Magda Konieczna

My popsicle melted

appeared in The Mercury Aug. 6, 2008

I now see popsicles in a whole new light.

Once, they were sugary, sticky coolness to be savoured on a hot day.

Now, they're ephemeral, fleeting, a symbol, perhaps, of our own mortality.

Or maybe they're just a gimmicky planning tool.

"An eight-year-old in the neighbourhood should be able to walk or bike to a store to buy a Popsicle, without having to battle highway-size streets and freeway-speed traffic," said the Congress for the New Urbanism when it defined the test.

Zealous new urbanist converts stretched the challenge -- the eight-year-old should be able to get home without the Popsicle melting, they argued.

So I put Guelph to the test.

I knew my downtown neighbourhood passed -- my sweet tooth has often led me in search of an icy confection.

This time I did the test in reverse -- I would see how far a Popsicle could get me, then overlay that on our city neighbourhoods.

It was a hot summer day at the end of July. I headed to the convenience store closest to the Mercury office and chose my favourite flavour. Banana.

A bad decision. Eating the Popsicle would interfere with the scientific process. Instead I would unwrap it and carry it, gently, at an eight-year-old's pace, watching those sweet banana-flavoured drops melt away.

How it went

4:55 p.m.: Depart Macdonell Variety, Wyndham and Macdonell, with banana-flavoured Popsicle. Head south on Wyndham.

4:57 p.m.: Bump into someone I know at a sidewalk patio. Am invited to sit down. Explain I can't, because my Popsicle will melt. Am cajoled -- isn't a true neighbourhood about bumping into people you know? I concede, but keep going.

5:01 p.m.: The first cool, sugary drip falls on my hand. I greedily slurp it up.

5:03 p.m.: Am leaving a drip trail. They come symmetrically, first from one half of the Popsicle, then the other.

5:05 p.m.: Cross Wellington. Realize this would be a major expedition for an eight-year-old.

5:06 p.m.: Popsicle is a shadow of its former self.

5:07 p.m.: Just before York, the remainder of my Popsicle, without warning, slides off its sticks and lands in the middle of the sidewalk. I stand for a moment, watching its slow death. Then I pick it up and move it onto the grass.

Google Maps tells me I walked precisely 619 metres.

So what does this mean for you?

By Popsicle test alone, much of Guelph is walkable. In older neighbourhoods, kids even have a choice of Popsicle providers. But New Urbanists would likely support Councillor Bob Bell's fight for commercial development deep in the east end, an area booming with new homes -- almost all kids there will need rides to their Popsicles.

The same is true for much of the area west of the Hanlon, and even parts of the south end. Westminster Woods, for instance, is across Gordon -- highway-sized in the eyes of an eight-year-old -- from summer's tongue-freezing delights.

But a quick glance at an area will tell you how walkable it is, city planner Paul Kraehling says.

"When I'm driving through a city, I can get a gauge on the priority the community puts into walking," he says.

"In the city of Guelph, there's lots of focus on sidewalk provision, even though it's expensive and you sacrifice density a bit. From a philosophical perspective there would be a high priority on that," he says.

Actual distance, though, is only one measure of walkability, says Lise Burcher, a city councillor and landscape architect. She argues we don't focus enough on the experience of the walk. Are there things to look at? Are there people around to make you feel safe?

"We're starting to realize it's all about the finer-grain urban fabric -- residential yards, multiple units with some animation at the ground level, comfortable walking streets, not big arterial roads," she says.

She suggests the dog test: "take an inexperienced dog on a walk and see how they react."

While the Popsicle test is a useful measure, it might not really be realistic, she argues.

"Anybody can achieve that by throwing in a corner store. We need to be clear about what's meaningful and what just makes us feel good," she says.

"We have nostalgia about the Popsicle," she says. "It's fabulous, but does it shift your lifestyle or are you still hopping in the car six times a day?"

Instead, she envisions "neighbourhood villages" -- places that offer much of our day-to-day needs, but maybe not everything.

"Ultimately, someone's going to go to Toronto," she says.

She suggests overhauling areas like Willow West Mall and Eramosa and Stevenson to create a commercial-residential mix along the road, with the parking moved to the back, to create areas that are pleasant and interesting to walk.

From a young age

Of course, if you're little, you've got much more on your mind than just getting that next Popsicle.

Jennifer McDowell is trying to encourage kids to walk to school if they live less than a kilometre away (never mind that they wouldn't make it without their popsicles melting).

"There's a lot of perceived barriers," says McDowell, who works in transportation demand management with the city.

Parents are concerned about dressing their kids appropriately and having time to walk them to school and get themselves to work on time.

She's working on a "walking school bus" -- finding one parent to walk many kids in the neighbourhood to school.

If it works out, we might have a whole generation of planners who make sure their kids can walk to the Popsicle store.