WIRES AND POLES FROM RIVERSIDE DRIVE TO THE 401. Welcome to Windsor! You always know when you've arrived because the first thing to greet you is the horizonless tangle of overhead wires. They'll guide you to wherever you need to be. Windsor does overhead wires better than any other Municipality in the province. Pick any entry point off of the 401 and you instantly know that we are wired for sound. These wires give Windsor the look and feel of a genuine "frontier town." Perhaps an icon of our heritage.
If appearance is everything its no wonder Windsor is the butt of all jokes. It might also have something to do with the miniscule corporate presence here. One of our main intersections is shown above. It doesn't exactly scream "Location, location, location" does it?
If there is such a thing as a long term urban plan drafted for Windsor, hopefully it includes bringing all of the overhead tumult to an end. The next time you are driving about keep looking up and ponder: "Has Windsor arrived!"
15 comments:
No Windsor hasn't arrived, city workers have. A province wide list of municipal workers collecting over $100K was just released. Ours are doing great. Would you rather have good infrastructure or smiling, happy, self satisfied desk jockey/jockettes at city hall? Did I mention our property taxes are some of the highest in Ontario? Life in the Big W stinks, we still have industrial chrome factories downtown rotting our lungs. I'm sick of the whole mess. Someday we'll clean house. BIG TIME. Competence and city both start with a "c",but we've only got 1 outa 2. Windsor, Big Salaries, Small Time. Glad somebodies making a good living, fat and happy and doing nothing, especially nothing for taxpayers. Hell I'm fed up.
They are fat, Windsor honourables get more lunch money than Toronto for City Council Meetings.
There's a difference between the city workers and management. City workers do a pretty good job running the city when upper management doesn't get in their way. The 100KKlub is the bunch sitting around hoping we'll forget the issues.
All fine and dandy but how do we get the wires put underground where they belong?
You are sooo right on. Between the lack of set back on many main arteries, overhead lines and litter, Windsor easily lives up to it's namesake: The "armpit of Canada" What would it really take to lift this place up to be the gateway it deserves to be?
Make it important.Give a part of the budget to the work over years while watching the 100kklub performance on this and everything else they should to doing.
I think its time to move. Its gotta be better somewhere else. This City is just so depressing. I just keep hoping it wil get better, but it just seems to get worse.
They make very bad decisions in this City. It seems council just makes decisions to say "we made a descision" in stead of making the right ones. Administration has a complete lack of vision. And the people of this City always seem to be the ones to take it on the chin.
Overhead wires just seem to sum up what this City is all about. A horizon that is unclear and cluttered with mismanaged power.
The worst wires are in residential areas and trees are continually trimmed making them lopsided and destroyng any potential for streetscape.
The constant drone concerning economic diversification is what I find depressing. The ongoing studies of core economic revitalization were brilliant public relations campaigns. The projected entertainment district resulted in the bingo industry and college bars; both are failing, including Windsor Casino. With the number of city, provincial and federal politicians in the area, all trumpeting these efforts, we have made little progress. On a positive note, the revitalization of several blocks on Monmouth have been a success:)Probably because it did not depend on the above mentioned leadership. Consider the future empty rooms of the Casino+ overlooking the gaping wounds of the city because the many elm trees cut down have never been replaced. A symptom of inner decay and corruption? On a note of satire; did you notice Windsor could not even sustain a downtown Tim Hortons? The iconic enterprise at Ouellette and Giles recently closed. Besides this blog and a few other forums, the most intelligent commentary is graffiti:) Faust is right. The devil is in the details. At least cutting down all those trees and loping off branches makes it easier to service the overhead wires. Sheesh, there's a little humour even in this sad situation:)
It seems to me that it all boils down to the condition of the public realm and the way its arranged, our streets, whether we allow road side signs, curb side appeal and such. If you find yourself living where the area has been given over entirely to the car,(subdivisions, commercial corridors) its not a place fit for a human. And if you don't care about the places you live in, you probably don't care enough to vote at elections and participate in the community. This results in living conditions void of anithing worth caring about. And, on the flip side of course, if yer not on the take, yer being tooken.
Very well said; embraces my own semi-sweet musings and echos my belief in civic participation.
Wait! Aren't these wires a good thing? They're there for the all the streetcars to run beneath shuttling people cleanly and efficiently through the city and all the way out to the new arena 75 miles down tecumseh.
@Public Relations as Graffiti
Actually, the downtown supports several Tim Horton's (one on Bruce and University, I think there are two on Goyeau within about a block of each other). I'm a little glad, actually, to see a Tim Horton's go. When they built the Starbucks downtown, two of the small coffee shops closed. Maybe some of the business from the closed "Timmy's" can overflow to the remaining locally owned coffee shops.
"If you find yourself living where the area has been given over entirely to the car,(subdivisions, commercial corridors) its not a place fit for a human."
Hmmmm, I live in Fontainebleau, what you may call a 'subdivision' and it is more than fit for a human. We have three elementary schools, a library and two bus routes.
The library exists because of the community cared enough to raise the required money. I see plenty of people walking and biking. Most homeowners take pride in their properties.
Subdivisions aren't bad places if designed properly. Don't forget that every desirable place was at one time a 'subdivision'.
On a note of satire; did you notice Windsor could not even sustain a downtown Tim Hortons?
There are three Tim Hortons downtown. The Tim Hortons at Park and Goyeau is packed. The lines sometimes extend out of the store. The Tim Hortons on Goyeau, south of Wyandotte remains busy. The Tim Hortons on University remains popular.
The reason why the Tim Horton's closed on Ouellette was the inability to get a drive-through. Tim's tried all sorts of plans to stay at that site.
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