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Showing posts from November, 2022

What's Wrong With.... - Word on the Water

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 In the "What's Wrong With..." series I look at some really cool experiences, businesses, streets, etc. that I have come across, and ask, why can't we have this in Kamloops and/or BC and/or Canada? I do want to acknowledge that no single regulator is at fault, nor do I believe that any regulatory branch or insurance company or lawmaker is out to ruin our lives nor do they have malice in their minds. Each is reacting to dangers (potential, anticipated or real) and attempting the best they know how to mitigate them. Health, Fire, Police, Parks, Zoning, Building Code, Ventilation, Business Licensing, Arts Approvals, etc. - are all doing what they think is best, but the large view of things is what I believe is lacking, and reviewing each of our roles in each of these things I believe is in order.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- from the website. " Word on the Water " - is a canal boat in London, or as th

IDEA series - First Ave Rain Park

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First Ave from Seymour up to Columbia is 416m long at a fairly formidable grade. That is why what was once a two lane street with street parking is now only a one way with no parking - cars careening down the steep hill seemed dangerous I guess, especially in inclement weather. Strangely, at least to me, when we removed the parking and the second direction of traffic - we left the little sidewalks and turned this into 3 wide lanes of uphill traffic. I have an idea in two parts. The "Park" part of Rain Park is pretty self explanatory - the Rain part - yet to come. First of all - consider that the traffic counts on First could never justify two lanes of traffic, let alone three, lets assume there is way more space allotted to cars here than is necessary to maintain the exact same level of auto-mobility that is experienced now. Reducing the amount of lanes would be unlikely to greatly reduce the flow and convenience of traffic (same too for the 4 lanes approaching on Seymour W).