Have your say

Cheaper solutions

Re: Review of traffic speeds and Intersections most dangerous: MPI (Feb. 14). Has anyone taken into account that traffic flow might be a major factor in accidents within the city limits?

Drivers are continuously stopping light after light and become more aggressive when they see a yellow light and even force themselves into the red. Take a drive down Broadway during a slow traffic period and you will stop at 80 per cent of the lights in both directions.

A pedestrian can push a button on major routes such as Main Street, St. Anne's and many others during rush hour, and stop traffic. Many pedestrians just push and walk without even looking up.

This has been studied to death with the same results in numerous other cities. Many solutions wouldn't need to cost a lot of money. No parking on major routes is an example. Timed walk lights is another.

Can we just use the money to fix the traffic solutions instead of yet another study?

LEN VIROG

Winnipeg

Haring down horse

Re: Horse meat aversion irrational but instructive (Feb. 14). I get a kick out of the hoorash surrounding the eating of horse meat.

When I was a young pup of 12 years old prior to the Second World War, I worked for a store owner on the Dawson Road about five miles from the stockyards. Down the road from us was a horse ranch. When the ranch had a colt fatality, usually a broken leg, it was dispatched to the abattoir in St. Boniface. The bush telegraph would quickly inform those interested and my boss would hare down and pick up some nice steaks.

I remember eating those steaks with gusto. The flesh was stringier than beef, but to me, it tasted downright good.

GORDON WOOLLARD

Emo, Ont.

Open up Portage Place

I applaud Rob Roddy's reminder about the imminent 'dust bowl' in downtown Winnipeg (Downtown 'dust bowl' won't feed residents, Feb. 12). I would like to raise one additional point.

Portage Place owners should use the Portage Avenue frontage as it was obviously intended in the approved design and construction -- with street access retail. We have a 300-metre stretch of inaccessible space (the doors are locked) on the north side of Portage. It has become the trouble spot of the city as it is totally irrelevant to the citizens. Trying to create an indoor pedestrian space has not helped the city.

A few years back, Toronto and the Toronto Eaton Centre agreed that Yonge's street deterioration between Queen and Dundas was on account of the TEC fortress, which was also closed to the street. Today, Young street there and beyond has benefited from a concerted effort by TEC to open up many stores, and restaurants to the street, bringing it back to life. And I can assure you that Yonge street was worse off than we are at the time of the changeover.

It's not too late. Portage Place owners and the city and its local development groups need to get together and agree on steps. Once that is on the table, funding can be discussed.

WALTER KLEINSCHMIT

Winnipeg

The right fund

In the editorial Mockery made (Feb. 14) you state that Save Our Seine should have "been told" to apply for funds from the community incentive grant, per-capita ward grants, or the land-dedication reserve because these have "specific criteria to dole out money."

Yes, it is true that the incentive and land-dedication grants have specific criteria -- criteria that limit the grants to one-time capital projects (e.g. building exhibits at the St. Vital Museum) and which would not allow funding for a staff person.

The per-capita grant money for my ward totals $12,000, so it would not have been possible to fund the $28,000 staff position using that program.

Coun. BRIAN MAYES

St. Vital Ward

Poop, stoop, scoop

As someone who walks the Harte Trail or Assiniboine Forest trails daily, I am becoming thoroughly dismayed with the increasing number of dog owners who think that the poop-and-scoop bylaws apply only to others. Sure it's been a cold winter but that doesn't excuse them from doing their duty. Come spring, those droppings will become smelly, mushy masses, not to mention a health and safety issue.

So, delinquent dog owners, clean up your acts, and your dog poop!

EVELINE GURNHAM

Winnipeg

Suffering well told

Re: Perry Nodelman's comments about "shrieks of livestock" at the WSO From Darkness to Light -- A Spiritual Journey concert (Letters, Feb. 6). My wife and cancer-survivor daughter and I were among the 1,700 or so attendees who relived the cancer story as a 'percussion concert' by our WSO's composer in residence, Vincent Ho. Many of us in the audience were reduced at times to sobbing tears with the vivid story that unfolded last Saturday evening.

In almost four years of suffering with/for our daughter and many other cancer patients we met at Health Sciences Centre and the Mayo Clinic, "the shrieks of livestock" and "otherworldly squeals" are heard mostly in the privacy of the homes of the supporting relatives and friends -- it was rare to hear any form of suffering from those going through their chemo or radiation.

We knew that these patients were protecting us from knowing the real suffering. Dame Evelyn Glennie and the WSO told Vincent Ho's magnificent story so well, and the attendees have learned to cry and share our stories again.

BRIAN SHERIDAN

Winnipeg

It's in the name

The article Helping the helpers (Feb. 11) refers to professions such as firefighters, police officers, corrections workers and "ambulance attendants." Get with the times, Free Press, and show respect to the profession of a paramedic, whose job has evolved from attending on an ambulance to pre-hospital lifesaving care that involves many interventions than simply driving a patient to the hospital!

PATTI HERZOG

Winnipeg

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 19, 2013 A10