17. Healthy
Communities plan with the environment in mind.
The
Brandon ACC North
Campus – A
Case Study in Unsustainable Design
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Our city
and our province, despite their abundant claims to the
contrary, continue to miss the boat when it come to taking advantage of
opportunities for sustainability.
The design and management of the ACC Brandon North Campus is a case
study in inexplicable choices.
Let’s start with getting there.
First let’s acknowledge that over 90% of the traffic attending this
campus come from the south, along First Street.
Now let’s look at the route they MUST take.
Instead of allowing a simple right turn into the grounds, students must
take the long way around. Over 1 km extra driving to get to the Parking
lot (#1) for the Trades Building – some distance more to the Culinary
Arts (#2) lot.
On an average day there are well over 200 vehicles in these lots.
That’s about 500 km of extra driving per day, not counting leaving for
noon hour etc.
Why?
I’m betting there were traffic flow arguments - some plausible, and
even safety issues – less plausible. I don’t know, and it doesn’t
matter. The point is that I have little faith that my sorts of
observations even got to the table. If they had, I think all that
brainpower at hand would have devised solutions that didn’t involve
MORE traffic.
What I see all across the spectrum of Government and City planning is
that they haven’t even begun to filter projects and plans through the
lens of the environment.
Years ago I worked for a time out of an office in City Hall. Brandon
had by that time built some really nice bike and walking trails. You
could bike right around the city – and I do mean around, definitely not
through. To get to work from my home, I was dodging traffic all the
way. The planners and engineers and
trail makers just put the trails where it was convenient…FOR THEM. They
are
good recreational trails but we haven’t even begun to address
encouraging people to take their bikes for work etc.
WHY?
Well, I think I found out why. My bike was the only one in the bike
rack
at City Hall. No one at City Hall biked to work.
Just guessing here – but perhaps part of the problem is that, unlike
the people who designed both the Brandon bike paths and the ACC access
– I’m a pedestrian, cyclist, and jogger. When you get out of your car
you see stuff.
So was traffic flow and safety on First Street the reason for the big
detour?
Look at that map again…
There are two places where vehicles used to access the grounds back in
the good old days when it was a Mental Hospital with 100’s of
residents, regular visitors and a huge staff. It seemed to work
fine.
Ah, but First Street is a much busier place now. True – but I live
nearby and cross the street nearly every day. It is simply ridiculous
to think that with a proper turning lane, drivers couldn’t manage the
simple right turn without causing mayhem. God forbid that we solve any
safety issue by lowering the speed limit or anything crazy like that.
Keep those cars a rolling. Vehicles coming from the north can still use
the entrance at the lights, to the north.
So maybe it was the traffic flow on the grounds that was the issue?
Well I can see that argument – who wants a few hundred cars all rushing
to class every morning at 8:30?
I’ve walked the route from the corner of Braecrest – east into the
grounds by the Len Evans building – hundreds of times at all hours of
the day. On the one side is a deserted ball diamond, on the other, a
building with no access points. I just can’t believe that,
especially for the Trades students, this wouldn’t be much better. And
as
one who has had to dodge the parade of speeding, swerving vehicles on
the present route at closing time, I challenge anyone to a discussion
about safety.
So I’m still a bit puzzled – honestly, I’m not being sarcastic (right
now anyway). I would have loved to be at the table when this was
being planned – to understand.
But that’s my point. I can’t believe they asked anyone who puts the
priority on sustainability and who has had a car culture inoculation.
Let’s continue, because I think I found another piece of the puzzle.
Shortly after the first November snowfall, I was jogging along my usual
route along the great detour making my way to the grid road leading
east (the top blue line on the previous map). As I approached the
roundabout (see the * on the next map…) I noticed a truck approaching
from the south. Up to that point there is a nice wide shoulder on the
road but as one enters the roundabout the shoulder disappears. So I
hugged the edge of the lane. Just as the truck entered the roundabout
the driver decided that, what with the nice slippery streets and all,
why not step on it and enjoy swerving into the turn. I leapt for my
life, obscene gestures may have been exchanged, and I was left
reflecting about how our governments are really not encouraging us to
walk or bike.
I also reflected on how we like roundabouts. I like roundabouts. They
are a cool, inexpensive, traffic solution if pedestrian traffic is not
a factor - then they are a disaster. But they are trendy these days.
And I’m sure that is why this roundabout is there. It must have seemed
the cool, forward thinking way to go.
This one is special.
This is where I was when I encountered the truck. See what I mean? I
usually just take the grassy route for the next bit. But see how they
have thoughtfully placed a sidewalk around the interior of the
roundabout? Nice touch. If you could just survive the crossing to
that sidewalk you could go round and round…
As happens, someone designed this little beauty for his or her own
amusement, certainly not to facilitate any pedestrian activity. It’s a
sidewalk to nowhere. And a nice wide expensive one.
As funny as this seems – and I think it’s hilarious – there is a dark
side to all this.
We are wasting millions of dollars doing the wrong things – while we
complain that we have no money to do the right things.
But wait - maybe someone has been using it.
Yes indeed – traffic in and out of the Trades Building often takes a
short cut over the sidewalk– maybe to make up for the extra kilometres
they have to drive each day? Nice that the curb is sloped so it doesn’t
interfere. Sometimes they just go the wrong way for fun as they race
out.
Or what the hell – why go out of your way at all? Just cross straight
ahead on the grass.
I see this sort of thing all over our city. Now that half the vehicles
on the road are oversized, noisy, gas hungry, dangerous pick-up
trucks, we see damaged curbs everywhere. My Ford Fiesta would balk at
the thought of jumping a curb. No problem for a Ram 150. Most people
don’t buy off-road vehicles because of their love of nature.
Again – hilarious – if it wasn’t for the fact that by building this
beautiful, wide-open, access road – we have just encouraged drivers to
use it a speedway.
In the real world, people who are able to get past the indoctrination
of car culture, know that you don’t cure traffic problems by building
more roads. You do it by encouraging alternatives to car travel
and placing better restrictions on careless and dangerous drivers.
The access for vehicles is only the more readily obvious part of our
story.
Why have I never seen a student biking or, perish the thought, walking,
to class?
Well, for starters, one just might question the wisdom of establishing
an educational facility several kilometres from where MOST PEOPLE live…
on the other side of a river, up a steep hill, with a walk path that
goes HALF WAY so that the final uphill part is on the shoulder of a
road and you get that extra lung full of exhaust to start your school
day.
But hey – that’s how we do things. We don’t consider sustainability
when we make important decisions. We assume that people have cars. We
design around that reality instead of asking what the future SHOULD
look like.
Well, although we have spent quite a bit of money making sure cars get
the opportunity to burn a bit of extra gas and run over a few
pedestrians on the way to school, we haven’t spent too much on
accessibility for anyone on foot.
You’ve seen my maps about the vehicle route – but surely pedestrians
can take a more direct route to class.
Well yes… sort of.
If you are one of the 20 or so students attending the multi-million
dollar Culinary Arts program you can get off the bus and take this
route to class. Not bad if you’re on the bus that stops on this
side of the street.
If you are one of the 200 or so who are attending Trades classes –
there seems to be a bus that takes you right there (along the giant
detour – because fuel is cheap – and the transit system is flush with
cash). I saw a person on that bus once – wish I’d had my camera.
But for whatever reason, a few people do walk in from the street, maybe
they live nearby. Maybe they like a challenge.
They get to use this state-of-the-art walkway if they want a direct
route from Braecrest to the Trades Centre.
Here is the view from the street. Notice – to my disappointment …no
roundabout.
Once you’ve made it onto the grounds however there are sidewalks. Lots
of them. Ice free, in the winter, leaf free in the summer. Lovingly
maintained.
Walking the streets of Brandon in winter is a risky thing – by the time
anyone clears a walkpath or sidewalk the coating of ice left behind
just makes it worse.
Not so for pedestrians, rare as they are, on the ACC grounds. The
maintenance staff seem to prefer ATV’s, and the 200 Trades
students get to park right across from their classrooms.
Planners, in their wisdom, have seen to it that the Culinary Arts
students must park nearly half a kilometre from their classroom,
perhaps to justify sidewalk maintenance.
Design Decisions – Where it all Begins
Exploring the design of the grounds through the lens of sustainability
is a starting point. But to really understand why we are where we are,
one needs to take a look at some earlier decision-making.
Most of us would agree that environmentally unsound practices are
wasteful in terms of the health of the earth, but that solutions can be
difficult. People need to get to work, to heat their homes, go for
groceries. Alternatives to the carbon intensive path we have taken will
not come easily.
But what really gets me is that we haven’t started to do the easy
things that not only would help, but would give us hope that change can
happen.
I think that the very decision to convert an aging Mental Hospital to a
Community College Campus was arrived at for the wrong reasons. I admit
that hindsight is involved in that opinion. We could keep arguing about
it, but the decision was political, rather than environment, or even
educational.
As a graduate of the local University I can’t help but be a bit amused
to revisit that place – once spacious with lawns and a square of grass
separating the residence and the other buildings – now with an extra
five or six building packed in. I liked it then and I like it now.
Students can still walk downtown. It has a busy, modern, urban feel.
Density can be good.
Contrast that with the verdant spaciousness of the ACC Campus,
reminiscent of so many Hollywood productions set in fictitious
University Towns.
That comes with an enormous price – and one that has nothing to do with
educational opportunity or educational excellence.
I know this rant might seem like a digression – but I say that the
decision making from the start sets the stage for the decision making
that continues. They didn’t properly consider sustainability in the
complete sense of the word. The focus was on something else.
And let me say this: Conserving heritage buildings can be a very
earth-friendly option, but it is only sustainable when the buildings
can serve a viable purpose, and are part of a workable plan.
But we certainly don’t need all that space and it should be sold or put
to other use. Pasture perhaps – no – too much methane. Vegetables?
Then we need the management of this and all government funded projects
to be compelled to develop some environmental smarts. We to have
everyone involved to learn to filter all projects through the
environmental checklist test. It starts at the top.
It is not just mines and mega-projects that should have to meet some
kind of sustainability standards. It should be everyday procedure in
all things.
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