Month: January 2022

The tremendous push in Ottawa for bicycling. Is it reasonable?

January 26, 2022

A week ago, the National Capital Commission in Ottawa announced the sale of a part of their lands for the construction of 601 residential rental units. Half of these will be “affordable”, or below-market rent units. What caught my attention was the proposal will provide 600 indoor parking spots for bicycles and 200 underground parking spots for cars. I read it twice: there will be 600 indoor parking spots for bicycles! And obviously, the NCC agreed with the proposal since they picked it from among three competing finalists.

So what is going on here? Clearly, there is a tremendous push for cycling, a push for encouraging people to use the public transit system, and a sideways nod to those people who still want to drive.

Now, Ottawa has a cold climate and most people get on their bikes for four to six months of the year. I would say that three to four months are desirable for biking when one does not need gloves to ride. During the winter months, the snow cover is treacherous for biking, coupled with cars that often lose control on ice-covered roads.

I am not against biking in Ottawa, and I enjoy riding during the summer months. But riding is most popular in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Sweden…. where the climate is much more suitable for riding, where the cities are dense and distances are small, where the cost of gas for cars is much higher than here in Canada and therefore cycling makes sense.

The Lonely Planet developed a map of how the climate of different countries would match the provinces and states in North America. As shown below, the climate of Germany and Scandinavia approximates the West coast of the continent where the ocean provides a warming influence. Most of Canada’s climate approximates that of Russia. And Russia, like Canada, is not among the top cycling countries in the world. I would think climate plays a major role; both countries are cold most of the year for comfortable riding. Not that we should not cycle more, especially in urban areas like Ottawa, but our climate limits the seasons for cycling here. Bicycling is a good mode of transportation sometimes, but cannot be relied on all the time in Ottawa.

The other aspect of this proposal is that almost half of the rental units, the affordable units, target women and children, veterans, Algonquins, and indigenous people, and recent immigrants. These people would not be high-income people, therefore needing subsidized housing. But I read in the cycling literature that education and income positively relate to bicycling! I am not sure the proponents of this scheme considered who will be the cyclists in this development. The target group for subsidized housing is not likely in the high education and income groups.

The assumption is that if you have no car (there are only 200 parking spots for 601 units); you walk or bicycle or take public transit. Unfortunately, there is not a plethora of needed services in the vicinity; for example, there is no grocery store nearby. So do you go shopping on your bike with a couple of saddlebags? I do not think so: I just looked out the window and the thermostat registers minus 23 celsius.

The developers may take comfort in that Ottawa, with its hundreds of kilometers of cycling paths, is the number one cycling city in Canada, according to one survey. But providing 600 bicycle parking spots for 601 rental units may be overkill. Unrealistic or overly optimistic. Just my opinion.

When I talk to a dog instead of a person, then it is time to move on from lockdown!

December 12, 2022

I decided I was ready to socialize when I talked to a dog instead of a person! The owner of the dog was not friendly to my “hello” and so I snapped my fingers at his dog on a leash. The dog ran over to me and smelled my hand. I talked to the dog. The owner then jerked at the leash to get the dog moving on. It is uncommon for me to talk to dogs on the street. The next day I had a detailed talk with the boy collecting shopping carts at Food Basics; I explained to him my glasses fogged up and did not see him offering a cart to me. I explained to the boy the constant challenge of my fogging up glasses when going into stores from the cold into the warm. After wiping my glasses clean, I noticed the larger, professional-looking mask he wore. He explained it was an N95, that he ordered on Amazon made by 3M. It felt good to socialize with a live body; a change from being mostly solitary at home, locked down because of the Covid.

People are different, of course, and have varying needs for interaction with other people. Some are gregarious, while others can probably live more hermit-like. I can exist mostly by myself, but I am on the verge of feeling a need for more interaction with people after a couple of years of isolation.

I hit a triple yesterday when I called my clinic to talk with a doctor. The clinic gave me a phone interview that was alright although not a real in-person experience talking with someone. But the remote consultation resulted in a personal visit with a doctor. An outing like this is welcome now, even if it is a visit to a doctor that could have unpleasant surprises. Further, the doctor sent me to have an x-ray at the medical imaging center.

At the imaging center, where I went there this morning when it was minus twenty-four celsius (it is minus 11 in Fahrenheit)…..it was the chance for another outing! An opportunity arose for another personal chat when we had to line up outside the door to the clinic in the cold before they beckoned us in. I had a long chat about the cold and what it does to your toes in running shoes I had on, with a young woman in front of me. And with the x-ray technician inside, I discussed her profession, training, and the opportunity for jobs in her field. It was very satisfying to physically engage with someone in a conversation.

In normal times, Imeet with friends for coffee, have lunch with my retired colleagues, engage in heavy political discussions at the gym between using the machines and socializing on the ski hills. But these opportunities have dried up over the past two years: the government announcements for caution, the lockdowns, and the daily numbers of infected, hospitalized, and dead people have created a paranoia resulting in people afraid to get close, much less, talk with others.

In this current lockdown, the restaurants cannot serve inside, and the gyms are closed. I discovered that over the last few months, I have become more and more hungry to seek opportunities to talk with people; not only with my friends, but anyone willing to talk. Now, I am not overly gregarious, but I have a certain amount of desire for social interaction. It would seem people have varying needs for socializing, but I think most of us have reached a desire for an increased level of social interaction, similar to what we had been used to in the past. But, the last two years have trained us to be cautious of others and “keep our distance”, so I was wondering how the governments will change their communication strategy to let people know it is alright again to get together. I think this will be a challenge for the government and may take time.

Financial benefits for some can lead to business failure for others

December 8, 2022

Do you remember the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB)? People who lost half their income because of Covid received $500 per week from the government. And the payments went on until October 2021. We are not talking about peanuts: the CERB costs $37 billion, benefitting over four million people. After October, half the people who received CERB transitioned to the Canada Recovery Benefit, which pays $300 per week.

We met two of these lucky people receiving CERB in 2020. They were training for a hike out west with heavy backpacks when we met them on a walk to where our cottage is. They stayed at the cottage their family-owned and told us they will use their money from the government to fly out west and hike the Pacific Coast Trail. Working was not the foremost in their minds. They were college students living at home and enjoying the family cottage during the summer.

Is there anything wrong with accepting government money for not working and enjoying life? If these students had to work to attend college, they would have had to take a job, possibly in the hospitality industry, where waiters and waitresses have been in great demand since Covid started. According to government statistics, a third of restaurants closed over the past two years, since Covid started. And these students working may have saved many restaurants from closing due to lack of staff.

An example of this scenario materialized with our visit to Denny’s restaurant. The franchisor and family served the busy breakfast period. They could hardly keep up with the steady line of people coming for breakfast. Our waiter told us nobody who worked there had come back since the government introduced CERB. He said that some previous waitresses told him they wanted to stay home because their income just did not match CERB payments. It was easy to understand why people would not work.

A similar situation played out in Montreal last week when we visited a brasserie on rue St. Paul, in Old Montreal, a historical and very popular place with tourists. I noticed after we were seated that a lineup formed outside where the restaurant people were checking vaccination passports of the visitors. More than half the tables were empty. So I asked the waitress why the people waiting were not let in. She explained she was the only waitress on this floor and they limited the number of people in the restaurant to what the waitresses could serve. I asked why not hire more people. She said that they tried, but nobody wants to work. A similar situation played out again at night when we went for dinner, again, in Old Montreal. One waiter served an entire floor, running his legs off. I have seen no studies linking CERB to restaurant closures. But personal experience shows that giving out government money can lead to people refusing to work when work is available. Is this a moral or ethical issue? Are Canadians becoming soft, looking for an easy life? Is the government encouraging people to stay away from work? Just asking.

For Covid: are governments going nuts in Canada?

January 2, 2022

Do you remember when two vaccine shots solved the current Covid epidemic? That was early in 2021. Well, that became, in late 2021, the three-shot solution. So now we all have to have three shots to avoid Covid. But lo-and-behold, there is talk about a fourth dose of the vaccine, starting with vulnerable people. OK. Why not just say that we’ll need an annual shot?

Another government recommendation is to get tested. And the government distributed free test kits in December. They were available; I understood, at the local liquor stores. But when I tried to get some, first it was not available at all the LCBO’s, and second, by the time I discovered where it was available, I was told all the kits were gone in one-half hour. I asked myself, why should I have a test kit? The government suggested that if we get together with friends, we may check ourselves to discover if we are virus-free. If not, then we should not socialize with our friends. Sounded like a good idea but the supply of test kits was insufficient. Again, why suggest testing when the product is not available in quantities to satisfy public demand?

And last week, the Chief Public Health Officer mused that the masks we have been wearing are not good enough and we should wear medical or surgical masks, the N95s. So of course, I looked up where I could buy some of the N95s only to find out that they are sold out at pharmacies and even at Amazon. Again, a government policy is promulgated that cannot be implemented because the product is not available? Do these government policy wizards live on our planet? Should they not test-drive their policies before implementation?