To be fair, it isn’t really an engineering issue; it’s a simple case of plans that look good on paper, but may not work out so well once implemented.

The plan is to turn a single oversized lot and split it up into seven. That, in its self isn’t a bad thing; the problem is where the driveways will go.

You’ll have two going onto the Lincoln Rd. and five going onto Adams.

The worst will be the two driveways on the Lincoln Rd. Due to the small size of the lots, drivers would have to either back into, or out of those driveways. If you’ve ever been on the Lincoln Rd, you’ll know that backing out onto it isn’t the smartest of ideas.  A quick survey using Google Maps found that out of 69 driveways on that stretch of Lincoln Rd (from the Experimental Farm to the Vanier Industrial Dr intersection), 63 had an area on the property for cars to turn around. Only 6, or less than 9% did not have a turn-around. 63 out of 69 (91%) is a higher ratio than most dentists give to a brand of toothpaste. Canada Post also recently removed the roadside mailboxes with a community box as they considered stopping along the Lincoln Rd to be too dangerous.

Adams St has a history of problems, at the other end of it, there is a park with insufficient parking, which means it gets plugged up with cars parked on the side of the road. Many of these are minivans and SUVs that are parked a few feet away from the curb (I hate to use stereotypes, but this one is actually true). There’s also a badly built traffic-calming circle in the middle that only slows traffic going away from the Lincoln Rd. The intersection at the Lincoln Rd end has a steep hill, blind curve and a tall hedge that blocks your view. There’s also a blind hill and a blind curve that you have to deal with while pulling out into the Lincoln Rd.  Adding five driveways would just complicate this.  If one of those five houses decides to throw a party, there won’t be enough driveway space to accommodate all the guests.  This means they’ll have to park on the street, which if they park on both sides will plug it up just like at the other end. Since there’s a hedge blocking your view as you pull in from the Lincoln Rd, you’ll get quite a surprise to find only enough room for a single lane and a bus coming the other way.

View Larger Map- You can’t see what’s behind that hedge

Hopefully the developers will change their plans and allow for shared driveways or a space to turn around. They may have to reduce the number of lots, but they’ll be able to sell the ones on the Lincoln Rd for more as not having to back out of the driveway will make them more desirable.

The real solution is to block off Adams St. and build another exit by expropriating some of the experimental farm and making Lonewater go down to Lincoln.  There, you won’t have the blind hill, curve or hedge. This plan probably wouldn’t be popular with the people who live on Lonewater though.

View Adams Fix in a larger map

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UPDATE: Mar 8 2010 -
According to this article, the zoning request was denied and a failure was prevented. It is assumed that the developer will try again with a different (and presumably better) site plan.

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For some reason, ADI Group insists that buses must stop directly in front of Fredericton’s new convention centre. Do people actually take the bus to a convention? I don’t really know the answer to that, however, as Queen St. is one way, the doors of any bus would open on the wrong side. What’s the proposed solution? Make Queen St go two way for a block.

Needless to say, I have a few problems with this:

• It isn’t just the case of painting a few lines on the road, the Queen/Regent and Queen/St. John intersections will have to be redesigned to allow for the wide right turns that a bus will make.
• You know that people won’t pay attention and will keep going past St. John and go the wrong way all the way until University.
• Would people really take a bus to get there? There is a perfectly good hotel across the street, and they are also planning to build a new one next door to the convention centre.
• If on the odd chance they do take the bus, does it really have to go right to the front door? Couldn’t it just pull up beside the Playhouse and have the conventioneers walk to the doors? It’s only 300 feet.

That’s not really that far to walk, even for a small city.  For an even shorter walk, the bus could stop across the street and they could add a crosswalk so people can easily get across the street.

The cost to modify Queen St. probably won’t be small, and could be better spent on other traffic projects. Hopefully they don’t go through with this.

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In case you aren’t on Twitter, Rick Miles  has pre-announced that Research in Motion will be adding 50 new jobs to its Fredericton operation. This will be in addition to the unknown number of employees it got when it purchased Chalk Media.

There is good reason to be excited as these will be high-paying product development jobs.

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Here we go again. The City of Fredericton announces something and puts absolutely no information about it on their web site. This time, it’s a plan to redevelop the run-down exhibition grounds. The only information about the project is a newspaper article with a vague description and a low resolution image. How can they expect any decent comments with that?

I’d also like to note this article which outlines the need for high density urban environments. Hopefully they took that into consideration when coming up with this plan. We’ll never know as they don’t have any details available on-line.

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You keep hearing of more “progressive” cities getting hybrid transit buses. Maybe Fredericton should get some too? Let’s first run some numbers:

Cost of a bus: $400,000 for a regular one, $600,000 for a hybrid.

As with hybrid cars, you need to change the batteries every 6 years. As Fredericton keeps its buses until they are about 24 years old, that means 3 battery replacements (at 6, 12 and 18 years) 3x$66,000 = 200,000

That essentially makes it double the cost over the 24 year lifespan of the bus.  Now, don’t forget that there would be some fuel savings. Unfortunately, under real-world testing, a hybrid bus only got 15% more mileage. (3.86 vs 4.58 mpg).

With a limited budget, that means Fredericton Transit would be able to buy fewer buses if they switched to Hybrids. To compensate, they would need to keep older buses for longer, which won’t be as fuel efficient as a newer conventional bus. They also wouldn”t be able to expand service, which would mean more cars on the road.

The truth of the matter is that hybrid transit buses are just for greenwashing and serve no actual purpose other than scoring political points.

Reference: http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/WVU_FTA_LCC_Final_Report_07-23-2007.pdf

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Q:What’s worse than not having information posted on a website?
A:Having it up on the site, but not linking to it so it can’t be found.

Last week, I posted an article about how the City of Fredericton doesn’t post a lot of information on its website. Imagine my surprise when I Googled something completely unrelated and find this:

http://www.fredericton.ca/en/transportation/resources/2009_ConstructionMap.pdf

It’s exactly what’s needed, but it isn’t linked from anywhere on the main www.fredericton.ca site. The file properties show that it was created on Sept 9th, which was well before my blog post criticizing them for not having it.

It’s really sad that they have this information compiled and ready to go, but they are unwilling to release it. It’s time to tear down the wall between City Hall and the people. It’s 2009, there is no excuse for this.

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The Dillon Consulting Transit Report suggested a new garage for Fredericton Transit as the current one isn’t big enough and is no longer suitable. Last week, city council agreed to spend $5.2 million on a new one.

Some might think that $5.2 million is a lot, but compare it to Saint John who recently spent $23.5 million. Saint John’s will be twice the size so divide by 2 and compare to $11.75 million. That’s only 44% of the cost compared to what they built in Saint John. By building it in an industrial area, a lot of money can be saved by going cheap on the appearance.

I was disappointed with this line though: “It’s also proposing to redirect $423,000 from an anticipated bus purchase in 2010 to the construction of the transit garage.” That means the poor riders of Fredericton Transit will have to endure riding on a rickety old Mulroney era piece of junk that won’t be replaced for another year.

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There weren’t any changes from 2008/09 to 2009/10.

Sadly, they weren’t even able to designate one route as being accessible.

Since I have nothing to compare to from last year, I’ll compare to 1999. The good people at archive.org provide us with an old copy of the city’s web site:

http://web.archive.org/web/19991105011430/www.city.fredericton.nb.ca/bus/bussked.html

On average, most routes had this for service:

• 1/2 hour service during the morning rush
• 2 hour service during the day
• 1/2 hour service during the evening rush
• big 2 hour gap
• 1 or 2 night runs

Today, we have:

• 1/2 hour service during the morning rush
• 1 hour service during the day
• 1/2 hour service during the evening rush
• big 2 hour gap
• 1 or 2 night runs

They also added Route 9 and improved Saturday service on some routes.

We’re much better off than we were 10 years ago. It might not look like it above, but that 1 hour service during the day does help a lot of riders. Hopefully we’ll be much better off in 10 years.

Also, look at the paint scheme from 1999, which is better than the 1980 paint scheme.

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After seeing this article in Fredericton’s Daily Gleaner, I couldn’t help but give myself the old facepalm. Do people around here have short memories? Do we not remember what happened to all the other e-learning companies around here? We have a few that remain, but they are only shells of their former selves. The majority of these are out of province companies that go shopping around for which government agency will give them the most money. Once the contracts have dried up, they lay off their staff and go home.

What most people don’t know is that there are 2 different types of IT companies: Product developers and contractors.

Product developers are ones that make their own product and sell it. There are many of these companies around Fredericton, most of them homegrown. A short list: Caris, Radian6, Q1 Labs, Chalk, Indosoft, Measurand, Remsoft, Virtual Expert Clinics, IVS, EDP, T4G

Contractors are ones that do work for other companies or government agencies. A short list: CGI, XWave, Accreon, PQA, Fujitsu, Unisys, Skillsoft

Most of the product development companies started in Fredericton while most of the contractor companies have head offices elsewhere. I’m not trying to say that contractor companies aren’t worth investing in, but that product development companies are better.

Let’s look at 2 relatively recent failures:

1. FatKat, a contract based animation company – They were given a lot of money, but when the contracts ran out, all economic activity stopped and the government lost their investment. No, it’s not an IT company, but there is very little difference between it and the average IT consulting company.
2. Mathis Instruments, a product development company  – They had a great product but couldn’t sell it. They went under, but their product was bought by C-Vision who continues development and is actually able to sell it. Sure, the government lost money, but C-Therm (as it’s now called) still has an office in Fredericton that employs people.

All we’ve been hearing about is how great it is that Company X is coming in and creating 200 jobs after getting lured in by the government. They get a lot of buzz because they’re big numbers, those 200 jobs come fairly quickly and look good politically. Product development jobs come more slowly and therefore don’t look good for the politicians. As any politician knows, true progress doesn’t get you in the newspapers.

If someone seriously wants to attract the good kind of IT companies, a two-pronged approach must be taken. Rather than simply spending all the effort into luring companies away from other jurisdictions, effort also needs to be spent in establishing home-grown companies. A few hints on how to do that:

• Bring back Incutech, but this time, put some effort into it. Don’t just put it in some old run-down UNB building with cheap rent; put it downtown in a nice building. It needs to be more than just office space, there needs to be assistance with things like creating business plans, marketing and other non technical aspects of running a company.
• Venture capital is what brings products to market quickly. Provide assistance to companies who are looking for VC funding. Market NB as a place for investors to invest. Yes, ACOA exists, but it is more focused on spending money than building companies.
• Tap the potential of the universities. There are many great ideas that are stuck in a lab or a student’s head. Opportunities are being lost as these ideas aren’t able to be commercialized.

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A bombshell was dropped when it was announced that the Acadian Lines Fredericton terminal would be moving; not to the contested Woodside Lane location, but to Hubbard Rd., which is in the Fredericton Industrial Park. (News reports in the CBC and Daily Gleaner incorrectly reported that it was moving to the Vanier Industrial Park.)

Here is where it will be located:

View Larger Map and get directions via Fredericton Transit

As you can see, there isn’t a lot that’s near it. For the poor sap who has to wait several hours for a transfer, there isn’t a lot to do nearby. There isn’t even a Tim Hortons.

For some reason, they aren’t able to use the Woodside Lane location. They claim that they are still analyzing the cost of moving there. That doesn’t make sense as the cost of moving to the Hubbard Rd. location would be the same as moving to Woodside Lane. I suspect there may be more to the story that we aren’t hearing. This is probably a sign that they are looking for another location, possibly downtown. Our public officials are silent on this as they are probably in the middle of negotiations and they don’t want to sink any potential deals by announcing anything publicly.

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