Last week I heard Evan Ferrari from eMerge give an inspiring presentation about making Guelph a community that uses 100% renewables in its energy use.
This is going to be essential if we are going to address climate change issues and become a self-reliant, sustainable city. One of his key points was shifting to what he called a transportation ‘hierarchy’.
Evan sees these as our priorities towards the future well-being of our community:
- Walking. We need to make our neighbourhoods walkable as we meet our growth expectations. Sprawling suburbs are built for cars, not people, and the cost of that growth does not pay for itself. If we design our new developments around walkability, it’s healthier, our carbon footprint is much lower, and we get to know our neighbours, which makes our city safer and happier.
2. Biking: Like walking, the more we can cycle we are individually and as a community healthier and actually wealthier too as our car and road maintenance costs go down. We need to make cycling safer and more welcoming with separated bike lines and more connected recreational trails. Tell your elected officials that expanding our bike system is valuable to you for your quality of life!
3. Public Transportation ( bus and train ), especially if we can move towards electric buses! Public transit is for everyone regardless of economic status. If our transit system is efficient, we will be more inclined to use it, which is cheaper and much better for the environment.
4. Cars ( electrify! ). If we can move towards electric vehicles we will notice an immediate difference with our carbon emissions, and we won’t be reliant on the fossil fuel industry which has the biggest negative impact on our climate. There are now great incentives for purchasing an electric vehicle. I know, I just bought one!
If we continue to let fossil-fueled cars be our top priority, we will only exacerbate the problems in a failing system. If cars win, we lose. It’s as simple as that.
Evan believes that ‘100% renewable’ is an achievable goal, and I’m hoping that as a city we can embrace this vision. Let’s work together on that.
With this in mind, here are two upcoming events that will be of interest to Ward Twovians.
March 20th, at 6:30 pm at City Hall, there is a town hall meeting about transit. Have your say about how we can improve it! There has been some confusion around this meeting. As far as I know, Ward 3 Councillor June Hofland with the help of her ward mate Phil Allt had been planning one for March 28th, and had organized a campaign on the buses to promote it. Then the Mayor decided to have his own a week before. Now, to clear up that confusion, they are combining forces and presenting one meeting on the 20th, ( yay!) despite what you might have read! It’s a great chance, as we move into election mode soon, to let us know what we can do to meet the many challenges we face in making our public transit system one that meets our growth expectations.
AND:
The aforementioned eMerge Guelph is hosting “ A Mayor’s Vision: 100% Renewable Energy- Thursday March 22nd at 7 pm at 10c ( 42 Carden Street )- Oxford County Mayor, David Mayberry, will share how his community is working toward 100% Renewable Energy. Neetika Sathe, VP, Alectra Energy (soon to be merging with Guelph Hydro) will discuss their plans for a new green energy and technology centre in Guelph – Registration necessary: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/a-mayors-vision-for-100-renewable-energy-tickets-42644195938
I’ll be at both meetings rooting for Ward 2.. hope to see you there….James