Waterloo Region Council Election Discussion

[danbrotherston]

I'll preface this with saying that this is my opinion, based only on my observations in the past little while, and no comprehensive research.  I think the whole council is pretty weak.  They talk a good talk about some of the issues I care about (with a few exceptions), but generally take little substantial action.  Clarke was on the recent transportation master plan and I found that plan to be pretty devoid of strong actions.  Was pretty much business as usual, build a few mediocre bike lanes and bike paths, consider some more protection, nothing in constrained corridors, no hard choices.  When it comes to decisions like Weber St. they were unwilling to make any compromise to even the impression of speedy vehicle travel, in order to support safer infra. Others on committee have supported sharrows as infrastructure.

Overall, I'm unlikely to vote for any incumbent as a result.

(One exception to the "good talk, no execution" rule I know of would be Sean Strickland who was pretty explicit that cycling/pedestrians were second fiddle to cars.)

I think a lot of councils in a lot of cities can be described this way.  How often do you see a council that in it's four year term makes RADICAL changes.  Even if needed.

Municipal politics seems to play the slow game.  Sadly.

I mean, it's really hard to say how "radical" these changes are.  Progressive for Waterloo but regressive for Vancouver, is that really radical?