Sunday, May 20, 2012

Food Score. How does your community rank?

FoodScore on Twitter

Food Score helps communities assess their food security & food liberty.

A simple, weighted scoring system allows for basic analysis & assessment of the resilience and potential of your community and your local food system.


FoodScore:
1. Has your community conducted a land inventory? 100pts
2. Does your community have progressive & streamlined Urban Ag Zoning? 150 pts
3. Does your community allow garden gate sales? 80 pts
4. Does your community have a community garden with more than 50 plots? 10 pts for each garden
5. Does your community have a Community Farm? 80 pts for each Community Farm
6. Does your community have a Food Policy Council? 100 pts
7. Has your community committed a comparable area of land to Urban Ag as it does golfing? 100 pts
8. Does you community understand the connection between poverty and food insecurity? 100 pts
9. Does your community embrace the concept of a robust local food system and allow small scale livestock such as goats & chickens? 100 pts
10. Does your community recognize and respect Article 25 of the UNHRD, "A Right to Food"? 200 pts
11. Does your community understand the difference between Food Elitism & Food Justice? 100pts
12. Does your community allow citizens access to unused/vacant land for growing food? 100 pts
13. Does your community encourage, facilitate & develop urban agricultural potential? 100pts
14. Does your local economic development office or committee support and promote the opportunities of Urban Ag? 100 pts
15. Does your community have a real, local food Farmer's Market? 75 pts for each Market
16. Do the elected officials of your community have a garden at your city hall or legislature? 100 pts

Baseline score total: 1430 pts
Variable scoring: add 10 pts for >50 plot CG, add 80 pts for CF, add 75 pts for FM
Calgary's score = 225/1555
Rank = Last place amongst 20 Canadian Cities.

Ranking
1. Montreal
2. Vancouver
3. Toronto
4. Saskatoon
5. St John's
6. Charlottetown
7. Kelowna
8. Red Deer
9. Winnipeg
10. Edmonton
11. Victoria
12. Moncton
13. Halifax
14. Fredericton
15. Charlottetown
16. Regina
17. Whitehorse
18. Ottawa
19. Yellowknife
20. Calgary




Saturday, May 19, 2012

The Power of Colour: Calgary Public Library

In 2012, Calgary is Canada's Cultural Capital. "A year to invest in our cultural legacy" states the Calgary 2012 site.

Calgary has an overwhelming amount of vertical realty, the type of realty artists & painters love.

Here is a simple project that adds much needed colour to this dreary area of Calgary. The project would take 1 week to complete and cost under $100K.

The Calgary Public Library before...


...and after.


Friday, May 18, 2012

Impressive display of respect for cyclists from Calgary Transit

People, we have a long way to go.

Blatantly parking beside bike lane signage.
If you look closely at the first pic you can see a lady in wheelchair who was headed to Sunnyside LRT to catch the LRT... not!
When I asked them to move their vehicle from blocking the bike lane? "Eff U, Hughes!"
Next!



Friday, May 11, 2012

Pedestrians 1st Policy for a Walkable City

I want to commend Chinook Mall for prioritizing pedestrian safety. The City of Calgary could learn a thing or ten from this picture that demonstrates the effectiveness of highly visible signs
In a city with so much visual pollution, safety for our children and pedestrians should be paramount. We have far too many unmarked, poorly lit crosswalks. I encourage the City of Calgary to initiate a program that establishes human traffic and pedestrian safety as a #1 priority and sets as a target Calgary being ranked #1 in pedestrian safety


Now, that's a walkable city!


Check out some of the elements of a superior human traffic safety system... 
Paul's Pedestrian Preservation Pilot Project

Chinook Mall, Calgary
Chinook Mall, Calgary
Star Wars has all the answers.

Superior Lighting from solar crosswalk

Glowing poles, yah!
More solar power & visibility

Pedestrian Safety helps drivers, too!


Super visible crosswalks!

High visibility is the objective!


Yup, they glow!


Simple options... paint the poles with bright contrasting colours!

Highly visible, solar powered crosswalk


Movable signage for peak periods.



The most famous crosswalk...

Monday, May 7, 2012

Pedestrian/Bike Bridges? Do they always have to cost $25Million?

Bridge options @ $50,000 for 60' spans...

This is the span only. Unlimited colour options. Basic design. 10'-12' wide.




Saturday, May 5, 2012

Urban Ag, #UrbanAg, Local Food, Urban Utility

See Click Grow. Hurry, someone develop this app for every urbanite!
Parklet from waste bin. Mini Park. Micro Park.


Decommissioned High Line in NYC

Chicken Tractor

Vacant Lot Gardens. Victory Gardens.

KidsFarm, Calgary

This is your brain on farming

Same size, area wise. NYC has 596 empty acres, which they are using.  Calgary has almost 100,000 empty acres we are not using.

Backyard egg vs Walmart/Safeway/Industrial Egg. 

Drilling for Soil has tremendous economic potential.

An urban community garden on a vacant lot

So beautiful, but so vulnerable. Bayer Crop Science, Monsanto, Agrium, et al are not their friends.

FUDI
http://www.facebook.com/FUDInstitute

As fragile as an egg?

One of my favourite gardens