17 Oct Building and Designing A City that Provides Options
There has been a lot of talk during this campaign and as we emerged from the pandemic about getting people to leave their cars at home and walk, bike and take transit. And don’t get me wrong I’m all for it but and this is a big but, it’s very difficult to convince people to leave the car at home when we have built our city around driving a car.
We have for decades made decisions about how we build, what we build and where we’ll build it, on the idea that everyone will and can drive a car. For so many who live in St. Catharines, they have no choice but to drive to grocery shop, go to the doctor, have a dinner out or visit with friends.
As decision makers, we need to start making decisions that provide better alternatives to driving a car. We need to support transit. We need to make cycling safer and easier. We need to make walking safer.
But probably the biggest and most urgent thing we need to do is make better decisions about where and what we build in St. Catharines.
We need to encourage adding housing along transit lines.
We need to encourage adding housing where amenities already exist.
Building and designing our city that provides options – means a better city for everyone.
Would you like to hear more? Check out this great conversation with Gil Penalosa and Brent Toderian – for the car specific info scroll to 58 min.
