My family and I have a new winter pastime. It isn’t skating or skiing or snowmobiling. It’s car-watching.
Last December 29, you see, the City of Edmonton began work to demolish the structure that went by the delightfully literal name of “Stony Plain Road over Groat Road Bridge.” The bridge wasn’t exactly a landmark. There wasn’t anything the slightest bit iconic about it. It was just a nondescript bit of workaday infrastructure that did the unsung but important job of connecting west Edmonton with the downtown core. Every day, thousands of commuters used the little bridge to get across the Groat Ravine, from one end of busy Stony Plain Road to the other. If the bridge felt a bit taken for granted? Well, I guess you couldn’t blame it.
And now? Poof, it’s gone. Torn down as part of construction of Edmonton’s newest LRT line, a low-floor tram system that will link the far west end, out beyond West Edmonton Mall, to the downtown and then to the city’s far southeast.
Eventually a new tram-friendly bridge will take its place. For now, though, all that remains is a hole in the sky where the trestle used to be.
Recent years have shown that many people just don’t think the rules of time and space apply to them.
But perhaps because the major demolition work took place over the New Year’s long weekend, a lot of Edmonton drivers appear to have missed the memo. Hence my new hobby: watching car after car fly down Stony Plain Road at top speed, blowing past all the warning signs, only to slam on the brakes, in shock and indignation, when they realize that yes, they really can’t get across that way.
Watching those irate drivers halt in confusion, watching them try to figure out how to pull a U-turn or how they might figure out some roundabout detour, gives me dark chills of schadenfreude. And a sort of sense of wonder at our culture of entitlement.
What are all those drivers thinking as they pass sign after sign warning them that the road ahead is closed? That somehow the rules of the road—and the laws of gravity—don’t apply to them? That they are so special, so important, so clever, that they will be able to sneak through the orange construction barriers and get to the other side?
Or are they just so hyper-focused (or so distracted) that they literally don’t see the warning signs?
When they notice that Stony Plain Road, which usually has bumper-to-bumper traffic during rush hour, is now wide open, do they ask themselves why? Or are they so thrilled to think they have pulled a fast one that they just step on the gas and rocket down the road in glee, without realizing they’d need to do some kind of Evel Knievel jump over the exposed gorge?
I have a weakness for seeing metaphors in things, I know. But I can’t help but see the metaphor for our age as I watch car after car, truck after truck, screech to huffy halt.
The last three years have demonstrated that many people just don’t think the rules of time and space apply to them. Or perhaps they simply believe they can blind themselves to warnings and will an alternative reality into existence with sheer stubbornness. I’ve seen the anger and confusion when people suddenly realize the delusions in which they’ve wrapped themselves are not sustainable.
COVID isn’t gone just because we want it to be. If you don’t want to wear a mask or get a booster shot, I guess that’s now your prerogative. But don’t delude yourself into thinking your politics, your social status, your age or your faith somehow make you immune. Viruses don’t care about your ideology or your lifestyle. And they won’t stop evolving just because you find them inconvenient.
Also? Climate change is real and happening in real time. And you can ignore it or deny it, I suppose, until another cataclysmic weather event upends your life. But it isn’t a theory or a projection. It’s here.
We can’t go on pretending we can run our society and economy on the old paradigm. We need to build a new bridge to the future, not try to jump the gorge.
Less existentially? The Constitution of Canada is real, and pretending that it doesn’t apply in your jurisdiction doesn’t make it so. And if we haven’t got enough pilots or passenger agents or baggage handlers, enough nurses or family doctors or lab techs, enough store clerks or wait staff or truck drivers, screaming at or about the ones we do have won’t make the situation any better.
Just as along Stony Plain Road, the signs are everywhere and clearly marked. We’re just not slowing down to read them—or if we are, we’re choosing to pretend their messages don’t apply to us.
But ignoring reality? It won’t help us get to the other side. Wherever it is we’re trying to go.
Paula Simons is an independent senator and the host of the podcast Alberta Unbound. She lives in Edmonton.
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