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WATERLOO CHRONICLE Publisher: Ga] Bosweld 886-2830 Fax, 886-9383 bmaul wchrorucle6y'seruernet tr" I 'Y R, a J', T I. ‘.. V 3.... _ a 75 King St. South, Suite 201 Waterloo, Ontario N21 IP2 The Waterloo Lhmnu le welcomes lure" In the lidum They should he stenrd mm name, address and phone mun he! and will be vxrrtritvd for ac cu racy No unsigned Inner; mil be puhllshcd Subm-sw-ns may be ednad (m Irnglh, so please be bud Copyright In letters and other malrnals whmlnrd In the Publisher and accepted fol publication remains with the author. but the put-Mm" and us licensee! mar mm ermdm r them In prlnl. dear-mu m other forms our mlllng address u 75 King St s. Suite 201.Wa1nlon NN IPI, mule mall address In whrnnkmmu net and mu fax number is M6 ‘08 I The Views of our columlsls are their own and do no: necessarily represent those of the newspaper. The Walerioo Chronicle " published every Wednesday by The Fairway Group. a dn'mon of Southern Ontano Cummumty Newspapers Inc, a dmslon of Southam Pubhcations, a CanWest Company. Canadian Pubhunons Mall Salts hoducl Mreemeru Number 136379 Iruermatsonal Standard Serra? Number [SSH 0832-34t0 019'": WW Letters Policy Angin- Bailey Gerry Mum; - Sule- Cal Bosveld mum: 'fe"tcyo We oT?of1neil Lvnn Banal Audited cuculauon 26.056 :ievstntiil Deborah Llandall Fdllnl built 'terr" hm Meander Bob Wtmnac “I who: Pill lilacs I decided to put my money where my mouth 1s and take the bus home ---_-_-" from regional headquar ‘ ‘ ters on Frederick Street in ()U EST downtown Kitchener. It ' 3 : took me less than five Itlllllglilllilll minutes to walk to King \ ' 3:"i Sreet. Five minutes is the ‘ B, maximum time Grand : ' River Transit says people 1 IGla i', I should have to walk to r “E; ‘ catch a bus, I bought a t g Q. 1 paper to get my S2 exact \ 'an c, \ change. The main line bus * IlkB, ' also came within five min- i utes at 7:25 pm, though i at this time of night, the 3 main bus arrives every 25 ‘ minutes. --PN" A : , ___ 'i'4 The bus was accessi- ble, with no stairs and a space for a wheelchair. One half of the transit buses are now accessible with all the buses to be changed over in 10 years. A comfortable, relaxing half-hour ride took me to the corner of King and University in Waterloo. I checked the time for the next bus. After 7:45 p.m., the bus came every hour instead of every 35 min- utes. Deciding to abam don my experiment at the thought of a 45-minute wait, I phoned home. No answer. At the end of my meeting, I phoned my husband to pick me up, No one answered. He had decided to stay at the ball field. Part of my afternoon commu- nity services_meeting had concerned the affurdabil, ity and accessibility of public transit and the cycling meeting that had just ended discussed the new bike racks on the transit vehicles. I waited the 45 minutes. A tired looking worker from Wendy's also waited. As the bus ground up to the stop, a young man rushed up and asked me if this was the lakeshore bus. "Yes." lsaid. "Good. I didn't miss it," he replied. "Might as well walk home if you do." I had to agree A further 15-minute ride from King Street to Highpoint Avenue and I arrived at my house. It took me an hour and a half to get home. My daughter took an hour to drive home from Oakville. Even with the heavy, stressful traffic at five in the afternoon, it took 20 minutes by car to get to the region. If I lived in Lakeshore North, I would have had to walk much more than five minutes to get home. as they do not have transit at all. A route for them is proposed for next year. In the fall, regional council is having a brain, storming day to figure out how we can come up with the $300 million needed to fix. widen and build our road infrastructure. Let's make sure transit routes and cycle paths are also on the agerfta, few weeks ago, I stopped at a traffic light Ali'et‘SMe one of the local environmentalists 0 was riding a bike. I rolled down the car window and called out "Hi!" He informed me that it was national no-car day Oops. He said he under stood that as a regional councillor I was very busy. Still, I felt guilt. Though I did nothing about it. last Tuesday evening my younger daughter had to umpire at Cherry Park, a place not easily accessi- ble by transit from north Waterloo. So my husband took on the chauffeur role and drove me to my meeting and my 16-year-old to the ball field. My 20- year-old has a car, but she works in Cambridge for the summer, then drives on to Sheridan College for extra classes. Impossible to even think of transit for her. Will more people take the bus to help stop the smog? The bottom line: Not unless we put more tax money into making it more available. We, you and l, need a commitment to a new way of thinking. I took the bus GUEST , COLUMNIST , F 'li, l ITG - ti, 1 "iiii' w l _ ' 1 bus home from regional headquarters on Frederick put my money where my mouth is and take the 'T decided to Street in downtown Kitchener. " VIEWPOINT RIM right out of the park 1n particular, I have major doubts about the new market the city is planning. Times have changed. and the downtown is no longer the key shopping mean And the big market is in Watedorx The first plan was too ambitious and more in keeping with a larger city, First Gulf was told. The developers overestimated the strength of the Waterloo market. Not everyone shared their optimism, There were some of us who felt the project was just too big to pull off, I didnt write it because I did, n't want to rain on their parade,. 7 but I had doubts from Day One. " . Thethingsyou have tofigure SLNB, is the competition to get the " prime retailers and every other form of prestige business Think of the communities agonizing about the downtowns ‘ offhand, there's Kitchener, Brantford, London. Hamiton, \Vlndsor, St.Thomas, Guelph and so on. About the only city that seems content with its downtown appears to be Stratford, and that's a special case. Still, you should be SA glad that Waterloo isn't doing as Bil Kitchener is: Underwriting knick- knack like dream museums, a market and so on. As noted before, it'll soon be its own biggest land owner, Still. I'll have to admit I don't have any kind ofbusinmsinstinct. Rarexample, iflwerea flmist I'd dose for Mother's Day I like to hear about things that shake up the wodd--like the caveman who invented the wheel turning up to ask General Motors for a royalty. V What Next? You can say this as a certainty: This hasn't been the greatest year forWaterloa Bang on the heels of the RIM Park fiasco, First Gulf, the downtown redeveloper, has served notice it wants to scale back its plans for the core. The revised program it'll unveil June 27 is smaller with more parking and fewer build- ings It will also have no bookstore, cinema and library. Count“ Consolation: Always remember, the amount Watedoo owes still isn't as big as the national debt. Of course, they haven't got today's mail yet . gs aren't so bad. Look at it this way. I George Dubya has made his first trip to Europe and hasn't yet got us in a war. Of course, I think peace and quiet is so middle- Out of the Park: Rim Park got great reviews '/Nlllt'l IllttDilCl.l a; I They'd join the hawk-eyed * Record reporters who first detect- ed something amiss on the num- hem And if you're in a mess now, how would you like to have this to land on you, say. a dozen years from now. (mild Abuse: I live near a school and for only a few days more will I see the kids lurch- ing to school and lemming there from They're all lopsided and it's not because of malnutri- tion. It's because of books You see them totter- ing down the street. toting a briefcase and hoisting about 25 pounds of books in their And, oh yes, in their hot litde hands they dutch an autographed copy of his latest book. a letter of congratulations and a photo of Mick Foley at its opening and now if only the unforeseen debt would take wings and fly away. It wont of course, and I'll be surprised if the amount is discounted even a little. All the folks who were there were impressed with the park and the obvious planning that went into it. Alas, though the project is haunt- ed by the spectre of that gargantuan debt. The parties entered the deal working from the same sheet of papers, and you can only hope the city is discussing the deal in vain in hopes of reducing the numbers I can't see it happening. The other parties can plead they have an obilgation to their shareholders. and they can't help it ifWaterloo statrcouldrit grasp the numbers. Yup, and Waterloo householders are com- ing in for some inelegant jibes about future tax rates. houses suddenly for sale and such. It's too bad the financing is $115 million over the estimate. If it were a lot lower. they could be talking about benefit concerts, fashion shows. car washes and like so Even a collection ofsuch efforts just would- nt cut it. Alternately, you could suggest that the city start buying 649 tickets in bulk. but then you realize it would take dozens of big winners to even make a ik) (tttl dentinthe debt, What's that? You'd make week- ly deductions from the pay of the Waterloo staffers who ilubbed on the Figures, but it would take many a year before the debt is cancelled. About the only good sugges- tion heard thus far is that the two profs who confirmed the Waterloo debt be hired as finam cial consultants on a pan-time