Pride Saturday

Riding around the city, I had taken a long time to realise that new bike lanes are springing up all over. A mention in a newspaper column drew my attention to the fact that the Cycling Committee has taken its funding, long unused under the previous chairman, and started to make a difference.

By bringing the decision-making to a city level, rather than ward by ward, local prejudices can be balanced off against regional benefits. Long-planned routes are now in action.

But where are the headlines? Where is the public information?

Where is the news about the 3,000 bicycles and 4,500 parking stations that will form a free bicycle scheme starting Spring 2010?

What is the 'bicycle plus two chevrons' signage? It indicates a 'sharrow' lane for cyclists, who follow the line of the arrows, and cars, who must share the space.

Did you know that the minor intersections, where the lights are controlled by car traffic and pedestrian push buttons, also have three white dots in the bike lane where the weight of a bicycle will trigger the change?

We are becoming a cycle-friendly city, with streets striped with new bike lanes with more planned on major routes like University, and pleasure routes along the hydro allotments.

But why the maidenly modesty, people? This is one of the few unalloyed successes the Council can boast of, and I've seen nothing in the press.

Who'd a thunk?

It's amazing what you can achieve after you've graduated from the StraightFaced School of Politics. Some recent announcments:

• Most of the cancer tests in New Brunswick were entirely accurate.
  
• The great majority of Manitobans aren't in danger from swine flu. 
  
• My bonus was as contractually agreed , to compensate me for losing the much larger bonus I could have expected in industry (Where the equivalent bonus was a third the size).
  
• The car suffers defeat when Jarvis is to have a bike lane after all. Ignoring the fact that Sherbourne has a wide bike lane on both sides all the way from Queen to Bloor.
  

No-one seems to realise that:

• "surplus" simply means, "We didn't spend as much as we thought we would." It's not free money, it's just money we don't have to spend yet.
  And in the case of the federal government, it's money that's taken out of the real world of providing things and goes to pay down the national debt. 
  Speaking of shell games.
• "We don't have it in the budget to give you more" means, "We have the money, but we're not going to spend it on you."
• "Challenging, a new era, exciting, on the brink, demanding" all mean it ain't going to happen.
• "After consultation with the stakeholders" means after an auction with the lobbyists.

This is appearing in the July Newsletter and also on a blog at www.tinyurl.com/ChurchIsabella.

I've just realised that we are not actually a co-op.

A co-op is a raft, with members kneeling with paddles on all sides.

Unless everyone has some commitment to paddling in a shared direction,

the raft will drift and spin and run aground.

We are not a co-op because we behave like tenants. A co-operative shares decision-making. We have forgotten that we all have the responsibility to put in our pennyworth of decision-making.

We don't want simply to accept decisions someone has made for us, we are not children. We want someone to decide for us so we can bitch about the decisions. Unfortunately, we have expert and committed volunteers who will make decisions for us. They are accused of sitting on their hoard of experience and knowledge, but the system leaves them no option if decisions are to be made at all.

At the 20/2o meetings and in conversation afterwards, I discovered that democracy actually works, and a consensus can be found, or at least approached, through free discussion.

Ideas floated up out of nowhere, were polished and organised within the group, and a detailed brief was prepared to tell the Board what we think is important. We were enormously helped by the facilitator, but we knew the views were our own.

I hope this blog will be a place where people feel they can bring information and concerns, so that the community can grow. Posting is anonymous, behind your own blog name, and you may find that you have more support than you thought possible, or that someone has already dealt with the bind you find yourself in.

The blog is not an official Co-op project, it is the electronic version of the laundry room rant, where until now all that energy solving longstanding problems has been wasted.