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Party game
When he ran away from home, Brady Blake rarely had a plan beyond getting away from his parents’ narrow townhouse in Verdun. In the early ’70s, this was a tough working-class neighbourhood on Montreal’s riverfront. His dad was a firefighter who battled alcoholism in a time and place in which folks looked the other way. It was part of the texture of everyday life. As were Brady’s episodic escapes.
Brady was just fourteen when he found himself at the bus station in Toronto. The cavernous Art Deco-inspired building at the corner of Bay and Edward Streets was as far as his money and planning had ever taken him. But this was the end of the road for this particular adventure.
With just a quarter left in his pocket, he pulled his tired, lanky frame into one of a row of seats along the wall opposite the wide open entrance. Far from the door. He dropped a tattered backpack at his feet. Each moulded plastic seat in the row was equipped with a small coin-operated black and white television mounted on the arm. Without hesitation, he deposited his last coin into the machine. For the next 30 minutes, he watched Party Game—starring Dinah Christie, Jack Duffy and Jimmy Van. (Ironically—if that word can be used in this context—Party Game was taped each week just a few blocks north of the bus station, in a double suite at the Windsor Arms Hotel.)
That’s is all I remember of the story. Brady managed to make his way back to Montreal. I don’t know how. If I ever knew, I have long since forgotten.
Decades later, however, the image of the frightened and desperate boy sliding his last coin into the television machine remains vividly etched in my memory. The loud clunk of the television machine when time ran out echoes.
That memory came to mind last week when I learned council had contracted to rebuild the lower half of Union Road. It wasn’t a surprise. It’s been in the works for a couple of years. But the news made me think of Brady.
Faithful readers will know that Union Road is a remnant of a time when it was the primary route down the escarpment toward Belleville as it snaked through Mountainview.
But when Highway 62 was reconstructed, it bypassed this collection of homes and the noble church clinging to the hillside. Union Road became redundant to all but Mountainview residents. Some commuters, however, continued to use the twisting narrow lane— saving perhaps a few seconds on their daily journey.
Even these folks didn’t complain too loudly when the County announced it would have to close the top portion of Union Road due to its deteriorating condition. Others, however, saw the few-hundred-metres-long shortcut as a part of the County’s heritage—an opportunity to slow down and reflect on a quieter, more peaceful time. These folks lobbied council to fix the road. To keep it open. For history’s sake.
Council procrastinated for years, politically unable to close it or fix it. Meanwhile, Union Road was crumbling.
County works officials had long argued for closing it to through traffic, allowing access only from Cannery Road and Highway 62. Now, they just wanted a decision. Any decision.
So last year, Council agreed it would rebuild Union Road—half in 2015 and half this year. This way, perhaps, taxpayers might not notice their council was spending half a million dollars on a redundant stretch of road.
The toughest portion, through rock and down the escarpment, was rebuilt last year at a cost of $287,715, including taxes. Doing a half job proved troublesome when new roadside curbs created an efficient sluice, funnelling rainwater and washing out an unfinished portion of the road below. This newly created hazard closed the road for a time in February.
Last week, council agreed to spend $247,227, including taxes, to finish the reconstruction of Union Road. County officials are, no doubt, relieved to know the project won’t exceed the pre-tax budget of $500,000.
It is hardly solace for ratepayers.
By Shire Hall’s own estimates, the County’s roads and bridges need more than $600 million in repair and reconstruction to bring them up to acceptable standards. It currently spends about $10 million each year. At this rate, the County’s works department will never catch up. Roads are decaying faster than the municipality can fix them. Doubling and tripling the taxation rate will not make a dent. We are helpless and utterly dependent on senior levels of government (one of which is already teetering under the most expansive sub-sovereign debt load in the world) to fund the repair of our roads and bridges.
Yet we approve more funds for Union Road. It’s the municipal equivalent of escaping for 30 minutes and watching Party Game on a bus station television. Hoping the world has changed in meantime.
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