Issue 2 : The ICA Faces Destruction

Canada celebrated its Centennial in 1967 with an enthusiasm marked by a multitude of events and projects throughout the country that ranged from national in scope to local in desire. The country's optimism toward the second half of the twentieth century knew no bounds, and individual communities all across the land responded with major projects that they felt would take them to that glorious future. The Inglewood Community Association's celebration of that seminal year was the construction of a new Community Hall. For a number of years the membership had desired to move out to the old 9th Ave. Fire Hall and into their own building. Not that there was anything wrong with Old Fire Hall No. 3. It was frigid upstairs when it was freezing outside, alright, but it had ample space for the ample membership at meetings; and it accommodated Bingo, the life blood of Community Associations at that time, quite adequately. Yet, there was a desire by the membership to have something more stable than a rental property to call home. They had already raised about $19,000 for a building fund, with which they secured a mortgage at the Inglewood Credit Union; and the City made the land at the present site available. With the financing and land secured, the Main Hall dome was constructed with a mezzanine, kitchen, skate changing area and open meeting and events space, replete with the stylized Centennial maple leaf that festooned the thousands of projects across Canada incorporated into the tile on the floor. The move to the new facility realized the optimism that generated its construction. Membership doubled, Bingo thrived, and the consolidation with the skating rink boosted the hockey program, which is evident by the team pictures around the Games Room walls. The burning of the mortgage was celebrated in 1971, with no less a luminary than then Mayor Rod Sykes in attendance.

The fate of the previous accommodation? Item 3 of the April 30, 1968 Lands Committee Report to Council stated: "...the old Firehall which was occupied by the Inglewood Community Association until November, 1967" was up for rent. The rate recommended to Council? "Agreement has been reached on a rental rate of $150.00 per month…to utilize the property as a second-hand dealer in new and used furniture." Item 7 of the December 5, 1967 Committee Report had recommended "that if the property was tendered (for sale) it should be subject to demolition of the existing building…". Thus, the Community Association had obliquely saved the Old Fire Hall No. 3 by its tenure there.

Once in their new Hall, however, the Community Association faced the fight of its life…

The Calgary Transportation Study, Volumes 1 & 2, or CALTS, was published by the City in December, 1967. It was a comprehensive transportation plan whose "…primary objectives …were to project Calgary's future travel demands for the next twenty years, and to recommend a transportation system, considering the potentials of both automobile and transit oriented modes of travel…". It was lauded in a Foreword signed by then Mayor Jack Leslie as a significant "…aid in the sound, economic and orderly development and redevelopment of Calgary's future urban needs." The Introduction by its authors further supported the document as "…the important ingredient necessary to co-ordinate the development of the industrial, commercial and residential areas (with) an integrated transportation system." In other words, this was the plan that was going to take Calgary itself deep into the second half of the twentieth century - at some considerable cost to Inglewood.

It is important to quote directly at length from the "MODEL DEVELOPMENT AND CALIBRATION" section of the Study to fully understand how the City could have devised a transportation system with such devastating implications for Inglewood - and, by association, Ramsay. To wit:

"It was decided in Calgary to develop a model which uses the gravity principle to distribute trips. The gravity principle is so named because of its similarity to the laws of gravity formulated by Sir Isaac Newton…In order to develop a gravity model, three basic elements must be studied - trip production, trip attraction, and trip length." The Study found that the majority of trips were, and would be "produced" from home to either work or shopping. Further, it found "the attraction of the Downtown Study Area for retail business is illustrated by the fact that 30.4 percent of all home-based person commercial trips by residents of Calgary in 1964 are to or within this area." There is then introduced into the discussion "desire lines of travel" which predominately "pass through or close to the centre of the City…in the east-west direction, and in the north-south direction." The corker for Inglewood was the "trip length" calculations using the gravity model to calculate the quickest and/or shortest route from district to district. A Final Calibration and Accuracy Check section created "a spider web 'network' which connected all adjacent districts (of the City)…Trips between districts were routed (according to) …the minimum path and the total accumulation of trips…". The laws of gravity would then allow, to continue the authors' Newtonian analogy, all the apples to be funneled down one route to plop in one place - in this case - Inglewood!

All the variables of this spider web network were "assembled by the computer… (using the) 'all or nothing' method. That is, 'all' the volume is assigned to the shortest path, 'nothing' is assigned to the literally thousands of alternate routes…Six network configurations of freeways, expressways and arterial routes…" were ultimately spit out by the computer.

Volume 2 of CALTS reveals that two of those freeways were to be "Blackfoot Trail,...a major north-south freeway…with distribution to and from downtown handled by (an) interchange to…"the Bow Trail, a major east-west facility extending across the entire width of the City…(including) along the south bank of the Bow River, crossing the Bow River at the site of the existing Cushing Bridge."

This photo shows the proposed alignments of the Freeways. The centre of the proposed interchange at right centre coincides approximately with the Brewery corner. Freeways replace the River pathway west to east, and 15th St, S.E. north to south.

The reaction of the publication of CALTS, Volumes 1 & 2 by the Association was one of bewilderment and unease. That a computer could be programmed to recommend the annihilation of their neighborhood was truly perplexing. However, a relatively obscure, and dismissive, observation at the bottom of page 12 in Volume 1 could explain how such a cold hearted plan could still have actually been prepared to go before Council. In the section discussing the "Existing Land Use" of Calgary, the authors aver that "It is not surprising, as Calgary expanded, that the well-to-do resided in Mount Royal, whereas the low-lying areas were eventually subdivided into small lots with a lower standard of development." Inglewood/Ramsay would have lost 320 of those "lower standard" homes by the computer's cold logic and the City planners' unfeeling hands. It was evident that the Association would have to overcome not only an impersonal computer program, but also an all too real human prejudice.

The unheralded letter of introduction from a new resident, however, would prove to preclude the path out of this mess.

Next month, the Inglewood Community Association embarks on the road to recovery, and revolutionizes urban planning in the process.