Recently, a Guelph resident reached out to me with a raw, unvarnished assessment of the challenges facing our city—from the noise on the Hanlon Expressway to the “fake optics” of our piecemeal bicycle infrastructure. His frustration is valid, and it highlights exactly why I am running for Mayor. We cannot fix a broken municipal system by painting over the cracks. Below is my direct response to him, outlining how the Change to Grow platform applies rigorous systems thinking to solve Guelph’s infrastructure, transit, and housing challenges.
Here is the email I received today with quite a few good concerns and questions:
Hard decisions with limited funding require planning and cooperation.
Not every project can be funded, but funding is only one barrier, and the other is “actively being in denial of a problem”, so it doesn’t have to be addressed.
So the first active denial is the noise levels for the 1000s of residents near the Hanlon Expressway. My backyard is 50m from it. There are no sound barriers and the noise levels are way higher than provincial limits ….. but sound barriers are way to expensive for the politically marginalized residents in that area … and that is also true for a bypass. But the city could partner with the province to put up signs asking truckers not to use their engine brakes along the Hanlon immediately adjacent to peoples homes. When I engaged with the city previously they said “Truckers only use their engine brakes in a case of emergency” …… Is there a constant state of emergency on the Hanlon? 10-20 per day? That is a convenient lie, as is the provinces not working together with the city to put up these signs and enforce noise guidelines.
The second area is the new “high speed” rail line that acts as a prison wall with respect to accessibility for ward 4, as does the Eramosa river. But city governments find these walls useful and do nothing about them.
This brings us to bicycle policy and spending. I was there for the little bicycle rally at city hall years ago, and that group and the city couldn’t have done a worse job. A real bicycle policy requires a decade of careful strategy not optics. Land needs to be strategically bought for bicycle transit corridors that link the city with minimal distance and energy. Employers who want to pay “bicycle wages” need to reward employees for low impact commuting and have showers in the workplace and they should pay wages for 50% of the human powered commute time. The barriers would also have to come down and that is a political hotbed, and that would include the deliberate barriers in the neighborhoods themselves. Walking to shopping in my condo complex takes 30 minutes when it could take 5 minutes.
Some places in the world have done this successfully ….. but nowhere in north America a far a I know …. so why pretend and waste money on fake optics. At the very least those concrete block vehicular and bicycle menaces need to be removed. What were they thinking … Did painting lines not burn enough cash. Do cyclists really need their own signals?
The next issue is city water. I have lived in this ward for 3 decades and the water is basically fine because of where it comes from. But the city is fudging their water testing results and the province is looking the other way with respect to sporadic but problematic chloramine levels. This is very cheap to address and I use a simple carbon filter that cost about 10$ per year for the cartridge. The city KNOWS when the chloramine levels will rise because they are the ones who make that choice based on operational considerations. So why not implement a diversion stage to post treat the water with a carbon filtration stage ONLY when needed? The city residents spend roughly 10 million dollars on bottled water PER YEAR. Wouldn’t the city prefer it citizens to recoup that buying power?
It would cost about a half a million dollars to give every household in Guelph a carbon filter, but it would charged 10x that no matter who implements that. A rebate program might work better.
Then there is the unique problems with respect to using ground water.
How do you plan to further champion our municipal tap water infrastructure, and what policy steps will you take to ensure public facilities and city-backed events remain strictly aligned with cutting out unnecessary single-use plastics?”.
Public transit? You can’t afford the changes that would make it viable.
Cost of living, wages and sprawl? Don’t pretend to have control over things that are absolutely dictated at the level of hierarchy way above the city.
The downtown? … a difficult problem becasue their businesses target the upper middle class, which has been decimated. Guelph doesn’t have the location or the amenities to cater to the upper class, and they have no reason to come here.
Here is my response:
Thank you for reaching out and sharing such a detailed, unvarnished assessment of the challenges facing Guelph. Your frustration with municipal “fake optics” and half-measures resonates strongly with my “Change to Grow” platform.
As an IT professional and systems administrator, I view municipal governance the same way I view network architecture: you cannot fix a broken system by painting over the cracks or ignoring the data. We need rigorous fiscal scrutiny, transparent data, and practical solutions rather than performative politics.
Here is how I approach the specific issues you raised:
Water Quality and Single-Use Plastics
I strongly champion our municipal tap water infrastructure. The fact that so many residents feel compelled to continuously purchase bottled water indicates a breakdown in public trust. As Mayor, my approach to water testing and chloramine levels will be rooted in absolute data transparency. While the city currently has a Water Wagon, its use is treated as a nice-to-have. I will implement strict procurement guidelines prohibiting municipal funds from purchasing bottled water for city-backed events, mandating the use of our deployable infrastructure instead. Regarding your carbon filter suggestion, I support directing staff to run a strict cost-benefit analysis comparing a centralized diversion stage against a targeted household rebate program. The math must dictate the most efficient use of taxpayer dollars.
The Hanlon Expressway Noise
You are absolutely right that “actively being in denial of a problem” is not governance. While massive infrastructure projects like sound walls may not pass immediate budget scrutiny, putting up “No Engine Brakes” signs is a practical, low-cost action. Because the Hanlon is a provincial highway, the city historically throws its hands up and says it is out of their jurisdiction. I will not accept that excuse. I will proactively push for a joint partnership with the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) to install necessary signage and explore collaborative enforcement. We do not need to spend massive amounts of capital to secure basic neighborhood livability.
Accessibility Barriers and Active Transit in Ward 4
Your point about the new rail line and the Eramosa River acting as “prison walls” for Ward 4 identifies a critical failure in our city’s network topology. In IT, when a physical barrier blocks necessary traffic, the entire network degrades. A city should never find physical barriers “useful” to isolate neighborhoods. This ties directly into your critique of the city’s current bicycle infrastructure. Throwing down concrete blocks and painting lines in a piecemeal fashion without integrating them into cohesive corridors wastes money and frustrates everyone. We need to focus on strategic land acquisition to build dedicated, low-impact commuting paths that actually bridge these divides, rather than just retrofitting arterial roads for fake optics.
The Downtown Economy
Your assessment of downtown’s economic target is sharp. If local businesses are relying on an upper-middle-class demographic that has been decimated, they are ignoring the data. Downtown Guelph should not be an artificial boutique destination; it needs to be a functional, accessible hub for all residents. We cannot pretend we have the location to cater exclusively to the upper class. We need to encourage a shift toward amenities that serve the broader, everyday community by making the core actually livable and affordable.
Cost of Living, Sprawl, and Municipal Control
I must respectfully push back on the idea that the city has no control over the cost of living. While macro-economics are dictated provincially and federally, municipal land use is our domain. This is exactly why my platform proposes the creation of a city-owned Municipal Development Corporation (MDC). Instead of just zoning land and hoping private developers build what we need, an MDC allows the city to proactively build diverse, affordable housing directly on city-owned land. This retains the asset for the public and directly impacts local supply without triggering unnecessary property tax hikes.
Thank you again for your candid email. Governance requires making hard decisions with limited funding, and that requires listening to residents who actually live with the consequences of those decisions.