[UPDATE: Huffington Post picks up the story.]
There have been reports of wild turkeys stopping traffic on Armour Road lately, but maybe now they've learned to just wait for the bus instead? Exhibit A: These pictures captured by Jessie James at a bus stop on Armour Rd. Sunday (December 15th).
[photos via @jnjames75 on Twitter]
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This Sunday (December 1st) marks the beginning of winter parking restrictions in Peterborough. Here's what you need to know:
Where does that leave you to park? Well, free overnight parking is allowed at all Municipal parking lots such as the King Street Parkade and Simcoe Parking Garage. Vehicles parked overnight at either parking garage can obtain a gate arm ticket upon entry to the garage to be used for a free transit trip home.
So remember the rule of thumb... no parking any time of the year on city streets for longer than 3 hours, except where a sign indicates otherwise. If you still have questions, call Parking at 705-742-7777 ext. 2802.
[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]
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November looks to be a busy month for Parkway news...
On November 13th at 6:30 p.m., a special Committee of Whole meeting will be held at the Evinrude Centre (911 Monaghan Road) for a presentation of the Parkway Corridor Class Environmental Assessment.
The meeting is open to the public, however due to a Peterborough Procedure By-law the public is not allowed to speak.
But you will have your chance on November 20, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. when a special public City Council meeting will be held at the Evinrude Centre.
Parks Not Parkways: A Concert for Greenspace is on November 17th at Market Hall and features The Three Martinis, Rick Fines, Kirsten Addis and Al Black and the Tonemasters. It is a benefit concert for the Peterborough Greenspace Coalition, who are devoted to the protection of green spaces in our city. Tickets are $20.
There are two Change.org surveys that you can take part in to vote FOR or AGAINST the parkway.
More here in this video of Jackson Park.
[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]
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The Third Annual Peterborough Cycling Summit was held on Friday (October 25th) at the Holiday Inn and featured afternoon workshops to do with cycling both here in Peterborough and the Kawarthas, and stretching throughout the province. Although we couldn't attend all of the workshops, here is a look into a few of them...
This workshop had three speakers...
Kieran Andrews: “Cycle touring is way more than riding bikes. It’s about quiet roads, unique experiences and beautiful places. That’s what we’re all after.” While Kieran is quite content with just heading down an unknown road to see where it leads, it may not be your ideal decision when trying to plan a route with a limited time span. His main suggestion during his talk was to use MapMyRide.com as both a planning tool and a progress meter. Through the website, you can pick prospective cycling destinations (or find ones in your own area that others have recorded) to see both via map and elevation how challenging it may be, the road type (gravel, paved, etc.) and how much traffic it may see.
Louisa Mursell: Projects Director with Transportations Options, which is a non-profit organization that has been around for 20 years that helps to further develop sustainable transportation. Lately they have been working on tourism initiatives including cycling. Amongst their programs are Bike Train (to increase bike options for cyclists in Ontario), and Park Bus (bus transit to Ontario Parks locations).
Through the Welcome Cyclists network, they have discovered that cyclists were not fully satisfied with lodgings in areas. You can visit the Welcome Cyclists website to help plan trips, and find accommodations that are bicycle friendly and provide secure bicycle lock-up area. The accommodation must have local cycling maps or websites to help with this information, as well as access to repair tools or be in close vicinity to a bicycle shop. Healthy food and free access to water is also key as well. Prospective businesses that would like to join just have to sign up online (for free) and attend a Welcome Cyclists seminar. There are currently 65 businesses in the Kawartha-Northumberland-Peterborough area (most are in Northumberland County).
Susan Sauvé: Talked about touring through France by bicycle. She found the hospitality very good along with growing places that have public laundry and Wi-fi (although because of the differences in power outlets, sometimes it was tricky to charge your devices). Sue was pleasantly surprised to find so many bicycle trails and bicycle sharing programs throughout Paris. The three then fielded questions from the audience about cycling touring.
John McMullen let us know that that because of healthy lifestyles, and the effort to reduce greenhouse gasses, trails have become a major part of the Selywn township masterplan. The four main trails are the Lakefield Trail, the Bridgenorth Trail, the Ennismore Heritage Trail and the Trans-Canada Trail, but there are also many additional popular hiking trails. They have already had public consultations—through surveys and open houses—from which they learned that Bicycle lanes were one of the higher ranked things, followed by linking the areas together.
Displayed around the room were maps of each of the hamlets of Selwyn township. John asked everyone to put a sticker on the area in each hamlet where they would like to prioritize improvement.
This workshop's focus was on "Complete Streets" which is the design infrastructure and maintenance necessary for all road users to enjoy using the road safely. Each table tackled projects that are slated for construction in Peterborough during the next five years that currently do not have a design. Using cardboard placeholders, the idea was to design the layout of streets such as Chemong, Ashburnham, George and Water to incorporate access for both vehicles, bicycles and parking alike. Each game board had markers to indicate scale so each street layout had to comply with real-world dimensions. Afterwards, photos were taken and the layouts will be submitted as possible designs.
Attendees were welcomed to join a tour lead by Susan Sauvé and Urban Design Planner Brian Buchardt. They were treated to a short walk downtown to showcase elements of the current and future design downtown, such as our new footpath beside the train bridge.
The evening's events were opened by Donald Fraser who thanked such a passionate and growing number of attendees for coming. A message from Jeff Leal (who was unable to attend) was read that mentioned that the Ontario government is aiming for a 2031 date to both recognize cycling as a core mode of transportation and a goal to make Ontario the Number one province for cycling in Canada. The Ontario Cycling Strategy which was just recently released promotes a healthy and active lifestyle, tourism strategy and health benefits. This strategy will roll out through action plans throughout the coming years, with the first kicking off next Spring.
Eleanor McMahon from Share the Road read a letter on behalf of Glen Murray, the Ontario Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure who gave a nod to P-BAC, The Peterborough-County City Health Unit and the Ontario Professional Planners Institute-Lakelands District for their hard work. He also echoed the hopes to make Ontario a lead cycling destination.
City Councillor Lesley Parnell spoke on behalf of the Mayor and Peterborough City Council. They are pleased to support cycling culture in Peterborough and proud to promote all the health benefits that cycling brings. Mayor Bennett is a believer in the “A bike friendly city is a livable city, and a liveable city is a bike friendly city.”
Sue Suavé: The City passed a new updated Compressive Transportation Plan in 2012 which has 183 KM of bikeways in the City alone. They have $500,000 a year to spend on capital to make projects happen such as on multi-use trails and on-road bike facilities. Right now we have 55 km of the network built (30%). Sue showed how over the years our cycling network has expanded. In addition to the trails, we also now have 156 new bike parking spaces within areas such as downtown and East City which brings the total to 629 downtown.
For a sneak peek into future projects, Sue let us know about such things as…
Mayor Mary Smith from Selwyn Township and Chris Bradley from Director of Public Works for Peterborough County. Mary pointed out how many County Councillors were in attendance as they are committed to building trails and do the appropriate planning.
Chris Bradley: The Transportation Masterplan was recently completed which contained updated walking and cycling processes (which are different between the County and the City). Some of the improvements to come are shared road-lanes (which are already being constructed in Smith Township), paved shoulders, designated striped bike lanes, separated buffered bike off-road multi use trails, and a lot of active transportation planning still to come. Chris shared a sidenote: that when the Public Works Department Building on Armour Road was redesigned for use, showers were added for when people cycled or ran to work. Chris mentioned that they are trying to link the communities and are always trying to consider the needs and the potential for bike lanes (and walkability of the roads). Cycling lanes are suggested for the Gifford Causeway (which runs between Bridgenorth and Ennismore) and reconstruction on Ward Street which is slated to be widened. Input from last year's cycling summit has already gone into the new masterplan. One important area that Chris highlighted was Airport Road. They are just completing the final design now for reconnecting it and the project is moving forward.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Karen Lee whose topic was "The Role of Design and Infrastructure in Addressing Cycling and Health". She talked about how history repeats itself with the infectious diseases of the 19th century and the chronic diseases of the 21st century. Through infrastructure changes, there was a decrease in infectious diseases, however something needs to be done for our current issues. Dr. Lee displayed a disheartening animation of Diabetes trends among U.S. adults from 1994 to 2009 which also equates to higher medical costs. This trend also applies to Canadians as we aren't getting enough exercise. It was suggested that we could again correct this through infrastructure changes to encourage active transportation and greater access to physical activity. Side benefits included a reduction of infrastructure costs and job creation. Our favourite slide had some Peterborough statistics that compared 1947 to now. While our 65+ population has slightly risen, Peterborough has less people per acre, has more employment in the Service Sector, and the percentage of City's Non-Food Retail Space in Downtown has actually dropped considerably. Be sure to view Dr. Karen Lee's presentation and also take note of New York's Fit-City initiative that has promoted healthy living through design.
You can view each presentation on the P-BAC website.
[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]
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Via our friends at Trail Swag comes this video shot at the
6th Annual Beaver Club Gala, which gave people the opportunity to
dress in clothes from the fur trading days and
help support the museum through donations and auction items. This year's
host was Les Stroud from Survivorman.
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The Riverview Park & Zoo has done a facelift on their tunnel portals on their miniature train ride, and now they are both complete. Here's pictures via their Facebook page.
The Bramhope tunnel portal which was used to create the south tunnel facade.
New portal facade at north end of tunnel.
The Hoosac tunnel portal which was used to create the north portal facade.
New portal facade at south end of tunnel.
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Come see the latest proposals to route traffic through our city.
The purpose of PIC #4 is to present the recommended preliminary design and associated mitigation measures that are being proposed for the Parkway Corridor. A drop-in format is being utilized for this PIC to allow members of the public to review the proposed design treatments and mitigation measures proposed within each area and discuss their comments with members of the Study Team in an interactive forum. Given the focus on design and mitigation details, and opportunities for one-on-one discussions with project team members, there will be no formal presentation as part of this meeting. Members of the public are invited to drop in at a time that is convenient for them. Additional presentation material providing an overview of the study recommendations and how comments received to date have been considered will be available at the PIC and will be posted on the study website.
[Related: Some Findings And Input From The Parkway Road Meeting On Impact On Community]
[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]
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Photo via @DaveFB85 on Twitter of EMS on tarmac
Media release via Loomex Communications & Consulting...
At approximately 2:30 p.m. today the Peterborough Airport staff became aware of an aircraft in distress and the Airport emergency plan was activated. The pilot of the Searey Amphibious plane radioed the airport to ask for assistance with a landing gear malfunction as only one of his front wheels were down.
Peterborough Fire Service and Peterborough EMS were on-site within approximately 10 minutes.
Airport staff were in constant contact with the pilot as he circled the airport for approximately an hour to burn fuel. A flight trainer and the airplane’s manufacturer were contacted to assist the pilot. An emergency landing plan was developed, based on the protocols in the airport emergency plan, and was communicated to the pilot.
At approximately 3:55 p.m. the pilot was able to successfully land the aircraft in the grass adjacent to the runway. There was minimal damage to the aircraft and the pilot sustained no injuries.
The Peterborough Airport’s Emergency Plan is updated and tested on an annual basis to ensure that staff are prepared for incidents such as this. This incident was handled with care and professionalism with the safety of the pilot as the primary concern.
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The third Parkway Public Information Centre Meeting is taking place on Thursday, June 27th at the Peterborough Sport and Wellness Centre from 4 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Come see the latest proposals to route traffic through our city.
Two presentations will be held, followed by discussion. The same information will be offered at each presentation. Study Team representatives will be at the PIC to present a series of displays for you to review the Study background, the evaluation of the Network Alternatives, the Recommended Network Alternatives and associated design concepts. This PIC will give the public an opportunity to ask questions and provide comments to the Study Team.
The first presentation is at 4:30 p.m., and the second is at 7:00 p.m.
[Related:Some Findings And Input From The Parkway Road Meeting On Impact On Community]
[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]
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A video featuring the the Canadian Canoe Museum was created by students of the Crestwood Secondary School Film, Video and New Media program in partnership with Peterborough & the Kawarthas Tourism. Check it out...
[YouTube]
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