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Improve Infrastructure

Sewage backup & flooding:

  • Many homes and businesses have suffered from the issue of sewage back up and flooding. This leads to issues of losses as well as problems of increased insurance charges.

  • Besides financial losses, senior citizens suffer psychological issues when they lose things which have sentimental value.

    

Background

  • Windsor population has been stable over the last five decades unlike Toronto or Vancouver , where the population has exploded.   (Ref wikipedia - population in 1971 - 209,300; population in 2016-217,188.) 

  • Growth in housing in Windsor has been moderate. Only recently, there was a little increase in housing in South Windsor.

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Question: Why is Windsor facing worse flooding than that faced by cities such as Toronto, Waterloo and London, which have much older sewage and drainage system and which have  expanded much faster than Windsor.

The only answer is that the City's planning for rainwater drainage for new expansions, during the last few decades, has not been done properly, leading to flooding in homes and businesses.

 

FLOOD MITIGATION PROJECT

Heavy Rainstorms of Sept 2016 and Aug 2017 caused damage to Windsor, Tecumseh, Lasalle and Lakeshore. Windsor and others have started working on Master Sewage & Storm Water Plans. Essex Regional Conservation Authority is overseeing a harmonizing of development and planning standards to deal with the growing threat of overland flooding. All 4 municipalities are doing computer and topography modelling to understand what overland water will do when it rains heavily. The models can show how water behaves in varying intensities and duration.

 

Windsor is investing $80 M for up-grading the sewage systems in the western part, as a first step.

 

After flooding of the homes,  the City is subsidizing Windsorites’ attempts to protect their own homes. The City should work with the Ontario government so that Ontario’s Disaster Recovery Assistance Program (DRAP) is expanded to cover flooding from sewer backup. The City should work pro-actively to reach the benefits of the expanded DRAP to help the many Windsor residents who have been denied private flood insurance or who can only obtain insurance with inadequate coverage. 

 

Alex’s PROPOSAL: Windsor may evaluate the requirements for the next few decades and design the systems accordingly.

It is proposed that when the City lays new sewage lines in any area, it should also design for electric, telephone and water lines so that the roads are not regularly dug out for each of these facilities, thereby saving costs. It is also proposed that the City should lay an optic fiber cable on its own, whenever a road is dug. This  will increase  the cost of the project marginally. But it can become a source of revenue for the City, while proving to be of advantage to the residents.  As an example, it is expected that within the next 5 years the use of internet and broadband is going to skyrocket. Today in many parts of Windsor, wide-bandwidth Internet service is provided by no more than a single service-provider. If dark optical fiber cable has been put in place by the City, the City will be able to rent out optic fibers to service providers for Internet. It will make it possible for service-providers to provide high speed Internet service, without a large initial investment, leading to increase in the number of service-provides for Internet. More service-providers in every area will lead to better service at a lower rate for the residents.

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  • Public Transport:

    • Public Transport is critical for

    1. the poor to go to work, to shopping including grocery and to carry out daily activities,

    2. Seniors to go to doctor, shopping and social activities and

    3. students to go to schools, colleges and universities.

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  • The City saves financially, as a whole, if public transport is used widely, since the number of single occupancy vehicles on the roads decreases. This leads to (i) reduction of road traffic, (ii) need for fewer road lanes, (iii) lower expenses on snow cleaning, road cleaning and maintenance and (iv) lower pollution due to emissions from vehicles.​

  • There is no surprise that Ridership in Windsor is so low when -

  • Drastic changes are needed in the system, with a focus on increasing the use of public transport by using technology for making it nearly as convenient to use public transport as a private car.

 

Alex's Campaign stands for :

  1. Significant reduction of bus fares  so that ridership increases.

  2. Demand Based Routing: Use Mobile apps to identify the riders waiting at the bus stop and do demand based routing of the buses.

  3. For routes with low rider traffic - much cheaper vehicle like vans/minivans as public transport may be used and Google, GM and others may be encouraged to put self driving vans and minivans on such routes.

  4. Increase dependence on public transport, in coordination with universities, colleges and large employers, by providing a bus pass to every person in a large organization at a subsidized rate. This can make it possible for the transit  system to have a wider reach and a higher frequency, while generating a higher surplus. 

  5. Provide real time and accurate information of the bus arrival and departure time at each bus stand, using mobile app.

  6. Seniors, with handicaps, do not use the public facility since the staff is not trained to provide help, when other citizens are not around to help them. If adequate training and facilities are provided to the staff, seniors may start using the public system in larger numbers.  

  7. Consider integrating yellow school buses with the Windsor transit system so that equipment and drivers can be leveraged between both the systems.

  8. Alternate/Staggered bus route stops be made available.

  9. Transit services on weekends be provided, wherever either a demand exists or a requirement can be generated by providing the facility.

  10. The City should progressively integrate its transit services with those of other cities in the wider region consisting of smaller cities around Windsor in Canada and the areas of Detroit and Ann Arbor so that integrated services may be provided by Windsor-based companies to the whole of the region and Windsorites can be empowered to use all the cultural and educational facilities, available in the region. 

 

Public Transit system is an important public service. It can empower the poor, the seniors and the handicapped. It can improve their quality of life and make many of them active contributors to the City's economy. To evaluate a public transit system by studying the present status, by generating estimates of profit and loss and then deciding about the perimeters of service is not the right policy. The facilities provided by the transit system can change the status on the ground.

 

The City needs Improved bus routes and stops designed to make things easier and safer for seniors. Staggered bus stop times across neighbouring streets can also be of help. Many  seniors, with handicaps, are unable to use the present Handi-transit service. The City needs an enhanced Handi-transit service.

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Alex's campaign wants the Windsor Transit to be a flat organization structure with very low overhead. The performance score card for the department should be simple and be based on amount of ridership, services for seniors and high utilization of the equipment and human resources, low expenses and lower capital needs. The goal is to reduce the costs and to improve the quality of service. At this stage, a transit board may entrench today’s vision of public transit being a business and not a service for empowering the poor and the marginalized. This can increase the costs and make the task of bringing about a change by the democratic system more difficult.

 

Grey Hound Bus service in western Canada is an excellent case study of what happens when the system of frequency, routes and cost of ticket is not managed  properly for a bus service. The case shows that the mis-management led to a complete collapse of ridership and eventually led Grey Hound to completely close the west Canada bus operations.

   - Refernce:  https:/www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/canada/article-greyhound-cancels-most-routes-in-western-canada/

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The CEO of the Transit system has not only to manage the men and the systems well, she has to work with all the large organizations and the environmentalists to reduce the number of private cars on the road, without decreasing the efficiency of citizens. This can reduce the need for and the expense on continuous widening of the road network.

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  • Better lights in streets for better safety: Arrangements may be made for demand-based improvement, where required by the citizens.

  • Additional park benches in busy parks such as Maple Leaf park are required, particularly for seniors and mothers, with young kids.

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  • Internal Connectivity:

    • The city has to have good connectivity through continuously up-graded road networks and traffic signals  so that bottlenecks and long lines during rush hours can be avoided.

    • There is a need for ensuring that the streets are well managed to eliminate pockets where rain water accumulates. 

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  • Facilities for families & citizens: Ward 9 suffers from lack of a library, community center and other facilities for families. With the help of technology, the library facilities can be augmented by addition of access to some of the facilities through Internet. Google has digitized the entire classical library of a reputed university and makes it available free of cost. Many new books are available in e-format. Such facilities will be particularly useful to researchers and senior citizens.

 

  • Build Shared Community Center & Library in Ward 9 in collaboration with public and private entities thereby leveraging existing infrastructures and sharing operating costs.  e.g enhancing and leveraging existing facilities of public schools or churches as Community Centers, when the facilities are not in use (Schools in evenings and weekends while churches during the week).

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  • Reduce congestion on Walker by adding more lanes and Howard by adding 3rd central lane to merge or turn left.

 

Safety Issues 

  1. Fill ditches and build sidewalks

  2. Build Crosswalks near the Talbot Trail and Roseland Schools

  3. Control speed of through-traffic in residential areas

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Alex is committed to building strong and vibrant communities by improving green spaces and safe and convenient bike paths and through continuous inter-actions with the voters.

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Alex is the right person to have on the Council so that innovative changes, like demand-based routing, can be brought about and the city can implement new initiatives in management and in use of new technologies.

      

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