Thank you for your letter dated June 4, 2010 notifying me that my pre-authorized payment for your services had been returned from the bank due to “account closed”. Thank you for succinctly telling me that I had until 5:00 p.m. on Friday, June 10 to pay the outstanding $132.31 on my account “to avoid further collection activity”. I must say that there is nothing quite like a specific and firm deadline — down to the minute, in fact — to make one understand and worry about the seriousness of the situation and act with alacrity.

I should tell you that the reason the pre-authorized payment was returned from my bank was because my old bank service — an all-in-one account offered by Canadian Tire Financial Services — was bought out by the National Bank of Canada. Unfortunately, despite a promise of a smooth transition between the two institutions, including an offer to transfer the pre-authorized credits and debits from the old account to the new, clearly the ball got dropped. I have had to run around restoring a number of pre-authorized payments that broke down thanks to the change over. Rest assured that the National Bank of Canada will be receiving an even more strongly worded letter of complaint once I finish writing this piece.

I appreciate the fact that, once I came to the Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro office, the matter was resolved quickly. I appreciated that the customer service representative who dealt with my issue was polite and capable. What I did not appreciate, however, was the need to come to the office in the first place, or the fact that the payment I had to make could only be made “by cash, certified cheque or money order.”

I have found that Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro’s payment methods have been far less convenient than those offered by private businesses, or by other departments and agencies operated by the City of Kitchener. I am particularly concerned by the fact that simply paying off my outstanding balance with a cheque from my new bank account wasn’t sufficient; that I’d have to get the cheque certified before you accepted it (this in spite of the fact that you were still willing to set up a new pre-authorized payment plan with my new bank account). While I understand the reasons behind such a policy, I can’t help but feel that the good-will of your customers would be increased if, instead of lumping people like me in with the serial cheque-bouncers that your customer service representative so politely and helpfully suggested might be the reason behind such a policy, you offered a grace period, or a warning system, and perhaps required certified cheques from individuals who had bounced payments at rates more frequent than, say, once every two years.

Finally, I’d like to bring your attention to a new piece of technology that I think will improve the convenience of your customers seeking to pay for your services. Perhaps you have heard of it: it’s called a debit machine; locally, it’s marketed under the brand Interac. It’s an amazing piece of technology where customers swipe a piece of plastic called a “debit card” through a reader and key in a personal identification number, allowing the business in question to charge for their services directly from a customer’s bank account. Authorization and transfer of funds is pretty well immediate, and acceptance of the technology is widespread, so there’s little risk of a payment bouncing. I’d wager that most residents in your service area possess debit cards, and certainly most businesses and government service organizations in the service area accept them. This includes many departments and agencies run by the City of Kitchener. I cannot fathom why Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro hasn’t latched onto this amazing new technology that has been around since all of 1995.

While I appreciated dealing with your courteous and well-informed customer services representatives, and especially appreciated the fact that I did not have to wait in line, the fact that I could not resolve the matter of my outstanding balance without coming into your office, or leaving it to find an ATM to dispense cash (and I would like to thank the Sobeys cashier for not batting an eye when I bought toilet paper and asked for $132.31 in cash back), is an annoying oddity that puts Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro well behind the times in customer service. I would think that an agency charged with delivering power to a region as connected as Kitchener-Waterloo, offering the latest in power-saving and other green technology, would be more up-to-date in the tools that it uses to charge its customers money. Leaving aside some of the facetiousness of my comments, I hope you will take some of my suggestions to heart, and join the twenty-first century when it comes to accepting money from the customers you serve.

Sincerely yours,
James Bow

It has been a couple of years since Waterloo installed its first roundabouts on some major arterial roads. After that time, you’d think I’ve had enough experience in these facilities to have a firm opinion. Strangely, though, the jury is still out.

Waterloo Region has embraced roundabouts in a big way. I can think of no other municipality in the province that has been so gung ho as to make it a policy to place it on what would used to have been major four-way stop intersections on certain major roads. Riding out of the city towards the 401, you encounter two roundabouts in quick succession on Fischer Hallman Boulevard. The new western arterial, Ira Needles Boulevard, has no stoplights from Keats Way all the way down to Trussler Road; drivers navigate six roundabouts instead. A roundabout has replaced a particularly troublesome stoplight at Bridge and Lancaster (demolishing an unpopular strip club in the process), and more are planned in the coming years.

The relationship between the people of Waterloo Region and their roundabouts is an odd one. Clearly, some councillors and planners at the regional level are gung-ho about them, claiming that they’re better traffic managers than stoplights, and move more cars safely through an intersection than four-way stop signs. They claim that they’re safer, and it’s true that while roundabouts have seen more accidents than other intersections in Waterloo Region, mostly due to the drivers’ unfamiliarity with them, those accidents have been far more minor, with far fewer injuries, thanks to the slower speeds involved and the fact that T-bone collisions are now a thing of the past.

But while most people in Waterloo Region seem to accept the presence of roundabouts, they feel a bit leery of them. My father is a case in point. He has never once questioned the wisdom of the region placing a roundabout at the top of the Conestoga Parkway by the village of St. Jacobs, but the first few times he always asked his back-seat driver (me) for advice on how to manage the thing, just as we whipped through on our way to Elmira. Some controversy has erupted with the proposal to put a roundabout at Homer Watson and Block Line, with parents concerned that the new intersection will be less safe for their children walking to St. Mary’s High School, with planners adamant that crossings will be easier, since pedestrians will now only have to contend with one direction of traffic per crossing.

As a younger driver, I’ve grown used to dealing with the roundabouts. A few times through them, and the rules of driving feel like common sense: slow down, yield to cars in the roundabout, accept the inner lane if you’re passing straight through or turning left, accept the right lane if you’re turning right or passing straight through, and signal your intentions all the time. I’ve never been close to having an accident, and my trip down Fischer-Hallman or Ira Needles feels faster for not having to contend with lit intersections or stop signs instead. And, in some ways, they’re actually fun to drive through, making for a roller-coaster touch to an otherwise straightaway drive that the kids in the back seat love.

But I am concerned at the amount of land these installations take up. Already the region has noted that roundabouts aren’t possible in certain places because of the property expropriations required. The middle of the roundabout is essentially dead space, and while some moves have been made towards sprucing these up with plantings or sculptures, it strikes me that too many roundabouts effectively decreases the density of the areas they support.

It doesn’t help that, because of the newness of these installations and the space they take up, roundabouts have become primarily a feature of the suburban landscape. It’s only at Erb and Ira Needles that I see some signs that the new shops and restaurants there actually address the roundabout as a place where people actually want to walk and shop as well as drive through. The smaller scale roundabouts in Williamsburg aren’t addressed by the buildings at all (which are pulled back for parking, and possibly to give the drivers better sight lines), and thus feel as though they are an adjunct of the local parking lots.

If it hasn’t already, I’d like to see the Region take a close look at how its current roundabouts are performing, paying special attention to how much space it has effectively removed from the public use of the surrounding communities. It should consider design guidelines and zoning laws that make these roundabouts places for pedestrians to feel comfortable as well drivers to whip through. It needs to ask itself if a roundabout is just an intersection, or if it’s a streetscape in its own right.

In my opinion, roundabouts have had their benefits, and I’m proud that my region is among the first in the province, if not the country, to embrace them in a big way, but we should continue to look for ways to improve them.

_This post has been crossposted to Bow. James Bow.

Further Reading

• Three lane roundabouts?! I think my eyes just crossed.

Two months ago I wrote a blog post about the best places one could sit and write — whether it was at a table with a laptop or a notebook and pen, whether it had good coffee, or Tim Horton’s coffee or whathaveyou. The places that I talked about were mostly in Toronto, because I had the practice of going into the city to make a day of my writing, but since I live in Waterloo Region, and since travelling to Toronto is expensive, it only seems fair that I talk about the best places to write here in Waterloo. And, fortunately, there’s no shortage of good candidates.

In my earlier post, I said that a good writing spot needed four things: coffee, free wi-fi, a good ambience and plugs (for your laptop). Starbucks has made considerable inroads into Waterloo Region, so there are plenty of outlets for a writer to sit, grab a coffee and plug your laptop in. If you have a registered Starbucks card, you’re also granted two hours of free wireless Internet. But you don’t need to confine yourself to Starbucks’ offerings. There are other chains and independent shops throughout the region where the coffee is good, the seats are soft, and power is available for your computer.

Here are just some that come to mind. If you have others, please feel free to write up your recommendations in the comments.

• Coffee Culture just opened an outlet at 31 King Street North (the southwest corner of King and Dupont) in Uptown Waterloo. Erin introduced me to this wonderful coffee shop earlier today. The place has large windows which fill the place with light and allow you to watch the pedestrians walking up and down King Street. The coffee is excellent and the treats are delectable and not too expensive. Best of all, the wi-fi is free (and only occasionally flaky) and the booths come with plugs. I’d definitely go again. Parking is an issue, though you can pay to park at the nearby library, but it’s Uptown Waterloo, which means transit connections are among the best in the region. Another outlet can be found in downtown Kitchener at the corner of King and Queen.

• Second Cup — specifically, the Second Cup outlet at 150 University Avenue West, near Phillip Street, just east of the University of Waterloo. Although a chain, Second Cup offers a good cup of coffee, and this particular outlet has plenty of seats and free wireless. The ambiance is good for writing and people-watching, although it can get a little crowded here when the Universities are in session.

• Williams — another chain that’s not Starbucks, although these can be hit and miss. The best outlet is the one at Kitchener City Hall, with plenty of space, Most importantly, it’s not too loud. The same cannot be said with any of the other outlets I’ve seen, which have brick interiors which amplify rather than reduce sound. This is especially annoying at the University Plaza outlet by UW.

• Melville Cafeacute;. Located in the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture in downtown Galt with an excellent view of the Grand River, this location has all of the others beat in terms of ambiance. Wifi is available, the seats aren’t limited to the students, and the food and drink are great.

• The Bookshelf - Although it’s lost some of its writing-friendliness by going upscale, I still have a soft spot for this independent bookstore/restaurant/theatre combination in downtown Guelph. A cultural institution in its own right, it was also the place where a friend and I collaborated on the first manuscript that I ever submitted to a publisher in a professional capacity. We weren’t published (at least, not professionally), but I still have fond memories of the creative energies J. Keeping and I poured into our story, helped along by a basket of the Bookshelf’s fries.

• The Libraries - These are places which encourage lingering, and many offer free wireless Internet. These may also be the only such outlets available to people living in the rural areas of the region. It’s rather hit or miss whether coffee or snacks are available, but you are surrounded by books, and that can only help to get you into a writing mood. Also the Kitchener Public Library’s main branch has a café in its basement. And let’s not forget the university libraries, if they’re available. I’ve written a number of stories and blog entries in the main level of the Dana Porter library at the University of Waterloo. It’s a quiet place, the tables are huge, and there’s a coffee shop by the main entrance. The architecture is interesting, and the windows are big, and offer plenty of opportunities to people-watch while you’re waiting for writers’ block to clear.

• Tim Hortons - Don’t knock it unless you try it. Yes, the seats are uncomfortable, but the food and drink are cheap and good, and if you want to people watch and listen into a few conversations, there’s few other places where you’ll get a sampling of your average Canadians than here. And some outlets are a bit more interesting than your average donut shacks. Take the outlet at Frederick and Lancaster, for instance, with architecture made to blend into the local neighbourhood. I also like the one at Fairview at Manitou, with its sunroof. There’s no wi-fi, of course, but sometimes you don’t need it, and surfing the Internet can be a distraction to your writing.

So, there’s a random sample of good places to write here in Waterloo Region. It is by no means a comprehensive list. That’s your job. Where’s a good place that you like to write here in Waterloo Region?