Is it just me, or are we caught in some kind of time warp in which the same civic issues are played out over and over again ad nauseum?
In case you missed it, we have yet another bright idea for making Winston Churchill Square live up to its promise. Unfortunately, the people tasked with changing a concrete desert in the centre of the city into a place people actually want to go are quite likely the same people who created the current sea of cement.
According to the city’s website, “Churchill Square is a safe, family-friendly, vibrant and lively urban plaza in the heart of Edmonton’s downtown.”
Really?
If that’s so, why does it need a retrofit?
In 2001, city council endorsed Sir Winston Churchill Square as Edmonton’s Legacy Project for 2004. The goal was to create “a space that draws people into it both for community-wide celebration and for quiet, solitary contemplation.”
Apparently the square doesn’t get enough solitary contemplators and we needed a 50-page report to tell us that it’s a sun-baked, barren wasteland in the summer and people really don’t like going there unless there’s some kind of event going on.
According to the panjandrums of public consultation, the challenge now is “to draw more people into Sir Winston Churchill Square on a casual basis.”
If you want to know what people want in a central square, take a look at the front of city hall in the summer.
On any given day when the square is virtually uninhabited, there are always lots and lots of people there.
Why?
Because there’s water and trees and places to sit and watch the kiddos play.
I think it’s quite feasible for us to put back the trees and build a much larger wading pool with the requisite fountains in Sir Winston Churchill Square.
Since arenas can host a basketball game one night and a hockey game the next, it should be feasible to cover over the pool when there is a festival or an event.
In the winter, the pool could be used to accommodate far more skaters than the dinky one in front of city hall currently does.
If we really wanted to be an interesting city, we could build an actual swimming pool in the square.
If we did that we could go for a dip at lunch and then engage in “solitary contemplation.”
