PROJECTS
  1. Soccer Fields
  2. Arenas
  3. Bypass
  4. Multi-Event Pavilion
  5. Transportation of merchandise
  6. A sign to replace the water towers

Soccer Fields

Recently, Gil Penalosa from the Walk and Bike for Life Organization made a presentation to city council. He explained that Mississauga was preparing to build 16 soccer fields in Erindale Park.

Penalosa showed a map of the soccer fields, then showed a second map where the fields are spread out all over Mississauga. This is a better solution, he said, because now all the participants can walk or bike to the soccer fields for a higher quality of life.

This is a sound idea, and applied in Sudbury suggests that instead of building a group of soccer fields at Frood and Lasalle, whatever funds are available should be used to build or upgrade fields all around the community so that we can walk or bike to them for improved quality of life.
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Arenas

It is impossible to walk and bike to arenas during the winter, but the idea of bringing the arenas closer to the people can be achieved. The users of arenas are mostly students, and in the same way that gymnasiums are attached to high schools, there should be an arena made available to schools as well.

Arenas are expensive, so the schools would have to be brought closer to the arenas. For example an arena could be built between Collège Boréal and École secondaire Macdonald-Cartier.

Then Sudbury Secondary School, instead of renovating the school, could sell their land and buildings, getting a very good price for them, and buy land next to Boréal and build a new school where they would be able to share the arena.

Marymount College has the problem of not having any land where students can exercise. They could relocate to the Boréal area as well, and have access to a huge recreational area.

When students play hockey in the evening, they must be accompanied by a coach. There has to be security for the building and health care must be on hand to look after injuries. The students must be transported to the arena and then back home. This causes a lot of extended and overtime hours to be worked and carries a high transportation cost. With schools clustered around an arena, the students can play hockey during the regular day hours.

All the students would be able to use the arena, especially those for whom costs are a burden. Students needing regular access to arenas could choose to attend these schools while students interested in other activities would choose other schools. The arena would also be used evenings by other groups of people from the community.

Read more: Letter to Northern Life: New arena should be built close to schools
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Bypass in north end

We need a bypass that will efficiently funnel traffic on and off Highway 69 North. The Barrydowne extension to Hanmer is not a solution.

The city should build a rail and road bypass in Sudbury's north end -- an alternative to expensive city plans to widen, flatten and lengthen Maley Drive. This will remove traffic from Lasalle Boulevard, Barrydowne Road and Notre Dame Avenue. This is not about removing downtown tracks, but adding a bypass for CPR through traffic to connect to the CN line, travel down to Coniston and bypass the city.

Widening and flattening Maley Drive, then reconnecting rail, roads and business will be very expensive. Increasing traffic on Maley Drive, with the suburb and the golf course across the street, will cause fatalities. Better to build a four-lane, divided 80 km/hr road, partially fenced, a few hundred metres North of Maley Drive. It will have no intersections and go from Garson Road and connect Barrydowne Road over to Highway 69 and on to Highway 144 near the flooded pit at the top of the hill. The CPR could also build at the same time and right alongside the road a new railroad track to connect to the CN line. The distance is less than 11 kilometres The CPR will benefit from time and fuel saved, because it will avoid downtown streets and Ramsey Lake.

Vale Inco and Xstrata will have a direct link between their companies by road and rail. The contributors will be the CPR, Vale Inco, Xstrata, the federal and provincial governments and the city.

Read more:
Letter to the Sudbury Star: Bypass needed in north end

Letter to Northern Life: Rail, road by-pass needed in north end

Letter to Northern Life: Candidate suggests alternative to Maley Drive extension

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Multi-Event Pavilion

I believe the Multi-Event Pavilion would be excellent for Sudbury and the North. Below is a suggested look and size as well as the location of the pavilion, providing performance space, storage facilities, an administrative centre and nearby parking. The School of Architecture would like to establish itself downtown and could be integrated into the pavilion by having a workshop in SMEP's storage area.

The look of the building and the interior might be similar to the stones that originate from Manitoulin Island, that people in Sudbury have been putting on their lawns .

The pavilion targets all the people in the greater area and beyond. The objective is to bring people to Sudbury to hold whatever event they are having here, in the pavilion. Pavilion users then become visitors, walking to the Rainbow Outlet and the Market Square, shuttling out to Science North, Dynamic Earth and the OLG Slots at Sudbury Downs. Gaming revenues in Sudbury in 2007 were $2,313,249.00 and these would be expected to double with SMEP ($100 million over 50 years).

After their event, they can stay as tourists in the Killarney and Manitoulin Island areas, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins and lake Nipissing in North Bay. Sudbury becomes the hub for Tourism in the North while the Sudbury downtown becomes instantly economically revitalized.

To the cost and sustainability of the Pavilion... The Elton John concert sold its 6,000 seats in 45 minutes. The pavilion could have provided 16,000 tickets. The same can be said for 50 Cent, Avril Lavigne and the Backstreet Boys. The economic spin-offs to the community would have been millions of dollars for each one of these events.

Dr. David Robinson wrote: I do like the idea of a dramatic public building of some sort, and I agree that the city desperately needs a landmark, a new architectural draw. The key is to make the downtown work and to provide a visitor destination.

The concept of the pavilion is that of a landing area for any kind of interest any group of people might have, to invite them to engage in that interest here. Events would be of the type related to Arts, Crafts, Hobbies, Cultural Events, Conventions, Conferences, Symposiums, Trade Shows, Festivals, Sports, Auctions, etc...


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Transportation of merchandise

I've been promoting the project below for some time now and it has generated a great deal of interest. I wrote Dr. David Suzuki about it. He replied...

Dear Mr. Delongchamp:
    I couldn't agree more. We need to get stock off trucks and onto trains. Good luck with it.
David Suzuki

Here is a project that targets the economy and the environment. It will create jobs in the transportation and automotive sectors, and it has a green element that would impact on the environment in a way greater than the impact of fluorescent bulbs.

The objectives:
  1. Remove 80% of merchandise transport trucks from our highways
  2. Increase the timeliness and efficiency of merchandise distribution
  3. Lower the total cost of distribution in our province, our nation and on our continent
  4. Greatly decrease harmful environmental emissions
  5. Considerably reduce the frequency of accidents and save many lives
My suggestion is that companies not load their merchandise into trucks but rather into what I call train wagons on tires that can be linked together and pulled into trains like roller coasters. The train would have one box car 10 to 15 box cars long. The engine would be hybrid, both electricity and bio-diesel and the train would be operated remotely. The train would carry the wagons to a warehouse where it rolls out the roller coasters then pulls in other roller coasters loaded with other merchandise, empties or recyclable materials. It takes only minutes to load and unload a train.

The roller coasters in the warehouse are separated and each wagon is rolled onto a special pickup truck. The truck delivers the wagon, does not unload but leaves the wagon at the site and retrieves the other wagon that has been filled with goods or recyclable materials and returns that wagon to the warehouse. There are many costs that are completely eliminated or considerably reduced and other additional benefits.

1 - Labour
The trains with the long cars that carry the train wagons are operated remotely The labour of driving transports is eliminated. Driving transports is not a good use of human resources. Drivers spend most of the day steering the vehicle which the tracks do automatically and they press the gas and brake pedals which trains can be programmed to do, go fast here, go slow there.
No jobs will be lost. There will still be a huge need for transports because of their flexibility and a need for drivers for the vehicles delivering the train wagons locally.

2 - Room
With this project, no people travel with the merchandise, everyone stays in their community. The high cost of rooms is eliminated.

3 - Board
Again, people are home so they eat at home and bring their lunches with them. This huge cost is eliminated.

4 - Gas
The engines for these trains, operated remotely, will be hybrid, using electricity and bio-diesel. This represents a huge reduction in fuel consumption and an equivalent reduction in harmful emissions into the environment. The impact of this feature on the environment will be greater than the impact of fluorescent light bulbs and more efficient fuel burning automobiles.

5 - Capital Cost
The cost of train wagons will be considerably less than transport trucks. Maintenance costs will also be considerably reduced and the useful life of train wagons will by far exceed that of transport trucks.

6 - Roads and bridges
The wear and tear on roads and bridges will be considerably reduced. Maintenance on our existing railway systems is lacking. Rail lines are being shut down. This project will provide rail companies with the funds needed to improve maintenance and reopen closed lines. They will also have the funds needed to introduce new technology such as replacing the block light signals they have with GPS. Every human operated train will have a computer where they can see their position on the track as well as the exact position of any other train or vehicle.

7 - Repair costs
Transport trucks having collisions with other vehicles causes huge repair costs. Accidents and repair costs will be considerably reduced.

8 - Health costs
Collisions cause injuries and fatalities. There are huge health costs involved sometimes lasting the life of the victims. There are related costs to families losing a loved one and to affected communities. These enormous costs would be considerably reduced.

9 - Recyclables
The emptied train wagons are refilled with empties if any and other materials before being returned to the trains. This is an effective and efficient way to collect valuable recyclables.

10 - Traffic congestion
There is a lot of traffic congestion on our roads. Transport trucks move more slowly than automobiles and burn huge amounts of fuel when idling. They also slow down other vehicles causing them to burn more fuel than they otherwise would. By removing trucks, huge gas consumption and emissions for both trucks and autos can be eliminated. People will spend less time on roads and so spend more time at home or at work.

The advantage for our community is the possibility of getting manufacturing jobs for making parts for train wagons. We have minerals from our mining industry that we need to add value too here, so as to create many permanent jobs.

The system could be phased in. For example, Bombardier could build a prototype train and immediately put it in the field. Initially the trains would be operated manually. GM could build pick-up trucks or modify existing trucks to deliver the train wagons. Delivery could be made of all the beer to the Brewers Warehousing locations around the province. Fast food outlets like Tim Horton's could be serviced at huge cost savings to them. Eventually deliveries would be made to every fast food outlet, grocery store and shopping centre.
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A sign to replace the two water towers

  The two water towers should be replaced by one sign, preferably at the Pearl Street location. The sign could be the name Sudbury with solar panels providing the energy that would allow the sign to glow into the night. Artists would be invited to design something spectacular.

The water towers are old technology, materials that are rusting away, and should be cleared away before they pose a threat to the public. It's always difficult to part with familiar landmarks. Replacing one of the towers with a modern, safe green sign that promotes the city would help preserve the Sudbury landmark.

Read more: Letter to Northern Life: Sign should take place of Pearl Street water tower
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