Fight the Greenway fund
This is in one of the lowest income, most disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the city. There are many homes with large families, and with elderly and disabled people living in them. This encroachment is making a lot of very old homes - that were not built for the alley to be the main access - inaccessible to their owners and occupants.
There are many concerns about the crime this will add to the area, both from the new stretches of unprotected space, and in the already-dangerous alleyways.
The greenway council has been disorganized and dishonest the whole time they've been planning this over the past few years.
Currently, they are installing a "temporary" greenway, which will be up for the next year. It has only been up a week, and is already angering residents - many of whom had no idea this was happening. They are losing access to their parking, while the street is being filled with blight - busted up concrete barriers and cheap metal horse troughs, as "planters". They aren't even removing labelling tags:
For more details on why this is a BAD idea, see the website: www.stopthegreenway.com
While the city and greenway council has poured $600k into this forced encroachment - and has people actually being paid salaries to force it through - those of us living on the route have no such resources to fight it, and preserve our access to our homes, our home value, and our safety. Anything we do to fight it is out of pocket, and is very much "David vs Goliath".
With the grand opening of the temporary greenway scheduled for June 25, time is very much of the essence.
So, I designed and paid for 250 postcards and 100 lawn signs. This was our best estimate for cost-benefit, given that there are approximately 180 homes on the section of the road with temporary greenway installed.
Prior to the grand opening, we will be distributing the postcards (with information and a link to the site for full info) to those along the route, and giving signs to anyone who wants to register their dissent with the project.
Because opposition to the greenway has been outright ignored, shouted down, and covered up (through dishonest polling/recording practices), our best chance at showing the city and the public that we do NOT want this forced on us is to unite, in a publicly visible way.
I fronted almost $400 for this printing, and will be organizing volunteers to canvas. I don't have a ton of money myself, and worry that asking people to "buy" (reimburse at cost) the signs as we canvass will be a deterrent to actually putting the signs in yards.
So, if you would like to contribute to this effort, I would really appreciate it!
(Seen yesterday, not ours)
