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Showing posts from May, 2003

nature perspective in PIRGspectives

Back when Cootes Drive was constructed, it was cutting edge. 60 years later we need to re-examine the need for the road and look toward what might be rescued from beneath the asphalt. COOTES: Drive Through Paradise? By Randy Kay (Transportation for Liveable Communities) published in PIRGSPECTIVES Spring 2003 (OPIRG McMaster zine) McMaster students, staff and faculty looking for an escape to nature are fortunate to be able to access Cootes Paradise, an 840 ha wildlife sanctuary containing a 250 ha coastal marsh, just a few steps from campus buildings on the North side of campus. Narrow footpaths follow the contour of a class A wetland. Patient bird-watchers are rewarded with a stunning array of species including (at the large end of the spectrum) swans, blue herons, osprey and wood ducks and on down to the small chatty red- winged blackbirds and marsh wrens. So why is there a road running through it? Cootes Drive was constructed in 1936. It i