Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

While only the owner of Legacy Greens came to the meeting and spoke, she claimed to be in communication with and representing the interests of the other businesses on the street including the coffee shop (which appears closed now, and I cannot even find their actual name) and adventures guild.

I don't recall hearing any input from Two Goblets either way.

I'm curious which of those would be a surprise? To me, the coffee shop makes sense, they probably have lots of people stopping for a short time, so prioritizing parking would make sense. Adventures Guild and the restaurant would be more surprising because the parking would be less important for them, but ultimately, opposition to bike lanes shouldn't surprise anyone at all.......

EXCEPT for opposition from Legacy Greens, because...well that business should ostensibly be friendly to environmental issues like cycling. I've said it before, it was hurtful personally for the proprietor there to oppose the bike lanes, and I certainly stopped going to that business because of it.

Two Goblets has closed, and the coffee shop moved/expanded into that space under the name Lucero Canteen, just FYI.

The coffee shop and Adventurers Guild are actually the ones that surprise me. They aren't, to greatly oversimplify, "boomer businesses". I would expect the opposition much more from the framing shop or the medical offices. To me, a coffee shop like Lucero/Show and Tell is a stereotypically urban business that depends on foot traffic, not people driving in to grab a coffee. There is also a lot of overlap between urban cycling enthusiasts and people who care to go to third wave coffee shops. I can't really put into words why Adventurers Guild surprises me but I guess as I reflect on it, board games are a pretty middle class suburban hobby. Every single person I know who goes there lives in the suburbs and drives in.

Legacy Greens doesn't surprise me though; people interested in healthy/organic/local products tend to have complete insane motivations just as often as having what I would consider genuine reasons (like some sort of environmentalism). I don't know anything about the owner, but I'm sure she at least understands who her customers are.

Awe, I didn't know Two Goblets had closed.

I do agree that they're not "boomer" businesses, but they're also still businesses. They'll do what they think helps their business and oppose anything that they think will hurt their business. I can certainly see how a coffee shop would think losing parking out front would hurt their business. They're also just people (who own the businesses) and often more conservative people, who already are likely to oppose bike lanes.

And FWIW, like I said, ONLY the proprietor of Legacy Greens showed up, so we have only her claim that she was representing the other businesses. I don't know whether it was an enthusiastic "yeah, this is terrible, please go oppose it in council for us" or a "okay sure Jordan, you seem passionate about this" kinda thing.

As for legacy greens, I mean, yes, fake progressivism is very common (looks directly at Clr Chapman) in our region and abroad. Frankly, fake progressivism might be equally as harmful as conservatism to progressivist goals. They're probably less diametrically opposed, but at least we know who our enemy is with conservatives.