Ongoing Calgarians complaining about pedestrian bridges thread

[ranchlandsselling]

Originally Posted by SebC

I'm not saying don't build any new stuff in the surburbs. I'm saying the suburbs should pay for the suburbs, and that's absolutely fair.

And yeah, reducing/eliminating suburban subsidies would increase demand in the inner city, but that effect is smaller than the cost of the subsidy. ECON 101.

Are you insane? You do realize the huge amount of taxes generated by the business the make up the core pay for large part of everything? Where do you think all those employees come from? You realize the largest portion of the Calgary population lives in the suburbs? And they're the ones paying the big bills whether your property values are higher on a per sf basis and you're paying slightly more taxes. What about those dirty leeches that live in the core and work outside the core? I know plenty. Or the students who go to the University of Calgary and live in apartments and condos downtown.

Sorry - but you're going to need a bit better than econ 101 to trump out some random theory like the above.

[LeftWing]

Originally Posted by Rhettzky

I don't know about that. Both times I have been by the bridge it was completely packed, one time it had a line-up of people waiting to cross. I think we need another ped bridge somewhere near by to take the load off this new one.

Weird. Right now there's three people on it.

[Rhettzky]

Originally Posted by LeftWing

Weird. Right now there's three people on it.

I count 12.

[nik-]

I hope this thread turns into continuous updates on the number of people using the bridge.

[kevman]

Apparently things got a little heated last night on here?

Just for fun, my counts during my commute home and back to work today were:
Yesterday PM
Prince's Island park bridge @ 4pm - ~20 Users
Peace Bridge @ 4:15pm - 3 Northbound Pedestrians, 2 Southbound Pedestrians, 1 Northbound bike, 1 Electric Wheelchair going back and fourth
LRT Bridge @ 4:15 - 4 Northbound Pedestrians and 1 Southbound Pedestrian
Today AM
Peace Bridge @ 7:45am - 5 Southbound Pedestrians
LRT Bridge @ 7:45am - 5 Southbound Pedestrians and 1 Northbound
Prince's island @ 8am - ~15 Users


I might be in the minority here and critiquing seems to go poorly around this neck of the woods lately but I can't help but wish it was completely open air. The Glass on top doesn't do it for me at all. I think the helical design would be that much more powerful without the glass. It's not like the glass is actually going to stop the rain and snow with the wind coming down river anyway.

[kevman]

Originally Posted by nik-

I hope this thread turns into continuous updates on the number of people using the bridge.

haha oops

[Muta]

Originally Posted by LeftWing

Weird. Right now there's three people on it.

I hope you can admit that during warmer weather, the bridge is used more because of increased pedestrian traffic. Pedestrian traffic increases EVERY year when the weather is warmer.

You're judging the bridge by a time where it should generally be warmer at this time of year. It's cold and snowing today, as it was yesterday.

I really hope you know that.

Plus, I'm still waiting for that calculation you promised.

[Muffins]

Originally Posted by kevman

I might be in the minority here and critiquing seems to go poorly around this neck of the woods lately but I can't help but wish it was completely open air. The Glass on top doesn't do it for me at all. I think the helical design would be that much more powerful without the glass. It's not like the glass is actually going to stop the rain and snow with the wind coming down river anyway.

The glass is a bird poop shield

[Ozy_Flame]

Bird poop on my head was clearly a problem on the Prince's Island bridge. I'd be struttin' and then I'd be like "yo what's that shizzat I just felt" and it was a pigeon pinching a loaf. And I was like "COME AT ME, BRO!"

[username]

I love the bridge. I don't care what the cost was to tax payers. I just see it as a beautiful bridge similiar to the Bow and many other new projects that are starting to reshape the inner city into something Calgarians can be proud of.

I know I am.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

No the suburbs haven't been getting large interchanges at the expense of the poor inner city folks being punished.


I don't like the suburbs vs. inner-city false-dichotomy debate, but any reasonable assumptions made in defining what one means by "inner-city" and "suburbs" (i.e. where the imaginary line is) would make what you just said a falsehood.

This is bordering too much on a sweeping generalization than I'm usually comfortable with, but this, almost to the point of being a rule, has been false for the last 60 years and will be for at least a few more years.

Perhaps it's better to frame things in terms that are actually used by the city/planning: established communities, like Sunnyside, Bridgeland, Inglewood, Renfrew, as long time established communities, but there are a tonne of other established communities outside the core, which have been around for 20-30 years.

The big problem I personally see, as someone living in a century old neighbourhood like Inglewood, and soon to be Renfrew, is that infrastructure upgrades for those citizens almost always comes directly out of pocket of the homeowners, AND the taxes we're paying are going towards infrastructure costs of new communities.

Council likes to make the point that those new communities can become self sufficient based on their tax revenue, but their tax revenue is never capable of offsetting their initial and ongoing costs associated with building them in the first place. The city is well over a billion dollars in debt to developers right now.

[Stay Golden]

The cost of the bridge is one thing which according to polls 98% of Calgarians agree 25m was wasted and the bridge was not even needed.

The location was extremely poor. This was not a placement that made any logic what so ever.

The thing that bothered me the most was how this project was closed off to ALL outside and local contractors. There was no open tendor that cityhall allowed any other engineering companies to bid on.

From what I know from dealing with Graham, PCL, Devitt, SNC, Aecon etc that projects of this magnitude are always tendered.

Bronco and Dru Farrell keeping this as a exclusive contract to Calatrava should have been shut down from the start.
Very unscrupulous practice right from the beginning and was forced on the city.
It was the unethical management by City Hall on this project that I feel should have shut this down. Not the cosmetics of the bridge or cost that is an entirely seperate issue to itself.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

Bronco and Dru Farrell keeping this as a exclusive contract to Calatrava should have been shut down from the start.

nope

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

The cost of the bridge is one thing which according to polls 98% of Calgarians agree 25m was wasted and the bridge was not even needed.

The location was extremely poor. This was not a placement that made any logic what so ever.

The thing that bothered me the most was how this project was closed off to ALL outside and local contractors. There was no open tendor that cityhall allowed any other engineering companies to bid on.

From what I know from dealing with Graham, PCL, Devitt, SNC, Aecon etc that projects of this magnitude are always tendered.

Bronco and Dru Farrell keeping this as a exclusive contract to Calatrava should have been shut down from the start.
Very unscrupulous practice right from the beginning and was forced on the city.
It was the unethical management by City Hall on this project that I feel should have shut this down. Not the cosmetics of the bridge or cost that is an entirely seperate issue to itself.

Disagree. I'm in the industry, and even I'm happy this one was sole-sourced. The City went out and actually got a bridge designer worthy of putting a bridge there.

I deal with City RFP's every day, and this was, in a way, a refreshing breath of air. Had we gone through the RFP process on this, it would have been a waste of taxpayers dollars and private company resources. They wanted Calatrava, and they didn't bullcrap about it. They should have fessed up to it from the beginning about him, I agree there... but the end product is something we should all be happy about.

I'm incredibly proud we didn't go for the lowest bidder. Leave that practice to the towns and villages of the world. This is a signature bridge in a signature location. It has to be world-class - unlike the ugly-ass pedestrian bridge to the east of it.

Besides, we all had our chance on the St. Patrick's Island Bridge at the exact same time, which gets forgotten all too often.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

From what I know from dealing with Graham, PCL, Devitt, SNC, Aecon etc that projects of this magnitude are always tendered.

Bronco and Dru Farrell keeping this as a exclusive contract to Calatrava should have been shut down from the start.
Very unscrupulous practice right from the beginning and was forced on the city.
It was the unethical management by City Hall on this project that I feel should have shut this down. Not the cosmetics of the bridge or cost that is an entirely seperate issue to itself.

Design and construction contracts are two very separate things. Sole source design happens all the time. Tenders for construction are almost always done via bidding.

If you're going to start naming off names of construction contractors, then you should probably be aware of their part in a project before making statements like that.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

The cost of the bridge is one thing which according to polls 98% of Calgarians agree 25m was wasted and the bridge was not even needed.

The location was extremely poor. This was not a placement that made any logic what so ever.

The thing that bothered me the most was how this project was closed off to ALL outside and local contractors. There was no open tendor that cityhall allowed any other engineering companies to bid on.

From what I know from dealing with Graham, PCL, Devitt, SNC, Aecon etc that projects of this magnitude are always tendered.

Bronco and Dru Farrell keeping this as a exclusive contract to Calatrava should have been shut down from the start.
Very unscrupulous practice right from the beginning and was forced on the city.
It was the unethical management by City Hall on this project that I feel should have shut this down. Not the cosmetics of the bridge or cost that is an entirely seperate issue to itself.

These are construction companies. Are you under the impression that Calatrava is a construction company? If you bothered to read any of the posts in this thread, you may learn something. GRAHAM assembled and repaired the bridge where crappy welds were done by a company in Spain GRAHAM hired. You have such big opinions on something you clearly demonstrate you know nothing about.

[ranchlandsselling]

Originally Posted by kermitology

Perhaps it's better to frame things in terms that are actually used by the city/planning: established communities, like Sunnyside, Bridgeland, Inglewood, Renfrew, as long time established communities, but there are a tonne of other established communities outside the core, which have been around for 20-30 years.

The big problem I personally see, as someone living in a century old neighbourhood like Inglewood, and soon to be Renfrew, is that infrastructure upgrades for those citizens almost always comes directly out of pocket of the homeowners, AND the taxes we're paying are going towards infrastructure costs of new communities.

Council likes to make the point that those new communities can become self sufficient based on their tax revenue, but their tax revenue is never capable of offsetting their initial and ongoing costs associated with building them in the first place. The city is well over a billion dollars in debt to developers right now.

And the same thing probably happened 20-30 years ago for those communities and 100 years ago for the other communities.

Who's paying the $1.0 million from the City of Calgary for the new weir? Surely the $3.4 million Alberta Lottery portion could be better spent? It's next to Inglewood, they should foot the entire bill. I don't walk/run/bike that far east that I ever see the weir.

Or the Central Memorial Park upgrade of $11.5 million. Surely the beltline communities should have paid for all of that? Because I'm not a male prostitute that hangs out in that park nor is it next to my community.

What about that Talisman Centre, $41.5 million, completely footed by Mission and Earlton residents? No? Probably should have been.

Or that free fare transit zone. Parasite inner city communities getting free transit when suburbanites has to pay to go from Fish Creek to whatever the next stop is.

No, I don't believe any of that makes sense. Just like new communities have start up costs that might be footed by the whole city. Guess what, we benefit from these communities being built, people moving to them, jobs being created wages increasing, housing prices increasing (forget 2008-2012) etc.

[Joborule]

It's humorous watching uneducated opinions trying to speak like they know it all.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Joborule

It's humorous watching uneducated opinions trying to speak like they know it all.

Also, how much we all care about bridges! That's what I'm starting to feel is a little surreal.

At least we don't have to have the debate Florida is having (or should be having) right now.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by ranchlandsselling

No, I don't believe any of that makes sense. Just like new communities have start up costs that might be footed by the whole city. Guess what, we benefit from these communities being built, people moving to them, jobs being created wages increasing, housing prices increasing (forget 2008-2012) etc.

This macroeconomic argument is easy to make, but it's hard to make a distinction between inner city vs. suburb tax dollar ROI.

There is probably some synergetic relationship between inner and outer city tax dollars, but I have yet to find a reason why my tax dollars as a resident of Westbrook/Wildwood are even relevant to a Falconridge or Tuscany infrastructure services, just like you would feel the same way.

Either way, i would like to see tax dollars stay in the community they're paid from, and have a City-appointed finance manager per community with resident/citizen board members. If we feel a park is in order, we'll build it with our own tax dollars and leave Falconridge to deal with their own parks.

Public infrastructure and recreation costs, such as Memorial Trail or Prince's Island Park, should be designated city-wide taxes since most Calgarians will either use these pieces of the city at some point. Of course, robust research should go into what counts as a city-wide infrastructure piece.