THUNDER BAY – High rates of crime, in particular property crime, in the Windsor, Picton and Blutcher Street areas have a group of local residents pulling together to initiate a neighbourhood walk. The goal is getting people to become more in touch with each other in the neighbourhood. The idea is that friends and neighbours will watch out for each other. However in many cases neighbours don’t really know each other all that well. It is likely similar in your neighbourhood too.
The walk is inspired by the Evergreen Neighbourhood walk that Linda Bruins and her team of volunteers have started. The goal there was bringing the neighbourhood together. Bringing neighbours together is a great way to send a message to vandals and other criminals as well that message being “Not in our neighbourhood!”.
The Picton group has reached out to Aids Thunder Bay, Superior Points and seek as well to establish some bins and some training for what to do if a person finds a used needle in the neighbourhood.
As well there have been discussions with Councillor Brian McKinnon about traffic safety and putting in a proper crosswalk on Junot Avenue by the Boys and Girls Club and at Walkover Street. With planning for the entire Junot Street to be made into a four-lane roadway traffic numbers are going to increase. Seniors, students and moms with strollers or young children are increasingly finding crossing this busy roadway difficult.
Often in the course of seeking to improve neighbourhoods, the really successful plans come when the people in the area, in this case some parents and teenagers who are simply determined to make their neighbourhood a better place. That is what is happening here.
There is also a petition started opposing the sale and commercial development of a section of land at the corner of John and Junot where a proposal has come forward to put another Tim Hortons in place.
It might just be the start of an ever engaged neighbourhood. Thunder Bay needs more of them.
For more information on this week’s walk, visit Facebook