Organizations without vision lose focus and fail.  Vision is more important than strategy.  If you have a clear vision then you will eventually attract the right strategy.

Milton’s vision is “Engaging, Balance, Connected”.  What does that mean?  What does ‘connected’ mean?  Connected via roads?  Trails? Broadband?  Connected as a community?

It has five goals.  Lets analyze some of them:

• A responsible, cost-effective and accountable local government. The explanation adds a direction: “Demonstrate leadership in matters that affect Milton“.
  • Has Milton demonstrated leadership?
  • In sustainability Milton is certainly not a leader (arguably Halton and Oakville are).
  • I can go to the City of Mississauga website and see their entire budget, financial statements from previous candidates and a lot of other data that the Town of Milton doesn’t publish online. That’s not leadership.
  • Halton streams all council meetings online, Milton has no such accountability.
• A safe, liveable and healthy community. The direction adds: “Protect and enhance our heritage, identity and character“.
  • What is Milton’s “character”? What does it mean to be “Milton”?
  • Is there a lens we can look through to make sure new land-use and development applications fit the character?
  • Are developers looking at enhancing it? Is Milton holding developers accountable?
  • The residents on Duncan Lane living next to the rail track do not even have the most basic sound barrier (they just have a small metal fence). Not safe, not livable and certainly not healthy.
  • Residents do not get biking / walking trails and neighbourhood parks until years after moving in to the community.
  • Heck even basic things like coordinating street lights is not done for years.
• A diverse and sustainable economy – Direction adds: “Attract and retain employers that provide a range of employment opportunities and assessment growth“.
  • The Town may disagree with me but Milton isn’t doing enough to attract high-quality employers. The assumption is, ‘if you build them, they’ll come’.
  • Check out mississauga’s online business section. There’s a ton of information there.  Milton has http://www.miltonthiswayup.ca/ (did you even know about it)?
• A thriving natural environment that is a valued community asset to be protected, maintained and enjoyed
  • Again, Halton has taken the leadership with Sustainable Halton and Oakville has initiatives, but there’s no “Sustainable Milton” plan.
  • Scott Blvd is getting a bus service only because the transit plan passed by just one vote (and that’s with two missing councillors).
  • Milton has no problem with excessive street lights in some areas but it does complain about having to maintain trees.
  • The long-term priorities are backward IMO. Development keeps moving further and further west, practically touching the escarpment.
  • Many parts of Milton (parts of Main Street, pretty much all of Steeles) are an eye sore.

On the day-to-day basis Milton is actually run fairly well.  In execution of its vision it isn’t.  I think part of the problem is how its vision is highly ambiguous.

Does your municipality have a clear vision? Is it concise and easy to understand?

More importantly, what is your vision (for your municipality)?

I can’t believe no one thought of it before: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/02/09/hot-tech-to-aid-the-hunt-for-a-parking-space/. 

Driving in circles looking for a parking spot wastes an enormous amount of energy (and time). 

When you ask for my opinion, you are asking for my opinion.  You are not asking for right answers.  I may not have them.  I do have views on things.  I am wrong from time to time.  Some of my blog posts state facts (Category:Information) while others are my opinions (Category:Opinion). 

There would be fewer disagreements in this world if people could differentiate between facts and opinions.  A person can be wrong about a fact, but not about his or her opinion. You can disagree with opinions, but not with facts. 

You already saw my post about the Big Belly, here’s another innovative concept: turbine powered street lights. And dang, they look good too!

Municipalities need to figure out how to reduce the operating cost of street lights.  1% of Milton’s property taxes go towards it.

How is it that a town that created the beautiful downtown Main Street let other parts of Main Street (and all of Steeles Ave) turn into such an eyesore?

Milton just went through an intensification study.  The final report will be available online here.  If executed well, this can do wonders for Milton.  But Milton has gone through other ambitious exercises (Eco Village) with no results.  The key is to make sure that this does not turn into one of those exercises.

My view is that turning Main Street from Bronte to James Snow into the following is potentially a good thing :-

However, I don’t want to see any more of these in Milton:

The study proposes respecting surrounding low-density neighbourhoods by staging heights :-

Another trick is to make sure that zoning is handled well and respected.  Only then can we create walk-able neighbourhoods:

You can see the core urban area map here:

I would personally continue intensification all the way to James Snow, if not further East.  There is a second GO station planned at Trafalgar.  Maintaining a higher population density along Main Street between these stations will help greatly with transit. 

The Thompson / Main GO station is one reason why I don’t think the central library should have gone at the Thompson / Derry intersection. That was an ideal spot for a residential area from where residents could walk to the GO station. 

Now that you have my thoughts on this, what do you think?