Credit: CFJC Today

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Enviro report shows need for shift in thinking by public, City Hall

Jul 15, 2020 | 4:45 AM

KAMLOOPS — IMAGINE A CITY built for the environment, where people walk and cycle and drive around in electric vehicles and live in energy efficient homes. That describes in part the vision of a report to City council Tuesday.

The Climate Response Paper proposes some “big moves” that would, according to its authors, require a paradigm attitude shift in the community.

I suggest it will also require some attitude shifts within City Hall, and I’ll give you two examples within the Big Moves list.

One is the walkability of neighbourhoods. This has been part of the mantra of planners for years and here it is again by a different name. The report calls it the 10-Minute City, and would design neighbourhoods to provide services close to home.

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The target would be to give 90 per cent of residents access to daily needs and transit within an easy walk or cycle. A worthy objective, yet for years new subdivisions have been expanding up the hillsides without much provision for it.

Another one, related to the first, is reducing the reliance on the automobile and encouraging cycling and walking networks throughout the city. This, too, is a long-time goal, with spotty results.

The City has put a lot of marbles into the lightly used Xget’tem’ trail, for example, while leaving Columbia Street bicycle-unfriendly despite major upgrades only a few years ago. The Seymour Street re-think remains in limbo. Residents wanting cycling and pedestrian safety measures on Barnhartvale Road recently got the brushoff.

Still, we get nowhere unless we dream, and council deserves credit for driving this initiative, and Coun. Arjun Singh deserves special credit for raising the issue a year ago in connection with the movement to limit global temperature rise.

This is a 20- and 30-year challenge and will take a lot of community conversation, and fundamental buy-in to the reality that the world is changing, and Kamloops has to change with it.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.