Response to the baffle-gab.
If you look at the project for what it is - a boxy office building inspired by Lego and a pedestrian bridge that might or might not have a mesh covering you realize that a lot of money is being spent to achieve almost nothing that was described here.
One thing that's not going to occur to all those 401 viewers as they whiz by is whether or not either the building or the walkway are sustainable. No one can tell from the 401.
The first litmus test will be a walk around the building counting dead endangered song birds.
The next is this: just what exactly is meant by sustainable in this context?
As of right now, natural resources are being extracted at such a rate that 95% of the planet's wildlife has disapeared in the last hundred or so years. Most wildlife populations beyond those that have acclimatized to humans are vestial at best and cannot be considered viable populations in most cases. Is this building sustainable in that context? I don't think so.
The recent 407 Extension Environmental Assessment spelled out in stark terms how wildlife and habitats in Durham Region have been devastated since 1974. The truly sad thing was the province's environmental experts who reviewed the data weren't old enough to interpret the information. They had no idea that the eight spring peepers that were heard along the proposed route were the isolated remnants of what were millions of frogs thirty years ago. Where did they all go? Pesticides and herbicides is where they all went. Many of the people who lived in the area went the same way for exactly the same reason. What kills frogs kills us too. It just takes longer.
When natural resources of any description are removed from the earth, they are never put back. That means there's less there than there was before. If a function can be attached to the material removed - and I mean all of the material, not just the ore, then that function has been obliterated. Being obliterated doesn't make anything sustainable except us. Most humans aren't fully aware of this yet but the human race depends upon other species and a properly functioning evironment to exist.
For instance, there is no sustainable way to remove gravel from a gravel bed. Gravel is an important part of the natural filtration system between the surface and the ground water where all of our best drinking water comes from. Once it's gone there's no such thing as mitigation to fix it. Another example is what cities like to call the environmentally sensitive ways in which water lines and sewage systems are installed in eco sensitive areas. If you have ever seen such an installation first hand, you understand that there is nothing sensitive about either operations. On a human scale they are the equivalent of running a three centimetre deep, one centimetre wide trench from your foot to your brain and then slapping a bandaid on it.
Those who are least aware are politicians, developers and those forgotten beauties, the urban planners and city managers. Is there such a thing as an urban planner who can tell us what constitutes sustainability for Pickering's native fairy shrimp population? Is there a developer who has ever seen a fairy shrimp?
One thing Pickering's politicians, planners and developers can all pat themselves on the back for is gratuitously turning most of Pickering's remaining natural spaces in to dioramas that are almost totally devoid of the creatures that should be there including the once famous Great Blue Heron Rookery that until a couple years ago was the natural wonder of Pickering.
In case you aren't familiar with the word diorama, think of those glassed-in displays you see in museums featuring stuffed animals surrounded by fake foliage - everything inside is dead - or is supposed to be.
The Leeds program that governs what is considered architecturally "Green" is the braindead child of an organization that has little if any understanding of real ecological impacts made by urban initiatives. They're a bunch of wannabes that don't get it but do wish they could. That's why the word sustainability is the new benchmark in terms of words that become meaningless. Green is another one. These are people who are dreaming about what they fondly imagine is sustainability with respect to the natural world without understanding that most of the planet has already gone beyond sustainability and is in urgent need of recovery.
All projects should be planned and demostrate bio-recovery, not sustainability.
Most of the air on planet earth is contaminated. Most of the fresh water is contaminated. Most people in developed countries have never had a breath of clean fresh air or a drink of clean unprocessed water. Is that what we want to sustain????
No one who has ever been ill wants to be maintained or sustained in damaged state - they want to be well again. So does the planet.
It sounds weird to most people thinking of the planet as being sentient enough to be healthy or sick. But if you stop to think about how any living organism is composed, you quickly realize that all higher life forms are an aglomeration of many systems and cells and they're all interactive and cooperative on a global level - just as the entire planet is.
We tend not to think of the planet itself as having any intelligence. On that same plane we think exactly the same of the single cells our bodies are composed of that are much simpler but based on exactly the same platform. However, modern science has demonstrated that our individual cells do in fact have innate intelligence and memories. They have decision making capabilities that are breathtaking. They are individually aware. It turns out our brainpower is not all locked up in our skulls after all.
Going back to the dumbass overpass, whenever a structure is installed that incorporates and even relies on technology such as moving sidewalks, escalators and elevators to make them work, you can depend on the simplest of things to deny functionality. That would be the combination of gravity and dirt. That's what kills those things. When they're exposed to the elements they have short lives and high maintenance costs. Surely handicapped people have been allowed for - wheel chair access and all that that entails? Once the elevator fails, there'll be a traffic jam composed of wheel chairs and walkers at each end - in the cold.
Anyway, neither the building nor the walkway should have been built as they are and San Fran by the Bay shouldn't have been built as is either. It was nice of the City Planners to build in all that huge client base for the five micro businesses across the road on Liverpool. That sort of generosity is likely unprecedented anywhere.
Oh and not to forget about certain Councillor(s) voting for then buying into the new bedroom community as investment property? Is this another form of printing your own money?
The entire planning process lacked vision and creativity. A phenomenal opportunity existed to put Pickering on the map and it was frittered way. Not for the first time in Pickering's history. This is just one more time.
If nothing else you can predict the future in Pickering fairly easily. Past performance is usually a good indicator of future performance. And if the people in decision making positions couldn't bring themselves to listen to reason in the past, you can be certain they won't in future either.
