Ongoing Calgarians complaining about pedestrian bridges thread

[flamingreen]

Originally Posted by Muta

I told you guys it'll be an open competition.

Anybody who wants to respond to the RFP can when it comes out. If people think they know how to better design a bridge, and know how to make a bridge better than Calatrava and for less money, then have at 'er.

Although, if the location of the Calatrava bridge got people all up in arms because of it's location to other pedestrian bridges, wait until they hear where the new one supposedly going to be.

This should be interesting to watch.

I look forward to the high school student napkin drawings that will flood this competition.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by flamingreen

I look forward to the high school student napkin drawings that will flood this competition.

Churchill is totally going to annihilate Fowler.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by Muta

I told you guys it'll be an open competition.

Anybody who wants to respond to the RFP can when it comes out. If people think they know how to better design a bridge, and know how to make a bridge better than Calatrava and for less money, then have at 'er.

Although, if the location of the Calatrava bridge got people all up in arms because of it's location to other pedestrian bridges, wait until they hear where the new one supposedly going to be.

This should be interesting to watch.

You think the next bridge's location will be more controversial? I actually don't think so. It's at the tip of St. George's Island connecting East Village toward Bridgeland, both communities that can expect pretty large population increases in the next few decades. There isn't any good pedestrian or cycling access across the Bow River anywhere near there. Even Rick Bell recognized that the rickety little wood suspension style bridge is inadequate (an only connects over to St. George's Island).

As for the competition, I wonder how it will work. Typically they will send out a request for qualifications and from that large list of applicants will create a short list, providing a stipend of say $50,000 to come up with a design concept. This is how the Cantos Competition is being carried out.

Or, it could be a wide open competition with any firm submitting a design concept and those designs being shortlisted for further refinement.

[Dion]

The disease knows no borders," says Angela Hunt, an articulate and incredibly sharp member of Dallas city council who read all about our $25-million fancy footbridge and our politicians yesterday
.
"These people are twins of some of the people here in Dallas.

"I like public art. I get all of that. What I don't get is enormous expenditures for eye candy. The spending on that bridge is shocking. Such a waste.

"It's the same mentality as here. Money is not a real issue for these people. It's not real dollars. It's imaginary. It's the little kid who wants a pony. They see it, they want it and they're not accustomed to being told no.

"They don't look at spending that money in creating real services for people actually living in the city. It's a backward way of viewing the world. I very much sympathize

"I can almost guarantee you the cost of your bridge will escalate. There will be cost creep. It's going to be more than $25 million. It will be more like $40 million," says Angela.

"Cut your losses. Figure out a way to nip this in the bud because once you get on this horse you've got to ride it."

Enough of that. Let us bring in Calgary's Lindsay Blackett, the province's culture minister and widely recognized as a man of exquisite taste. Come on, he's the culture minister.

What does he think of the bridge only 8% of the population want?
"It's underwhelming," says Lindsay.

"I expected to be wowed. I didn't get it, but maybe I don't have the proper pedigree."

He says everywhere he goes Calgarians are talking. What do they ask each other?

"Do we need to spend hard-earned tax dollars there?" says Lindsay.

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/colum...23171-sun.html

[Table 5]

I hope that bridge has a two-pronged entry on the north side...one for the island and one to reach Memorial Drive....could be an interesting design possibility. Ideally it would be great if it could even go across Memorial itself!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...h&z=16&iwloc=A

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Dion

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/colum...23171-sun.html

Haha, of course Rick Bell would write that. He got picked apart good after his other piece in the Sun earlier this week.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Dion

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/colum...23171-sun.html

A high school newsletter has more credibility than the sensationalist crap the Sun puts out. Wait a minute.... maybe your quest of promoting high school kids might not be that bad of an idea after all!

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Bunk

You think the next bridge's location will be more controversial? I actually don't think so. It's at the tip of St. George's Island connecting East Village toward Bridgeland, both communities that can expect pretty large population increases in the next few decades. There isn't any good pedestrian or cycling access across the Bow River anywhere near there. Even Rick Bell recognized that the rickety little wood suspension style bridge is inadequate (an only connects over to St. George's Island).

...And that's the problem. Calgarians are going to see that there's already a bridge there (only one or two hundred feet away) and get all up in arms that there's already a bridge there, why do we need to be spending this money. We need to build this bridge, but trust me... there'll be the ignorant who come out and proclaim it's not necessary because there's already one there.

You mention that the East Village and Bridgeland will be increasing in population the next few decades. Well, so will Hillhurst / Sunnyside / Kensington. There's huge plans for those areas too. Ones that involve population densification. But I don't know if people know that either.

By the way, the 2nd bridge will span over both sides of the island.

[flamingreen]

Originally Posted by Dion

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/colum...23171-sun.html

Only 8% of the population wants? More like 8% of the population of Sun readers who bothered to do their slanted online poll.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by flamingreen

Only 8% of the population wants? More like 8% of the population of Sun readers who bothered to do their slanted online poll.

Calgary CTV ran the poll

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Table 5

A high school newsletter has more credibility than the sensationalist crap the Sun puts out. Wait a minute.... maybe your quest of promoting high school kids might not be that bad of an idea after all!

With all due respect just because a paper doesn't meet your standards doesn't mean that it doesn't meet other peoples standards.

Just because a paper doesn't play to your sensitivities doesn't mean that the readerships opinions are any less valid.

I hate Rick Bell as much as the next day, but his opinion is as valid as the opinions of any columnist from the Herald.

I believe that the sun outsubscribes the Herald, so if their readership has an 8% approval rate for the bridge then there's a serious problem.

Lets not break this into a stupid debate that peoples opinions don't count because they read a different paper then you, I find that to be a ridiculous elitist argument.

Personally I read both papers every day, and there are things about both papers especially in terms of editorial style and content that bug the crap out of me. However since I read the Sun, and I really don't like this bridge does that make my opinion less valid then yours?

[flamingreen]

Originally Posted by Dion

Calgary CTV ran the poll

If that is what he was referring to my mistake.

[Table 5]

The problem with the Sun is not that it has opinions. It's that they act as if their opinions are facts, and blow it out of proportion to sensationalize a story for sales. They don't report news, they report opinion. I really don't care if your daily paper is the Kama Sutra. But at the end of the day, if you're getting information from a lacklustre source like Rick Bell, your knowledge of events will often be suspect. I'm not the biggest fan of the Herald either....

Btw, if you read the last 30 or so pages, you'll notice no once did I say that someone is not allowed to dislike this bridge. I think there are valid concerns about this bridge (mostly revolving around it's process), but a lot of the ones being used by the Sun (and some children-loving posters here) are pretty vapid.

[Muta]

Personally, the Globe and Mail is a much better-written paper than either. Less local content, but more pressing issues.

[Table 5]

I read calgarypuck.com for the majority of my calgary-related news.

[moon]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

With all due respect just because a paper doesn't meet your standards doesn't mean that it doesn't meet other peoples standards.

Just because a paper doesn't play to your sensitivities doesn't mean that the readerships opinions are any less valid.

I think that we have already seen many times in this thread that Table et al
believe that their opinions are the only ones that matter and that opposing views should be ignored and passed off as either wrong or ignorant.

Originally Posted by Claeren

Orrrrrrr maybe, if a couple of horrible/opportunistic city councillors along with a sensationalist press (especially the Calgary Sun and talk radio) that gave a disproportionate voice to the typical handful of resist-all-change conservatives we all could just enjoy what will come to be a center piece of Calgary art and image abroad and used by hundreds of thousands of Calgarians each and every day/week?

The way the bridge supporters have acted in this thread I have a hard time believing that they can't voice that arrogance in public just as easily. These morons seem pretty set on telling the "ignorant" rednecks of Calgary what they should want and like, whether the media is supporting them or not.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by moon

I think that we have already seen many times in this thread that Table et al
believe that their opinions are the only ones that matter and that opposing views should be ignored and passed off as either wrong or ignorant.

The way the bridge supporters have acted in this thread I have a hard time believing that they can't voice that arrogance in public just as easily. These morons seem pretty set on telling the "ignorant" rednecks of Calgary what they should want and like, whether the media is supporting them or not.

Wow.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by moon

These morons seem pretty set on telling the "ignorant" rednecks of Calgary what they should want and like, whether the media is supporting them or not.

More like the bridge supporters wonder why an extra $4-5 million spent to get a world-class design is a political hot-point when billions are spent on roads and services out to money-losing far-flung suburbs and no one cares. If people REALLY cared about wasting money, the latter would be the issue and the former nothing more than a footnote.

The idea that a bunch of tax-revenue-negative suburbanites should get to decide whether a project for the inner city should go ahead as planned is entirely ludicrous; if the new paradigm is to be saving the city money, lets end all the interchange improvements right now and let the drivers sit in traffic and ponder all the money being saved. If it came down to this pedestrian bridge, which I will use, and saving 10 minutes off someone's trip to the new Balzac mall, I'm certain I know which one I'd axe if I had to - but I DON'T call for decisions like that, because it's not all about opposing everything that doesn't directly benefit me.

What I see on the anti-bridge crowd are people who are arguing against the bridge as a symbol of what they don't like about government; the perception that it is elitist and uncaring about the opinion of the common person, and that it wastes money on unnecessary frivolities. I might even have some sympathy for this viewpoint if it didn't reek of hypocrisy for the aforementioned reason that so few of them came out to oppose the billions and billions of other capital spending done in the last few years - none of which mattered until someone hired an outsider to design a bridge, and then their narrowmindedness had the opportunity to dress itself up as fiscal responsibility.

[JiriHrdina]

I'm anti-bridge and not a suburbanite. I fail to see why because money is wasted elsewhere (which it is) why that excuses this specific waste of money.

[Claeren]

Originally Posted by Dion

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/colum...23171-sun.html

Again, an article full of opinions but short on facts.


How much does this Dallas city councillor think she could build a bridge for where:
- Piers into the river are to be avoided if at all possible, both for the environmental impact and for safety.
- No towers (for suspension) are to be used, due to the heliport located near the south entrance to the bridge.
- The opposing river banks are at differing heights and cannot be drastically altered.

I am guessing she would be close to $20M WITHOUT any star architect. With the same risk for cost-creep as any staritect design.

And as a bonus, a bridge designed by Calatrava will have spill over benefits to all sorts of facets of the cities 'economy' that a concrete span would not.


As for local designers v. international designers, it is called free trade people. It is supremely ironic that it is mostly right-wing types that are so anti-Calatrava. Maybe the European Union should not award any contracts to Canadian experts in their fields and get their students to do all the work for slave wages instead!? Seems like a really good way to grow a world economy....

(I am not going to go over again how this spending for the bridge was NOT the work of city council, was money specifically allocated for this use, etc. Any person who actually wants to be informed knows this, and the rest... still oppose the bridge for the same tired reasons.)



And Moon, it is not like you EVER approve of anything. If it costs money or changes things without directly benefiting you, you don't like it. Sorry if the rest of us have a bit broader view of how the world interacts and evolves over time. As Calatrava himself said:
“to build things with beauty is a matter of dignity and not a matter of time.”





Claeren.