Remember me?

Didn’t think so.

Can’t blame you, though. It’s been awhile.

But I promise to improve my blogging ways, at least from a frequency standpoint.

OK, my comeback involves commentary on a few municipal matters.

First, St. Catharines new parking garage.

Why is the city insisting on calling it the Carlisle Street parking garage? Bad decision.

Here’s why: It stands to reason a motorist going to something called the Carlisle Street garage would drive down Carlisle Street to get to the garage. Problem is, unless you’re one of 100 reserved parkers in the underground level, you can’t enter from Carlisle. Access for the other 500 parkers is from Garden Park, a width-challenged lane that runs between King and St. Paul streets.

When the original parking garage opened on Carlisle in 1976, it was called the Garden City Car Park. Given the new joint’s main entry point, it makes even more sense today to drop Carlisle from the garage’s name.

Also, it will be interesting to see how long it takes the city to revamp the aforementioned Garden Park lane. Currently, there’s two-way traffic between the garage exit and King, but only one-way between the entrance and St. Paul. In other words, motorists exiting the garage can’t turn left to get to St. Paul. Seems weird, although not as weird as the contractor installing a left-turn exit lane in the garage when you can’t turn left.

A couple of other garage notes. When I was there the other day, the top level was blocked off, as was the skywalk to the MTO building. Kris Jacobson,  the city’s transportation guy, said some minor cleanup work was taking place on the upper floor, and the MTO  and the city are working on some security issues re the skywalk. Both are expected to be open when the garage becomes fully operational (read: no longer free) on Feb. 1.

*****

Wrote a column recently that talked up the real possibility of having a skywalk bridge between St. Paul Street and the proposed new puck palace in the low-level parking lot.

It’s a necessary link, given the elevation change between downtown and the canal valley. And I think it’ll be a neat addition to the landscape.

But every time I get excited about the possibility, I find myself pulling back.

It’s the low-level parking  lot, for crying out loud! It’s cursed!

Sadly, I won’t believe the arena is actually going there until I see steel girders rising from the ground.

*******

As many of you know, Coun. Joe Kushner asked St. Catharines city staff the other week to investigate the possibility of creating an official song for the municipality.

The idea struck me as unnecessary and daft.

Fact is, though, I got two columns out of it, with more updates to come. And I had a lot of fun researching and writing them.

In other words, I reaped the benefits of past city attempts to get musical, yet I try to deny additional mocking opportunities for journalists in the future.

This is extremely selfish on my part. I withdraw my objections.

Bring on the official song contest.