Glenn Kubish

While city leaders invite bicycle riders to sedate themselves by being part of the conversation about a safer future, basic laws that protect citizens on bicycles are routinely ignored. Please excuse me if I am more worried about pedalling on 102 Ave right now, with motorists right now, than imagining what autopia might look like. During afternoon rush hour, motorists in the curb lane of 102 Ave must turn onto 105 St, leaving the lane ahead safely free for other citizens, including those on bicycles. Please enforce the laws on 102 Ave. That is the minimum that Vision Zero should mean.

I was in deep trouble as a political philosophy undergrad when Book VII of The Republic hit me, and that was all she wrote. The allegory of the cave happens in Book VII. That's Socrates's treatment of the eternal human condition. It's a sad story. Only the elite whose souls somehow emerge into the light of reality see things as they are. The rest of us are kept below in the theatre, our necks chained, a fire burning behind, our vision trained ahead to a wall on which dances shadow puppets we mistake for real objects.  Some in our Thursday night Plato seminar used the allegory to free themselves and climb into careers as political science professors. Me, I loved the sentences. They are in it from childhood with their legs and necks in bonds so that they are fixed, seeing only in front of them, unable because of the bond to turn their heads all the way around. Their light is from a fire burning far above and behind them. Between the fire and the prisoners there is...

We've all seen this video. It shows a young Portuguese fan consoling a grown French fan after Les Bleus lost the Euro 2016 championship, leaving their followers weeping and alone. The boy is young enough to still react with a touch to suffering the moment he comes across it. The man is old enough to gently receive this gift, calculating his own pain to be suddenly less real than the imagined pain of a boy left bewildered had his side lost. On one hand there is the gift of a gesture; on the other, the effacing gentleness of a gift received. And in the hand of the person holding the video camera is the touch of one who notices from slightly above a scene worth saving, holding it apart from the criss-cross flow below of losers going one way and winners going another.

I almost missed everything again. This happens to me at airports. I expelled myself inch by inch down the aisle of the small plane and emerged onto its railed stairway to see a tarmac worker below waving two wands. In baton semaphore, he ordered the string of passengers to walk along a path marked by thick white paint and into a covered passageway. This is what everyone did. This is what outlines do. Under the canopy, I was moved up a ramp, compelled to follow the flow of shuffling feet and bumping suitcase wheels ahead. We all turned switchback-style up toward the next turn. And then the thunder of an airplane gathering its power and departing the earth shook the enclosure. Through a crack in the wall I saw the Southwest Airlines jet as it pointed into the sky. Blue and red and yellow. I almost missed that I was someplace else.

The intersection at 99 St and Whyte Ave is a tense place. You can feel it.  Date : Edmonton, July 9, 2016 Encounter: I have started walking in the crosswalk on the green light as the advance light facing left-turning automobiles has switched from flashing green to green. Your Vision Zero question: Does the left-turning automobile behind the taxi yield to the crosswalk pedestrian? As always, no wagering please. Here is your answer: Thanks for playing along. 

(Editor's first note: My friend Robin Stevenson is a great baseball fan. What looks routine and boring and everyday in major league baseball is really high skill, she says. Because in overthrows, wild pitches, passed balls, missed cutoff men, double plays not turned and the rest of errorville chaos is always ready to show its mangled face. That it stays hidden is art. Robin guest blogged at the beginning of the season. She returns now at the All-Star break with this account of watching baseball from afar and watching baseball up close. And, yes, I almost forgot, Robin cheers for the Cubs.) As we head into the All-Star break, we have already witnessed a season with its share of amazing plays and incredible moments. Arrieta's no hitter We are living in an era of ace pitching. In the first week, Clayton Kershaw faced Madison Bumgarner. Jake Arrieta pitched a no-hitter in April (still the only no-no this season). Pitchers are pitching, and they're raking (s...

Here is a double shot of the ongoing Edmonton Vision Zero Quiz. Spoiler: the answers are no, and no. Date : Edmonton, July 4, 2016 Encounter : I have gotten off my bicycle, triggered the crosswalk light, looked both ways, and have set out across 142 St at 91 Ave this morning.   Your VisionZero Quiz Question : Does the left-turing vehicle yield to the pedestrian in the crosswalk? As always, no wagering, please. And here is your answer:                                                                                                                                                         ...