Glenn Kubish

Road open! ←  What's with this sign?! What story does it tell? What story does it smuggle in? Trump and his fellow travellers in communication would say there can be no other interpretation. The sign means what it means, that cars and trucks are not allowed on the road. A motorist knows not to proceed. A pedestrian knows it's safe to proceed. End of story. This morning, I saw it different. The suddenly-curious sign sits at the entrance to the Fringe Festival on 83 Ave and 104 St. Edmonton's Fringe is a wild proof of creative life in the margin. Not content to cede the theatre to self-appointed gatekeepers of high culture, Fringe fans celebrate plays and music that grow out of the ground in these parts. For ten days every August, Old Strathcona and its schools, churches, telephone museum, theatres, jazz joints, community halls, studios and streets host the drama and comedy and improv of real-life theatre.  Make a plan to go and walk around until you find a gem. ...

Here are three of my favourite quotations from three of my favourite mayors on the status of flesh-and-blood human beings in the current iteration of the urban landscape. Thank you Rob Ford, Don Iveson, Enrique Peñalosa. What I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you're going to get bitten. And every year we have dozens of people that get hit by cars or trucks. Well, no wonder: roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes. My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day. The [city's bicycle transportation] plan recognizes that Edmonton's transportation infrastructure is built and maintained primarily for automobiles, and describes the creation of a bicycle network using roads and shared-use paths that makes it easier, safer, and more comfortable for cyclists and motorists to co-exist. The essence of the conflict today, really, is cars versus people. We can ...