SAINT JOHN – We are now a few months into the City of Saint John’s experiment with bike lanes on Main Street in the city’s North End and, from all reports, the world hasn’t ended yet. Traffic has naturally slowed to non-freeway speeds without backing up (or really being noticed at all) and the route sees many cyclists use it every day. It has even been popular enough with pedestrians that the City thought it was necessary to issue a statement saying that the bike lanes are approved for – you guessed it – bicycles only. Too bad for the pedestrians in need of a safer walking route, but that’s another story.

HALIFAX - “In HRM, we have a traffic problem. We need to get people out of their cars,” one HRM resident succinctly surmised at the public meeting regarding the potential widening of Bayers Road held Wednesday evening. “Let’s put money into sustainable, accessible, community-building strategies” which include transit and active transit routes, was the overwhelming message voiced by the 300 or so citizens that attended the public meeting. They demanded that the widening be removed from the Road Network Functional Plan, which is due to be approved by Council later this month.

HALIFAX - Councillor Linda Mosher’s recent comparison of street art to vandalism and graffiti has brought a variety of reactions. One of the most extreme counterarguments? That all street art is legitimate, and that the city itself is a sketchbook. We wanted to ask a street artist how they felt about the recent attack on graffiti art.  Jei Jei Steeves is both within and staunchly unique from the Halifax urban art milieu. She’s a Halifax artist whose stickers of stray kittens have been popping around the city's streets to say things like "Your lopsided breasts are really beautiful," "I support the troops but I don't support the war," and "I don't like the way you're looking at my tits."

Editor's Note: From the desk of District 14 Councillor Jennifer Watts. Read her op-ed piece in the Chronicle-Herald here. WHAT: Bayers Road Widening Public Meeting WHEN: Wednesday, September 14, 7:00pm WHERE: St. Andrew's Community Centre, 6955 Bayers Road, Halifax FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114181238686810 HALIFAX - A public meeting on the proposed Bayers Road widening will be at 7 pm on Wednesday September 14 at St Andrew's Community Centre, Bayers Road, organized by Councillors Jerry Blumenthal and Jennifer Watts. Staff will give an overview of two items before ...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is kindly cross-posted from the Halifax Media Co-op. Check out the original here. Also, Spacing Atlantic has created a Facebook Event to easily notify and inform others of the Public Meeting on Bayers Road Expansion, please help us get the word out! https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114181238686810 HALIFAX - There's no way to get around it.  Metro needs better transit. Fortunately, the It's More Than Buses group have big ideas of how to fix that. After several public meetings,  this week they unveiled a proposed High-Frequency Public Transit Network [PDF] and a set of guiding principles. It's an exciting and promising approach led by the Planning and Design Centre (PDC) in Halifax in partnership with Fusion Halifax.  More than 100 members of the urban and suburban public participated in the meetings.  Also present were Eddie Robar, the new head of Metro Transit,  and Richard Butts, HRM's Chief Administrative Officer.

HALIFAX - This summer across the country, the idea that vegetables can and should be grown in the city continues to gain momentum. Urban agriculture is a lot of things, but as a formal movement promotes local, sustainable food systems, renewed inner-city social and physical health, and a shift toward people-oriented urbanism. Inner city food production has obvious impacts on the urban landscape, creating pleasant productive spaces in otherwise unproductive, sterile land. Halifax has many lovely gardens, many of which can be found on the Halifax Garden Network’s user-generated map. You can, of course, engage in urban gardening in a variety of ways, ranging from formalized municipal allotments, to semi-private community gardens, to straight up guerilla gardens.

SAINT JOHN - In early 2010, the City launched PlanSJ to develop a new Municipal Plan to guide development over the next 25 years. We've been following it closely from the beginning and now, it’s almost here. A draft Plan is being introduced to the public with an Open House today. It's available here [PDF] for your reading pleasure, all 150+ pages of it. Here's an excerpt: Policies contained in the Municipal Plan will help guide: Capital expenditure and investment decisions by the City; Decisions about where and ...

With lots of neat-o, community urban events taking place this weekend - from Metro transit bus rides discussing sprawl, Mobile Art project unveilings, the final walk with Aimee Brown in Point Pleasant Park to Open Street parties -  I thought I would consolidate the Events Guides, so you can map out your weekend plans in advance. WHAT: Taking development issues on the bus: Ecology Action Centre's 37th Day of Action WHERE: Metro Transit Route 14, meet and jump on at Barrington & Duke, South WHEN: Saturday, May 28, 12:48pm, SHARP!! HOW MUCH: $2.25 HALIFAX REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY (HRM) -  As part of Ecology Action Centre's 40 days of Action to celebrate the organizations 40th year of operation, grab your bus pass and join EAC’s Built Environment Committee for a healthy debate about the past and future of Halifax' city’s growth. This event is all about jumping on a bus and riding through various HRM development types - from the city’s core through the subdivisions to the edges of metro - while having a discussion on growth and development. What do our neighbourhoods say about us? The event encourages dialogue regarding HRM development and the impact it has had on the city's economics, the environment, and the notion of community. The bus tour is organized by the Built Environment Committee at the Ecology Action Centre, but all residents of the city are invited. Special “on the bus” guests include:  Jennifer Watts, City Councillor of HRM district 14; Andrew Murphy, Accountant and developer who worked on the proposed changes to HRMs' regional tax structure; and two more guests that have yet to be announced.