Liquor Licensing in NS - A letter to the people who run it.

Dear Person in Charge,

I am writing you to try to understand why old, poorly conceived and sometimes harmful and meaningless rules continue to be enforced upon the citizens of Nova Scotia. I am told you might know.

I am not financially associated with any licensed establishment in Nova Scotia, although I am a customer of many, and an advocate for responsible drinking in the Region. I am just an Environmental Engineer, but I daily have to deal with inexperienced, untrained young people interpreting legislation and regulations that were never, ever intended to apply to current environmental realities, and modern construction practices.

Unfortunately, I keep hearing of parallel silliness occurring in the administration and enforcement of the liquor license laws in our Province. 

I see blatant misleading of the media and the public, in spin-doctored press releases, and filtered communications by talking heads (some of whom I know personally) who upon leaving work, take themselves, apologetically but directly, to the same establishments their departments seem to be bent on putting out of business. Indeed, that may be one reason for some of the overdrinking in Nova Scotia - the collective guilt of civil servants being made to enforce laws and regulations they know to be childish, trivial, of no value, and in often hateful circumstances.

I am going to tell you something that is, apparently, a secret to your Department. When bad laws exist, and government still tries to enforce them, at first the public may try to obey, but soon enough, the moral authority of a government to govern dissolves, and you become irrelevant. That is what is happening now in Nova Scotia with alcohol service and consumption. The rules are just so silly, and irrelevant to modern living, that people are starting to ignore them. Everyone knows you can only afford to hire so many inspectors, and pay so much overtime. I believe that there are more speakeasies in Nova Scotia now than at any time in history, and far more breweries and wineries that are not licensed than licensed. And that is not because it is fun, but because the rules around them are silly, permits are expensive with no commensurate value, and most of the admin is so irrelevant it's easy to justify ignoring.

Here are some past examples of what I view as utter stupidity, and a blatant misdirection of my tax dollars.

EDNA restaurant opens, well, not really, they have a soft opening for only those people who invested in the restaurant. You can't just walk in and be served. But who shows up? Two of your inspectors. I guess they wanted to be hip and tell their friends they were there on opening night. Now put this in perspective - a new business, a restaurant, trying to show off to their investors that the investments were well placed, and that they could be trusted. Pretty stressful. But in comes the long blunt stupid arm of government to try to really ruin their day. If these were my employees, I would suspend them. If I ordered them to do this, I'd suspend myself.  You are annoying your clients, the public.

Obladee Wne Bar - if there is one place in Atlantic Canada you WANT people to bring their kids into so they can learn by example of how to drink without being an idiot, this is it. A place where wine, food, and responsible use of alcohol are primary. Here, the owner is not even allowed to bring her infant daughter in during open hours, let alone witness a healthy family experience happening with teenagers and parents or guardians enjoying wine responsibly. The reason? The very substantial, and common supper many patrons have there, a cheese, bread and charcuterie board (at $17) is not deemed to constitute a "meal" by, well, by who? Someone with no brain, that is clear. The total inanity of this is further illustrated by the fact that, at the time this license restriction was enforced, the bar across the street, Pogue Fado, perhaps the last place you'd want anyone to take their kids (strip joints offer better examples of public behaviour) allowed kids in with a $3 side of fries. A fine example of the promotion of healthy living? Well, no, it's a horrid example of how to encourage responsible drinking in NS. It is also a prime example of how a rule that really should not apply is applied in a such a manner as to twist its effect to encourage exactly the sort of thing it was intended to stop. For the same reason, a (poor) judgement call about what constitutes a full meal, this same bar cannot serve a single malt scotch. This, by the way, makes us look like backwards god fearing hypocrites to any tourists and visitors. They aren't laughing with us, they are laughing at us, and frankly, it's embarrassing. You are embarrassing your clients, the public.

Growler sales - perhaps the ultimate in hypocrisy and abominable policy writing. There were bars (Paddy's Pub in Kentville for one) who had to sell the beer to you at a back door, then make you walk all the way around, outside the building, to the front door and then go into the bar to pay for it. Others, like The Rock Bottom, ended up not being allowed to sell on the same day (??) making you call in an order the day before and pick it up overnight. Who wrote this? Some Baptist Minister who came back from Hell? I understand it has since been altered a bit, but the vary fact that someone was allowed to create such tripe in the first place is evidence in and of itself that someone does not know what they are doing, and should be given a job in some department where a grasp on reality is not required - HR perhaps? why not do what old conservative Alberta does, and just let bars sell beer how they choose to. You are being overbearing without reason to your clients, the public.

Even more recently, inspectors are out harassing (that's the only word for it) a young couple who have just gone out on a huge financial limb and started a new business, employing people in our tough times. They are being told they have to change all their business hours (and therefore printed media and websites and anything with their hours on it) because they have to open earlier in the day when there are no customers, to achieve some arbitrary set time so they can stay open until when their customers will actually be there. How stupid and intrusive is this rule when applied to a cosy little 35 seat family owned pub? If they want to open from 3 am to 7 am, I say good luck with that, I'll let them fail for their own reasons, not have my civil servants run them out of business for no reason. But really? What purpose could this silly rule ever serve in this context? You are harassing your clients, the public.

In any of these examples above, do you actually think the general public, your client, would support these draconian applications and interpretations of the laws you are charged with administering? Really? I cannot imagine a rational defence for any of those enforcement activities. You are wasting our money, that tax revenue we give you in trust to use for us, not against us.

Our food and beverage industry employs a lot of people, and generates over $700 million annually to our economy from the booze side alone. Most people would agree it requires some regulation and enforcement at times, but perhaps it is time we looked at our current approach and came up with something that actually encourages responsible drinking, common sense business practices, and a bit more of the "no harm, no foul" attitude that most Nova Scotians live the rest of their lives by. Unless you do, more people will ignore you to the end-game of redundancy.

This is about context and judgement, and it is, at its base, about our attitude here in NS. We have evolved a Culture of No in our regulatory environments, one where people who have some authority abuse it simply by starting at NO, and having to be convinced to get to OK. This is backwards. It should be all about getting to YES, helping people comply with regulations when they make sense to be applied, and having the means (a notwithstanding clause or easy ministerial exemption) to support new and better ways to serve the public in the hospitality business. Including alcohol related access and service.

We finally got rid of the publicly (politically) appointed liquor licensing board - I often wondered when they might all reach a common level of redundancy - now let's see some inkling of common sense returning to this world. Why is a liquor license for a building even still a Provincial role?That's a land use decision and should already be covered under the MGA.

Hey now, there's a novel cost savings idea - download something on the Municipalities they might actually want!

Cask Conditioned Real Ale, Explained

It is pretty fun reading all the new, and different definitions of cask conditioned, or "real ale" in the media surrounding this event.  Fun, as in most of them are not quite right.

Like many traditional food stuffs, this is about a traditional method of preparing, in this case, a libation, that was born of necessity in times when there was little or no refrigeration, and the science behind fermentation was not well understood.  Beer was made in a brewery, but because it had to be kept fresh in order to drink, it was packaged while it was still fermenting (barely) which would keep it preserved under a blanket of CO2 given off by the yeast, in the latter stages of fermentation.

The keg (or cask) was delivered to a pub where the publican then took over responsibility for overseeing the completion of the fermentation, and waited for yeast and other suspended solids to settle out.  The artistry related to this role was almost lost, but has been revived in much the same way as we now have traditional breads, charcuterie and cheeses becoming available.  Some publicans would add more fermentable sugars to raise the alcohol, others would add hops for flavour, and to extend shelf life.  They would also often add finings to the beer, powders, or liquids that settle through the liquid, collecting protein and yeast solids as they settle, to help it clear, such that it would look better in a clear glass. It is these additions that can negate a beer's status as being vegan, as they often are made from animal proteins.

Nowadays, many people are further changing the beer by adding non-traditional, but usually fun ingredients to the cask.  The process is traditional, some of the things being added by the publican, or even by the brewer prior to delivery, may not be.  That, however has nothing to do with whether the beer (which is almost always an ale) is a "real ale".  To meet that test, it has to be still "alive", that is, the yeast has not been filtered out, removed, or killed off.  Most would be dormant, in the settled solids in the heel of the cask, meaning that you don't want to have to move it from the cellar until it's done, or you'll be serving cloudy beer.

Incidentally, this is also the source of the term cellar temperature - the temperature this beer was served at because no refrigeration was available.  Ice cold beer is usually too cold to taste its goodness anyway.  British ale is not served "warm".  It's served at about 12-14 C (54-57 F) and that is what most real stone or earthen cellars range in temperature if they are not left open to the summer heat.

Once tapped, kegs of beer are generally good for 3 to 5 days, after which the air that enters the keg to replace the volume of beer brings spoilage mechanisms with it, creating a distinct sour taste that most people find objectionable.  This temporary, naturally regulated window of drinkability is one of the charms of "real ale", but modern times have seen the amount and cost of the extra work required to create such a short window of opportunity, cause real ale to become a speciality item, often reserved for festivals, rather than a day to day libation.

Beer aficionados (geeks) welcome more of this style of service, recognizing the amount of work involved, and, perhaps more important, the cooperation and coordination required between brewery and publican in eventually getting drinkable beer to the glass.  It is not easy.

Well, it's easy to drink.

Conservation Design - Why and How we do it.

This post is for those of you who don't understand the fuss over Conservation Design, or Open Space Subdivision planning and development. It's not that complicated, but too often the reasons for doing it are overlooked, misunderstood, or held in suspicion by people who simply have not been properly shown what it's about.

In HRM, during the development of the Regional Plan, we took a good look at how this form of development might work, and planners attempted to write policy that would encourage it. Unfortunately, all that has really resulted is a clever, backhanded response by developers and their design consultants, to create the same unsustainable sprawl, with a commensurate lack of open space creation, as had been the rule before the Regional Plan implementation.

So, here, briefly, is a small example that shows the reasons why we should be doing this more. It's not because the result creates a more efficient way to live. It's not because it creates a more attractive place to live in. It's not because it results in better profit margins for the developer. And it's not because the result is a better environmental and public health outcome. It's because, done right, it's all of that and more.

Here is a sample piece of land mapping.

We have many things that are common to developing in Nova Scotia, especially in the areas of HRM under development pressure. Open, bare rock, lakes, wetland, places with some good soil, and land sloping to lakes.

To a developer, or anyone wanting to live here, that lakefront is the main draw. A developer wants to build a road to access that land, create as many lots along the lake as possible, and sell them quickly, with a minimal initial investment. Government, representing the public's desires, wants to limit the amount of road frontage per home to reduce future costs of maintenance, keep the sewage away from the lake, keep the sewage away from drinking water wells, and, where government is moderately enlightened, create open space that is connected to the lake, and other open space - a connectivity of open space that the deer and birds and other wildlife can use to get around without too much trouble from us.

Currently, the figure below shows the reflex reaction to this land by current development practice. Lots are limited in size individually because they will all have both a well and an on-site sewage disposal (septic)system on them. Their size is directly related to how good and deep the soil cover is on them.

Note the lots on the high side of the road have part of them in dirt, part on rock. That part with the dirt is for the septic system.

In this example, there are several septic systems that, although legally OK in terms of their clearance from a downslope well, are still above, and therefore upstream of someone else's well based drinking water supply. The road has to be extended is a long way in order to create the minimum frontage per lot required by the subdivision bylaws, and also to create a minimum width of a lot required by the Provincial Environment Regulations. Note also that there are 15 lots, and 6 have waterfront.

If this same land were treated as a clustered development, sharing water and sewer, it could be done quite differently.

In this layout, there are several major improvements. First, the number of lots is the same, and the number of waterfront lots is one more, but all the lots enjoy a common access to the lake. The road is much shorter, and therefore costs less to build and disrupts less land. Septic systems are not located all along the edge of the lake, but are replaced by a large shared system that can also become a part of a walking trail. There is, in this example, one well, shared among all the homes, and that is located far from the septic system, and in a location where perhaps even a dug well might work.

Most important, however, is the difference in land not taken over for development. The conservation of open space, mostly lands not that suitable for development anyway, and in a connected pattern, is far greater here. It's not logged and turned into lawns. It is available for wildlife, and for play.

This is a form of development that can result in a developer doing as well, or better from their land.  They can create a neighbourhood that, presumably, more people would want to live in.  The outcome should be at least the same number of lots, but with less investment in roads, and hopefully more lots in locations where people want their homes to be. The result, especially if practiced in a planned concerted effort with neighbouring land owners, should be development that maintains the connectivity of the ecosystem.  Servicing would be safer, and more reliable.  The cost of servicing could be less, and no more than 15 individual systems.  And it could be managed by the Municipal unit on a cost recovery basis, so we would know the system is actually working.

I have been a proponent of this approach, with central water supplied by a Municipality, for a long time.  As in: If you build it this way, we will allow access to "city water".  And if you build the sewage treatment to our specifications, we will take it over and pay for it with an area rate.  It's hard to believe how Halifax Water readily takes over huge expensive pumping stations that only add to their existing problems and costs at the waterfront treatment plants, and mean more effluent being discharged to the aquatic environment, but is apparently afraid of having to look after a small treatment plant with no outfall to a watercourse.  

We can and should use our expensive (geosmin laden) water supply as a carrot, or a beneficial tool, to direct development to where it is best for the Municipality, and not just for some quasi-independent water utility.   Shared sewage systems, operated on a cost recovery basis by the Municipality,  is the approach that is now taken in most North American jurisdictions, because it presents a far better environmental solution than simply connecting more people to the big treatment plants, sometimes miles away, that still don't work right, and never will get better.  In this case, the liquid effluent goes into the ground (as already suggested by existing design guidelines for sewage treatment), and the solids go to stabilization and composting.  Ultimately, they should return to the land as fertilizer, being free from the industrial concerns of a "Burnside mix" because this waste doesn't get added to the Big Pipe.  (If you are still afraid of fertilizer made from human waste, look up "Milorganite".)

All that is required is for our Governmental institutions to enter the 21st century and work at managing clusters of development on smaller, in-ground dispersal, sewage treatment systems.  Most other medium scale rural development such as condos, golf clubs, schools, rental cottages, camp grounds, and recreational facilities already rely on the same solutions.  In fact the Halifax Regional School Board is probably better at this that our illustrious Halifax Water utility, who have, apparently, not yet figured out that, in most things, Big is Stupid.  I mean, nothing could ever go wrong with a huge treatment plant serving all the peninsula, right?

Drinking, Driving and Arithmetic

There is a blip in the statistics associated with vehicle accidents involving young people who may or may not have been drinking prior to getting into the car. And certainly some were not wearing seat belts.

This brings me, once again, to a theory I have long believed, and not had disproved to me or been talked out of believing.

It's simple, really.  We all need to learn how to drink, before we learn how to drive.

There are all sorts of opinion available on the internet, but here is a frank one, from the University of Potsdam.

Instead of stigmatizing alcohol and trying to scare people into abstinence, we need to recognize that it is not alcohol itself but rather the abuse of alcohol that is the problem.  

Teaching about responsible use does not require student consumption of alcohol any more than teaching them world geography requires them to visit Nepal, or teaching them civics requires that they run for office or vote in presidential elections. We teach students civics to prepare them for the day when they can vote and assume other civic responsibilities if they choose to do so. Because either drinking in moderation or abstaining should both be equally acceptable options for adults, we must prepare students for either choice. To do otherwise is both irresponsible and ineffective, if not counterproductive.  

A recent study of the effectiveness of alcohol education programs compared those that present an abstinence-only message with those that present drinking in moderation as an option. It is clear that programs accepting responsible use are demonstrably more successful than are no-use-only programs.  In spite of noble intentions and the expenditure of massive amounts of time, energy, and money the best evidence shows that our current abstinence-oriented alcohol education is ineffective.  

Simply doing more of what is not working will not lead to success; it is essential that we re-think our approach to the problem. Our youth are too important and the stakes are too high to so otherwise.

I found that here:  http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/UnderageDrinking.html

My opinions come from personal experience.  I grew up in a home that did not hide booze from the kids, but did not include small amounts in our diet either.  I snuck around like all the other kids, and I survived.  Mostly because I was so afraid of being caught in a vehicle with the people I knew driving, not necessarily drunk, but just driving the way they did in St. Margarets Bay in the 70's. Adherence to the road right of way seemed optional.

It was normal to drink and drive back then.  People bragged about not being able to walk, but being "just fine" once they got into the drivers seat.  Of course we all knew that was wrong.  But eventually enough people we knew died, or came close to being killed, that it became somewhat uncool to drive after more than a few drinks.

But one thing for sure - we all went out and got drivers' licenses as soon as we could. At 16.5 years old we were good to go.

Of course it would take another two and a half years before I could get into a bar. And by that time, I can tell you I was a pretty good driver.  I knew I was OK at it.  I had driven a VW Bug,  a 5 ton truck, a Dodge Duster, and a VW Camper by that time.

But, you see, I wasn't really that good at drinking.  I'd get some from friends old enough to maybe pass at the liquor store, or stolen from their parents, or courtesy of an older brother or sister, and it was always not nice stuff.

Lemon gin, light rum, and Keith's.  Not the tastiest things to put into your mouth. Sometimes your body rejected them.

Then I went to Europe and learned about how hard it was to get a drivers' license there.  In Germany, usually not until you were 21, and so tough that many didn't bother.  By that time, people had been legally drinking for 5 years.  They were much better drinkers than me. They actually tasted their booze  They enjoyed the taste, not just the effects, of the alcohol. They also thought of driving on their government funded roads as a privilege, not a right.

And they knew one thing for certain by the time they got their license - someone who is impaired by alcohol can't do a lot of basic simple things well, and to even consider the complex task of driving was insanity.

I took two alcohol related lessons home with me.  One, beer and wine could taste amazing, so why waste your liver's processing ability on crap, drinking just for the effect and not the experience?  And two, how could you ever think about driving drunk when you know you can't do a lot of much simpler things well?

I then asked myself the one question I am still asking people today.  Why do we let our kids learn to drive before they learn to drink?

Shouldn't the ages be reversed?  16 to drink, 21 to drive?  How many people would be alive today if that were the case.  Granted, I'd extend the under 19 to just wine and beer, no 40% and up booze that you can kill yourself with.  But still, anyone who is knowledgeable about drinking, and knows how to drive, especially in todays social and legal environment, knows the answer to my question above is "a lot more than there are now."  Booze (at least wine and beer) on its own doesn't kill you. You usually are not going fast enough. It takes a vehicle to do that.

I still remember the thrill and near panic at how fast it felt to get my VW Bug up to 60 mph for the first time.  Had I already known how poorly I would be at anything involving hand/eye and timed decision making after 4 beers, I would have told you you were insane to think you could drive that fast while impaired even a little bit.  But I, like almost everyone my age, was already confident in my driving by the time I was allowed in a bar.  And like most people my age, at the time, I drove when I shouldn't have.

Anyone who knows me, knows I am an advocate for fine wine, beer, and spirits.  I seek quality.  "You put it in your mouth, don't you?"  I live where I can get a cab home that costs about the same as a drink plus tip.  The decision to call a cab involves the same cost as another drink. For me, the decision to have a third beer is the same decision as leaving the car where it is, if, by rare chance, I happen to have my car out.

We need to start bringing the great aspects of Italian and Greek culture into our own Canadian one.  A culture where wine is a part of a meal, from an early age.  Where it's not necessary to sneak around behind someone's back to have a sip.  Where wine and beer are simply a part of one's life and diet.  Where abusive drinkers are socially ostracized.

Driving after drinking is abuse of alcohol.  And worse, it extends your disrespect for yourself, and for what you consume, to other people you may not even know, via the hurtling speed of a 2 ton pile of metal, plastic, and rubber.

Learn to drink. Learn to appreciate the tastes of fine spirits, wines and beer.  Learn to include them with your meal. And learn when to stop.  Learn what a klutz you are when you're drunk. And don't let that klutz behind a wheel.

And wear your seatbelt. I am still here because I do.

Rural Development Re-Form

In 2005, my sole proprietorship consulting firm, in conjunction with several very capable colleagues was commissioned to do a report on the future of non-urban development in HRM, as a part of the input to the Regional Planning process. Entitled   "Options for On-Site and Small Scape Wastewater Management", it is available for download form Halifax.ca on the Regional Planning page.

The objectives of the work were several, and included:

• How can the different community forms identified in the HRM Water Resource Management Study (Dillon Consulting 2003) be best serviced for sewage disposal in ways that meet public expectations for environmental performance, cost, and convenience?
• Are there proven means of wastewater management that match well with the different scales of development that are occurring and are proposed for HRM?
• What are the best ways to address areas that have old, poorly designed on site systems that are now beginning to fail?
• How can a practical servicing plan be adopted, coordinated and implemented by the various responsible municipal departments?

The study answered those questions, using technological approaches that were available at that time, of which some have since become fairly normal in most of Nova Scotia.  You can read about them in the report.  What I'd like to re-post is the last chapter, the part written by me, and edited by John Zuck, MCIP, who is one of the most capable, thoughtful and brilliant planners who has ever worked in our region.


Excerpted from the study, Chapter 8.  Published 8 years ago, in March 2005.The Link to Community Planning

The situation currently facing HRM, suburban sprawl that leapfrogs zoning restrictions, enabled by the ability to commute at will to the city, is a common one for cities all over the western world. Zoning was developed to address land use issues that have now changed dramatically. It is not clear whether zoning failures result because the zoning instrument is unable to respond to changing conditions or whether we have not been sufficiently innovative in the application of this tool to control development.

Developers have responded to residential housing demand within the constraints presented to them by government. For example, the effort to contain growth in Bedford was expressed in the Bedford Municipal Planning Strategy as a green belt, which restricted residential development to lots with a minimum area of two acres. This green belt is now full of large lot subdivisions that are often a wasteful use of good land. The large lot zoning requirements were not put in place in anticipation of development of the scale that has occurred in the past fifteen years. However, municipal land use controls have not been effective in directing more appropriate development forms. The fact is, the developers built what they were able to build, and found a market for it.

The challenge that now exists is creation of a community form that is attractive to both homeowners and developers, is more efficient in provision of municipal services, and is environmentally sound. Exploration of community form was not part of the scope for this project, but we believe that there are lessons to be learned from attempts to meet this challenge in various other jurisdictions.

We do not advocate a wholesale adoption of the “New Town” movement in the USA or elsewhere, but we do see certain advantages in recognizing some of the design parameters that inform that design approach.
It is interesting to note that many of the “New Towns” have not fully realized their original, intended form. A mix of commercial, institutional, and residential development was originally proposed for these greenfield developments. These new towns filled a residential demand, but there was no appreciable market for commercial or institutional land until substantial residential development was in place. The question may really be: can we determine where development will occur, or is it only possible to offer inducements; do we try to create new centres, or enhance existing centres?

In HRM, several places are already beginning to function as the cores of Rural Service Centres. They can be described in this way because commercial development already exists. These centres may start as malls, or in an earlier stage of evolution, as strip malls. In some cases, these budding community centres have attracted other non-commercial community facilities and already have an outlying area of residential development. Could it be that current mall parking lots are the site of future small town streets?

If the commercial and institutional development, some services, and roads to the centre are already in place, we might think about recognizing the development of a small town at an early stage and begin to facilitate a healthy Rural Settlement Area environment. 

A good example is Upper Tantallon, at Exit 5 on Highway 103. The “mall” already includes restaurants, a grocery store, coffee shops, a liquor store, a library, a pub, a very large hardware and building supply store, and a gas station. The local RCMP station, seniors' home, the community centre, a rink (soon to be expanded), a small sewage treatment plant, and possibly a new high school are all clustered around the centre of this area. Large residential areas have been developed, or are being developed in the surrounding landscape. Perhaps all this needs is recognition in policy and a more urban structure applied to it to establish a traditional town form.

An essential component of urban structure would be provided with central services and a street grid to encourage in-fill development. A new “Town of Tantallon” might soon be born.          Conceptual rendering of Exit 5, prepared by Ekistics Planning and Design, 2004

We suggest that one opportunity to better focus residential development in suburban areas in HRM may exist in the formalization and enhancement of existing centres such as Tantallon and Fall River. A municipal government has the tools to make this happen. The municipality can do many things to encourage the growth of Rural Service Centres, including amendment of planning strategies and rezoning. Perhaps the greatest incentives would be the construction and operation of sewage treatment plants, and the extension of central water services. This approach would be complementary to another residential initiative being encouraged by HRM, urban densification through in-fill and brownfield development. The development of Rural Service Centres can, in concept, become a “rural in-fill” initiative.

We recognize that changing how development takes place is a difficult thing for a Municipality to do. Developers prefer to make money using the same idea over and over again, as long as it still makes money. In order to make the cluster concept of residential development potable, and even attractive to developers, we suggest that HRM recognize the value of increasing the local density, by allowing an increase in net density. We suggest a 10% density bonus for developers who choose to concentrate development on land that is most capable of supporting it, while leaving the rock, bog, and barrens alone.

A plan illustrating development capacity for a property can be developed by an engineer, applying NSDEL lot sizing criteria, and using HRM or Provincial Department of Transportation and Public Works road width standards. This would represent a base development budget for the property. A 12 acre parcel might yield 10 lots under past practices. If the developer chooses to apply conservation design principles, and share services, perhaps build private roads to be owned and maintained by a condominium corporation, and leave a substantial amount of open space, then they would be permitted 11 units.

This approach can result in a win-win situation, where the developer makes money (perhaps more), people live in a better designed community, and HRM increases density while increasing open space.


The ideas presented in this report were not lost on HRM Planning Staff, and they were also not lost on the smart developers.  What failed HRM was the engineering community, led by those at Halifax Water, which in time assumed responsibility for wastewater treatment in HRM.  But the consulting engineering community also continued on doing the same thing it always had, and even when new planning rules came into effect, the goal of the industry was not to change, but to work around the rules to create the same sprawling subdivisions they always had.

The goal was not to make a large number of the idealized Tantallon shown above, but to create policy that would allow a development form based on denser housing, more open space, and shared services without adding to the "Big Pipe" nightmare facing future Haligonians when we try to meet upcoming Federal effluent discharge guidelines, and do that with leaky gravity sewers and combined sewers.

Why do I call out Halifax Water?  The report, and the associated recommended development forms, rely on new ways of thinking about servicing homes and creating communities.  Water supply and sewage treatment are huge industries in the developed world, and are burdened with massive poor assumptions and bad habits.  No real advances have been adopted by urban areas in so long, we still rely on basically the same servicing approaches the Romans did for sewage.  We move all the sewage to one place to get rid of it where we hope it won't create a new problem.  Where it should have led us into the future, Halifax Water keeps us firmly entrenched in the past.

The approaches to rural development envisaged by the authors of the report, and its steering committee, required that two engineering "addictions" be cleansed from the reflex responses of those responsible for providing water and sewer services.  First, central water supply can be extended without central sewer.  Second, not all sewage needs to be connected to the massive web of collection systems in the city, and if kept in proper scale can be treated close to the homes that generate it, with the water part returned to the ground.

These two basic ideas, which are now known to be possible, and feasible, still escape the engineering community, for the most part, and Halifax Water especially, who are functionally addicted to continuing to grow and feed the massive and poorly named Halifax Harbour Cleanup system. (perhaps it's some pathetic effort to justify spending all that money?)

Halifax Water is no more than an "engineerocracy" that is so set in its ways it will happily take over and operate a multi-million dollar pumping station designed to further overburden large treatment plants that cannot meet a reasonable effluent quality standard, but will not look at operating smaller, modern efficient plants that have no discharge other than returning water and some nutrient to the soil.  

The inexorable link between development form, and how it is serviced, has arguably never been understood by those charged with shepherding development in HRM.  It really is time we started looking at how other places do it well, instead of repeating the mistakes of others.

Making Halifax More Pedestrian Friendly

I hope to have this post become a running account of ideas to make Halifax a better place to walk and bike around.  I'll add to it as I find new things.  It is inspired by a Twitter exchange with Waye Mason, councillor for the south half of the Peninsula.

Some of these will be perhaps of greater cost or difficulty to implement, but hey - ideas have to start somewhere.  I am going to start off small and work my way up.


Do More Scramble Crosswalks

The no-brainer of all no-brainers is to take the lights at Spring Garden and Barrington and make that a scramble crossing.  That's when all cars stop for the same cumulative time they are already stopped, and pedestrians can walk from any corner to any corner.  As it is now, any T intersection in the urban core can benefit from this.  It should not greatly affect traffic flow, and should improve it as vehicles wishing to turn are not delayed by pedestrians (the rest of the time there is no pedestrian crossing at all).  It is possible now to be coming down Spring Garden to turn on to Barrington, and not get through a light even if you are second in line, simply because of all the people crossing from in front of the Maritime Centre to Spring Garden. Most of them legally.  No right turns of red allowed. No pedestrian - vehicle conflicts other than ones from illegal movements.

This works at George and Water (especially when the ferry has just arrived or is about to leave) and would be good at Sackville and Brunswick.  Let's just do this.


Reinforce Lines of Desire, Especially those on a Diagonal

This is perhaps more of a principle than a project.  The idea here is to identify the routes people now use to walk though our city, and reinforce these corridors with better infrastructure, things that make it easier to use, barrier free, and provide priority over cars.  Ideally bikes get to play too.

One of my "Aha! moments" happened while walking down Market Street in San Francisco.  I realized that walking on that diagonal, I got to look down (or up) nearly every single street in the city.  The ones running North-South, AND the ones running East-West.  Years later, while participating in a workshop on siting the new Halifax Library, I realized that there is a significant diagonal path through our own downtown that is a very powerful economic corridor.  Because, like Market Street in San Fran, you can link to almost every street in the downtown.

Start at Purdy's Towers and go across Water and Hollis (yikes!) to the end of the Granville Mall, up the hill to Barrington, cross Grand Parade on an angle to Argyle and Prince, then to Blowers and  up along Grafton to the path in front of the library to Spring Garden.  And soon, right into the new Library.

When the Cogswell Interchange is redeveloped this will be even more important.  It is also very much connected to access points to the indoor pedway system we now have, so there are places to duck in out of the rain or cold and still move half of this trip inside if you must.

This is about a 20 minute slow walk, 15 for me.  Things along it that we could do to make it better would include making that crossing from Historic Properties to Granville Mall safer,  extending Granville Mall and opening it up to "vehicles as secondary occupants" (Like Prince Arthur in Montreal) all the way to George Street (thus fixing up that dead cold bit between George and Duke), actually finish the Grand Parade renovation that was designed but not built before the G7, making the front of St. Paul's into a more modern space with a clear diagonal path from the monument to the southwest corner.  Use the upcoming construction of a new facade/streetface of the Convention Centre to create a desirable pedestrian path along Argyle, possibly doing the Prince Arthur treatment there as well. Make the old library site into a proper park, with a speakers corner/performance type venue and hopefully some significant partnering with the First Nations group that currently has an option of sorts on the site.

Then you're on Spring Garden, which needs little or no new things, just upgrades to what they have. Nicer furniture and surfaces. Perhaps more on-street meter parking and less cab stands.  You're connected to the Public Gardens and on the way you've looked down Water, Hollis, Duke, up Carmichael to the Town Clock and the Citadel, Barrington, Prince, Blowers, and Grafton - businesses' signage can respond to that.  For a tourist, that's Halifax in 20 minutes, leaving lots of time for shopping.

It's not pyramid power.  It's diagonal power.

There is another significant pedestrian line of desire route that is not as integrated into the street network, but is a major pedestrian corridor.  It's connected to the one I just described.  Start at Queen and Spring Garden (yes, the library again), walk Queen to Sackville, cross, cut straight across the corner of Citadel Hill and either veer left to follow Bell, or right to follow Ahern. Bell takes you to the path across the Common by the Skatepark, and then straight across the Common to the Robie/Cunard corner, where a tremendous amount of pedestrians are inconvenienced every day by the pedestrian hating crossing lights.

On this route mini projects could include widening sidewalk along Queen, installing a better crosswalk on Queen and Sackville (I believe traffic here warrants a signal, or a small roundabout).  Make the trail across the Garrison Grounds/Citadel Hill into a real one, and not the goat path it now is.  Formalize the connection to the bikeway on Bell and the connection to the path around the Bengal Lancers past the Museum to Summer Street and the hospital and ultimately Jubilee Road.  Acknowledge the line of design along a common elevation of the Citadel, with a connection down to the door to Citadel High and the Spatz Theatre, and ultimately connect to the new trail along Trollope and through to the one on the east side of the Common.  Then you're dead on to Agricola, what will probably be the main bike street.  It is now.

The other leg, over to the skate park and on to the Pavillion and The Oval, is built, and used. The Common only needs to be rearranged to allow people to be able to walk easily on the lne they want to.  The best answer here is an interesting one.

Freashwater Brook once wandered through a bog approximately along what is now the clear preferred walking path on the Common, from the northwest corner to the skatepark.  There is a storm sewer there now. Lets open this back up, and daylight the stream here, with trails on either side meandering gently along that original route.  The oval pond that used to exist on Freshwater Brook is now the skatepark, so perhaps we'll leave that part hidden for now.  And anyways, it turned into a fairly deep ravine where it ran along the west side of the museum, ultimately into the Public Gardens.

Its a lot easier to make a path where people already walk and bike, than to try to force them to go your way. Maybe we can do more than just pave a path while we're at it?

Make the Railway Cut Into a Multi-Story Active Transportation Corridor

This is a doozy, and hopefully it won't make you stop reading now, but this idea has been floating around in my head for a few years now, ever since I noticed how deep The Trillium was excavating for parking, and how much that excavation into Halifax's bedrock looked exactly like the sides of the rail cut.

I have long been a proponent of getting the truck traffic to the container pier the hell out of downtown. Since about 1985 I have understood the incredible economic and quality of life damage that the congestion, noise, exhaust and hammering of city streets the constant transport of containers down Water Street and Hollis Street has on the downtown. If those were gone, the change would be astounding. Streets and lanes would not have to be as big as they now are, you could hear yourself think on Hollis and Water, and traffic would flow much more smoothly.  I still remember Phil Vaughan coming into his office on Hollis Street every morning and having to straighten out all his awards and certificated and photographs, framed and hanging askew on his wall.

The way to solve this is pretty simple, I think, the rail cut should be used for this traffic.   But studies repeatedly get saddled with Terms of References that result in proposed solutions that end up costing far more than it should to solve this problem.  One problem with studies is often a "blinders on" approach to a task that leaves out the opportunity for lateral thinking, and identifying opportunities to solve other problems at the same time, thus "sharing the load" of the cost of solving the initial problem.

We know we can pave the rail line and leave the rails there like street car track in a big city street (Halifax is not a big city).  Trucks have big wheels.  They can drive on that no problem.  There is a huge area at each end of the rail cut where trucks already are marshalled to wait for ships to load and unload.  They could easily be held to reach a convoy size and proceed as a group from one yard to the other without affecting trip time.  It would be pretty simple to do this with a basic schedule.

That is not a new idea.  Here is an idea that is a bit radical, but I'll share it anyway.  The rail cut between the South End Terminal and, let's say to Chisholm Avenue, is a lot of real estate.  About 3.4 miles and most of that is 100 feet wide.  Lets remove the part that is at grade along by the West End Mall, and call it 3 miles. So we have real estate with an area of about 36 acres.  Some of that land, were it at normal surface grade, would be very valuable for residential, university, and open space use.  And we only really need to be able to fit two train tracks through it.

So why not simply make the train and truck way into a subway by building over it, and using the rest of the volume, where the cut is deep enough, for underground parking for new buildings?  In Montreal, Via Rail runs under and through several large hi rises, after it's run under Mount Royal.  And the noisy rock excavation (of acid slate) is already done!  Plus the noise from the trains and trucks is buried along with their travel way.  The new subway, much of it, could be created one piece at a time by the buildings.  The engineering for this is out there, that's how a lot of subways are built now, not by tunnelling, but by digging a trench and covering it.

But wait, there's more! This is already a corridor.  Other things that need such a corridor but might be a bit dicey to fit through the fabric of the city streets could use it.  Natural gas mains, wind proof underground electrical banks, new water transmission lines, communications, whatever.  These could all be run "underground" without digging.

The surface area around these new buildings, matched to the existing edges of the rail cut, offers a great opportunity for an active transportation route.  We have already done some of this, along the south end of Oxford Street.  Imagine if you had a bikeway and a trail running along the "top" of an infilled cut.  It's connectivity would be amazing.  A typical bike going at 14 mph could bring a commuter from the West End Mall to the Seaport Market in 15 minutes, easy. Some days, that's hard to beat with a car going through the city street network (Google says 13 minutes).  And the route would connect with powerful cross city street corridors like Jubilee, South, Tower, Robie, South Park, ultimately connecting to the Trans Canada Trail (yes, the waterfront walkway is either on the TCT or planned to be)  and easy access to the downtown, ferries, Point Pleasant, and the farmers markets.

So you create new real estate for residential development, with underground parking for them half done, and require the developer to build their part of the trail system, all the while removing the truck and train traffic from the neighbourhoods the rail runs through now.

Yes, this is expensive.  Yes it is huge.  But it would be an amazing thing to have in our city.  A silk purse from a sow's ear.

So there you have it.  Three ideas, big medium and small.  If we could wave a magic wand and make them happen, Halifax sure would be a nicer place to walk and bike around.  And we'd have a lot more people living on the peninsula to do just that.


Hopefully someone will suggest a few more.  You?

"And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly ..."

-- from Machiavelli's "The Prince"

Episode 4: Lacking Leverage - The Culture of No, continued.

It has always been a "given" to me that when we create laws and policies that govern our society, we would be doing this with full recognition of the economic impacts of those laws and policies.  The reason, one hopes, that there are cabinet meetings in the Provincial government is so the different Departments don't step on each others' toes.  That, in the end, they act in the best interest of the people of Nova Scotia, and not only in the best interest of their own trivial silos.

It would make no sense, for example, for one Department or funding agency to hand out government assistance to a business start-up and another Department to make arbitrary policy decisions to make sure that money is wasted by selectively enforcing laws or policies, going out of their way to make things difficult or impossible for the start-up, or simply creating an environment in which no one wants to bother trying. But, of course, in The Culture of No, that's how we roll.

In the past, I have emphasized how the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation could help justify its existence by playing a greater, even a lead role, in the development of, or at least the support of, the Nova Scotia wine, beer and spirits producing industry. (The NSLC - The Devil We Know, 2009) I know that, at the time, my blog post was printed out and circulated around the NSLC (I actually saw it pinned on a wall).  I can also say that today, I regard the NSLC as a positive player in the industry.  My point at the time was that as an agent of the Provincial government, they had a role, and a responsibility to leverage their monopoly to the economic benefit of Nova Scotians wherever short sighted trade agreement language (like some in NAFTA, apparently) allowed.

The NSLC management may not agree with me, but I submit that since they changed their attitude to one of ignoring, almost deriding local products, to their current one of supporting them, we have seen astronomical growth in the number of Nova Scotia producers. I think their change of approach was a catalyst.  There are distillers, brewpubs, pico and micro brewers all over Nova Scotia, and more on the way.  There are probably twice the number of wineries, with more on the way.  Heck, I just spotted a maple syrup bottle (the one with the loop handle) with a clear liquid in it called "Cape Breton Silver" on the prime shelf beside the cash yesterday at the Quinpool Road store.

At the same time, government funding of agencies like Taste of Nova Scotia and the Winery Association of Nova Scotia have created a significant growth in interest in Nova Scotia wines in the local restaurant industry.  Nowadays it's only the dinosaurs (Bertossi etc) who don't serve local wines.  It is my hope that very soon they will also have to import their customers.

This all supports one of the basic simple economic theories espoused by Jane Jacobs, and others - Import Substitution.  That is, when we start making something here that replaces something we currently pay to have shipped to us, it's a really good thing.  It gets even better when we turn the tables and are able to sell locally made products to other markets. That's money injected into our economy, not just spinning around inside it.  I think that a lot of this has to do with small adjustments the NSLC and the Provincial Government made to the price structure of local products - how wineries and breweries can sell at their door and at farmers' markets and make more per bottle than through the NSLC mandated distribution system; and how breweries are taxed based on their production, a means that partially recognizes their much greater job generation capabilities than factory breweries, in terms of jobs per liter made (and consumed).  Drink a micro, create a job!


So we know that some very subtle government policies, working together, and developed in conjunction with the industry can make a big difference in how locally owned businesses survive and prosper.  I am sure you know of other examples, examples that show possibility in changing our Culture of No, to a Culture of Why Not.

There remain certain bastions of silo-ism, places where the protection of turf is more important than the good, or the will, of the people.  And one of these is most definitely a Provincial Department now named Nova Scotia Environment (NSE).  he Department of the Environment was established in 1973 to administer the Environmental Protection Act.  At the time, it was sorely needed.  North Americans were waking up to the fact that we'd been doing a lot of stupid things to our environment and that we, as humans, could actually cause harm to it.  So we drafted legislation and set up a Department to protect our environment.  Forty years later, however, much of those original concerns are gone, in some cases replaced by new ones, but most of the work now done by NSE, the current version of that original Department, is about issues and concerns that did not exist back then.  (I was in Grade 10).

Indeed, a cogent argument can now be made for a massive downsizing of this Department, based mainly on how the world has changed.  Development and construction practices, other laws, and public expectations in the marketplace, provide more protection than the effective enforcement this Department achieves now.  This Department expends a large percentage of its efforts (budget) persecuting and prosecuting people who are already trying hard not to damage the environment, but are perhaps not following paper based procedures dictated by policies and legislation this Department has written for itself. Yes, they expend their efforts not in the protection of the environment, but in the protection of their processes, paper trails, policies, and bureaucracy.  The only thing they clearly can be shown to wishing to be sustainable is their own authority and jobs.

This loss of sight of their original mandate is so misguided now, that much of their efforts are involved in enforcing their Act on other Provincial Government Departments and on Municipalities. Other taxpayer funded initiatives are harmed by the costs of complying with set procedures, strictly enforced by government paid inspectors, when they are already intent on not harming the environment.  Often their well intentioned, but inexperienced inspectors force people to do things in a manner that causes more harm than they would have without any intervention.  We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in self enforcement - literally a dog chasing its own tail.  This while multi-national corporations clear-cut our land, extract our minerals, and harness our tides and wind.

One example of this absurdity that illustrates how bad it has become can be found in a relatively obscure court case on the South Shore.  Out Provincial Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (TIR) decided a bridge needed to be repainted, to protect it from corrosion.  The bridge is 10 metres above the river it crosses.  They wrapped it in a net and tarp below the bridge, and cleaned off the old paint, making sure none fell down into the river, and as is normal for them, cleaned up as they went.  Their specifications for this work were developed and proven some time ago, back when Nova Scotia Environment (NSE) worked WITH other agencies to make sure the Environment was protected.  One NSE inspector must have been held up while driving over the bridge one day and wondered if they had the "all important Approval" from their Department, because, surely they would have to. But the TIR people had looked at the rules, and they said they needed permission to work "in" a watercourse, and being 30 feet above it, they would never be in it. Engineers do tend to think in 3D more often than bureaucrats, after all.

Not to be fooled by this ruse, our industrious civil servants on Team NSE got together and decided that no, Team TIR was in the watercourse, because, looking at a map, it was clear that the road and the river intersected, and that had to mean they were "in" the watercourse.  So they called the TIR local engineer into a meeting and presented him with a charge under their act for working without an Approval.  That engineer challenged them (probably told them to go pound sand I hope) and ignored them.  If that charge had been successful, one Department would score taxpayer points, and the other would lose them, with, of course, the underlying loss due to administrative friction. Not what an outsider would term an entirely productive exercise.

In the true spirit of wasting taxpayers dollars, the NSE pressed charges, both side have legal representation in house, or via contracts, and last I heard they were headed for court.  If they do make it to court,  do hope they get a judge with common sense that tells them to go home and learn the share the sandbox better.

So we have a case where work was being done for the public good.  It was being done in a manner that fully protected the environment.  No adverse effect occurred.  The work had to happen regardless of whatever NSE would have asked under an Approval.  The reasoning to pursue charges appears to be over the definition of a two letter word ("in") that most everyone on the planet would say means, in this case, the same as "wet", and our civil servants are taking up valuable court time, spending time on numerous meetings and measurements to build cases and defend actions, all over....  Sweet. F. All.
One would be excused for asking how we got to this point, how it is that we see our tax dollars abused to the point where they are being sucked into this useless piece of theatre to satisfy a pissing match between mid level bureaucrats.  

I say this is but one more example of a Department that has outlived its usefulness in its current manifestation.  I don't say abolish them, because there are still things out there affecting our environment where we need some protection.  But I do advocate a refocussing of the efforts of this group, and a move to abandon, almost entirely their current enforcement group.  In fact I challenge them to show enforcement cases where an adverse effect, which is what the Environment Act is intended to avoid, actually occurred and was successfully prosecuted.  How many in 2012?  And I challenge the Department to seriously look at how much of its time has been spent on enforcement actions, oversight and correspondence between it and other Government Departments.  I know for a fact that the Department which does the most work that might present a potential to create an adverse effect has its own Environment Services Group that is substantially better trained and experienced in the actual world of preventing adverse effects, not by filling our paperwork, but by ensuring the actual work is done correctly, without causing an adverse effect.

What is missing here goes back to the start of this post.  Can there actually be knowledge of this money sucking vortex at Cabinet level?  Do the Ministers of each Department recognize the competition and backstabbing that exists between their areas of responsibility.  Do they understand the opportunities to save and even generate economic health that would exist is they all sat back and were reminded that they were all work for the same client?  (that would be we taxpayers).

Like that engineer at TIR who took the time to review a staid old policy for access in my earlier post in this series (Why Not? - Exploring The Culture of No), we need more civil servants who are in what might be called a gatekeeper position, to think of their job as someone who helps you navigate through the gate, instead of someone whose job it is to make sure you can't even find the latch.


I'll end with one more real life example of the latter.  An enterprising young gentleman on the South Shore wants to establish a new pub in an old fish processing plant.  That plant previously employed a number of people but, sadly, now sits empty.  He proposes to renovate it (it's right on the waterfront in his village and is run down) and hopefully create as many as 20 jobs in summer, less in winter, of course. It is right on the Lighthouse Route.

The old fish plant would have generated maybe 4000 litres a day of sewage. Plus the fish waste. For years, all that went into the harbour, untreated.  The owner knows he has to do something - that outfall pipe from the washrooms has to be treated.  It's just not right (we have had an Environment act since before he was born).  So he hires an engineer to design a system to PROTECT the ENVIRONMENT, so he can CREATE JOBS.  This is what we want to see.  He could have started up the fish plant and probably no one would have said anything if the toilets kept flushing.  But he wants to do things right.

This type of case, that of a straight pipe to the bay, is still very common in Nova Scotia.  NSE has an enforcement approach that is almost solely complaints based.  So if no one in the community complains, no NSE person ever shows up.  Let's face it, there are not many Nova Scotians who'd rat out their neighbour.  When they are discovered, the normal response is to consider them under a Section of the Regulations that defines them as a "malfunction,  a "system" that is not providing adequate environmental and/or public health protection.  So the design engineer looks at this and approaches it that way - a malfunction that can be addressed by a type of on-site sewage disposal system, under regulations that recognize a solution that is as good as can be done under the circumstances, under the Regulations Respecting On-SIte Sewage Disposal.  And in this case, let's assume the system design will accomplish just that for the potential pub owner.  It will PROTECT the ENVIRONMENT, so he can CREATE JOBS.  But in the Culture of No, this cannot be allowed to proceed with ease.

And here The Culture of No turns its ugly head to the project.  The local NSE office, after two months of deliberation, which was delaying the start of work on the pub and probably causing a delay in the much needed opening to match with tourist season, replies with a two line email saying the system must be applied for as a Sewage Treatment Plant, not as an on-site sewage disposal system.  To his political masters, this probably sounds innocuous - they'd approve it, but not as an on-site system under the malfunction clause.  To the owner, this might kill the project.  The same system, providing the same treatment and protection of the environment, under this similar but inequitable regulation, would require him to spend about $12,000 a year on testing, oversight and, of course,  paper based reporting. Forever. 

The reason for requiring this given by the NSE was that the building had stood empty for too long, so it was being treated as a new development, and was therefore not a malfunction. There is no definition of "too long" anywhere in the Act or Regulations, so what we have is an arbitrary, almost whimsical decision by a mid level bureaucrat that may kill 20 jobs for no real reason, other than the warped motivation of our  Culture of No.

My point here is that we need to use any leverage available in our legislation to do positive economic development.  In cases where the choices only differ in the costs and burdens to a new business, we should lean toward the lower cost solution, so that the business will be more viable and stand a better chance of creating sustainable employment. The Government had an opportunity to allow this to happen in a manner that was economically viable, but is choosing the other.  The reflex reaction was to burden the business.  This is fundamentally wrong.

Of course this discussion is probably all a moot point, isn't it?  I mean, really, up next for a pub, serving the demon alcohol, would have been the Nova Scotia Liquor Licensing Board, home of religious senility since 1949.  And they have the rituals inherent in our Culture of No down pat, heck, they probably created them. 

Episode 3: Fool me once.... More on the Culture of NO.

There is the old saying:  "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" that summarizes learning. We can forgive ourselves the errors of the uninitiated, or the ignorant, or even a simple honest mistake.  But what we cannot excuse ourselves is to not learn from that mistake, and, perhaps even more importantly, admit to it and fix it.

In this episode's example of government failure, the focus is not really on the initial error, nor it should not be.  The damnation should be directed at those who have not fixed the insult caused by the initial error.  This one will get a bit technical, but I'll try to make it simple.  The overall effect on you ought to be outrage, if I do my job.

This is about a relatively obscure part of the Environment Act.  Under that Act are the Regulations Respecting On-Site Sewage Disposal in the Province (the regs).  One part of these regs deals with how big your lot of land must be in order to have a house on it.  The regs require a minimum area of land for each of four classes of permeable soil depth.  basically, we have a pretty good system that sets residential density based on the land's capacity to suport it by assimilating treated sewage into the ground, while keeping the poop safely distant from people's wells. 

I'll stop you here if you want to protest something technical.  In this one small field, in Nova Scotia, I'm one of the technical experts.  If anything I say here is not quite exactly right, its because I'm simplifying for a broader audience.  Call me to discuss, I might answer.

Anyway, lets use a semi-real example, something that actually happened and which continues to happen in Nova Scotia today.  A young family have a nice house, a three bedroom home, on a lot that is also new, and is just a little big larger than the minimum area required under the Act.  Lets say 55,000 square feet.  The also have a garage, a nice one that, like most garages in Nova Scotia, is not used for a car.  It has a small workshop and a loft the kids sometimes hang out in via a ladder.

The next door neighbours took their garage the previous year and fit it up so the wife's Mom and Dad could move there, staying on the same property, having dinner with them most nights, teaching the kids to knit, and do woodwork.  These people are seeing this, and knowing that his Dad has failing eyesight and will soon need more care than they can easily get on their farm.  So they decide to do the same.  Fix up the garage as a one bedroom semi standalone with water form the well, and connected to their septic system.  

Just like their neighbours, they expect to have to have their septic system inspected, and probably expanded to accommodate not the extra people, but the extra bedroom.  With the sale of the parents property, they can afford that.

But (there's always a but in these episodes) since last year, when their neighbours did their garage over, the Province has jumped into the middle and decided this practice had to be regulated in case...  well, just in case someone tried something bad.  Or whatever, something that there might not be control over by government.  It's not like making sure the septic system was big enough to do the job, or the water was safe to drink,  no we had to have more control over this or someone might benefit, somehow.

So, one experienced engineer was delegated to come up with Cluster System Guidelines.  These are intended to govern cases where more than one home is on a lot, so developers don't go jamming in houses upon houses on one small lot to get around the legislation over lot size and density.  There is some merit in regulating this, although in reality, with clearance regulations and offsets required from wells, it would be rare for anyone to be able to do very much.

This engineer, a very experienced one, came up with an OK set of Guidelines that was reviewed and vetted through the Committee responsible for technical changes to the Guidelines and Regs.  His solution to our little situation with the garage was to simply make people assume the design flow would be 1500 l/d, design a new system for that, and all would be fine on the original small lot.  If someone wanted to add more than one bedroom, they'd need to have a lot 1.5 times the size of the original minimum size.  So the reg states that anything with more than one dwelling, with flows over 1500 l/d has to conform to Schedule A, wherein lot sizes are set to be 1.5 times the normal 3 bedroom home size. Under 1500 l/d, the lot can stay the same size.  This was fine, as it allowed people to bring their parents onto their property and allow them to maintain privacy and independence.  

It was all working out pretty well at this point, until some unnamed bureaucrat, probably someone who's never opened a septic tank in their life, decided, without telling the person who wrote the Cluster Guidelines, to add a 15% factor of safety to the design flow.  And the Regs got published with that in them.   Suddenly the design flow increase to the system on the lot due to the garage was no longer the very conservative 500 l/d (a normal 3 br house is 1000 l/d) it is now 725 l/d, or 1,725 total  This for two people who will be eating and doing laundry in the house.  

The kicker is this - the regional offices realize that now the total flow is greater than the 1500 l/d threshold so they start disallowing building permit applications to convert buildings to residential use, or build new small out buildings, for this purpose, unless the lots are 1.5 times the minimum area.  

In our case, after fighting for a while just to do what their neighbours did the year before, the family put the parents into a Provincially funded seniors care home.  This when they would have greatly preferred to look after them in the context of their greater family unit.  Inhumane, almost. Unfair certainly. Of no value to society at all - especially considering that there was no engineering technical reason why.  Nope, just an average bureaucratic day enforcing a typo to the detriment of the public we're supposed to be serving.  

This is bad. Almost hard to believe, and it has happened more than once. Who knows how many times, as they don't keep track of their successful efforts on harming people in the Department of the Environment.  

It gets worse.  Remember the preamble?  Well, this happened at least three years ago, and they have known about it for almost that long.  No effort to correct this wrong has been made, and people are presumably going into our already overloaded seniors homes when they really don't need to be.  This uncaring, family hating, technically unsupportable practice has been allowed to continue for years.

The inaction is appalling.  Surely it can't get worse!

But it does. 

In my somewhat vitriolic rant of 2011 here I respond to what these bureaucrats have been working on, instead of fixing this painful problem.  They are actually working to remove any obligation they have to the socio-economic well being of Nova Scotians, instead of addressing their own public hating policies.

Yes, when they could have been fixing hurtful practice, they were instead busy changing the rules so they are no longer obligated to give a shit about the people who they purportedly work for, or, laughably, serve.

But in our Culture of No, they are winners, and are probably all promoted or retired with full pensions by now.  I dearly hope they all run into the same problem and have to go into a home early.  And not one of the nice new ones. 

How a Chicken Crosses the Road

The recent debate on crosswalk safety, driver and pedestrian responsibilities and whether more painted crosswalks would be better, highlights some gaps in the general public’s knowledge of the Motor Vehicle Act, specifically the parts that might affect them most.  Those are the parts governing the interactions between vehicles and pedestrians.  It is also incentive to discuss what can work to make our streets safer, and it’s made me wonder if we have some things backward.

Learn the rules before you play

First you need to understand what a crosswalk is.  The Motor Vehicle Act is pretty clear on this:

"crosswalk" means that portion of a roadway ordinarily included within the prolongation or connection of curb lines and property lines at intersections or any other portion of a roadway clearly indicated for pedestrian crossing by lines or other markings on the surface;

A key bit of information there is that a crosswalk includes a lot more than just those places where the traffic authority has decided an area should be demarcated by paint.  I recently stopped for an older gentleman who’d been waiting to cross at an unmarked crosswalk, and the driver behind me, in a military green mud covered Susucky with oversize tires, got so excited at seeing someone actually comply with the law, he repeatedly let me know I was, as I already knew, “Number 1” through the use of a hand signal.  Then, once he got past me, he showed all of Oxford Street how to nearly blow out the sewing machine engine in his small dick syndrome "jeep".  Fun!

You get my point, not only do most people not know the law, they also flagrantly violate it all the time.  I think this stems from a couple things (other than the redneck asshole mental deficiencies of that jerk).  We are inconsistent in marking crosswalks.  When we don’t paint one, many people could logically assume that it was not marked for a reason, and therefore was not a place that they have to yield to a pedestrian.  Indeed, the Motor Vehicle Act states:

“The traffic authority may establish and designate and may maintain, or cause to be maintained, by appropriate devices, marks or lines upon the surface of the highways, crosswalks at intersections where, in his opinion, there is particular danger to pedestrians crossing the highway, and at such other places as he may deem necessary.”

Again, there is a key part to this paragraph.  The traffic authority MAY emphasize a crosswalk if they believe it needs emphasizing.  But that does not mean all the other ones aren’t still crosswalks.

I wonder if perhaps by painting all these crosswalks we have inadvertently made things worse.  We’ve created a bit of a “Chicken Little” situation where thousands of relatively safe, even benign, crossings are emphasized by paint,  such that we are desensitized somewhat when we come to an intersection where the crosswalk has not been painted or otherwise demarcated.

What if we removed all the paint from every intersection crosswalk that is obvious and left the special efforts of paint, lighting, and the overhead button activated flashing lights only in those places where there are safety considerations?

Then crosswalks would be indicated by the mere presence of an intersection, not by paint, as they legally are, and those that were special would become even more special.

It’s just a thought.  I know that people would be more likely to recognize that crosswalks exist where they don’t respect them now.  And the other ones, those dangerous ones, might garner more attention and focus, and probably less trouble.

Look both ways before you cross the street.

If I see one more person walk into a crosswalk without looking in either direction, and with their headphones in their ears (playing bad music, I just know) I may run them over on purpose. 

I once did a colossally stupid thing as a pedestrian.  I walked to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris above ground, which amounts to crossing about six lanes of high speed French drivers going in circles, learning new matador-like moves on the fly.  On getting there, somewhat exhilarated, I was shown the underground tunnel opening by a sweet old lady. Not one of those crazy drivers hit me, and it wasn’t because of the little maple leaf on my lapel.  It was because I was looking, and I assumed that even though they were pretty small cars, I’d still lose if they did hit me, so I got out of their way.

Pedestrians have a responsibility to protect themselves.  I know it sounds stupid, but you never win, cars are big and heavy, and they are driven by humans, who are, in case you haven’t heard, fallible.

Let’s just all do what my dad taught me when I was learning to drive.  Let’s just assume that the person driving the other car, or that car coming up to our crosswalk, is the absolute worst driver on the road, and expect them to do something stupid.  Because sooner or later, they will.

Believe it or not, the following paragraph is part of the Motor Vehicle Act.  It ought to be redundant, but sadly, it isn’t.

“A pedestrian shall not leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle that is so closely approaching that it is impractical for the driver of the vehicle to stop.” (insert laugh here)

And in case you were wondering about people who walk across a marked crosswalk with a button activated light without pushing the button:

“Where a pedestrian is crossing a roadway at a crosswalk that has a pedestrian-activated beacon, the pedestrian shall not leave a curb or other place of safety unless the pedestrian-activated beacon has been activated.”

You are all criminals. Push the button, or else!

Calming down

In Holland, a planner named Hans Monderman has been advocating the  removal of traffic signs, signals and road markings. The town of Drachten adopted his ideas and removed all their traffic signals.  Accidents, and their severity decreased.  This brings to mind our roundabouts, they really don’t need any signs, they just need to be designed correctly (Armdale is NOT) and be driven by people who know the rules. They have almost no fatal accidents between cars, and when designed correctly, are safe for pedestrians (again, Armdale isn’t).

Drachten implemented other traffic calming measures, even putting a playground in the middle of a street to make drivers slow down. Interestingly, and perhaps counter-intuitively, not just safety increased, but the flow and capacity of the traffic also improved.  People were no longer sitting at red lights and rushing to the next one, they were slowly making their way safely to their destination, making sure not to hit each other, or people on foot or bikes. 

This is sort of how traffic flows on Spring Garden Road, the street that creates our most valuable urban real estate.  Traffic calming, like allowing on-street parking, can improve safety, traffic flow, and the economic value of a street. 

We all know that “slow and steady wins the race", right?  Right?