The city likes signs. Sometimes we run out of sidewalk or curbside space to put signs on posts and so we paint them onto the roads. Or, in the case of sharrows, they are a sort of lane marking. But winter, plowing, and general wear and tear means we have to repaint most pavements annually.

Why can’t the city use the same size stencil from year to year? And why can’t work crews align this year’s stencil directly over last year’s?

Taking transit for a trip isn’t usually the whole adventure. Somehow, one has to get to and from the transit stop.

Transit boffins know how far people are willing to walk to a bus stop. They are willing to walk further to a train — or LRT — stop or station than to a bus stop/station.

The catchment area of a BRT station or a LRT station is also extended if people find it convenient to ride their bikes to the station. That convenience requires some care and thoughtfulness in the provision of safe cycling routes. And at the station, the cyclist has to feel welcome, and not that (s)he is abandoning the bike to the elements and to thieves.

The  bike shelters at the transitway stations go some way to encouraging cyclists. But does anyone know the catchment zone for this:

Loblaws has an outlet in Westboro called the Real Canadian Superstore. And we all know Real Canadians don’t complain. But we apparently do steal shopping carts. They show up all over the neighborhood:

carts in a field near Lanark/Clearview, possibly ‘cleaned out’ of the adjacent Island Park Towers

The RCSS in Westboro recently got a fleet of new carts. The half-size carts in particular are a welcome alternative to the tractor-trailer sized ones the dominate the store and invite you to load ‘em up with more stuff than you need and then clip the heels of the fatigued shopper ahead of you..

The new carts have wheel brakes on them. Once you leave the parking lot, the brakes come on and the cart stays on the property. Works great, as far as I can see, in the back 40 (-acre parking lot).

But out front, where the cyclists and pedestrians and transit users frequent the store, the story is different. Instead of the carts coagulating around the bus stop and bike racks, many of them ‘freeze up’ right at the foot of the ramp down to the sidewalk. I realize this is probably the actual property line, but it isn’t where people want to take them (even if you aren’t trying to take one home).

this cart goes one way, it goes out

Nonetheless, I see people drag them over to the bus shelter (hint: you can’t push them with the brakes on, but you can drag them, much like a recalcitrant four-year old). So despite the locking brakes, the carts now litter the entire trail over to the shelter. I see people get off the bus, and grab a cart to take with them back towards the store. But wait, they won’t roll, so they get left behind as sidewalk litter. Even the carts right at the foot of the ramp won’t move, and this is just outside the store doors.

The result is that people of good will are thwarted, the carts linger outside longer, Loblaws has to depend on an employee with an unlocking gizmo to go collect the carts, and shoppers often have to walk the whole width of the store to get a fresh cart from the inside display, conveniently located half way to the parking lot. Hmm.

Richmond coral, where the grocery carts gather …

I lived for a short time in Fenwick Towers, the Dalhousie U residence in Halifax. There was a giant Sobey’s right across the street. Carts, of course, ended up more in the lobby and entrance way of Fenwick than in the parking lot. The solution: a coin deposit to ‘borrow’ a cart. For the sake of earning 25c, impoverished students would take the carts back to Sobey’s. Problem solved.

I wonder if Galen Weston could work with the Real Canadian shoppers and figure out a win-win solution.

So, I was walking down the street the other day (not in Ottawa) lookin’ at the cycle track and bumped into Jeffrey Hoffmann. He is the five-time astronaut on the various space shuttles, including stint(s) as commander.

He has logged over 21.5 million miles in the shuttle. Note that you get free upgrades for life on terrestrial airlines when you fly 1 million miles.

He is also the guy who held the screwdriver that fixed the Hubble Space Telescope. While walking in space.  I did not ask if it was a Phillips head.

He’s now a professor of engineering at MIT. And he posed for this pic with great good grace.

Prof Hoffmann is also housemaster at one of the university dorms. Apparently Prof Hoffmann takes incredible glee in their annual “drop date” celebration where a piano is dropped (safely) from the roof of the dorm to the street below, as illustrated in this poster display:

The fabled silk road ran from Europe to China, on the route blazed by Marco Polo.

Charlene Lafontaine named the sculptural glass pieces of art on the recently reconstructed bit of Somerset after the silk road. Here is a nifty YouTube video that explains the title:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VKAWVD5PkOg

The Preston sculpture by cj fleury just south of the intersection of Preston / Somerset is called Marco Polo and shows his route. It celebrates the meeting of (Little)Italy and China(town), expressed by the Italian palazzo on the bottom and dragon on the column. The unfurled map at top shows his route. (There is an explanatory brochure for every sculpture available from the Preston BIA).

The intersection of Somerset and Preston is where east (Chinatown) meets west (Little Italy) but the community hasn’t yet been able to get the intersection signed as Marco Polo Square.

West side action is moving to www.WestSideAction.com     (note the “.wordpress.com” has been removed).

Some  October posts have disappeared for some browsers. I am working on restoring them. And the wordpress-hosted site has filled up all its capacity (too many posts ! too many pictures !)

Some kind readers with techno knowledge met with me on friday and we will  move the site to another host, and make numerous improvements.

Stay tuned, and thank you for reading.