Certainly, the officials at City Hall who are in the process of making this decision – council will be asked to put the final okay to it tonight – will argue those good folks of Old North brought it on themselves by complaining about traffic speeding past their leafy homes.

And fair enough, so they did. Also true, in asking the city to slow down the speeders they didn’t ask for Colborne to be turned into a no-parking semi-arterial with bike lanes on each side. No sir, they did not; at least they didn’t think they did.

Actually, the unfortunate issue now facing Old Northers was probably started dozens of years ago by a bad planning error. No allowance was made back then for speedily moving traffic northward out of the city centre. Richmond quickly gets congested. Adelaide to the east and Wharncliffe to the west are too far away to interest northbound travellers. So instead they flood Talbot, Waterloo and Colborne at rush hour, coasting through the stop signs and gunning up those residential streets. Bummer.

The city will be installing speed bumps and speed cushions (sort of interrupted speed bumps), curb extensions and other little tricks to slow everyone down. Except on Colborne. It will be widened, parking will be eliminated and bike lanes will be added to each side. No bumps, no cushions, just six long blocks of clear sailing north of Oxford home to the kids and a dry martini.

It would be nice to think we don’t make planning errors like that any more. But the fact is we’re still making them. These days I live in a new neighbourhood in Oakridge. I’m not far from a street called Beaverbrook that is lined, or soon will be, with nice new residential homes along most of its way west of Wonderland.

Where Beaverbrook meets Oakcrossing is a traffic circle. Oakcrossing heads heads up a hill northwest and eventually runs into Sarnia Rd., west of the old bridge.

Rush hour traffic coming home from big box shopping on Fanshawe Park Rd. West has taken to avoiding the bridge by dashing down Oakcrossing, zooming around the traffic circle and booting it to the lights at Wonderland.

There were dozens of city planners involved in this bit of stupidity – I’ve had an argument with at least one of them – but they approved it anyway.

In a few years, you just know city council will be asked to approve speed bumps and cushions and God knows what else on this street too. And this is not an issue just in this neighbourhood. Progress, eh?