Your Power

Did you know that you can send letters to elected officials for free? That is, if you live in Canada anyway. Simply address it to them, put it in a post box, and it's off to the races.

Now, the odds of your specific councilor, MPP, or MP actually reading the letter are low. But someone in their office will, and they are likely to even respond to you. A form response, but nonetheless a response. Making those student staffers work for their pay.

But, in addition to actually attending things like city council meetings and other extremely boring activities, this is the biggest way you can interact with the administration between elections. And you can really annoy them, which is a solid part of the fun of living in a democracy. You can write letters making requests of your government and not get arrested. How fun is that?

A real finger in the eye of people who think your support is owed to them.

So, how can we use this incredible power effectively? What should we advocate for? And how should we do it?

I'll take for granted that you, my reader, live in Canada. Primarily because this is the system I understand best, and I think most democratic systems operate similarly. To that end, here is what you have to do:

Write a letter, typing one is best for this but if you'd like you can handwrite it. Print it out at a library or local Staples for about $0.10 per sheet or there about, put it in an envelope you can buy from Shoppers for like $30 per few hundred. Address it and stick it in a mailbox for Canada Post to deal with. No postage required.

But what do you write this letter about? Well, I have some ideas.

I live in Ottawa, the national capital and bizarre blend of small town and city with a million plus population. We have a metric (the superior measurement) f*** ton of land, and it's developed in the strangest ways.

At the outskirts we have the place I grew up, which is in most senses a 15-minute neighbourhood. Literally a 1km (39,370 inches) walk from my family's front door is a grocery store, a pharmacy, three small independently owned and operated restaurants, a library, a Tim Horten's (only for when you're desperate after the merger with a Brazilian multi-national), two vets, three dentists, a cannabis dispensary, a pub, many lawyers, a bank, a mechanic, schooling options for grades SK-12 (approximately ages 4-18), extensive sports facilities, forested walking paths, the best sledding hill in the city, community gardens, and a few other businesses to which I don't pay attention.

For housing, we have what I grew up in, a single family detached home with a yard and a pool; two apartment towers, row housing, semi-detached housing, some low-rise multi-unit dwellings that are new, and social housing.

Or at least, we used to be the outskirts.

Beyond our strange bubble that is literally not legally allowed to expand its footprint due to protected green space, is the modern suburban wasteland. A massive strode called Innes Road runs from the highway all the way out to the ass end of Orleans. And on this road are all the massive corporate stores and gas stations you could dream of. There are also enormous housing developments that almost completely lack walkability, public transport access, amenities, schools, or anything else a community needs.

One must have a car to live and work in these places. But it didn't used to be that way. When my family first moved to Ottawa nearly or just over 20 years ago, back when I was young and optimistic, our neighbourhood had three (3) express bus connections to downtown. Three! Can you imagine? I can't. Because the city made a series of incredibly stupid decisions.

Namely, they did not like that the express busses were only at 60% capacity. So, they took away one of the lines, decreased service frequency, and increased pricing, thinking that this would split demand between the remaining lines and thus reach 90% capacity on each. Except, humans are not bound by the laws of fluid dynamics. Public transit was made the less reliable and less convenient option, so people stopped taking it.

The result? The city decreased service again and increased prices. Which led to the same outcome. And now my home community has no express bus access and the buses we have are slow, infrequent, and unreliable. "Ah," says the city government, "the people don't want public transit because it is terrible. The market has spoken."

So, what is the solution? Move to Amsterdam and enjoy quality public infrastructure? Well, I could do that. I could at any time take the red passport that is the legacy of my dad's parents coming from Dublin and jetset my way to that kind of lifestyle. But I don't want to learn Dutch and my family lives here. So, what's the solution?

Snow under the city council with letters. Letters are more impactful than either an email or a phone call, and they're comparatively cheap to send. Demand better from your city administration. Demand public transit that suits the needs of the community.

But where will those buses, trams, and trains go? Why would people bother taking them unless they are going somewhere worthwhile?

Naturally, the answer is downtown. Connect everything to the downtown core and allow people to fully engage with the city there. Except, downtown Ottawa is mostly an urban deadzone with little to interest either tourists or locals. Though, that has somewhat changed with the completion of Phase One of Line One of the city's LTR. Though, not nearly fast enough.

Additionally, there is extreme inefficiency when it comes to going to visit friends. I live in downtown Ottawa now, though at least one friend will contest that, and it still takes me over an hour to visit a friend on transit. Why is that? Simply put, we both don't have enough of it, and they get stuck in traffic.

So, how do we solve that?

The letters written to the city don't need to present perfect solutions. "More trams!" Is a great idea, but only if they're coupled with effective land use. And what do I mean by effective land use? New York or Toronto style skyscrapers blocking the sun, built cheek by jowl along strodes clogged with cars? No. Politely, f*** no!

Demand that your city mandate construction projects that emulate the places you want to leave the suburbs to visit. Paris, London, Amsterdam, Hoboken, Seoul, Tokyo, anywhere that you want to visit, think about why. Think about the stories told about those places.

"Oh! There was this darling little cafe only a few minutes' walk from our hotel. After getting a nice and inexpensive coffee and pastry, we then took the bus/metro/tram/underground/tube/etc. to the museum! After that we walked to parks and enjoyed a glass of wine on a patio and people watched for an hour or two."

Then you look out your suburban window at the identical houses and think, "I'd like to go there someday."

I ask the question, "why? Why don't you, using what power the system gives you, demand that your city build that?"

Personally, I hate modern architecture. I think it looks cheap, gaudy, and lazy. I find that it degrades quickly and what was shiny for a few months now looks like it's been neglected for decades. But if living in a building made of Lego and glass is your bag, then go for it. I'm not the thought police; I can't tell you what to think. Only judge your taste.

So, write to your city. Write to your province or equivalent. Write to your Member of Parliament or equivalent. Demand that they end zoning regulations which only allow for ONE kind of development (this is called Euclidian zoning and is why so many places have exclusively single-family homes with no amenities) and diversify what can be built.

Write to them and demand that they first increase public transit options and reliability, then reduce access to cars.

Now, I know what you're thinking, but cars are not required. They are expensive to buy, own, and operate. Their infrastructure is literally bankrupting hundreds of communities in North America. And the places they incentivize are financially insolvent - car dependent suburbs take more money for the city to build and operate than they generate through any government revenue stream.

Write to them and demand that there be a strict delineation between a street and a road. The former being a place that are full of homes, businesses, community spaces, and offices, while the latter is an artery for moving traffic along. We don't need to remove all personal cars from the roads, we simply need to make it comfortable, safe, and convenient for people to not drive.

There is a myth that exists in the world, but primarily in North America. The myth that a car equals freedom. But, while that can be true if you've been stuck in your parents' backseats your whole life, they are also extremely limiting on our lives in ways that we don't need.

All over the world, things are safe enough for children above a certain age to travel alone on public transit. Not so in most of North America, even where there is public transit available. It is safe in many places for them, and adults, to ride bikes without helmets almost anywhere they need to go. Not so in most of North America.

Cars lock us into certain routes through cities. They limit us with where we can park them. They limit our ability to engage in healthy, every day physical activity. They limit our shopping options by killing small businesses in favour of bulk purchases at big-box stores. And they limit the kind of cities and towns we are able to build and live in.

Parking minimums require a certain number of cars to be able to be parked at every detached house. Increasing the land use requirements. They also demand that apartment buildings have massive underground parking garages, which drastically increase the cost of construction. Do away with them. Give people the freedom to not to have to drive.

But write to your city, your province, and your Parliamentarians. They are working for you, paid by your taxes like it or not, and so you should be demanding that they build for you.

Increasing public transit, demanding mixed use walkable neighbourhoods with reasonably sized buildings, is not only something the old world can do. Yes, the United States is a huge country. Yes, Canada is even larger. And yes, both places have weather extremes not met with in a majority of other countries. But we can build for that. And not only can we, but we used to.

Look back through your town or city's archival photos if it predates the suburban experiment. And tell me you'd rather the way things are today compared to how things used to be. Some of you will, of that I have no doubt. There is, after all, no accounting for taste. But most of us don't.

And we grieve what we lost.

But we can get it back.

All you have to do is write your civil administration and demand it.

Look into places that have succeeded and how. There are even examples on our own continent. We don't need concrete boxes in the sky. I'll leave some links to YouTube channels I recommend and specific videos I think are enlightening. Because it really is magical to see that these things are possible.

Using my numbers from earlier, spend $10 at the libarary plus taxes to get 100 letters. Spend a further $30 to get well over 100 envelopes. And mail them for free. Two per week taking your preferred holiday weeks off, and that's 100 letters per year demanding better.

Convince a friend or neighbour to do it too. That's 200 letters. Convince 2 and that's 300 letters. Already, those are numbers that make politicians, especially city politicians, pay attention. And do this for everything.

Don't accept half-measures. Don't accept crumbs. Demand better because you deserve better. And do it every week for a year, you and your friends, and you will see major change. No door-knocking required. No petitions or volunteer work that means you have to listen to annoying self-righteous people. As easy as sealing a letter and putting it in a box. Your civic duty done for a few days, and the next time, it's just as easy.

Also, the best public transit infrastructure in North America is at Walt Disney World. So, a mega corporation that is exclusively profit-motivated, built the most complex and efficient public transit on the continent, yet for some reason, cities and towns across the land won't because it's "not worth it." Really? I call bullshit.

YouTube Links:

Strong Towns

Not Just Bikes