{"id":13365,"date":"2016-02-10T11:56:08","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T16:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=13365"},"modified":"2016-02-24T21:30:01","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T02:30:01","slug":"inside-aurora-pedestrian-observations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-pedestrian-observations\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Pedestrian Observations"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

We added a puppy to our family last summer.
\nYes, she\u2019s terrific, and yes, we\u2019re exhausted. More on that in a future column.
\nBut one of the advantages of having her around is that it has given us a chance to explore more of our neighbourhood, which has allowed me to observe a few things this winter.
\nThe first is that there seem to have been a lot more Christmas (or \u201cseasonal\u201d, if you prefer) decorations up than I remember seeing in previous years. That was certainly a nice diversion when spending great quantities of time roaming the streets on the bitterly cold dark nights, which seem to start at around 3.30 p.m. in December.
\nIt was also entertaining to see the creativity of our residents. There was one house that had multitudes of lights that blinked in various sequences, choreographed to carols played over a loud speaker system.
\nI spoke to the owner one night and he confirmed he had spent quite a bit of time getting about a dozen different sets of bulbs set to come on and off with just the right timing. He was understandably proud.
\nWhether his neighbours, who were exposed to it for several hours a day for a month, appreciated it to the same degree, is another story.
\nOn the subject of cold weather, while the white stuff has been rare this winter, we are fortunate to have the Town ensure that it is ploughed from our sidewalks so quickly.
\nHowever, one problem with this is that the snow clearing blades on the vehicles they use appear to be exactly the same width of our sidewalks. This sounds like a perfect situation, but it is only if the vehicle operator maintains a perfect alignment.
\nThis can obviously be challenging on curvy bits of pavement buried under several centimetres of snow. Even going astray a short amount will result in great chunks of sod being ripped up from residents\u2019 lawns, and muddy tire tracks everywhere.
\nPeople obviously know this is coming.
\nIn early December I noticed that a homeowner had pounded in several tall stakes along a curved piece of sidewalk outside their home. When I walked that way following our first snowfall, every one of them had been snapped into kindling, and the sidewalk was covered in mud and grass.
\nThe lawn was a mess, but at least there was now some much-needed traction on that slippery stretch of the sidewalk.
\nCan the operators drive more carefully? Can the blades be made narrower? Can sidewalk edges be better defined?
\nI think the only solution to this is the arrival of spring.
\nAnother thing I\u2019ve noticed is that a social activity seen around the world seems to have come to Aurora; the placement of love locks.
\nThis is a practice where a couple affixes a lock to a fence, as a permanent sign of their love, and then throws away the key. Or, I suppose, forgets the combination, if it\u2019s that type of lock.
\nLast year in Paris, the weight of locks attached to some bridges over the Seine got so extreme that authorities had to remove entire sections of fence for fear they would crash down onto the boats below.
\nI don\u2019t think we\u2019re likely to run into that sort of danger here in Aurora, as the locks I\u2019ve seen haven\u2019t been on bridges, and apart from the Rotary Club\u2019s annual Frog Race in Tannery Creek, the traffic on our local rivers is pretty light.
\nBut it\u2019s interesting to see us keeping up with worldwide trends.
\nAs we get into warmer weather and more daylight, I\u2019ll be out exploring further areas of Town. I\u2019m looking forward to some new discoveries.<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston We added a puppy to our family last summer. Yes, she\u2019s terrific, and yes, we\u2019re exhausted. More on that in a future column. But one of the advantages of having her around is that it has given us a chance to explore more of our neighbourhood, which has allowed me to observe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3tz","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 17:41:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}