A hurrah for a public bike system in Vancouver!

The City of Montreal pleasantly shipped over Bixi, their public bike system, the other weekend for Vancouverites to demo and view. And demo and view it I did!

I don’t want to spend too much time on the Montreal system, because it’s not at all set in stone that, if we were to get a public bike system, we’d be using Bixi. That said, Bixi is a terrific evolution of the public bike concept. It uses non-fixed stations – that is to say, the bike stations do not require installation in the sidewalk. They are completely mobile. The City can put one anywhere. They’re powered by two solar panels, send off Wi-Fi signals, and can be easily expanded to hold as many bikes as are required for that specific station. This method is much cheaper than the Vélib system in Paris, which required substantial construction to change the existing sidewalk infrastructure.

The Bixi bikes were modern, sleek, extremely comfortable, and feature three simple gears. Bixi uses either a smart card monthly pass, or can be unlocked via a pay-as-you-go ticketing system.

Basically, for those who don’t know, here’s the concept of a public bike system:

Bikes are available every 300 m or so around the city. The first half hour is free, encouraging people to use the bikes for short trips as part of a multi-modal transport choice. Prices increase dramatically over the hours to discourage long trips. Bikes can be returned to any station that has an empty spot. Et voilà!

While its usage across the region is questionable at this point, having a public bike system in Downtown Vancouver would be transformational. As it is, car usage is declining, and transit, cycling, and walking are growing in heaps and bounds. The downtown peninsula is the perfect distance for cycling trips, and the topography is manageable (although not perfect).

The only thorn in the side of this plan is infrastructure. If a swath of bikes were to suddenly appear downtown, the few existing bike lanes would not be able to handle the traffic. Either car lanes would have to be reallocated or parking removed to provide more space for all the cyclists that would use such a system.

In any case, the concept receives unbridled support from me. I sure hope that if TransLink doesn’t want to pursue such a system, that the City of Vancouver will, and in turn showcase what a true 21st century transport revolution looks like.

Physically separated: the new standard for cycling in Vancouver!

Cyclists have much to celebrate following the latest news from Vancouver City Hall. Council endorsed a number of initiatives to advance the bicycle agenda, including a doubling of annual spending, a new bike plan, a potential ciclovia, and more. But perhaps the most important snippet of the council report is the decision to make segregated bike lanes the new standard for cycling infrastructure in the city.

A physically separated bike lane in Montreal

It’s been well documented around the world, and is common sense to most average Joes, but the reality is that the majority of people will not cycle unless they feel safe doing so. With cars traveling upwards of 60km on most city streets, cycling alongside such fast moving vehicles is dangerous, with or without a painted white line on the ground.

Studies have shown that building a comprehensive network of traffic calmed roads and bike lanes will attract cyclists, but will usually hit a plateau around a 10% mode share. That is because, according to a report from Portland’s DoT, there are four types of cyclists:

• Strong and Fearless: <1%. Cycling is their identity. They ride no matter what.
• Enthused and Confident: 7%. Cycle thanks to the infrastructure (i.e. bike lanes, etc.). Comfortable with roadways, but prefer safer facilties
• Interested but Concerned: 60%. They like cycling, but don’t feel safe about speeding cars of intersections. They would ride, but need to feel safer.
• No way, no how: 33%. Will likely never ride due to topography, inability or lack of interest.

As you can see from the stats above, it’s that 60% of people in the Interested but Concerned group that we must start targeting if we are to ever increase our cycling mode share.

So that’s why this motion is so very important for both the City of Vancouver and the entire region. To make physically separated bike lanes the new standard for cycling routes means that we are finally putting that 60% first. We are finally reaching out to seniors, soccer moms, children, and bike newbies.

What does physically separated look like? In general, it means having a bike lane be separated from cars by something more than a white line – a concrete curb, bollards, street parking, a planted median, etc. Anything that equals a physical barrier from cars entering the bike’s lane.

A section of the redesigned Carrall Street "greenway", which features a physically separated bike lane

Montreal does it; Copenhagen does it; Amsterdam does it; London does it; New York does it; San Francisco does it.

It’s high time Vancouver did too.

Congrats to the Vancouver City Council for making such a transformational decision.

On happiness and the jobs of tomorrow

TIME Magazine has put together an interesting infographic based on a person’s happiness while working. Considering work, along with sleep, is the activity we spend most of our time on, the degree of enjoyment during the daily grind is crucial to living a fulfilled life.

As we look back on the last couple of centuries and the leaps and bounds society has made through various economic revolutions, a fair assumption can be made that we will naturally continue to eliminate or outsource the jobs we dislike doing. In the Western World, we’ve shifted over time from primary and secondary sectors to the tertiary service economy and are seeing the beginnings of the quaternary knowledge economy. In this transition, thanks partly to globalisation, we passed on the primary and secondary economies to the Third World – primarily in Asia and Central America.

But things are changing, and the Third World is rapidly developing; again, passing the baton of the “dirty work” to South America and Africa.

As China and India become economic hotbeds, influence and power will no longer be controlled solely by the United States, and will have to be shared across continental economies: Asia, India, Oceania, the EU, and America. Eventually, South America and Africa will join the game. Competition is always a good thing in a fair market.

The problem arises though of who will then do the dirty work; when there is no Third World left to throw it off to. Nobody will want to do those jobs anymore.

My theory is two-fold.

1. We will always need the primary and secondary industries to maintain a solid foundation for the economy. Nothing will run without the raw resources.

I suspect that, as the global education level rises, it will be the trades sector that will become in extremely high demand.

And the pay will be worth it, as business men will always rather pay someone else to do the so-called “dirty work”, than do it themselves.

These jobs will be available and well worth it, money wise that is, for those who want them.

2. As the knowledge economy develops, human kind will repeatedly invent technologies to simplify or completely handle the “dirty work”. We’ve seen this for a while; it’s not like the trend is new by any means.

But that trend I suspect resulted more from the drive to produce goods and services on a global scale, which meant efficiency that only machines can provide.

In the future, the drive to build more complex and sophisticated machines to handle the “dirty work” will result simply from the understanding that the human brain was meant for so much more than flipping burgers, or data entry, or driving buses.

There’s only so much advancement that can be made in the primary and secondary industries. It’s the tertiary (service) industry that will soon transform thanks to technology – and allow a huge segment of the population to move into the quaternary sector.

We see it happening already. Everything from automated checkouts at the bank, libraries, and grocery stores, to online shopping, to computerized customer service help lines.

Don’t think for a second that any typical service job today can’t be automated in the future. In Japan, the aging population has driven demand for the R&D of robots designed to replace the role of nursing aids.

All in all, I’m tremendously excited to see the day when this transition really picks up and transforms our society. The real purpose behind the change will be an understanding that human potential and capacity to innovate is too valuable to waste on meaningless, tedious jobs. And that future, in which nourishing and stimulating work is available to all who seek it, I predict will be nothing short of the second Renaissance of human kind.

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Vote for BC-STV! TODAY!

This provincial election, I didn’t think I would vote.

I could not bring myself to vote for a candidate who has rammed through numerous highway expansion projects with utter disregard for what his fellow citizens think.

I could not bring myself to vote for a leader who pursued a hypocritical campaign of misinformation against the carbon tax for no reason other than to broaden her support base.

I could not bring myself to vote for a party that is so young and disorganized that, after over twenty years of existence, has still yet to elect even one candidate to the Legislature.

Our current system does not work and has been turning citizens off politics for decades. It’s no surprise then that all the major Western democracies across the world, save the UK, the USA, and Canada, have switched to a form of proportional representation for their elections. And it’s working -politicians work cooperatively, more women and minorites are elected, and engagement is high as people believe in the process of their democracy.

We have a chance today to make history.

Today is the day when we can change to a fairer electoral system: BC-STV.

BC-STV was the system recommended by the Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform, a group of randomly selected British Columbians who were tasked with the responsibility of finding a new electoral system that would better fit the values citizens in this province seeked from their democracy.

BC-STV will give us fairer elections, effective representation, and a responsive, diverse government.

If, you, like me, are disengaged with this election, and can’t even bear to face the ballot box, do something about it. Change the way our electoral system works, and you will change the way politics in our province is done.  And in turn, you may very well set off a groundswell of support for electoral reform that could sweep the rest of this continent. You and I will never have a chance to make history like this in our lifetimes again.

Vote YES to BC-STV.

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For one of the best arguments in support of BC-STV, please listen to Christy Clark, CKNW radio host and former Deputy Premier of BC.

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Supporters of BC-STV

• Michael Byers, UBC Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law
• Libby Davies, NDP MP for Vancouver East
• Richard Stewart, Mayor of Coquitlam
• David Suzuki, Environmentalist
• Bill Vander Zalm, former Social Credit Premier of BC
• Preston Manning, former Reform Party leader
• Denise Savoie, NDP MP for Victoria
• Mark Jaccard, Professor for the SFU School of Resource and Environmental Management
• Rafe Mair, broadcaster and former NDP MLA
• Troy Lanigan, President of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
• Seth Klein, Director of the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
• Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada
• Andrew Coyne, national editor of Macleans, National Post columnist
• Bruce Cox, Executive Director of Greenpeace Canada
• Sean Holman, Public Eye Online and CFAX Legislative Reporter
• Bill Siksay, NDP MP for Burnaby-Douglas

Demand in the ‘burbs for public squares

It’s been called the next Robson and Burrard – but who would’ve thought that 72nd Ave and Scott Road would be the gathering place for playoff fans celebrating the Canucks recent success on ice?

Only a week ago, it was estimated that there was 1,500 fans in the area. Last night, that number went up to 2,000 with the crowd lasting almost two hours!

I’m not sure why exactly sure why that street corner has emerged as the celebration site for the playoffs, but here’s some observations about the area:

• Extremely high South Asian population which are notorious for having an very connected community and high participation rate
• Intersection of two of the major streets in the South Fraser area
• Site of the Strawberry Hill community, with some density nearby
• An Earl’s and local Pub stand side by side, leading onto a small private square – the space where most of the pedestrians gather

If you view the video, you’ll also notice that there seems to be a lot of younger adults/teens. Furthermore, and rather unsurprisingly, there doesn’t seem to be too many people on their feet – a lot of them seem to be in their cars of course.

It all just leads me to believe stronger than ever before that people have an innate desire to gather and celebrate occasions, and require a safe public space in which to do so (Scott and 72nd, although highly visible to cars, isn’t highly visible to pedestrians, nor is it safe for them).

And this all occurred with only a few of the ingredients coming together: population density, pubs in close proximity to watch the game, small private square to celebrate on, high profiled intersection to gain visibility to others. It goes to show that the potential is more than for “Robson and Burrards” in the ‘burbs.

Just imagine the size and vibrant of the celebration if this was in a ore Downtown like area – with huge population densities, a vast array of pubs and restaurants, a large well designed public square, and a pedestrian oriented urban environment to make it all work.

To do so, we need to invest in building proper urban communities once again, especially in the ongoing transformation of the suburbs like Surrey.

The real “next Robson and Burrards” won’t happen until we do so. But the demand for these gathering places will.

The question is, will we satisfy it?

TransLink suggestion: “Vote Today”

As everyday transit riders know, TransLink regularly uses its buses’ digital displays to show community spirit. It’s been used to celebrate the Vancouver Canucks, BC Lions, and even the Winter Holidays – just take a look at the photos from flickr below.

I’ve been quite disappointed in Canadian democracy, considering voter turnout continues to drop. There’s many reasons for this, but based on my personal experience in the past two elections, if one is busy/unorganized enough, it’s actually not too hard to forget which day is “election day”.

TransLink has already set a wonderful precedent of creatively using their digital displays to enhance their brand and the community.

With the coming provincial election on May 12th, I can’t help but think how many people would be reminded to get out and vote if, on that very day, all TransLink buses and SkyTrain screens displayed a revolving message to “VOTE TODAY”.

It would certainly be one more piece of the puzzle to restoring a stronger sense of democracy and citizenship in our region.

Details on 399 King George B-Line and more

CMBC held an Open House recently to provide info to customers about two planned new routes in Surrey: the 531 White Rock-Langley and the 399 King George B-Line. There will be another open house on May 7th.

All in all, I tip my hat to TransLink and CMBC for, what seems like, the fasttracking of this B-Line. It was actually almost two years ago now, back in 2007, when I was so frustrated with our system South of the Fraser that I created a comprehensive transit plan for the area. Three years is a long time to see something come to fruition (the 399 starts in 2010), especially something as relatively simple and low cost as an express bus route. However, considering the timelines that *have* been given to us before, I am very happy and excited to think that it’s just under a year until I too will have a B-Line in my neck of the woods. Huzzah for real transport alternatives!

Here’s what I was able to learn:

531 Route

- The 531 will be introduced to the system in December. They aren’t anticipating too much ridership, so the route will start off with 30 minute service all day, every day, till 9pm with a Community Shuttle. Its likely terminus is at Willowbrook rather than Langley Centre, because it’s a much more popular destination – a lot of White Rockers used to big box shop in Langley before Grandview Heights was built.

399 King George B-Line

- The 399 “B-Line” will introduce a limited stop, express service with articulated buses along King George. The route begins in Guildford at 104 and 152, travels west along 104th, connects to Surrey Central and King George SkyTrain stations, travels south along King George Highway, connecting to Newton Exchange and the South Surrey Park and Ride, before turning south onto 152 St and ending at the Semiamoo Shopping Centre.

- Headways between Guildford and Newton were initially planned to be every 7.5 minutes – morning, noon, and night! Every second B-Line would go to White Rock, meaning headways of every 15 mins.

- Guildford to Surrey Central will take about 15 minutes. Surrey Central to Newton will take about 15 minutes. Newton to White Rock will take about 20 minutes.

- Local service would be reduced along the 320 Fleetwood and 321 Newton & White Rock. It would also eliminate the 394 peak hour route between White Rock and King George SkyTrain.

- The 399 is planned to begin service on March 1, 2010. This is of course subject to change, but the plan is to begin once the Olympics have wrapped.

- The 399 is an introductory service. It’s not a full BRT route. It will feature articulated buses, along with some possible queue jumpers and transit priority signals. It will not include “bus stations”, any new street furniture, nor will there be dedicated lanes or a busway.

- The 399 is being introduced several years earlier than initially planned due to the fact that it’s not a BRT. Furthermore, most of the route already has enough space to accomodate articulated buses (such as a dedicated area when a bus pulls over to drop off/pick up). Only Newton Exchange would require some slight modification to accomodate artics.

- The 399 is a working name. It was compared to the 145 which is noted on SkyTrain maps as a “B-Line like” rapid transit route, despite the fact that it’s not actually a B-Line. B-Line desgination is up to TransLink, not CMBC, and there is currently no strategy underway to consolidate the B-Line brand. It was also noted that the BRT type features, such as “bus stations” are quite expensive to install along roadways – money that just isn’t available.

- The 399 will use the buses from the 98 B-Line (Vancouver to Richmond), which will be discontinued once the Canada Line opens in September. The buses will be retrofit with primarily mechnical tune ups, but may include some interior adjustments. The buses will be back on the road for the Olympics, then come to Surrey.

Other Tidbits

- There is no B-Line planned for Fraser Highway for a while due to its continued construction, and that that road would require significant modifications to accomodate artics (see above).

- The MoT/TransLink Surrey Rapid Transit Study isn’t due to begin till Fall – likely because of the election. Surrey is not the priority, UBC Line is. UBC Line not expected to be done until 2020 – at least at the current pace.

- Current Guildford Exchange will be no more – eventually. New exchange will locate at 156 St and 104 Ave. Planned private development to incorporate the new exchange fell through with the recession. Discussions are ongoing.

- No plans for NightBus network changes. No demand for NightBus routes in Surrey. Status of NightBus network Phase 2 study unknown.

- New bus route between Maple Ridge and Langley Centre is expected to be popular. The limited stop route is designed to get people from Walnut Grove and Langley across the River to the West Coast Express. Apparently there’s a lot of Langley residents that work Downtown, so the expectation is that they will take the bus plus the train now that it’s a real option.

Opposing the relocation of The Centre

The latest news out of one of Vancouver’s primary LGBT organizations, The Centre, is that it is considering moving from its current home at Bute and Davie in the West End to a street-front location at Burrard and 7th. The non-profit has been struggling for years to expand services and rebrand the organization – although most of these improvements required a new “Centre”. The current facility is small, run down, mice infested, unfriendly, and inaccessible.

However, as bad as that may sound, The Centre remains a highly used safe gathering space for the queer community – a community that has laid its roots in the West End and on Commercial Drive. These two areas are the only gay villages in the region. Now you can debate the validity of a gay village and whether they will survive the coming decades, but there is absolutely no question that human beings have a natural tendency to assemble and form collective groups.

Whether it’s ethnicity, religion, money, or sexual orientation, there’s a vast array of geographical communities in Metro Vancouver. South Asians live in Surrey, Christians live in Abbotsford, the rich lives in West Van, and the gays live in Davie Village – these are generalizations, but there’s truth behind it.

The fact remains that Davie Village is the geographical hub for queer people in the Lower Mainland. If you start to remove the services that that community relies on – such as the Odyssey or The Centre – then these services will either be replaced with a newcomer to the area to fill that void, or the community itself will begin to die if it doesn’t have the capacity to replace these services.

In the case of the Odyssey, if it doesn’t relocate to a new venue somewhere in the West End, it’s likely that their patrons will simply move to a different club – possibly taking back Celebrities from the influx of straight people, or begin going to the recently opened, but highly underwhelming Pulse.

With The Centre though, it will be different, as there currently is no service provider like it around – and starting a non-profit is not nearly as easy or sustainable as running a nightclub.

If the organization, which is already dragging its feet and facing a budget shortfall – even with the very few services it provides – moves across the Creek, you can bet your butt that the patrons won’t follow. It’s just too far out of the way.

And what’s the point of a community centre, outside of the community?

Nor will a new replacement pop up in the immediate future.

If The Centre does choose to make the move, don’t expect its future to last much longer. Nor will I have high hopes for the overall wellbeing of the queer community, because without a community gathering space, we’re left with nothing more than a couple clubs and pubs and a book store.

Unless of course, something comes together to fill the void.

Maybe the best thing for The Centre is to move and die a quick death, creating a call-to-action for a new generation of community organizers to start a fresh organization ready to take over The Centre’s role for the 21st century.

Defending Ray Lam and his facebook pictures

This weekend, the NDP candidate for Vancouver False-Creek, Ray Lam, was forced to resign after “inappropriate” photos from his Facebook profile were made public. This hasn’t been the first time that political candidates’ dirty laundry has surfaced during a campaign – I recall this exact situation occurring a number of times during the federal election. Not to mention, in years to come, this is simply going to happen more and more as our use of technologies such as Facebook increases.

That said, there are a number of issues surrounding this whole story, and I firmly believe that Ray Lam should not have resigned.

1. These were private photos

The pictures in question were on Ray Lam’s private Facebook profile. These photos were not made available to everyone on the internet for a perfectly good reason. They should be just as inaccessible to the public as Joe Schmo’s box of Woodstock Love-In pics from the 60’s. They are both private media.

Now I know that once something goes online, it’s bound to never leave the internet again. However, Facebook is a locked-down social network, meaning people can only see what you want them to see – everything else is automatically privatized.

These photos weren’t public. They were leaked. And that is completely unfair to Ray Lam, his personal reputation, and the NDP.

We should all have the right to post whatever we want on our private Facebook profiles to share with our friends, and not worry that that media will get into the wrong hands.

This is an affront not just to Ray Lam, but to our collective online privacy.

2. The leaked photos were posted by News1130

Now I know we’re going down the rabbit hole here into the unregulated territory of the wild, wild web, but there is something absolutely unethical about the fact that News1130 posted the leaked photos in their report on the story.

I repeat – these were private photos. Ray Lam has rights to them, Facebook has rights to them – News1130 does not. They have no right whatsoever to replicate these photos in any manner without permission.

To post them without that permission is despicable. This will have terrible ramifications for Lam, who I believe should sue the company for this, and just goes to show how low our journalistic standards have dropped.

UPDATE: The Globe has posted them as well. The Sun, CTV, and The Hook haven’t.

3. The photos weren’t all that “inappropriate”

One photo had Lam grabbing a woman’s breast while dancing. Considering she’s smiling, and the fact that Lam is gay, I doubt this is cause for alarm. I don’t know about the Boomers, but Gen Xers do this all the time. And there’s nothing wrong with it as long as it was consensual.

The second photo had Lam in underwear posing with two friends. How is it okay to have nearly nude models strewn across TV, magazines, newspapers, billboards, and storefronts – but because Lam is a candidate for public office, suddenly this is not acceptable?

Have people seen what is on the Internet? Has the public ever gotten drunk and taken some fun pics? And who hasn’t shown some skin – whether at a club, on the beach, at a party, on the web, or in the privacy of your own home?

Neither of the pictures are inappropriate. And the material in them certainly wasn’t illegal.

And, again, judging what’s in these pictures is none of our business, considering they were private to begin with!

4. Elected officials are normal people

This just goes to show that elected officials, or people that choose to run for public office, are normal human beings.

Whether it’s leaked Facebook photos, driving drunk while on vacation, or being the former leader of the National Citizens Coalition, our politicians have long histories, with different experiences, stories, and adventures. They’ve all encountered happy, wacky, absurd, and disappointing situations in life.

Just like the rest of us.

And while we may sometimes like to think of them as the clean cut leaders of society, they aren’t. Not even one of them. Because they are human.

They make mistakes.

The question is, do we want to accept our politicians are normal people who’ve decided to serve the public, and respect the line between their public and private lives, or do we want to set the bar so high as to expect Gods as our leaders and up end with nothing less than a bitchfest during elections based on who can scoop up the most dirt – leaving us with no good candidates left to vote for.

Prohibition doesn’t work – time for a new approach

In response to Keisha O’Hagan’s letter to the editor of the Langley Times: “Legalization won’t solve drug problems”

Here’s the fact of the matter: Nobody knows what would happen if all drugs were legalized.

We can however, make some hypotheses based on the last time a major drug was legalized – alcohol. In the US during the 30’s, a group of Christian women, confronted with the problems of alcoholism and abusive husbands, successfully got alcohol banned in a legal process known as prohibition.

Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, prohibition made the situation much worse. The fact was, and remains, just because a substance is illegal does not mean that the market demand disappears. And where there’s a market, there will be entrepreneurs looking to make some money. Because the market was pushed underground, these entrepreneurs tiptoed around the law, creating a dangerous situation for producers, sellers, and consumers.

Prohibition of alcohol led to widespread violence, as gangsters fought to control the market (ever heard of Al Capone?). Not to mention, the product could be very hazardous, as there was no quality control, and purchasing alcohol was a simple, though potentially dangerous, process. The key here though is that the market for alcohol remained despite it being illegal, and prohibition simply pushed that market underground.

When prohibition was repealed and alcohol made legal was again, the data shows that consumption levels rose for a few years, then settled back down to a steady plateau. Gang violence disappeared overnight, and the taxes charged on alcohol were now spent to help educate citizens about the dangers of the drug and treat addiction.

Prohibitionist policies don’t work. They ignore the reality of the situation. Our current drug laws are not only hypocritical – because tobacco and alcohol, two of the worst drugs around, are actually legal – but are in fact making the whole drug problem much worse than it needs to be. We’ve instituted the same prohibitionist public policies towards drugs for over half a century.

As Einstein once said, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

We all want to reduce drug consumption. But if the current strategy isn’t working, isn’t it time we experiment with other solutions such as the Four Pillars harm reduction model, decriminalization, and perhaps even legalization.

If the outcomes are worse than today, then we can always reverse our public policies.

The status quo isn’t good enough. We ought to at least try something different.