ps. If you can volunteer or sponsor the event then please send me an e-mail.  We need some volunteers (are you comfortable with scary costumes?)

See the flyer below or visit our website.

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(Feel free to cut out my card and throw it away, I don’t mind). 

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The Champion recently covered a story with some quotes from your truly.  The piece is here.  My quotes are:

A similar argument was made to council last month by Zeeshan Hamid, who’s vying to become the local councillor for the new Ward 8 in west Milton, south of Derry Road.

[Correction: Ward 8 actually starts at Steeles and ends on Britannia]

“In general, Milton needs to narrow collector roads and require traffic calming devices at least near elementary schools and parks,” stated Hamid in a submission given as part of a public meeting on the Town’s update to its official plan. “Halton police recently caught 127 speeders on Scott Boulevard, travelling on average 50 per cent faster than the speed limit. Recently, a seven-year-old boy was hit near P.L. Robertson school while he rode his bike.”

Unfortunately:

The Town’s policy is that traffic-calming devices aren’t warranted on collector roads, according to a 2009 report on residents’ requests for them to be installed along Woodward Avenue in old Milton.

Wait, if they are not warranted on collector roads (like Scott Blvd), then where are they warranted?  Major roads should be optimized for traffic flow, neighbourhood roads should have traffic calming.

We have it backwards with lack of turning turn lanes and uncoordinated traffic lights on major roads but wide open neighbourhood streets. 

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My goal is to raise $500.  Can you help me get there?  I am hoping to find 20 generous people willing to donate $25 each.  

War Child works with children all over the world to reduce poverty, to provide education and to defend their rights.  They focus in war-torn areas, providing at least a few children with means to brighten their future.  Programs range from empowering women in Afghanistan to providing training to youth displaced by conflict in Georgia, and from rehabilitating children in Sierra Leone to providing them safety in Haiti

Donations are tax deductable.  You can donate by following this link.   If you can’t then may be you can find someone who can.  I need to find 20 people willing to donate $25 each. 

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Urban Village is an anti-sprawl urban planning and design concept. A good urban village is characterized by a strong urban design, a high level of self-containment (people live, work and play in the same area), use of alternate transportation (transit, walking, biking) and a strong community attachment.

Though there is no perfect urban village in practice, this blog focuses on initiatives that have successfully taken communities closer to the goal.  The purpose is to turn my home – Milton, Ontario – into an enviable Urban Village.

Suburbia-driven sprawl is not sustainable.  Post WW-II development was driven by single-use zoning that fuelled sprawl by separating residential and manufacturing areas. Urban Villages, on the other hand, bring back traditional neighbourhoods by mixing employment and residential activities, thus allowing people to live near their work rather than relying on long distance commuting. 

What can turn Milton into an urban village?  For starters:

• Lay out communities in a transit friendly way (do not have to further increase population density for this). 
• Employ pedestrianization techniques in neigbhourhood designs to facilitate safe human interaction (Scott Blvd is the exact opposite of this). 
• Focus on traffic flow on major arterial roads to reduce pollution and improve air quality (that includes synchronizing and properly timing traffic lights, and adding dedicated right-turn lanes on major intersection). 
• Have a hardcore business plan to attract high employers in Milton. 
• Make aesthetics a required part of site-planning. 
• Increase Milton’s urban forest canopy. 
• Aim for a 1:1 ratio between jobs and residents (rather than the current 0.5:1.  Mississauga has more jobs than there are people in the work-force.  Milton aims for 0.5:1 to begin with, not a high goal at all). 

This is just a brief part of a more comprehensive list that can turn Milton into an enviable Urban Village.  What would you like to see (it has to be something that can be done as part of urban planning)?

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Oh and buses are free, so leave your car at home. Buses leave every 30 minutes.  More info: http://www.milton.ca/commserv/streetfestival/index.php.

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Is there anything else you’d like me to bring up? 

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I lived in Seattle for a few years.  Seattle reduced the total volume of storm water leaving streets by 99% simply by reducing paved surfaces and planting trees. It not only resulted in lower future operating cost (because there were less areas to maintain), but it also ended up cleaning air and beautifying neighbourhoods.  End result is roads like these :-

Notice the centre heavily landscaped centre median?  In Redmond, WA almost all 4-lane roads are decorated with a landscaped median.  Another benefit is that it creates a perception of narrowness and acts as traffic calming.  Bike lanes are off road, for cyclists’ safety. 

Here’s a view of another road that not only shows the landscaping that goes on the median, but also the heavy landscaping they do to screen parking lots from main roads.  This is a highly commercial area.  Compare this to our commercial areas, like Steeles Ave.

This is how buildings are screened from main roads. That way even highly urban areas get a very ‘foresty’ feel.

I worked in one of these buildings for five years.  Notice the setback and landscaping around buildings. 

Another road showing landscaped median, trees screening the building and landscaping and trees screening the parking lot. 

The above view shows something else as well.  Parking lots in that area are designed such that each row of parking is divided by a landscaped median.  With time parking lots get a forest canopy and start to feel like parks, instead of concrete slabs. 

Another parking lot, another road with median and another building screened by trees. Notice how pleasant the sidewalk becomes in this case. You get trees on both sides providing you with shade. 

Yet another parking lot illustrating my point.  There seem to be just as many trees as cars (if you include trees along the parameter). 

As already mentioned, all these pictures are from a densely populated highly urban area.  However, they all show that all urbanization do not have to look same.

Milton should adopt some of these ideas to set itself apart from all other municipalities in the GTA.

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Unfortunately there’s no trail walks in Harrison or Scott neighbourhoods, so I will join people at one of the other Hawthorne village neighbourhoods. 

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