I catch the Dalhousie train every morning at Chinook to get to SAIT. Every morning it is completely packed and sometimes I have to wait for 2 or 3 trains till I can get on a train. The city keeps on adding more and more stations at the end of the line, which is great because it is allowing the train to be more accessible to other people but it makes the train less accessible to existing users. Don’t believe me? Look at the two Stampede stations in the morning, maybe 5 people wait on those platforms during the morning. Most of the people I know at those stations say they walk downtown to catch the train after it unloads everyone.

So this dilemma got me thinking. How can we free up space on the C-Trains while increasing access to the trains? Some ideas that floated around my head were putting more trains on the track. The problem with this is that the trains already run 5 minutes apart during the morning, if they added anymore between it could be a safety concern. Another idea was to just add more cars to the train, but that would mean either extending the platform or having the train stop once then move up a bit and stop again. Not too realistic or practical.

Other ideas that raced through my head were overhead trains, express trains and express buses on bus only roads. All of them had their pros and cons. But none of these solutions really addressed the root problem we are facing here in Calgary. That root problem is urban sprawl. Why are we constantly expanding the borders of our city when there is plenty of room within the city to grow? This kind of city planning not only causes traffic problems in the morning on the roads and C-Train but it also affects the environment and our quality of life negatively. The farther we have to travel to work each day, the more green house gases that get emitted. Also the farther we travel to work each day, the more time we are spending commuting instead of doing many other more enjoyable and healthy activities. (Click on graphs to see more.)

So I stopped looking at solutions to fix the C-Train problem, for the time being. The problem still exists but I don’t believe it can truly be looked at until we start to fix the bigger issue, urban sprawl.

You may be asking what is urban sprawl and here is a definition that the Sierra Club (Chinook Chapter) provides:

“SPRAWL is a style of development that has been prevalent since the 1950’s. What we have come to know as suburbia, and where most of us in Calgary live, is based upon a SPRAWL pattern of growth and development. SPRAWL has three common characteristics:Car dependence Low density Segregation of various uses”

As you can probably tell by now, planning a city around sprawl is not a good idea. It causes so many problems that grow as time keeps ticking.

Some alternatives to sprawl can be seen in some Calgary communities, including Sunnyside. Whether you need to go to work, shop for groceries or go to school, walking is an actual option where in other communities it is not. If you would like to learn more about urban sprawl in Calgary, I would suggest you check out this website put out by the Sierra Club (Chinook Chapter): http://www.sierraclubchinook.org/UrbanSprawl/Sprawl.html

So back to the C-Train dilemma. How can addressing the urban sprawl problem in Calgary fix the crowded C-Trains? Simple, if communities are built in a way that work places, schools and shopping centres are near by, there will be less of a need to use the C-Train and vehicles. People will spend less times in their cars or on the trains, and instead they will be able to spend time with the family, enjoy recreational actives, and overall have more free time.

I will be writing more about urban sprawl and possible solutions in the next few weeks on this blog. I hope this will open up much needed discussion among Calgarians about this serious issue.

This may the reason why Harper is gagging all his fellow Conservative MPs.

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Hey who knows, maybe Al Gore is right.

Maybe all my constituents living high up on the West Bench, or Lakeview Heights, or the hills of Logan Lake will soon be sitting on lakeside property as one of the many benefits of global warming.

All I know is last weekend when I got home from Ottawa there was more snow in my driveway than we usually get in a year.

And I was begging for Big Al’s Glacial Melt when the mercury hit -24. Do not despair, my fellow dwellers of the Okanagan and Nicola Valleys.

If misery loves company then we had lots of it around our province. Matter of fact, at one point in the week some 22 towns and cities had broken all-time records for paralyzing frigid temperatures.
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That is an excerpt from a letter from Stockwell Day to his constituents. It’s pretty obvious that Day does not believe in science. This really isn’t a surprise. After all this is the same guy who said, “Standards of education are not set by government, but by God, the Bible, the home and the school.” And that’s not an attack on religion, I fully support freedom of religion, but Stockwell Day was a teacher then. And I think the debate on seperation of church and state is over in Canada.

I think Day’s comments pretty much sum up the way Conservatives really think about Global Warming. You can tell that Harper and his MPs don’t consider the environment to be a top priority, by the way they are handling the profile.

But I am still stumped. What is more credible, the scientific facts behind global warming or Stockwell Day’s opinion on it?

I’m glad that the federal NDP site is now being updated on a daily basis with usually a few press releases a day. Today I read this one. It’s about the NDP’s ideas for the solar industry.

It got me thinking though. Why not put in a plan so that every new federal government building is equipped with solar panels? The plan could also be extended to allow a fund for renovations to government buildings to equip them with solar panels. This would save taxpayers a lot of money in energy costs in the long run. Also homeowners can sell excess energy from solar powers to the power company and pump it back into the grid, why not have the federal government do this as well?

This plan also has many other benefits, than just saving money. It would be a step towards helping us meet our Kyoto targets and if provinces take part in a plan like this, it would have a tremendous positive effect on green house gases! Also it would be a huge boost to the solar power industry, which theoretically would cause prices to go down for ordinary consumers who want to help out the environment while saving money on their energy bills each month.

Harper’s environment plan can not be called a plan and certainly can not be labeled as environmental. Stephen Harper announced that the government will be implementing intensity-based targets.

You may ask, what are intensity based targets? Intensity based targets means that if the economy is growing, more greenhouse gases are allowed to be produced. Our economy is doing great right now, so that means our environment will suffer under the Conservative plan. An environmental plan should lessen our negative impact on the environment, but this just allows that impact to grow. This is not an alternative to the Kyoto accord and Canadians should feel insulted for being deceived. Let’s not wait for a depression or a stock market crash for us to lower our emissions, let’s protect the environment today and preserve it for our grandchildren!

I’m getting so sick of this. Our environment minister and our Government keeps on dodging the environment issue. We’ve had eight months of “we are developing a made in Canada plan” which has now turned into an “approach” which no deals have been made public. And also during these eight months we’ve heard the phrase “Liberal inaction” countless times. Liberal inaction, sure I agree with that! But what is the Conservative government going to do about it? Right now it looks like they are going down a worse path than the Liberals – Liberal and Conservative inaction. Cutting programs will save money, but if you don’t replace it with anything, the environment loses.

Climate change is a top issue. If Rona Ambrose can’t see this, then she must resign from her portfolio. Right now she is acting as the Minister of Profit for Oil and Gas. The environment is a time sensitive issue and voters will realize this in the next election.