RESTORE COOTES

Can you spare one minute for the turtles? TAKE OUR PLEDGE TO AVOID COOTES DRIVE A minute here; a minute there,  time to save lives!  The other night I had a chat with someone who presented a more complicated routing issue between Dundas and Hamilton. Someone living in the Hopkins Court section of town would pay a higher price in time to avoid Cootes and Olympic (6 more minutes given Cootes would take 8 minutes vs 14 minutes using the York/Osler combo.) But this is the exceptional circumstance. If drivers took alternatives at least for some journeys, it's going to help overall, right? What do you think? Can you spare a minute or five?

After I made the time-lapse video and linked to an earlier (prior to de-pave) video I found another way to show the changes visually. I didn't realize this was possible on Google Maps but I guess I wasn't paying attention: you can use street view to time travel a location back to see its changes over time ! This is useful for our purposes in Lot M/Coldspring Valley: In Google Maps there are 2007, 2011 and 2015 views of McMaster Parking Lot M that show the parking lot before and after the de-pave to create a naturalized buffer between the parking and Ancaster Creek. If you are curious about this here's what you need to know: How to view : Open your google maps app Locate the McMaster campus parking (Lot M) Select street view (drag human figure onto map to activate) Choose a perspective (see example below which gives a good vantage point from above) In the top left corner of the map there is a small timer icon: you can use this to change views to different y...

I don't know why it took me so long to realize this, but after learning how to use google earth image overlay thanks to an instructional video on Youtube (where else?!), and using a hand-drawn, not-to-scale trail map as my first project (the Ghost of Coldspring Valley ), it occurred to me that the problems of scale were easily solved by using a topographic map image that was to scale! I laid the topo image over google earth's satellite of the area, matching perfectly the roads and railway bed on the perimeter of the valley, and presto: Click on link for larger image I chose this level of opacity, so you can see the topo features of Ancaster Creek and the roads, and beneath (or through) that, the current google earth satellite of the area. We can see how far McMaster pushed the creek out of the way to make more space for parking, and the round blue line near the centre of the image below the western end of Sanders Blvd representing the location of Binkley's Pond. Th...

Two academic exercises in mapping environmental issues come to bear on our little corner of the ecosystem: first, a project with the clever acronym GLEAM:  GREAT LAKES ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND MAPPING PROJECT (Website:  http://www.greatlakesmapping.org/home ) - University of Windsor biology professor Jan Ciborowski contributed to the map. He told CBC Hamilton that Lake Ontario and Hamilton Harbour are among the highest stress areas due to a combination of stressors: "[It's] not only population but also loss of habitat, the historical discharge of chemicals, and invasive species like zebra mussels and round gobi fish." It's a huge job, made up of many smaller parts. Fixing it means adding up the smaller parts. "It's the 'death by 1,000 cuts' idea: just restoring one thing may not be enough," Ciborowski said. "You have to fix one thing at a time, but just getting of one stressor won't fix the whole area." This attention ...

Map supplied by the Hamilton Conservation Area shows the entire Lot M parking lot is built on the floodplain of Ancaster Creek (light blue/turquoise colour). Functioning floodplains support a rich diversity of species and are an important part of a healthy ecosystem. McMaster's floodplain was filled in to raise the height of land, then paved for parking in 1969. Floodplains are important enough to us at Restore Cootes that we are actively encouraging McMaster University to develop a plan to reduce parking demand in the long term, while making better use of the 1,000 available spaces outside of Lot M during peak demand. The ultimate and achievable goal is to restore the area to its former function as a floodplain.

McMaster Parking comes at a high cost to the natural world. The largest parking area ("M") is located where there were nature trails and habitat for turtles and other creatures. Close-up of parking lot M below: Zone M parking at McMaster - the section currently closed as a result of construction of the combined sewer overflow (CSO) tank corresponds roughly to the selection below: It is clearly visible that the parking is very close to Cold Spring (AKA Ancaster) Creek - a 30m naturalized buffer seems like the least we can do to ameliorate the destruction of habitat for parking.

Some Cootes Paradise south shore trails mapped out for you! Ginger Valley/Ravine Road trail   - a commute route! Caleb's Walk/Sassafras trail   - down to the water! Chegwin Loop  - from McMaster University, down to the water on a boardwalk! The description says it touches Grindstone Creek, which it most certainly does not. You can find more trail maps for Cootes here