for the municipal election as well.

OK, send in your questions please to our email address!

Life, the Universe and our Neighbourhood

Once again, it was a marvellous weekend with the Kitchener Blues Festival. There were many stages with free music and even though we had some rain, overall the weather was pretty good. Of course downtown Kitchener is not in our neighbourhood boundaries, but it is so close, most of us can walk there.

This week, there is another event you can walk or drive downtown for, and that is the Wednesday evening meeting of the Neighbourhood Mobilization Alliance (NMA) which takes place in the Conestogo room of Kitchener City Hall.

What is the NMA you ask? It is neighbours getting together with city officials to talk about our area. Topics can include: traffic calming, bylaw enforcement (is your neighbour ignoring the fire ban or replacing their car engine on their front lawn?), city initiatives, industrial activity infringing on residential life, upcoming events etc. etc.

This organization meets every other month and dates are always posted in the Calendar section of our Blog.

The history of the NMA is recounted on Page 10 of this newsletter. Please read it to get an idea of how far we have come.

We appreciate it when more neighbours attend these meetings because it helps us get more support (or "buy in") from the Police, By-Law and other city officials who regularly attend.

See you there on Wednesday!