As we head into the weekend, here’s a little food for thought…
Ever look at the fire hydrants in your neighbourhood? A few years ago, in Ontario, Fire Hydrants started being colour coded. But do you know what the coding means?
Blue – flow greater than 95 litres/second
Green – flow of 63 to 95 L/s
Orange – flow of 31 to 63 L/s
Red – flow less than 31 L/s
So look around at your area, what colour is protecting your block? Maybe we should start looking at some of the federal infrastructure dollars for fixing the areas protected by red hydrants, instead of dreaming of concrete ditches downtown filled with tap water…
I seem to recall when the Fire Department was fighting the warehouse fire at Walker & Richmond, or maybe the one on McDougall & Hanna, they had to go back a block or two back to find a hydrant with enough pressure to fight the fire.
Something to think about over the weekend. Are Windsor’s priorities in the right place?
I wonder if the home and property insurance companies know about this and set their fees accordingly. I didn’t know this Andrew thanks for posting. If people knew this and that red top hydrants were low flow, would they not consider purchasing a home in that area, thus leading to the eventual demise of the neighbourhood?
Aaaaaargh! The hydrant right in front of my house – RED!!! That’s it, I’m selling before this knowledge becomes widespread.
“older piping systems in the province leak an average of 20 to 40 percent of their water. “That results in a significant lowering of their flow. We’ve been warning municipalities about the situation, telling them that just because the problem originates underground doesn’t make it any less dangerous.”
That pretty much describes my older core neighbourhood. I would hazzard to guess that most of the core neighbourhoods in this city have red hydrants, while the blues and greens are located mostly in the newer subdivisions.
“The solution is clear. More investment is needed to upgrade and replace the older watermain systems. We know this is a large capital cost, but we think it’s important for a lot of reasons – maintaining the quality and safety of our drinking water, getting rid of lead pipes, but also ensuring the protection of the public when fires occur,” Zechner added.
Of maybe these old, leaking pipes are a way to bring a canal to Walkerville!
Chris, all the photos above were taken in a 5 or 6 block radius. The flow seems to vary widely from block to block.
I hate to break it to you, by my neighbourhood dates to the late 1890’s a good 15-20 years before yours, and I’ve got blue hydrants on my block… Go figure.
As much as you beg, I’m still not moving to your neighbourhood, Andrew! It’s a great area, but – well – YOU live there! That can’t be good for property values!
At least the hydrants on my block can put out fires
I have been wondering what the colours meant for months now but hadn’t worked up the nerve to call the Fire Department and simply ask. Thanks for this important public service announcement!
Periodically the ENWIN pipe patrol will run the hydrants and check them for water flow. The colours indicate the grade BLue excelent, green okay, orange poor and red is poorest, The fire department can use this information to see if they may need to draw from more than one hydrant at a fire.
While age may contribute to it you may have one that is red and the next one may be blue.
i remember many recent fires where the hydrants weren’t good enough to fight the fire. so many things in this city need to be fixed before we get a damn canal.
At least it’s right in front of my house… but it’s another red top. Andrew to answer your question about Windsor’s priorities, I’m afraid canals are sexier than fire protection.
Very interesting! I was driving around today taking looking at the hydrants. I noticed that on my residential street (a main street in central Windsor) that most of the hydrants are red, except for the ones closer to Tecumseh Rd. E., which are blue.
I hope the word gets out there about this.
Well wasn’t the Money coming from the Canadian Government, for the Canal Project, only to be used for Beautification Projects of Cities… As the Canal Project is considered 1 of these projects, and It would also make some of the vacant area thats in our downtown core get used again for something…
Also as for Hydrants in all area, its also how old the Hydrant is in your area. Some area that have old Hydrants, can only pump out so much, as they are not as large as the newer ones… They may look all the same size on top, but the Pipe leading up from the Ground on the older style ones, normally means smaller pipe, which can also Restrict flow… If you feel your block is unsafe with its hydrants that are on the lower side, then start compaining to Public Works and see what they say, and if enough of your neighboors compain with you about it, then something may happen… I know that happened near my sisters place on the west side, as they had a fire on there block and found out there was not enough pressure in there system, so they all signed a petition and brought it into the City and Fire Dept, and they got new Water system put in on her block…
Why don’t they also fix up Wyandotte St. from Victoria up to Caron while they’re at it with all the canal money they’re saving up for. I see half rusty, painted gray street lights all over the north side that should be repainted black, broken up and worn out sidewalks, cracked to damnations roads. That should be a higher priority than this white elephant of a canal. I was walking around downtown Chatham the other day. I couldn’t believe how clean it was compared to Windsor. Nice streetscaping, beautiful brick Victorian mansions all over the place. Cost of living a lot lower. Lower taxes. You can tell there’s a real pride of ownership of historical buildings. Very tempting to move down there. Then, I come back to downtown Crap-sor. They’re slowly streetscraping Ouellette, but forget about the rest of downtown (especially an older area like this one) because we don’t want anyone other than rats and druggies to live in it.
Maybe canals will actually boost money to the city so that you whining suckers (like me) won’t have to keep bitching about rising property taxes?
Hey it might even diversify our downtown from just bars to retail. It might even give an area for families to come down an enjoy (as a children’s attraction is also part of the theme). It might even bring people to live downtown! Fuck why would we want any of that? Density is for suckers but sprawl is for the smart guys.
Sorry people but the city can’t replace watermains and streets in the timeline needed. In fact they will be maxed out replacing that infrastructure soon enough. But in Windsor we can only concentrate on one thing right? Why let the feds and province pay the majority of it. Let’s wait another 20 years so that only Windsorites pay for a change in our downtown.
The short-sightedness of Windsorites still amazes me. The manufacturing mentality is still alive and well. Sprawl abound! It is so much better than trying to make improvements. Because roads and sewers always attract new residents, new business (but let the mall have them all right?) new tax areas.
David, it sounds like Chatham is in need of funds for canal development!!
The Windsor canal plan makes no sense given the elevation from the river water level…. no matter how you dress it up.
What downtown Windsor needs is something that will attract people to live in the core. Once the downtown is populated, outsiders and tourists will follow. Unfortunately that means some sort of ‘big box’ department store to nucleate development. The Rideau Centre in Ottawa is a good example as it contains some grocery stores as well as things like Sears. All the smaller shops in the area do very well as I have seldom seen vacant stores. The Marketplace area is heavily concentrated with restaurants as well. Local farmers even sell produce there. And yes, Ottawa does have a canal but I doubt it contributes greatly to the prosperity of downtown in the summertime.
You want to see a contrast to what a clean and properly laid out downtown should like? Check out the Doors Open in downtown Chatham tomorrow. It’s too bad we couldn’t drag our mayor and all our councilors to downtown Chatham to see what a clean downtown looks like with pride of ownership so they can follow their example. They even have a two-storey mall with parking garage in the heart of downtown and the shops have a fraction of the vacancies that downtown Windsor has.
I have to say Andrew, this is probably the most interesting blog article I’ve ever read!
I have a blue one in my old neighbour hood cause i live across the old grace hospital !! lol
JBM,
Then what to do propose will bring people to live downtown? Retail follows population not the other way around.
Feelers were already put out by the city back in 2005/06 (around that time) and every developer approached stated they wanted an attraction of sorts to bring people to live there. Wihtout it they wouldn’t be able to sell any of the lots. Remember, these aren’t just condo’s on the river but row housing as well. What is the attraction to being people to live downtown?
Do you really think having a costco or Lowe’s downtown would bring people to live there? I don’t think that is the case.
ME,
In your first statement you claim that “Retail follows population…” and then you cite a survey of developers that states that “they wanted an attraction of sorts to bring people to live there…”. So, is this a chicken and egg discussion?
When downtown was a vibrant place to live, there were many stores such as Smith’s, Bartlett’s, Kresges, Zellers, Metropolitan, various appliance and furniture stores, theatres, food stores, clothing shops…. Then the exodus began. Instead of keeping pace and encouraging more up to date shopping opportunities and development, these enterprises relocated and took hold in the suburbs. I recall the debate over the shopping strip on Dougall (Century Plaza?) and how this would jeopardize the downtown. Business kept moving outwards to Lauzon and Tecumseh, Gateway Plaza and West to Huron and Tecumseh. The population soon followed and agricultural land was swallowed up. To keep pace and maintain a tax base, the city kept expropriating the surrounding area and extended its borders; the core was experiencing a slow death.
As a rural youth, I enjoyed coming downtown on the Greyhound on Saturdays for the shopping, to go to the farmer’s market or just to go to the show. Eventually, there was nothing to ‘come to’ and no reason to go downtown. Everything was now in the burbs! If the city would have encouraged an urban shopping centre or provided some opportunities to merchants, I believe commerce would have remained downtown, Instead, the vacuum created by the exodus of business was filled by strip bars, large ‘dance clubs’ and boarded up storefronts; not exactly the environment to raise a family in… no schools and limited family oriented entertainment. The Casino did nothing to make downtown a place to live.
That said, I suppose you could consider the downtown a safe place visit at night given that security cameras have been installed. At least they may be able to identify the criminal once you are dead. Or, they will capture the acts of urination and vomiting as the bars let out.
Some seem to think that building a canal will stimulate urban growth. I do not. The geography is not right; least to say that there is an elevation impediment. So, this will be no more than a ditch in the end. Perhaps it will encourage more kiddie bars… so install more cameras please.
There has to be some sort of development to encourage the return of citizens. Not slumlord, geared to income housing. Maybe the city should spend some of its capital on a professional study on urban development instead of proposing a canal to solve these problems. If a canal is the conclusion of such a study, then build it. Don’t build in in hopes that it may be a solution. It could end up as another hole that has to be filled. Such a hole was recently filled due to project failure.
Just perhaps, this subject should be part of the mayoral race?? It may be time for prospective candidates to start thinking on this and other issues. As stated in this sites banner, “546 more days until the 2010 Windsor Municipal Election. Change is coming”. Let’s hear some proposals to bring the City of Windsor back to a clean and dynamic city and a desirable place to live.
This blog provides a good place to express opinion, ideas and discussion…. negative and positive…. thank you Andrew for this opportunity.
It isn’t a chicken or egg issue JBM. I stated retail follows population which it does. Retail will not go downtown unless people can purchase from it. People will not go downtown unless there is something to bring them there. The infrastructure must be there to bring people downtown to live.
Your second and third paragraphs back up my arguement. But I have no idea what the casino has to do with the debate? I am not saying the canal is the silver bullet for downtown (to which you may be alluding to) but it certainly is a large piece of the puzzle.
You can try and debate other elements such as crime but to “suppose” I think is safe is a horrible attempt to do so. Just for the record I have been a big proponent to increase crime PREVENTION by having cops walk the beat instead of driving around in cruisers.
The elevation impediment is solved because the canal will be lowered along with the boardwalks that surround it. So will many of the businesses with mixed retail and housing on top. Bars are zoned out of the area so that is a moot point. Obviously you didn’t read the report.
On my morning walk along riverside I spot this one:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/podsiljak/3525322807/in/photostream/
@Zee : wow, its either worse than a red hydrant, or its a hydrant that likes other hydrants!
heheheh well I seen green to, but not like one shown on blog. This one is light green color. There is a lot of them on Riverside after Jefferson.