 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 18, 2012 The Halton Regional Police have a problem on their hands. Their mandate is to respond to public calls for help and in this part of the province they do that rather well. We wouldn’t be known as one of the safest place in the country to live without an efficient responsive police force.
But those man and woman in blue don’t have crystal balls – they react to calls from the public.
 Chief of Police Steve Tanner explains that Social Media is not the same as a 911 call The police note that during the past few weeks, there have been a number of public opinion surveys and news articles circulating regarding the use of social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, during an emergency or crisis situation.
“Some of these surveys indicated that a significant portion of the public believes that if they posted a Facebook status or tweeted a need for immediate police assistance, that police would be aware and respond, similar to a 9-1-1 call.
“Social media is an excellent way for police and other emergency services to have a dialogue with the public we serve, and it is a useful platform to exchange a wide variety of public safety information. That said, it should not be used to contact police, fire or ambulance in the event of an immediate emergency or crisis.
“We want to remind the public that the first and only avenue people should use to contact police in the event of a crime in progress, immediate or imminent public safety risk, or other police-related emergency is to call 9-1-1,” said Halton Chief of Police Steve Tanner.
“During an emergency, a lot of critical and confidential information needs to be exchanged, often under duress, and our 9-1-1 Communicators are best equipped to do this, to ensure you get the help you need as quickly as possible,” explained Chief Tanner.
Social media sites are third-party public platforms, and as such, were never designed or intended to be an appropriate substitute for trained 9-1-1 communicators who are available to immediately answer emergency calls 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
As such, the public is reminded that the @HaltonPolice Twitter feed and official Facebook page are not monitored 24/7, nor do police personnel monitor an individual’s personal Twitter or Facebook accounts for emergency notifications.
“We absolutely encourage people to follow us on social media, and engage in a dialogue with us about their police-related questions or concerns – just not in an emergency situation where your safety or someone else’s is at risk,” said Chief Tanner.
If someone is uncertain if a situation warrants a 9-1-1 call, but is still a matter which requires police response they should call the non-emergency police line, which is also staffed 24/7. In Halton, police non-emergency calls can be made to 905-825-4777, 905-878-5511, or 519-853-2111.
The Halton Regional Police Service official Twitter feed can be found at @HaltonPolice and our Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/HaltonRegionalPoliceService or visit our website at www.haltonpolice.ca
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 16, 2012 You know that the Saturday afternoon you go out to rake them up – more of them are going to fall onto your front lawn or your back yard. And even though you raked up all the leaves from the trees on your property – the wind will blow leaves from the tress form your neighbours trees. Such is life in the suburbs where we get to enjoy the fall colours and then we get to exercise our upper bodies raking them up.
Fortunately the city will take them all away – here is the schedule they will follow.
The city has created a bunch of zones. Check the map below, note the dates and follow the rules as to how you put the leaves out – and it will work out just fine.
Monday, Nov 5: Zones 3, 5, 6, 11, 13
Monday, Nov.12 Zones 1, 2, 4, 7, 8
Thursday, Nov. 22: Zones 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 8B
Thursday, Nov. 29: Zones 3, 5, 7, 11,13
Monday, Dec. 10 : Zones 2, 4, 6, 8, 12
Note: hatched areas ( 1, 8B, 9, 10, 14, 15 & 16 ) receive only one pick-up
 Figure out which zone you are in. Note the dates and get the bags of leaves out on the street in time for the pick up. Your tax dollars at work.  The nice part about the fall season. Everyone of those leaves is going to be on the ground – soon. This is the nice part of the fall season. Raking them up and chasing the squirrels off the lawn and then getting the property ready for the winter – happens every year.
There are, believe it or not, people in Burlington who don’t know about Our Burlington. Do your neighbours a favour and tell them about the web site – the map is useful
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 12, 2012 The team is coming together. They’ve met often enough now to know each other reasonably well and the objective is crystal clear. Len Lifhcus, Chief Executive Officer for the combined Burlington/Hamilton United Way operation – with a campaign team in each city, makes the point, if they don’t already get it, when he says “we need an exceptional campaign to reach our target this year”.
 Part of the Burlington United Way Campaign Cabinet – From the left – Brian Ferguson, Kendra, Wendy Derrick, Scott Massey, Richard Rizzo, Robyn. Tim Miron. Interesting conversation going on in the corner. That target for the Burlington portion of the Burlington/Hamilton United Way 2013 total is $2.1 million. Everyone involved knows what they have to do – and they know that the calls have to be made and the energy maintained. All the reliable donours from past years have to be contacted, cheques picked up and thanks given for the support.
It can be a grind but for the 20 odd people who met in the United Way Board room on Harvester Road last week, it was a chance to get caught up and report on what had been done.
It’s a slightly different Campaign Cabinet – there are more younger faces in the room. Many of the people who were there Friday had either made lunches and gotten kids off to school or got a call into their office to get things moving on that side of their lives.
Burlington chair Paddy Torsney is focusing on events that will involve people. She has a number of low cost events in place. Four food trucks will gather in the United Way parking lot on Harvester Road – 3425 Harvester, east of Walkers Line 11-00 am to 2:00 pm. If you work in the area drop by and take in a Food Truck Lunch. If you expect to be driving by – pull in – there is plenty of parking space.
Participating in this event are: Gorilla Cheese,; Caplansky’s; Hank Daddy’s BBQ and The Cupcake Diner
Another date you want to note is October 28th – The Runway @ the Rude – Sunday, October 28 – 1:00pm – 4:00pm at the Rude Native Bistro & Lounge – 370 Brant Street
Fashion show accompanied by lunch, door prizes and raffles! Tickets $25 (available at all vendors – click image below to enlarge) The price is right, the United Way will benefit. I want to know who is going to walk that Runway – and what will they be wearing? Stay tuned.
The Mystery Night – event. This one is so interesting that we will cover it in a separate story.
Debra Pickfield Think Master over at ThinkSpot has been tasked with introducing small and medium sized companies to the United Way payroll deduction program, which allows employees to instruct their employers to deduct a bit of money from their pay cheque each week and automatically send the total to United Way. Many small companies add an amount to the employee portion.
Many in the small business community think that payroll deduction is for the big operations. A payroll deduction can be set up for as few as two people. The Burlington United Way hasn’t had a lot of success in getting through to the smaller businesses in the city – the Mystery Night might be just the tool to bring these people in
 City General Manager Kim Phillips pulls for the United Way drive during the city hall staff outing to raise funds. If we all do this the $2.1 million target will be easily met. The Burlington team: Hon. Paddy Torsney, Campaign Chair VP, The Capital Hill Group; Jim Frizzle, United Way Board Liaison. Retired, RBC Royal Bank; Richard Rizzo, Senior Tax Manager, SB Partners; Jamie Edwards, Broker of Records, J.M. Edwards Associates Inc.; Wendy Derrick, Owner & Director, Fern Hill School; Greg Jones, Director, Corporate Communications & Community Relations, Newalta; Tim Miron, Senior Manager, Beckett Lowden Read; Scott Massey, NPI Project Lead, L3 Wescam; Kim Phillips, General Manager, Corporate Services, City of Burlington; David Euale, Director of Education, Halton District School Board; Michael Pautler, Director of Education, Halton Catholic District School Board; Gayle Cruikshank, Executive Director, Halton Food for Thought; Brian Ferguson, Campaign Vice-Chair Senior Manager, Sourcing, VMware; Jason Lemaich, Director of Retail Sales – Ontario, Pepsico Beverages Canada.
They aren’t going to raise the $2.1 million by themselves – give them more than a helping hand – please.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 12, 2012 Someone seems to have forgotten who got the ball rolling when it came to fighting the application Nelson Aggregates planned to make for an additional license to take stone out of the ground on the Mt. Nemo Plateau.
According to Roger Goulet, it was Isobel Harmer and her daughter Sarah along with Dick Lyons who held that very first meeting more than seven and a half years ago.
 PERL wants to ensure that when this quarry is mined out that the site is properly rehabilitated and returned to the public. The depth will make it a magnificent lake when water is allowed to build up. In a press release the city lauds almost everyone except the PERL people. It was the research that PERL folks did on the Jefferson Salamander which had one of its few habitat on the Harmer family property.
Councillor John Taylor, whose ward encompasses much of the Escarpment, and who knows the people who fought with him on an issue he is very passionate about, seemed to have forgotten who his allies really are when he said: “My thanks go out to the city’s legal team, including environmental lawyer Rod Northey of Fogler Rubinoff in Toronto. City staff demonstrated the values that we as a community cherish. They showed a passion for the environment and a commitment to preserving the Niagara Escarpment.”
The best the Mayor could do was say: “This is excellent news for the people of Burlington and for the Niagara Escarpment, a world biosphere reserve.” To his credit however, the Mayor did arrange to buy one of the limited edition prints of Mt. Nemo that decorates his office.
PERL has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and still owes a significant amount to various creditors, yet made no mention of PERL when Taylor said: “My thanks go out to the city’s legal team, including environmental lawyer Rod Northey of Fogler Rubinoff in Toronto. said Ward 3 Councillor John Taylor. “City staff demonstrated the values that we as a community cherish. They showed a passion for the environment and a commitment to preserving the Niagara Escarpment.”
 Few in Burlington fully understand how much harm was being done to the Escarpment as a result of the quarry. Thus topographical map shows where the quarry is in relationship to the Escarpment. The site is shown in red outline. The land Nelson Aggregates wanted a license to quarry is just below the existing quarry. PERL wants to work with the public to come up with a plan to protect all of the plateau. What would you do with this part of the city if you had a voice? To his credit Taylor did put out a second statement the next day recognizing the PERL contribution. One would have thought every elected or appointed official would have bumped into each other getting to a microphone to talk about how important it is to have public spirited citizens doing the hard work that brings about results like this Ontario Municipal Board decision.
Public accolades are not that important to the PERL people. They will meet next week to celebrate a bit more and then buckle down to planning a very public celebration and then move on to their Nemo 7g project, which is a look at a much more far ranging plan for the Mt. Nemo plateau and – to ensuring that something useful gets done with the quarry site Nelson is still taking stone out of.
The longer term plan, which is to let the site fill up with water over time, was put together more than 25 years ago and Roger Goulet thinks that plan is very much out of date.
While Nelson Aggregate is not a part of the Nemo 7G organization, one would hope that there might at some point be talks with Nelson to perhaps turn the whole thing over to PERL and let them do what should be done with the site.
It’s a pretty big operation and, if Burlington can follow the pattern that we see in St. Mary’s, ON, where the old quarry was turned into a swimming pool for residents, a very respectable park could be located on that property.
PERL wants to now transition itself from an advocacy group, formed to fight a major battle, into an organization that moves on to the next step which is to ensure there is a community based plan for all of the Mt. Nemo plateau.
They formed Nemo7G to gather community input and form a 7-generation vision for the Mount Nemo plateau.
The vision is to develop and implement a multigenerational plan that will balance sociocultural, technological, ecological, economic and regulatory factors to protect and enhance the natural, recreational and spiritual qualities of the Mount Nemo plateau for current and future generations.
 It was Isobel Harmer and her daughter Sarah who were the early advocates for a community response to an application by a mining company for a second license to take stone out of the Mt Nemo plateau. Dick Lyons was at the table with the Harmer’s PERL has taken on the task of providing the leadership and mobilizing community members, governments and businesses to develop and participate in defining a 7 generation plan
The objective is to preserve our natural capital while improving the diversity and quality of living for all forms of life on the Mt. Nemo plateau through collaborative, educational, energy-efficient and spiritual means.
The first step is to educate the community, businesses and governments on the values of the community and the natural heritage of the Mt. Nemo plateau and ideally transform the quarry into a world renowned, economically self-sustaining site that embodies the spiritual, environmental and recreational aspirations of the community.
Big job – you bet it is. But PERL has shown that it has the organizational depth plus the level of ongoing commitment needed to stick it out and not back down. Now, given the grace they have shown this past few days, they should be able to take the talks that have already taken place with Nelson Aggregates to a new level and work with that company to come up with a long range plan that will benefit the immediate community as well as the people who live south of the Dundas – 407 corridor who see Mt. Nemo as a nature walk destination.
 That clump of land in the middle of the quarry will eventually become a small island in a man made lake. Burlington city council has held receptions for all the Olympians who represented Canada in London and Monday night council will recognize the magnificent achievement of Brandon Wagner: who competed in men’s wheelchair basketball in the London 2012 Paralympic Games where he won a Gold medal.
Not to take away one bit of the recognition that young man deserves, nor diminish the inspiration he will be to thousands of disabled men and woman, but the Mt. Nemo we know today will be there for centuries after we are nothing but ashes. PERL is making sure it doesn’t get turned into a super highway with parking lots and picnic tables.
Time for the city to recognize all of its heroes.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 12, 2012 Sustainable Development, is one of the city’s advisory committees; one of the Mayors favourites. They are hosting an event to show residents that there are several ways to enjoy cycling as a primary form of transportation in Burlington.
What does this have to do with sustainable development? And is cycling really a primary form of transportation in a city like Burlington and in the Canadian climate?
As part of the Take Action Burlington program, “Get in Gear” is bringing together medical, environmental and social experts to discuss ideal ways to make cycling safe, fun and rewarding in Burlington. The event – free – takes place at Central Library (2331 New St.) on Thursday, Oct. 18, from 7 to 9 p.m.
Special guests at Take Action Burlington: Get in Gear, include: Dr. Monir Taha, Assoc. Medical Officer of Health, Halton Region, Kevin Love, Burlington Sustainable Development Committee, Justin Jones, Clean Air Partnership, Abram Bergen, THAAT Delivery, and Jack Dennison, Burlington Ward 4 City Councillor
 For Rob Narejko a good ride on one of his bikes is better than a night out. A passionate believer in greater use of bicycles, Narejko has served on the city’s cycling committee for some time. He recently led a night ride that had some 20+ people out on the roads at night. “Burlington is a city of vibrant neighbourhoods criss-crossed by multi-use paths and bike lanes – and there will be more to come,” says avid cyclist and Ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison. “It is a council priority to increase the number of people who cycle, walk and roll in Burlington.”
Dennison is a major supporter of cycle use in the city but during the process of setting the budget for 2012 he carved large chunks of money out of gas tax money we get for transit and shoved it into “shave and pave” – so that our roads will last a little longer. Now Jack will argue that he was saving money by investing in infrastructure and he might be right.
Scott Stewart, “general manager of development and infrastructure sees “a genuine need to make cycling in Burlington more accessible and more enjoyable. ” What does that mean? How realistic is it all?
Sustainable development has been defined in many ways, but the most frequently quoted definition is from Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:
the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.”
The sustainable development philosophy requires that we see the world as a system—a system that connects space; and a system that connects time. When you think of the world as a system over space, you grow to understand that air pollution from North America affects air quality in Asia, and that pesticides sprayed in Argentina could harm fish stocks off the coast of Australia.
And when you think of the world as a system over time, you start to realize that the decisions our grandparents made about how to farm the land continue to affect agricultural practice today; and the economic policies we endorse today will have an impact on urban poverty when our children are adults.
We also understand that quality of life is a system, too. It’s good to be physically healthy, but what if you are poor and don’t have access to education? It’s good to have a secure income, but what if the air in your part of the world is unclean? And it’s good to have freedom of religious expression, but what if you can’t feed your family?
 Special lanes for bicycles and the speed at which vehicles travel along city roads are an ongoing concern for Rob Narejko who stands here beside recently painted sharrows on city streets. The concept of sustainable development is rooted in this sort of systems thinking. It helps us understand ourselves and our world. The problems we face are complex and serious—and we can’t address them in the same way we created them. But we can address them.
Fine, I buy into most of that. No doubt in the minds of most people, that we are experiencing global warming and we’re pretty sure we know why this is happening. And, we know that we can do something about the way we treat the climate we have. But, is riding my bike down Guelph Line going to change the environment? It gives me a pretty decent chance of getting killed as I try to get over the QEW hump. I’m not safe until I get to Woodward Avenue, where I can make a right hand turn and pedal pleasantly along as I make my way to city hall, where I spend far too much of my time.
I’ll do what I can to save this planet. But please don’t ask me to get on my bike and roll along Guelph Line – it just ain’t safe.
At a recent Council committee meeting Rob Narejko, a biggy in Burlington cycling circles delegated on the speed limits on various roads in the city with Walker’s Line getting most of the attention. Walkers Line, north of Dundas, really isn’t a properly paved road; it’s a pitch and chip covered road that doesn’t have much in the way of a shoulder for cyclists but they like it nevertheless; it’s the safest of the three roads that carry traffic into the northern part of the city.
It is also the road the cyclists like to use because it has the kind of terrain they like and it is pretty safe as far as the speed of the passing traffic goes.
From a sustainability point of view – isn’t Walkers Line then a road we would want to upgrade so that there was space on the sides for cyclists and wouldn’t we want to keep the speed limit at the 50k? Isn’t that what we mean by sustainability?
There is an opportunity to develop a very healthy Eco-tourism business in the city if we provide roads that are safe and speed limits that take into account the fact that people use the roads as well. THAT is what sustainability is really about.
There was no mention of upgrading Walkers Line and there was no suggestion that this should be made a “wanna get” in our long range budget thinking. Unfortunate. It will be interesting to hear what the experts have to say.
Meanwhile Eva Amos, an Our Burlington reader, reflects what appears to be the prevailing view in this city: Burlington is “Quickly becoming not one of the very best places to live if you are a motorist in Burlington. The population is exploding, the roads are being narrowed, the aggressive driving is increasing largely due to the configuration of the roads. Prime examples are Lakeshore in the downtown core which was to have been a pilot project, deferred for review to 2011.
No review yet. Now the narrowing of Guelph Line, Walkers Line and Appleby Line south of New street and Plains Road. Stand on any one of these corners and with every light change you will see the aggressive drivers driving up the short curb lanes only to cut off the drivers in the single through lane. Add to this, the long line of idling cars trying to squeeze into the single lanes adding to the pollution. Councillors and Mr. Mayor. You are not going to get the majority of people in Burlington on bikes. Please give us back our roads so we can get around the city in a safe and timely fashion. We have wonderful bike paths throughout the city for our cyclists, I being one of them.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 11. 2012 This date will go down as a major victory for the city of Burlington and an example of what a determined group of citizens can accomplish when they put their minds to it.
There will be no expansion to the Nelson Quarry on Guelph Line.
The Ontario Municipal Board released a decision earlier today that the Nelson application for a quarry expansion has been dismissed!
 This is the last quarry we will see on Mt. Nemo. The application to expand this quarry was dismissed earlier today by the Ontario Municipal Board. Details are a little sparse at the moment – they will come out in the days ahead. Right now it is time to take stock and realize that good ideas put forward by well researched community organizations can prevail.
Elaine LaChapelle of PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Lands) was stunned when she was given the news by telephone. She logged into the PERL email lists and there is was – loads of detail.
Roger Goulet, President of PERL advises that Sara Harmer and her Mother along with Dan Lions were the people who were at the bedside when PERL was born seven and a half years ago.
They slogged every month since then and raised money through concerts, garage sales, entertainment events – the only thing they apparently didn’t do was hold car washes.
The expenses is in the hundreds of thousands – let me say that again – the hundreds of thousands, a large part of which has yet to be paid. There has to be a massive community benefit to erase this debt.
Much more to tell but for the moment – savour a great day for Burlington and the Halton Region and an even greater day for the environment.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON October 11, 2012 It’s going to get a little sticky in terms of traffic on Lakeshore road for the next couple of weeks – the Region is putting in a water main on Lakeshore Road between Martha Street and Old Lakeshore Road (east) in the City of Burlington. Construction starts on October 15th – this project is going to run through to parts of November.
 Construction area is shown in blue, Detours are in green and lane closures are shown in red. The eastbound lane on Lakeshore Road will be closed for up to two weeks, from Monday to Friday, between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. During those times, eastbound traffic will be rerouted along Old Lakeshore Road at Pearl Street. Local access to businesses will be maintained at all times.
 Watermain work being done by the Regional government is going to tie up traffic on Lakeshore Road for the next while. The eastbound lane on Lakeshore Road will be closed for up to two weeks, from Monday to Friday, between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. During those times, eastbound traffic will be rerouted along Old Lakeshore Road at Pearl Street. Local access to businesses will be maintained at all times.
On Tuesday October 16, construction will occur within the intersection of Martha Street and Pine Street, between the hours of 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., to install new isolation valves as part of the larger construction project. Through traffic will be maintained.
At the beginning of November, water main construction will move to Martha Street, closing the southbound lane between Pine Street and Lakeshore Road. At that time, southbound vehicles will be rerouted west along Pine Street to Pearl Street.
All construction and site restoration is expected to be finished by mid-December, weather permitting. Unfinished restoration work will be completed by spring 2013.
Which is just about the time the city hopes to have completed the pier. Will it be done before the pier?
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 10, 2012 The lot has been empty for a long time – it sits there next to the Wal-Mart store just south of the GO Station. At a recent council committee Ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison suggested the Molinaro Group make one of the buildings an office tower – not a chance, the Molinaro boys know where the profit is.
 While there are just five 20 storey structures – take a look at all those three and four storey levels. It’s going to be condominiums with some rental in all five of the 20 storey towers that were approved for the site some time ago by the Ontario Municipal Board.
The previous owners sold the land to the Molinaro’s who are ready to meet with the community and talk about what they want to put up.
 Bunton’s Wharf – a Molinaro Group project, one of several that created a condo community in Burlington.  Spencer’s Landing – located on Maple and Lakeshore Road – a part of the community that has been good to and good for the Molinaro Group. They have a new project at Brock and Elgin that will see shovels in the ground this month. These guys know how to get a building up. Is there anything in Burlington they didn’t build? Look at the list: The Strata on Maple; 360 on Pearl, The Bunton’s Wharf, Spencer’s Landing and the Baxter; that is an impressive list. And they are about to break ground on the project over on Brock. For the most part the Molinaro Group gets their projects through the community process. The Brock project gave them some indigestion and they appear to have learned something from that exercise and are holding a public meeting at the Performing Arts Centre on October 25th at 7:00 pm.
Now if the Molinaro Group sets out a selection of some fine Italian wine or opts instead for an open bar – this project will just sail through.
But it is located within Ward 2 and that’s Meed Ward territory and she will have something to say about the street scape, the amenities and the impact the five structures are going to have on the local community and the wider community as well. A plaza is planned for the site.
 Sitting to the immediate south of the GO station with a chance that there will be a direct link into the GO station; this Molinaro Group project could become very popular, very quickly. Average unit size is said to be 700 sq. ft. Proposed as a 1000 + condo development the buildings will certainly help the city (if not put them over) the intensification the province is calling for, Many might be quite happy to see a forest of buildings go in as long as they aren’t just plain ugly to keep an infill being done in their neighbourhoods.
The range of units will run from affordable to luxury with the average size coming in at 700 square feet. That suggests this isn’t going to be a building aimed at families but rather singles that want to be mobile and able to get onto a GO train in minutes and be in Toronto.
 The people over at the Molinaro Group are quick to learn the language city hall needs to hear. During Council Workshops on development of the downtown core the phrase “mobility hub” came to the surface – a hub being a place where the various type of transportation come together. And in Burlington transportation is a combination of the GO trains and the highway. With this project the GO station is across the street and the highway is a couple of left turns away. This is a done deal!
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 10, 2012 He isn’t his Father – has more of his Mother’s face, but he does have charm and a charisma that will probably build. He also has very good hair – which he never fails to mention; three times in his talk to a room of 200+ people who gathered at the Burlington Art Centre.
I stood less than five feet away from his Father many times when he was winning the Liberal leadership race in 1968 – at that time Trudeaumania had taken over.
 It hasn’t reached a fever pitch yet – it might not, but he does know how to pull all the heart strings, Both his hair and his children get many mentions. The bold new ideas? – haven’t heard those yet. What he did assure his audience was that he had very solid values – but didn’t make much mention of what they were. There was no Trudeaumania in the room this afternoon but there was a young man who knew what to say and was very good gathering people around him. He is genuinely comfortable in crowds and tends to reach out and touch people when he is talking to them. There is nothing wooden about this man.
He said all the right things. He distanced himself from the old Liberal habit of convincing Canadians that they, the Liberals, made Canada what it was. Justin instead said that the Liberals would listen to Canadians and work with Canadians to build this country into what everyone wants it to be.
He added that with all the communication tools available to use today Canadians should, can and will be able to talk to the politicians – and we are going to listen”, he assured the audience.
He said that in 2000 “we had 170 seats in the House; that dropped down to 135 in the next election and in a couple of elections after that we got to the 35 seats we have today”. He assured his audience that the number would never fall below one seat because he was going to hold Papineau, the seat he has won twice.
As I stood before this young man who wants to lead the country, I saw a harder face than his Father’s. The hint of his Father’s voice was there, and the shy smile that I once saw on his Mother’s face as she was being introduced to a large crowd.
We didn’t hear anything in the way of bold statements – no “Just Society” initiatives. He offered nothing other than a willingness to pull Canadians together and get away from ideological parties that think they can win an election even if they don’t hold Quebec or if they don’t do well in Alberta.
 He looks you right in the eye, reaches out to touch you and has that light pleasant smile. He used all the usual political tricks – mentioned that he would be away from his family on his Father’s birthday and that what he was doing was a personal sacrifice. “My kids need me at home” he said “but this country needs all of you helping to make the country what it could be.” Trudeau wanted to get beyond the divisions, the envy and the mistrust.” “We can do politics differently”, he urged the audience.
Trudeau is learning to use his voice – he is good and he will get better. No soaring rhetoric yet nor is there the cockiness his Father brought to the platform. This young man has yet to learn to reach out and boldly challenge an audience. His Father once asked Alberta’s farmers why he should bother to sell their wheat for them. Justin Trudeau will speak earnestly about how he wants to work with those same farmers to not only sell their wheat but to get a better price for them as well. And he is going to have to go that far if he is to ever win a single seat in that province.
 Is he what we want? The name doesn’t hurt – now what has he got in the way of ideas? He visited three communities during this tour with a rally in Hamilton tonight where he will ask that city to not only select him as leader but to send more Liberals to Ottawa while they are at it.
Trudeau is polishing his road tour. He knows he has a long road ahead and he wants to make sure that his run for the leadership of the Liberal party doesn’t become a coronation. He knows that if he doesn’t strike a chord in the heart of Canadians he may win the leadership but he won’t manage to win an election. And for Justin Pierre James Trudeau, winning the election is what’s it’s all about.
Burlington’s Paddy Torsney will be in that audience tonight. Will she experience any stirrings and think perhaps about how many election signs she has in storage?
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 10, 2012 How many times do we have to tell those guys at Queen’s Park that we don’t want a highway going through the Escarpment. Not now – not ever.
 This is what we understand the Ministry of Transportation is putting forward as possible options for a road that will handle the traffic coming out of the Fort Erie part of the province and get it into the GTA – some of it through Burlington. Not on says the Mayor and the Regional Chair. The gray areas represent where a road could be located. That one to the right – the long thin one – that’s Burlington country.
The bureaucrats are in the final stage of preparing their recommendations which are believed to now be in the hands of the Minister of Transportation who will review the documents and eventually take something to someone and make a decision.
Burlington doesn’t want to give the government any reason to think we have changed our minds or that the government is going to be able to grind us down and is holding yet another public meeting to get our message to Queen’s Park.
Mainway Recreation Centre – 7:00 pm October 23rd
Some people wonder why there has to be public meeting after public meeting to convince a provincial government that a community doesn’t want what the government is proposing. Don’t governments just do what they want to do anyway. Actually no – public input can and has made the difference in the past.
The airport in Pickering never got built because of public protest. The Spadina Expressway was stopped in its tracks because of public protest. On that one, the then Premier Bill Davis made a decision, that all but stopped the Spadina from ever happening.
If the public keeps pushing back – the government does hear.
Regional Chair Gary Carr puts what we are faced with in perspective when he says: “For almost 10 years, Halton Region, the City of Burlington and a core group of concerned residents have been advocating against a new Provincial highway that would cut through the Escarpment in North Burlington”.
 This is the Escarpment we are talking about. Our country, our rural country – forever. “Halton Regional Council has fought hard to protect and preserve our environment and agricultural community.” “The proposed Provincial highway through Burlington would not only decimate our prime agricultural resource, it would also devastate the Niagara Escarpment and the Ontario Greenbelt. We are committed to advocating to the Province to protect our rural communities to ensure that Halton remains a great place to live, work, raise a family and retire.”
Carr adds that “Halton Regional Council has consistently and unanimously opposed a new highway crossing the Niagara Escarpment since it was first proposed by the Province. Despite political promises made, the Provincial Environmental Assessment (EA) for this plan still includes a possible route across the escarpment. With the Provincial Ministry of Transportation preparing to release their EA study findings, Halton Region and the City of Burlington, in conjunction with the Stop the Escarpment Highway Coalition (SEHC) is hosting a public meeting to update residents on the Provincial process and hear feedback.
“We’ve worked hard to make sure the Province understands our position on this – we oppose any highway that would cut across the Niagara Escarpment,” said Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring. “Such a highway will irreparably damage the Greenbelt, the Escarpment and the very character of Burlington. I encourage residents to add their voices to this issue.”
 These are the stages the province wants the process of deciding if there is going to be a highway – and if there is going to be one – where will it go. The public is a part of this process – don’t lose your opportunity to speak – bring your children to the meeting – they will be fighting this battle 15 years from now. The Ministry of Transportation is expected to release the findings of their study shortly. Regional Chair Carr and Burlington Mayor Goldring want to get a few words into the ear of the Minister before the recommendations are made public. The meeting with the Minister of Transportation is scheduled to take place before the public meeting on the 23rd. Carr says it is for some time next week, but the government might fall before then.. If the meeting does take place perhaps they will come back with some good news.
The people organizing the meeting on the 23rd have invited Burlington’s representative in the Legislature, opposition member Jane McKenna, who is getting quite a bit better at making a point when she wants to. Expect her to work at gaining some political points at the meeting.
If the province finds itself in an election (and that is going to happen sooner rather than later) and they decide to announce a road is going to be built – forget getting the Burlington seat into the Liberal camp.
Expect to see some kind of a mealy mouthed statement from the province.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON October 10, 2012 – In what they are describing as a program to bring expanded healthcare services closer to home the provincial government has announced a new program that allows the delivery of some services from pharmacists including the publicly funded flu shot and getting their prescriptions renewed.
In addition to giving the flu shot, pharmacists can now also:
Renew or adapt existing prescriptions
Prescribe medication to help people quit smoking
Demonstrate how to use an asthma inhaler or inject insulin
Support patients who have a chronic disease, such as diabetes, monitor their condition
 There are some people who never get used to a flu shot. These can now be given at a pharmacy – don’t need to go to the doctors office Expanding the role of highly trained pharmacists is part of the McGuinty government’s Action Plan for Health Care. The plan gives Ontarians better access to family doctors, nurse practitioners and other health care providers, to ensure that health care dollars are spent most efficiently.
This will be the 13th year the flu shot has been offered in Ontario.
People (over the age of five) can visit participating local pharmacies starting Oct. 22 where specially trained pharmacists will give them the flu shot as part of Ontario’s Universal Influenza Immunization Program.
Hopefully the line up at the drug store will be less than the waiting time in a doctors office.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 10, 2012 Under the circumstances it was the best they could do.
Later this month seven names will be drawn from those who enter the draw to have an impression of their hands made out of plaster that will later be poured into concrete and become a part of the decoration for the pier when it open – which we note is now set for the “summer” of 2013. The draw location is HERE. You have until October 16th to submit your name. Children must have the permission of a parent or guardian and must provide name, age and contact information.
 Seven elementary students will have plaster molds made of their hands which will later be turned into concrete castings that will be used to decorate the pier when it is open to the public – date set for summer of 2013 “This is an exciting opportunity for children to interact with Burlington’s newest landmark,” said Mayor Rick Goldring. “I encourage all Burlington elementary school-aged children to enter to have your name drawn to leave a lasting impression on the Brant Street Pier.”
The selected children’s hand print impressions will be taken during a celebration event on Saturday, Oct. 20 at 1 p.m. in Spencer Smith Park, just east of the pier. Prior to the event, Mayor Goldring and each of the city’s six ward Councillors will draw one name from each ward and one extra name for a total of seven. The children will be asked to place a nut and bolt into one of the pier’s connecting plates for one of the final steel girders.
“Everyone is invited to witness this milestone, sip a hot cider and enjoy this celebration at the pier,” said Scott Stewart, General Manager of Development and Infrastructure. “Having children become part of the pier construction connects the Burlington community with the pier they will enjoy for many years to come.”
It’s a good idea – but it could have been better. The contractor sort of got in the way of an idea that would have given everyone and anyone in Burlington a chance to leave their mark on the pier.
A couple of months ago we took a trip to Kitchener to look around one of the companies that was doing the welding of those beams that created so much difficulty for both the city and the contractor.
On the way back from that tour an idea got put out and everyone in the car liked the idea and people that can make things happen at city hall began to look into it.
The idea was to have one of the girders that is to be installed on the pier set out on the promenade in front of the construction site. The girder would be mounted on a platform where everyone and anyone could sign their names to the 40 foot length of steel.
The hope was that thousands would show up and take advantage of the opportunity to be part of the history of the city. People in Burlington would be telling their grandchildren that their signature was on one of the steel beams out on that pier.
But alas – it wasn’t to be. The construction company owns the site and they get to decide on what gets done with the steel and all the other parts of the pier. And they weren’t able or prepared to loan the city a steel girder for part of a Saturday afternoon.
This pier is so far behind schedule that half a day just wasn’t available.
So the city has to live with the impression of the hands of seven elementary school children.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 10, 2012 Things are just a popping in Burlington. We went for close to 100 years with a Prime Minister never even stopping in Burlington for a washroom break – and that was in the days when Freeman Station was operational.
 Justin Trudeau, in town to charm the local Liberals. Expect Paddy Torsney to be in the room. Mike Wallace as well? I don’t think so. Then last year we have the Prime Minister in town for an opening thingy at the Performing Arts Centre and then a month or so later and he is in town again to meet with an ethnic group.
The Dauphine, was the title used by the eldest son of a King – and Pierre Trudeau was the closest thing this country ever had to a King. It is fitting then that the son, Justin, be referred to as The Dauphine. The title was used in France from about 1349 to 1830.
Justin Trudeau will speak at the Burlington Arts Centre at 3:00 pm this afternoon. The Liberals would like to know if you plan to attend. Email them at: bfla@bfla.ca.
They might ask you to sign up or take a lawn sign when the election call comes.
 Debra Coyne, another Liberal leadership aspirant was in town recently to woo the Liberals in this city. Earlier this month Debra Coyne was in town to speak at the annual meeting of the federal Liberals. Coyne is the former lover of the late Pierre Trudeau. Her daughter is Justin Trudeau’s half-sister.
That could get a little awkward on the Liberal leadership campaign trail. Who ever said Canadians were dull boring people?
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 8. 2012 The BIG Move was done – successfully. CN rail people are now on the site doing what railway people do – readying the tracks for GO and freight traffic Tuesday morning.
 CN rail workers pause while a freight train passes through a very busy construction site. Business is business and railway traffic needs to move – so while crews laid down steel track and stone ballast to keep everything in place CN still moved long freight trains – very slowly.
Steve Taylor and Jeb Pittsinger from Hatch Mott MacDonald, the consultants on this project, were on site to observe and comment if they had to. In a wonderful Irish lilt Taylor commented “this has been a joy to observe. It went without a hitch and it is, based on what I know about these things, the biggest that has ever been done. And Taylor should know – he’s done 23 of these moves.
 Bob Jurk, Burlington’s senior project manager on the Big Move project has his daughter on the site, all suited up with safety gear, looking over what kept her father away from home much of Thanksgiving. Bob Jurk was on site again with his daughter. He had to do something to show why he had been away from the house for the past three days.
There were a few members of the public still in the little reviewing stand the city put up. It really wasn’t possible to see very much from the stands but the city made the effort. All the action was taking place down in the pit that was being excavated – and you just couldn’t see anything down there from the stands.
 Vital work getting done if the GO train is to run on these rails Tuesday morning. While it is busy – it seems much less exciting than watching a five million pound tunnel get pushed into position. Biggest project of its type – ever – here in Burlington  Front end loader bounced around over and around railway tracks dropping stone ballast over railway tracks. People working on the site continually used the phrase “a live site” and it was certainly that. Trucks with tires that would dwarf the average man roared through the place. Big front end loaders with a couple of tons of stone bounced around over and around the railway tracks as they laid down the stone ballast that keeps the steel rails and the ties they are attached to in place.
 Looking down into what will become the roadway leading into the King Road underpass as heavy equipment removes the base the hydraulic jack hammers worked from as they inched a 5 million pound concrete box into place. Railway tracks were then relaid for GO train traffic the next day. Oh that construction on the Pier could go as well! The various teams who made it all happen were on the site dis-assembling their equipment and getting it ready for the next job. Three of the four rail lines are in the process of being re-laid while the fourth is close to ready to be laid down this afternoon.
 Public viewing stands were a good gesture on the part of the city – but people really couldn’t see very much from the location. It’s all that was available. The track bed for the first GO train, scheduled to depart from Hamilton will leave the Aldershot station at just after 4:00 am on Tuesday – and the tracks will be in place and fully tested. Most of the people on that train will be a little dreary eyed and may not even know that one of the most complicated and impressive engineering feasts ever done for a railway underpass took place in Burlington on the Thanksgiving weekend of 2012.
The Pier, we regret to inform you, has not done as well. The crew down there were given the weekend as a holiday.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 8, 2012 The Friends of freeman Station have a three year lease at the princely sum of $1 a year with an option to renew the least for an additional three years. The property they have leased is just to the east of the Fire Station on Plans Road on a piece of land three quarters of an acre in size.
The Freeman Station, said James Smith, President of the public group that has banded together to save the structure, will sit on a foundation and be clearly visible to people driving by on Plains Road.
 We all know what we want it to look like; we all know where we want it to go. The Friends of Freeman Station have found a location to refurbish the structure on and they’ve raised the money to move the building. Council now needs to approve the Joint venture with the city. Getting to the point where they can move the structure from where it has been since 2005 onto a piece of property and begin the process of refurbishing the building and getting it back to pristine condition, has taken a long, long time during which our city council certainly didn’t surpass themselves. With federal stimulus money in their pockets the city couldn’t find a place to put the structure and got to the point where they ran advertisements asking if there was anyone who wanted the building.
It was only when Councillor Marianne Meed Ward stepped forward and put together a community based committee that looked for a way to save the station. Councillor Blair Lancaster joined Meed Ward and that kept the building away from the wrecking crew. Councillor Sharman was quite solicitous during that stage of the stations life urging people who delegated to accept the fact that the station just might have to go.
 Councillor Meed Ward was the person who took the steps to keep the Freeman Station alive while a citizens group was formed to raise the funds and refurbish the building. The city itself failed miserably to ensure the building was saved even with federal Stimulus Funds in their pockets. Meed Ward managed to get some Section 37 money from a Molinaro Group project assigned to the fund that was being created. There was still some money in a city reserve fund available – if the community could do some fund raising of their own. The Friends need between $80,000 and $130,000 to secure the building, build a foundation and move the structure. They have $75,000 in hand and Heritage Burlington has pledged $10,000 and will also match donations up to $5,000. This is a done deal!
The Friends succeeded at with two objectives. They found a place to put the station and the managed to raise a reasonable amount of money. They were able to convince Ashland Canada to rent them a piece of property which was beside the location the building was parked in. With those two feathers in their cap they could now go to the city and get approval to enter into the rental agreement and obtain permission to move the station.
The Friends of the Freeman station are now in the final stages of entering into a joint Venture Agreement that will have the Friends renovating the station with funds they raise. The city will still own the structure.
The city came perilously close to seeing the historic structure becoming firewood for anyone who would cover the cost of hauling it away.
People in the Project Management offices of the Corporate Strategic Initiatives department of the city, who should have known better, led a council committee astray by making it sound as if the building needed a little more than a strong wind for it to fall apart. My parents called some of the statements made “fibs”. Council listened at the time but didn’t buy all they heard and went along with the citizen effort to save the building. Not whole heartedly mind you. Remember that come election time when they tell you how much they did to save the station. Councillor Meed Ward, along with Councillor Lancaster are the people who stopped the destruction of the building; they gave people like James Smith and his Board the time needed to find a home and raise funds for the renovation.
So the place has a home and it should be moved the 95 metres in the very near future.
The next step is signing a Joint Venture with the city – and that seems to have a few wrinkles in the document but the Friends of Freeman are certain they are on the right path.
 There was a move to locate the Freeman Station on a site in Spencer Smith Park at a spot close to where the old railway line ran into Maple Street and curved north close to the Burlington Art Centre but that failed when the then Council members for Wards 1 and 2 chose not to annoy the tenants in nearby apartment buildings. What’s delaying Freeman Station’s move? The city needed to know if the structure was going to sit on a foundation or just on concrete pads? The Friends Board met last week and decided that they would put a foundation beneath the station and then arrange to have it moved from beside the fire station to their new home some 95 metres away.
The matter goes to a council meeting later this month after which the Friends have to prepare a site plan drawing, get a Geo-technical assessment for the design of the foundation completed, stick handle the required approvals through city hall then construct the foundation and the relocation of the station.
Smith will want to know if he can head to the Building permit counter at city hall once Council approves the Joint Venture, pay the fees and walk out the door with permit in one hand and a shovel in the other. Not so fast James Smith.
The Friends of Freeman Station have passed a critical milestone. They have a site, the building will be in their hands very soon and they expect to be able to build a foundation within the next couple of months. Their hope is to be able to have the structure on its new foundation by the end of the year. That could get stretched into Spring.
During that time the Friends want to bring back the many people that had given up on the station ever being saved and to mount a stronger fund raising campaign. “We really couldn’t be serious about raising funds until we knew we were actually going to get possession of the station” said Smith “and that we had a place to put it and then authority to refurbish the building.”
 The station has sat on some pretty shaky wooden blocks since 2005. It will soon be moved and have a safe solid foundation. No one has come up with what the building will be used for once it is completely renovated. Smith wants to do two things with the public in the next few months the first of which is to invite anyone interested to a public meeting to talk about the long term plans for the building. “Now that we have possession of the structure we know we can fix it and make it usable” explained Smith, “but what use do we put it to? A railway museum is one possibility for as Smith explains a large part of Burlington was developed because we had that train station”.
It is going to take as much as five years to completely renovate the building so there is no rush to decide what it will be used for. Smith and his Board want the broadest possible public participation; they want to hear every whacky idea there is out there.
Once there is public input the Friends Board will develop a strategic plan and build their fund raising targets around the plan.
Does the Freeman Station have to stay at the Plans Road site forever? The Friends have a three year lease with an option for a second three years – so after six years they may have to look for a new home. The foundation that is going to be put in, with donated at cost foundation blocks made of a Styrofoam product, will be done in such a way that the building can be easily lifted off its foundation and moved.
There are many within the Friends community who truly believe the structure belongs on the Beachway, alongside the old railway embankment where CN rail trains used to run.
 The Pump House was once a residence after it was no longer used to pump water for the city. Trains ran along the rail line at the edge of the picture. The city is now looking for a commercial operator to put the structure to a new use. A coffee shop/wine bar is a favorite choice for many – the city wants to keep their minds wide open on this one. Got any ideas? The decision on the part of the city to look for a private partner to run some kind of establishment out of the Pump House – with a coffee shop/wine bar being the most popular choices, suggests there is an opportunity to develop a small cluster of destination points in the Beachway which the city is in the process of taking a long second look at to think through how that part of the city can be developed.
No one is thinking of high rise condos on the Beachway, but many feel there is an opportunity to improve on the 28 building down there now. The Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital is in the process of building the Halton McMaster Family Medicine Clinic that will eventually get attached to the expansion the hospital plans to start building in 2014.
That hospital, which will be re-oriented to face the lake, is a very short five minute walk from where the Pump House is located. Add a renovated showcase level Freeman Station and the Beachway begins to take on a whole new look.
We can expect something back from the Regional government by the end of the year or early next year on what their thoughts are for the Beachway, which is property owned by the Region and leased to the city.
You can also expect to eventually see the Freeman Station sitting alongside that old railway embankment.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 8, 2012 The tunnel will get buried and the hydraulic jack hammers removed – the aggregate will get dropped into the sides of the tunnel and the crews will focus on getting the railway tracks back in place for the rush hour traffic on Tuesday morning.
It was one of the biggest construction projects of its kind. No one had ever moved an object this big, weighing this much before. And the time frames were wickedly tight. It had to be done over a long weekend and it had to be done on time – thousands of commuters on the Hamilton to Toronto GO train lines were depending on those trains.
Here is what the rail crossing on King Road looks like before the work to put in a grade separation began.
 This is what the objective looked like before the first of the four railway tracks came out Friday night. It would be a much different looking crossing on the Monday morning As big an undertaking as it was, it was completed without any major hitches. The rain slowed things down but there were no major equipment malfunctions and no injuries. This was a very professional team of people working in a very tight space with no wiggle room, literally or figuratively.
The rail line crossing usually handles more than 100 crossing a day, a combination of commuter and freight traffic made the intersection one of the busiest in the country. King Road was becoming more and more congested. A grade separation was necessary.
The city and the railway argued over who had to put an underpass in place with the city eventually suing the railway – after which the work began. King Road couldn’t just be shut down for a month while the grade separation was built – there were too many large corporations along the road that needed access. There wasn’t an acceptable detour route that could be put in place either. The architects came up with a plan that would have a large pre-cast concrete tunnel built in place that would later be pushed into an excavated space. Four railway lines would be taken out on the Friday evening of Thanksgiving weekend and be put back in on the Monday so that rail traffic could resume by the following Tuesday morning.
 At just after midnight of the Saturday, as one construction crew clocks out and a new crew takes their place, a CN freight train slows to a crawl and slides over the diversionary rail line Excavation is well under way – with the moving of the tunnel into position scheduled for 5:00 am on Sunday. Bob Jurk, the city’s senior project manager settles into being on the site all night while General Manager Scott Stewart settles into his bed at home with his alarm set for 4:30 am Sunday to be on hand for the movement of the tunnel into position. The freight train takes 20 minutes to complete its passage – it travels slowly but it is also a very long train. The solution was to build the tunnel onsite before hand – have it in position ready to be pushed into position using hydraulic jack hammers and air pressure that would lift the 5 million pound tunnel slightly off the ground so it could eased forward.
While all this is being done freight trains continue to roll through the site – slowly and carefully.
 Every once in awhile a large back hoe would come out of the excavation pit and scoot along a road – it was going to get gassed up. The contractors had a large fuel truck that would ensure all the equipment ran.  First few minutes of the hydraulic jack hammers moving the 5 million pound tunnel. Circle to the left is the jack hammer assembly that move it all forward. On the right are a collection of workers watching it inch forward. It was the most exciting part of the three day project. If it didn’t work there was going to be a massive commuter problem. It worked. It was both a mammoth engineering feet and a tricky task given the extremely short time frames. Four rail lines had to be taken out while the excavation work was done. It wasn’t a rail crossing that could be shut down completely.
It all got done. It was exciting to watch the on line live feed of trucks moving huge loads of earth, highly technical equipment moving earth out and then going back later to return much of it.
What’s next? Having the tunnel in place is the hard part but there is a lot of work to be done yet. A creek that was diverted now has to be brought back and it somehow has to cross King Road. The solution: build an aqueduct and have the water run over the top of the tunnel that was pushed into the excavated space. That hasn’t been done anywhere before either. The King Road project really is a construction marvel.
But the first thing was to have the train tracks back in place. Before that can happen the sides of the tunnel have to be filled with varying sizes of aggregate that has to be tamped down – and that takes time.
 With the tunnel moving into position some of the earth taken out now has to go back in. Jack hammers can be seen on the left and the right sides. Then the roof of the tunnel has to be covered and a final layer of what is called rail ballast put in place. Once that is done the tracks, which were cut into 30 metre lengths, have to be lifted and eased into position and then everything tightened down so that trains can cross the tracks early Tuesday morning.
Three of the four tracks taken out MUST be put back in place. The fourth can wait a day or so but it will eventually have to go back in and then the diversionary track that was put in taken out as well.
The schedule lost 11 hours of time and while there was enough wiggle room – there isn’t any wiggle room left – so somehow the project team needs to make up some of the time lost without compromising safety.
The project this long weekend was accident free. No equipment failures either.
King Road remains closed to traffic until the 22nd. Jurk couldn’t say enough about the neighbours and the noise and disruption they have had to put up with during the construction. They all seemed to understand what it took to move a concrete box that was 5 metres high, 18 metres wide and more than 20 metres long –and weighing more than 5 million pounds.
The back hoe that did the bulk of the excavating work, is a very specialized and expensive piece of equipment, can’t be just left sitting out overnight doing nothing. CN wanted to get that back on the road and so crews will work around the clock on Sunday night getting the railway tracks back in place.
“It is a little damp out there” commented Jurk who arrived at the site at 4:45 in the morning and wasn’t able to head for home until 6:00 in the evening. “I didn’t realize I’d had nothing to eat until 2:00 in the afternoon when Metric, the company doing the excavation work, told us all that there was a truck filled with pizza for everyone. That kind of thing doesn’t happen on construction sites these days” added Jurk.
 Tonnes of aggregate were trucked into the site. With one truck in the tunnel a second waited outside with a full load. Everything moved very quickly and very briskly. Not a single accident during the BIG MOVE. The public viewing stands weren’t in a place where the public could see very much. Jurk, who had his RIM Playbook with him, videoed some scenes and took them up to the viewing stands so people could see what was being done. And it was quite a sight. Watching the back hoes dance around as if they were on a stage in a very, very tight space is not something one gets to see very often.
Helen Walihura, one of the city’s communications specialists was on the site with both still and video cameras filming away commented that “this is really exciting”.
Once the tunnel was firmly in place the hydraulic jack hammers were taken out and returned to Western Mechanical, a company located in Barrie, ON “These were great guys to work with” commented Jurk.
While positioning of the tunnel was the major milestone the project “is not done by a long shot” said Jurk. The north side creek work has to be done and there is a lot of concrete work yet to be done. Dufferin Concrete will be back on site next week getting the north side of the tunnel opened up.
This is the trickiest and most critical part of the job. The jack hammers have been tested, the air pressure system works – but those tests were done in near perfect totally controlled conditions.
At one point the BIG MOVE was 11 hours behind schedule due partly to some rain. Bob Jurk, senior project manager for the city explained that the rain fell when the crews were excavating sand which wasn’t much of a problem. If they had been excavating clay the site would have been a real mess – we might not have made it.
What is the net benefit to the community when all the work is done?
King Road is in Ward 1, Rick Craven country. He has been waiting some time for this work to get completed. In a statement he put out earlier today Craven said: “The new underpass is critically important to the future of Burlington’s west end. It will: make it easier for traffic to get to and from the North Service Road, reducing pressure on Plains Road, improve access to downtown and Joseph Brant Hospital for Tyandaga residents, eliminate traffic congestion in the immediate neighbourhood, caused by train crossings, (which on occasion has completely shut down the adjacent residential streets), and finally, it will serve as a catalyst for the long-term plan to open up the nearby “employment lands”. A next step in the Councillors eyes is the building of the South Service Road which will open up employment lands and create more jobs in the community.
The city’ has an agreement with Paletta International that has that company building a South Service Road extension at their cost. The developer hasn’t announced any plans for new commercial development in Aldershot and we hope the city isn’t holding their breath for shovel to go into the ground anytime soon.
Many developers think the city has more employment land than it needs and they would like to use some of their holdings for the development of residential housing.
The city is in the middle of a “big think” on the subject of employment lands. The Economic Development Corporation hasn’t managed to convince anyone to come to the city and locate here; and the working relationship between the developers and the Economic Development Corporation isn’t as tight as it needs to be if there is to be any significant commercial construction.
The city is currently reporting negative commercial assessment for 2012 – it was flat for 2011 and small, small for 2012. The developers have waited a long time for the kind of development that suits their bottom line best and they seem prepared to wait quite a bit longer.
King Road will be vastly improved, the bridge over Highway 403 will be widened and improved – which certainly make that part of Aldershot more appealing to the commercial sector – but we aren’t there yet.
 Back hoe comes out of the tunnel – the excavation is complete – the tracks for the tunnel to slide in on can be seen in the back on the right and the left . Project is a little bit behind but things are running very, very smoothly. Tuesday morning thousands of commuters will get to work on time while hundreds of construction workers share the smug satisfaction that they pulled it off without a hitch.
Right now the city is going to celebrate the completion of a major engineering feat – even though they didn’t actually handle the construction – that was done by CN Rail. However, it was Burlington that pushed CN to move with the project.
For Bob Jurk, a day that began at 4:45 am ended just after 7:00 pm when he got an email from CN saying the tunnel was in place at 6:15 pm. That brought out a response from Jurk which went like this: Yahoooooooooooooooooo!
Yahoo indeed.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 7, 2012 They had hoped to get it going at 2:00 am on Sunday but it rained a bit and one of the things about rain is the water has to go somewhere and that somewhere is usually down a hole – problem was the people working on Burlington’s Big Move were in that hole and they had to deal with that water.
 This is a view of the construction site before serious work started Friday night. You can see the earth that had to be excavated before the concrete box could be pushed into place up against the diversionary rail line that is supported by scaffolding so that freight trains can cross. The rail line crossing at King Road, is seen on the right. All the earth had been excavated, which was quite a feat in itself, then the rails that the tunnel was going to move along when it was time to push it forward needed to be dropped in place. A massive crane that had sat on the site while the excavation was done fired up its engines and completed the delicate job of getting the rails exactly where they were supposed to be.
The 2:00 am got moved to 5:00 am and then on to 10:00 am and now it looks like sometime around noon when the 5 million pound structure will be raised just enough using air pressure to inch it forward onto a set of rails that will then allow the “tunnel to slide forward and into position.
That’s when the water problems became evident. Things were fine on the east side, but the water build up on the west side had to be managed. Steve Taylor, an American engineer who has done 23 of this kind of project, has been on the site since the beginning. He had been brought up from Boston to oversee and offer advice and direction, where it was needed.
 This view is a look into the tunnel, which is really a 5 million pound concrete box that will get pushed into place. The first task, which started Friday night at 9:00 pm was to excavate tonnes of earth. With that done rail lines had to be dropped into the excavated space. Those are the two light coloured patches on the left and right of the excavated hole way at the back of the tunnel. You can see the front end of a massive truck at the very back, with a second truck out front loaded with additional aggregate that will be used to level out the ground A little more excavation, pumping out water and getting some aggregate in place seemed to be what was needed.
The working space is quite tight and there is a lot of equipment in there. At times there were two back hoes, a small bulldozer and a truck loaded with aggregate. Not a lot of room to move around. Add to that the frequent passing of freight trains almost directly above. They move very slowly – five miles an hour – but these are long, long freight trains and there is a lot of noise.
This isn’t a Burlington project. CN Rail is the lead on this, but if something goes wrong and the rail lines are not back in place, a lot of problems fall into the lap of the city.
The Mayor is out of the country, the city manager is with family in London, ON – so that drops things into the hands of the “get it done” guys in engineering with Bob Jurk, senior project manager on the site, running the city’s part, which Jurk explains is “doing what you are told”. Scott Stewart, city General Manager is on site – he arrived at 2:00 am and has put in the first eight hour shift and moves into his second shift. “It’s a little chilly down here” was his first comment and McDonald is doing a brisk business. Stewart is there to do whatever the city has to do to allow the CN contractors to get their job done. There isn’t all that much he can do other than think through the various contingency scenarios should the delays result in commuter trains not moving when they usually do on Tuesday morning.
 This is a view of the construction site at midnight Saturday, where a new underpass is being put in at King Road and the CN rail line. You can see a freight train passing through. The large yellow crane wait to drop rail lines into place that will be used to inch forward the tunnel into the space that is being excavated. The rail line panels are in front of the truck that is next to the yellow crane. The tunnel or underpass that was pre-built is in the middle – the roof of the tunnel is black. This is a very active construction site. For part of the project CN allowed the public access to the web camera by streaming it live on the internet. Security and IT server problems had it go off line late Saturday night. The construction site is referred to as a “live site” which means there are all kinds of people all over the place and while safety is a prime concern – there is a job to be done. Some of the very best construction people are on the site doing incredible work under trying and changing conditions.
CN had installed two web cameras that streamed everything that was happening live. Sometime either late Saturday or early Sunday that took out the visual feed to the public. The legal and the IT people had security concerns – you know that whenever a large corporation stops feeding information to the public there is reason for concern.
The camera that was taken off line is the one that allowed a view from a higher level – you could see the freight trains passing through and see what the back hoes were doing as they loaded trucks. The public wasn’t able to see the rail tracks that were lowered into the excavated space.
It has been absolutely fascinating to watch huge truck come in at quite a clip, back up into the tunnel in one move – no going back and forth – these guys get it right the first time, every time. They arrive, back in, take on their load and are out and on their way in under two minutes. Professionals that are a delight to watch. The back hoe operators move the arm up of their machine up and down and sideways as smoothly and as beautifully as a ballet dancer.
The water problems have delayed things – but there was some slack in the schedule. It looks like the schedule is going to be met but maybe you should do what the city staff on site are doing – thinking through the various options if things don’t go right.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 6, 2012 The size and scope of the project is daunting – and the time frame allowed is really pushing it; but CN Rail and the city’s engineering department are actually going to lift out four rail lines and build an underpass beneath King Road and have everything – all four rail lines – back in place for Tuesday morning at 5:00 am.
 Trucks back into the tunnel, which will become the King Road underpass, to load up with excavated earth. The picture was taken at noon on Saturday from the web camera. The construction can be seen on line.
Go the to the City of Burlington web site.
www.burlington.ca
Go to the Project and Initiatives box on the right hand side. The last line in that box says more.
Click on that line – that will get you to a new page. Go to the Box with a list of construction projects. Scroll down to King Road Grade Separation. Click on that line.
That will take you to a screen that lets you choose between Camera 1 and Camera 2. (You can if you want – open up a second browser and toggle back and forth and see what each camera is showing.)
Camera 1 is a view from some height and shows you the top of the “tunnel” that was pre-built as well as the part of the area being excavated. There are two back hoes and at times a small bulldozer in that space. The diversionary railway line is at the top of the picture. Sometimes you will see a freight train passing by. Camera 2 is a view into the front of the tunnel that will eventually be the underpass that traffic uses to pass beneath the rail lines. You can see trucks backing into the tunnel to take on loads of excavated earth.
You never see work like this being done on the pier.
The start of pushing the tunnel into place is due to begin at 5:00 am Sunday, October 7th.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 5, 2012 Here is what the rail crossing on King Road looks like before the work to put in a grade separation began:
 The plan was to take out the four rail lines, build a supporting wall and install a diversionary rail track that would handle freight during the three and a half days of round he clock construction. It was a mammoth task that would be done by CN Rail’s contractors with the city as part of the team. These are the stages the construction project will go through.
 This graphic shows where the supporting walls were going to go. They are in blue; one on either side of the trench that was to be excavated and another where the diversionary railway line was to go. The green line is a creek that had to be diverted during the construction phase. The first stage was to build all the supporting walls and then to excavate a large trench using an open cut approach.
 In this schematic the diversionary track is shown between the blue line and the green line, which is the creek that gets diverted. The green boxes indicated where the “box” that will become the tunnel under the railway tracks is also shown. The box is a single hunk of concrete that weighs over 5 million pounds. The passageway or tunnel that was to be created is a box that was built before hand and laced in a position where it could be shoved into position once all the excavation was done.
 In this photograph a freight train is using the diversionary track put in place. That track is supported by a wall that was built to hold the track up while long freight trains cross. That support wall will be punched through once the concrete tunnel box is in place. The stretch of King Road that will disappear when the underpass is built can be seen on the extreme right. All the earth from the green box up to the blue line has to be excavated and taken off the site.
 This schematic shows the rail lines out and the concrete box that will become the tunnel traffic will drive through when the underpass is complete ready to be pushed into place. The next step is to remove the four railway lines that currently carry freight and commuter traffic. These lines come out on the Friday evening at 9:00 pm and excavation begins.
 In this schematic the railway tracks are back in place, the tunnel is in position and the diversionary rail line has been taken out. When the tunnel has been inched into the excavated space it is back filled in with gravel and the four rail lines that were removed are put back in place. All that has to be done by 5:00 am of the Tuesday, October 9th.
 An aqueduct will be built to carry the creek over the tunnel. Traffic can’t use the tunnel yet but commuter trains and freight can resume normal schedules. The final step is for the creek that was diverted to be brought back. It will now flow over the tunell that carried traffic north on King Road. This represented a challenge until they decided to build an aqueduct that will carry the water over the tunnel.
 This is an aerial view of the work being done at 4:30 pm Saturday afternoon. The black topped shape to the left of the yellow crane is the tunnel that will be pushed into place with hydraulic jack hammers. You can see the orange back hoes in the space that is being excavated. The work started promptly at 9:00 pm Friday and by midnight Saturday most of the excavation work was done.
 This is a view of trucks coming out of the tunnel loaded with earth that has been excavated. A truck got loaded with earth in just under two minutes. The jack hammers that will nudge this tunnel into place can be seen in the lower left. Identical jack hammers are in place on the right hand side. The King Road that used to cross over the tracks is on the right. Giant truck back into the tunnel that wil get pushed into position when all the excavation is completed sometime between 2:00 am and 5:00 am on Sunday the 7th of October.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 2, 2012 “You did what we could not do” said Councillor Craven.
”We are very proud of you” added Councillor Meed Ward.
Mayor Rick Goldring said “this is a major issue that Council has not handled very well in the past, we have come a long way.” Council was so pleased with the way the Heritage Burlington Advisory Committee took on and then delivered on the task they were given that they gave the committee a robust round of applause – not something done very often at a council committee meeting.
 Is this house a Heritage property? The owners don’t think so and they made a very compelling case to have it removed from the list. Not as simple as it seems. The new approach to heritage report will prevent mistakes like this. How did we get into this mess in the first place? The unanimous acceptance of the report, which was titled: “A new approach to conserving Burlington’s heritage” was the result of many months of work on the part of a committee of fourteen people who were aided by Councillor Meed Ward.
The report now goes to Council on the 15th where it becomes policy for the city. The report is both a set of recommendations and a guideline for the research and testing of the broad outline in the report, which we will report on in detail later this week.
What was different with this report, on a subject that has been contentious in Burlington for many years, is that the Advisory Committee was “at the table” participating fully with Council on the objective – to come up with a way to recognize and manage heritage issues in the city.
The advisory committee was just plain well managed. Chair Jim Clements and vice chair Kathleen White sat where staff normally sit and, there is only one way to put it – they delivered. They showed that well run advisory committees can work.
Jim Clemens, chair of the committee didn’t do this all by himself. He had a strong committee that had to work through some difficult, different points of view – which they did.
The Heritage Burlington Advisory committee left the room with an endorsement of their recommendations that were outlined in their report and a Direction to Staff to work with Heritage Burlington to implement the recommendations.
Council decided that the Advisory Committee would lead on this file with the Planning department commenting to council in a separate document.
What this boils down to is council handing off a major file that has plagued the city for a number of years, to an Advisory committee and then directing that advisory committee to report directly to the council committee. The practice is usually for an Advisory committee to work with a department and the department takes the file forward to council.
Heritage Burlington will report back to the Community Development Committee with final approval of the key components of the recommendations.
That crew that pulled this off included:
J A Clements, Jim Clemens (Chair), Kathleen White (Vice Chair), John Vice, Jacquie Gardner Johnson, Sarah Thompson, Geoff Cliffe – Phillipe, Randy McLachlan, Tim O’Driscoll, Morgan Warren, Linda Axford, Chelsey Tyers, Rick Wilson, Jeff D. Sutcliffe, James O’Neill, and Albert Faccenda
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