Colborne Street Community

Dear residents, we have set up a new blog to communicate information from the city and Stantec to you about the Colborne Street Infrastructure project for 2010.

We'll be posting updates at http://colbornestreet.wordpress.com, including information regarding who to contact if you have any questions or concerns.

Be sure to keep an eye on the new blog for the latest information.

Dear residents: at today's meeting the City Council voted unanimously to accept the recommendation that Colborne Street remain as is.

It's final: the street will not be widened, and street parking will not be removed.

We would like to thank and congratulate everyone who contributed to this victory by organizing, attending meetings, and communicating with their neighbours and the city (also, thank you Sanju for the pictures).

Although this issue has been resolved be sure to watch the neighbourhood at large, as it looks like there may be some movement this summer regarding the formation of a neighbourhood committee.

Please be sure to keep an eye on the Community section of the web site to learn about upcoming meetings regarding major infrastructure projects for Old North at large.

There are two important meetings taking place this week; the Traffic Calming meeting at King's College on February 17th; and the Doidge Park Re-Development meeting at St. Michael's Public School on February 18th.

To learn more about these meetings please click here.

Dear residents: at today's ETC meeting the council accepted the recommendation that Colborne Street remain as is.

Congratulations! Thanks to you our voice has been heard and our concerns have been addressed.

We now have just one more meeting to attend before we can be secure in the knowledge that Colborne Street will not be widened and that street parking will remain.

City council will meet to vote to ratify today's ETC plan on February 22nd. Please plan to attend this meeting if at all possible.

To find out more please click here.

Dear residents: there is still work to be done.

At 4:15pm on February 8th, and at 5:00pm on February 22nd we must all be in attendance at city council.

The residents of Colborne Street and Old North met with great success at their February 2nd community meeting, as the city's Chief Administrative Officer, Jeff Fielding, pledged to recommend to the Environment and Transportation Committee that the city maintain the status quo on Colborne Street.

Yes my friends, as reported in today's London Free Press this means Mr. Fielding is recommending no widening of Colborne Street, and no removal of street parking. Thank you Mr. Fielding for your consideration.

We would like to thank Nancy Branscombe, Lamise Kablawi, and Rosemary Cooke for organizing the meeting, and we would like to express our gratitude to the hundreds of residents who attended the meeting. In particular, we would like to thank those residents who shared their thoughts and experiences with everyone during the open mic segment of the evening, because it was your voices that communicated our sentiments to the city. (Of course, the impromptu vote we held for Mr. Fielding and other city workers certainly didn't hurt.)

However, please understand that there is still work to be done. Maintenance of the status quo on Colborne Street is not secure until Mr. Fielding's recommendation is vetted by the ETC on February 8th and by city council on February 22nd, and so until that time we must not relax our efforts. To find out more please click here.

It has recently come to the attention of Colborne Street residents that the City of London's Environment and Transportation Committee (ETC) will vote on February 8th, 2010 regarding the implementation of a traffic plan that could eradicate street parking from Colborne, widen the street, and reduce property frontage.

There has been a series of breakdowns in the communications process between the City of London and the residents of Colborne Street. Unfortunately, because of these breakdowns a significant number of people living on Colborne Street were not given the opportunity to provide feedback to the city while it was developing its plans for Colborne.

The city's plans for Colborne came to the attention of residents at the end of November 2009, when the city's Transportation Planning and Design department mailed a survey to householders asking whether they would prefer to "Eliminate existing on-street parking and retrofit areas to incorporate bike lines" or "Ultimately maintain both bike lanes and on-street parking." Both of these options would require the street to be widened. Many residents were confused, and did not understand why the street needed widening. Residents wondered why these were the only two options available, and preferred to retain Colborne as is; that is, as a designated bicycle route that provides street parking. Upon contacting the city, residents learned that the city had been working on these plans for over a year, and that for whatever reason, the city's many communications and requests for feedback had not reached all residents of Colborne, and that the city's plans to modify Colborne were nearing their final stages.

This is a complex issue that requires an understanding of the city's overall plans for adjacent neighbourhoods, and indeed requires an understanding of the city's plans for the entire downtown core. The primary concern of Colborne residents is that we consider all information relevant to this issue, and that all residents be communicated with and included in the decision making process.

Because there has been an unfortunate but persistent breakdown in communications, this web site has been commissioned by a group of people living on Colborne Street in order to disseminate information about this issue, and to help residents make an informed decision about their neighbourhood, and to promote communication between residents and the city.

Colborne Street householders are now organizing themselves and communicating with their city councillors, Nancy Branscombe and Judy Bryant, in order to ensure that the feedback of homeowners can be collected and presented to the ETC prior to their ratification of a plan for Colborne Street that many Colborne Street residents still remain unaware of.

To be clear, the issue here is not cycling or bicycle lanes, it is communication and process. We are not against cycling, but quite the opposite -- many of the residents associated with this web site are avid cyclists who ride along Colborne Street many times per week. Instead, the issue here is that a plan may be implemented in a neighbourhood without the feedback or consent of residents in that neighbourhood. The question we have to ask is: is this the first time this has happened? Hopefully we can work together to make sure it's the last.

To learn more about London's traffic plan, and how it will impact Old North and Colborne Street, please click here.

To hear what the residents of Colborne Street and other Londoners have to say about this issue, please click here.

To learn more about what you can do to communicate with the city, please click here. Please be sure to include your full address on all correspondence with the city.

This initiative is being managed by a handful of Colborne Street residents, and is in no way affiliated with the corporation of the City of London, Ontario, or any of its employees, and this site does not claim to represent the views of all residents of Colborne Street or other areas of Old North.

Many residents have contributed to this project, and we would like to thank them all. In particular, this web site would not have been possible without the due diligence of Jane Monteith and Bradley Miller, and the organizational enthusiasm of Rosemary Cooke and Patricia Mowry, and we would like to give them a special thanks.

This web site is maintained by Risto Juola, and although he is making updates to this site as new information comes to his attention, the site almost certainly contains a plethora of grammatical errors, stylistic offenses, and other mistakes. We've done our best to check the facts, however we can not guarantee the complete accuracy of any statement made on this site. If you happen to find any problems and would like to bring them to our attention, then please email us via the Contact form and we will do our best to respond within a few days.

Thanks.