Sequels are creatively bankrupt drivel. Hayao Miyazaki didn’t make a sequel to Princess Mononoke, because that film is perfect. Fumito Ueda didn’t make a sequel to Shadow of the Colossus, because again, perfection. Haruki Murakami didn’t write a sequel to Kafka on the Shore, because, you guessed it, perfection.
Generally speaking, once I’ve written about a topic for my column, I won’t re-tread that same ground, but I’m also a far cry from Miyazaki, Ueda, or Murakami, so until then, welcome to the inaugural Hot Double Take, where I revisit something I’ve already done.
Why? Maybe I’ve had time to think about it and wanna clarify my thoughts a bit. Maybe a reader has written in with an interesting point about one of my columns, which I’d like to address. Or maybe I just don’t have a good idea for a column this week and, being creatively bankrupt, I’ve opted to go the sequel route.
Either way, let’s dive back in, shall we.
Speed cameras
Back in March, I wrote about how Niagara’s new speed cameras were bad and pointless and the whole program should be shut down. This week, the Region has responded by announcing they will be tripling the number of speed cameras we are going to have. You’re welcome.
Speed cameras remain a bad idea if you ask me, but the Region claims they were effective enough to produce a 13 percent drop in average car speeds through the enforcement areas. How much revenue did they produce though? Perhaps tellingly, they didn’t disclose that info. As I pointed out in my original column, there’s a pretty good chance the whole speed camera program actually loses money, once you factor in all the expenses.
But the thing I really want to address is a letter I got from a reader. In my column, I wrote that, because of the new speed camera at the end of my street, I’ve started driving a different direction out of my subdivision to avoid it. Which prompted a reader to ask, “If you’re not speeding, and have nothing to hide, why do you drive around the camera?”
Fair question. And I’ve got a good answer. I drive around the camera because the few times I did actually drive past it, and slowed down to the required 40 km/h, I was very nearly rear-ended each time by speeding drivers. One guy even flipped me the bird as he slammed on the brakes behind me. In reality, he shoulda been sending me a big thank you for saving him a ticket.
GO Trains
Back in February, I wrote about why the GO Train expansion to Niagara was a waste of time and resources because the demand simply isn’t there. I was only half right—there really isn’t demand for constant GO Train service between Niagara and the GTA, however, the eclipse did showcase that there is a solid use-case for having event-based GO Trains run during times when there is a big thing going on. The province announced that they were ramping up GO Train service between Niagara and GTA during the eclipse. That’s a great idea. On days when there is a Blue Jays game in Toronto, or a big concert in Niagara, there’s going to be a lot of people moving between those two places. It makes sense to ramp up the train service in those instances. The next trick is getting people to actually use it, because on eclipse day it didn’t work, as my buddy came down from Toronto to watch the eclipse, and he had a four-hour drive home stuck in gridlock.
Too many fire chiefs
Boy howdy did we get a lot of letters and emails and phone calls and random dudes stopping me at the grocery store to chat about this one. While a majority of responses did seem to agree with the wider point—that Niagara perhaps doesn’t need nearly a dozen fire chiefs, and that some form of amalgamation could work to our benefit—I’m not here to re-litigate that debate.
Instead I want to address the fact that a lot of people were deeply upset by the, let’s say, callous nature in which I described the job that firefighters perform. As was pointed out by a reader (all the way from Vancouver!) there are “dangers” involved in firefighting that go well beyond physical harms. Things like the mental and emotional trauma of dealing with house fire and car accident victims, which are not quantified in workplace injury statistics. Workplace mental health is a very serious issue, and I regret that I downplayed that aspect of being a firefighter.
My intention with a column is never to belittle a group of people, firefighters or otherwise, but simply to spark an interesting conversation, and I feel like the indelicate approach I took on that column ended up being a distraction from the thing I was meant to be talking about that week. We live, we learn, we try to do better.
James Culic definitely does not condone the actions of the guy who used a grinder to cut down those speed cameras. Nope, definitely not. Find out how to yell at him at the bottom of this page, or point out the many other times he was wrong-wrong-wrong by sending a letter to the editor.
