Fewer cars key to economic growth, U.S. city planner says | The Chronicle Herald

Fewer cars downtown and in other urban areas will help grow the Halifax region’s economy, a San Francisco transit planner says. (INGRID BULMER / Staff)

More economic vitality downtown and in other urban areas will come with fewer cars, a Halifax city hall meeting heard Thursday.

And car use should be thought of as a last resort, San Francisco planner Tim Papandreou told regional council’s transportation standing committee.

He said the West Coast city is using an integrated approach to municipal transportation, including improving pedestrian movement, upgrading cycling routes, promoting public transit, encouraging vehicle sharing and expanding the local taxi fleet, in an effort to move people around without the long-term use of private vehicles.

The benefits of such measures, Papandreou said, are a healthier population and business boost for urban neighbourhoods.

“If you have more transit and walking and bicycling, you actually have more walking trips,” he told the committee.

“And if you have more walking trips, you have better community and economic development, which means more feet at stores buying more often and shopping more often.”

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2013 Ha!ifax ComedyFest – Comedians

 

 

The 18th annual Ha!ifax ComedyFest announces superb line up for event, April 24-27 in Halifax

(Halifax, NS) – Celebrating its 18th year, the 2013 Ha!ifax ComedyFest presents 28 top Canadian and international comedians from Wednesday, April 24 to Saturday, April 27 in Halifax.

The lineup includes hot comic headliners, Scott Thompson (Kids in the Hall), Caroline Rhea (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Caroline Rhea Show), Brent Butt (Corner Gas and Hiccups), Bob Marley, Nikki Payne, Mark Critch, John Wing and Debra DiGiovanni.

Other fantastic comedians performing include, Bryan Hatt, Charlie Demers, Darrin Rose, Eddie Della Siepe, Erica Sigurdson, Graham Chittenden, Graham Kay, Jeff Elliott, JJ Whitehead  John Sheehan, Karen O’Keefe, Lachlan Patterson, Patrick Haye, Peter Anthony, Phil Hanley, Rob Pue, Tony Krolo, Dana Alexander and Darren Frost.

Check out the details at ………………………………………………………….Ha!ifax ComedyFest – Comedians.

Why the 99 per cent still matter in Canadian politics

LOLA LANDEKIC FOR THE TORONTO STARAs income inequality worsens, Canadians have become increasingly polarized.

Hugh Mackenzie

A year after the Occupy movement focused public attention on the income, wealth and opportunity gap between the top 1 per cent and the 99 per cent, the issue is attracting the attention of conservatives in Canada.

Quite simply, they want the problem to go away. So they’re intent on a simple message: chill out, Canada, inequality isn’t the problem.

Two reports — one by the Fraser Institute, the other by TD Economics — illustrate the attempt to spin the issues as nothing to worry about.

They also have another thing in common. Their results don’t support the headlines they gave their own reports. The Fraser Institute study purported to demonstrate that economic mobility is still strong in Canada. In reality, it only demonstrated mobility at the bottom end of the income scale. People tend to move back and forth between poverty and the middle class, but less so at the top end of the income scale where the Horatio Alger myth resides.

TD got a lot of mileage from its claim that income inequality in Canada hadn’t changed since 1998. In fact, the report showed income inequality remained steady in the 2000s, but that it had continued to widen at the bottom and the top of the income distribution — precisely the concern of the Occupy protests.

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Canada’s government should be “Idle-No-More” – Ralph Goodale

Over the past few weeks, a remarkable movement has taken shape among indigenous peoples in Canada.  It’s called “Idle-No-More”.

Beginning with four women from Saskatchewan, the movement is driven largely by women and youth using social media like Twitter and Facebook.  With the advice of elders, it’s committed to peaceful public events highlighting unacceptable realities in the lives of First Nations people, the Metis, Inuit and others.

Their spontaneous activities have reached across Canada and beyond.  The initial spark was Stephen Harper’s second Omnibus Budget Bill (C-45).

Constancy Constantly |

There is something so comforting, beautiful really, about those things that are constant. And no, I’m not talking about the constancy of change. I mean truly consistent – like the patterns of the ocean’s tide, the enduring ebb and flow. I can go to any shoreline in Nova Scotia and be assured that the waves will be rhythmically rushing in to meet me, and slowly leaving me again, only to return. Sometimes I might have to venture further out to greet the incoming waves based on the tide’s schedule, but I can count on those waves being there. Today. Tomorrow. Long after I’m gone. The earth offers us so much comfort in its constancy – the changing of the seasons, the brilliant autumnal foliage celebrating the death of one season and the dawning of the next, the early end to the days of winter, the hope that winter solstice and the slightly longer days it brings, the sweet smell of the earth warming in spring and the chubby tufts of green pushing through to say hello, and the buzzing of the cicadas and the humming of the bees and the sweet kiss of the sun that summer brings. We rely on those patterns. We are creatures of those habits. And so we live in harmony with the earth, if we allow ourselves, and we adjust accordingly.

read the rest of this blog at ………. Constancy Constantly |.

Sense and Sensitivity

Warning: This blog may cause feelings of sadness. Reader discretion is advised.

I know that my musings are meant to be positive, uplifting, glass half-full messages filled with hope and optimism. I cannot deliver on that today. And for that I apologize. But you have to know that not every single day can be an upbeat day. Maybe it can be a very down in the dumps day with a few upbeat moments, though. Maybe. If you work hard at it.

Sense and Sensitivity.

via Sense and Sensitivity.

People Say the Darndest Things |

Have you ever taken the time to stop and truly listen to what it is that people are trying to tell you?  I don’t mean people with whom you are in relationships.  Relationships are best left for another blog, but I do so love sharing my perspectives on relationships.  Wow…major digression there.  I’m going to blame it on the day I’ve had.  But I’m not going to tell you about this day until tomorrow.  It was far too eventful a day for me to dissect and reassemble for you just yet.  But I will.  Because there was a lot of meaning, a lot of purpose around today.  Holy!!  What’s with the second digression?

Read the rest of this blog at        People Say the Darndest Things |.