paulhillsdon.com

Yes, I have decided, that I will run in this year’s municipal elections for a seat on Surrey City Council.

Over the past year or so, as my projects have come and gone, I’ve become frustrated. I developed policies and plans to fix many of the problems I encountered in daily life. I created the South of Fraser Transit 2011 proposal because transit is lackluster out here. I created the Surrey Cycling Initiative because biking anywhere wasn’t a safe or viable transportation alternative in my city. I created the Transit Metropolis Vancouver vision because I wanted to be able to move around the region quickly, comfortably, and cheaply.

But, without political will behind any of my, or any other person’s ideas, they are worth nothing. It is for this exact reason that I have chosen to enter politics. We need more creativity and idealism in our politicians - I think those are two qualities I possess in mounds.

Sustainability is the cornerstone of my entire platform. I am part of the generation that will inherit this planet from the baby boomers. It is imperative that Surrey take a leadership role in protecting our environment, developing green transportation, and providing equal opportunities for all citizens to succeed in life.

My platform revolves around four pillars: Sustainable Development, Green Spaces, Transportation Options, and Vibrant Communities. They all interconnect and create a much larger vision of the livable lifestyle - complete walkable communities with close access to sustainable transportation options, affordable housing, and green spaces.

It is time for Surrey to become all that it is capable of being and step up to the plate. To do so, we must take the lead in developing a city that will become a sustainable urban hub of Western Canada for the 21st century.

London, Curitiba, Dongtan, New York, Copenhagen, Freiburg, Paris, Dubai, Melbourne, Bogota, San Francisco, Sydney, and Vancouver can do it.

Why not Surrey?

I think with my vision and optimism, I would be an ideal councillor to help usher in the political will needed to make this transformation.

It’s been proven time and again in public transit that, if you build it, they will come. Just ask any of those Greater Vancouver commuters crammed like sardines in SkyTrain cars during the morning or evening rush hour.

This is happening now despite arguments made during the planning of the existing rapid-transit system that not enough folks would use such a service.

Now, we’re hearing similar criticisms from those who oppose using the old Inter-Urban route for light-rail service in the Fraser Valley. There’s not enough population density, they say.

The folks displaying this attitude clearly have a hard time seeing beyond their noses.

Transit must be planned in a long-term context. And all growth projections for south-of-Fraser communities, from Delta to Chilliwack, agree that this region alone will one day have a population larger than that of the whole of Metro Vancouver today.

Surrey already has the largest number of children enrolled in K-12 schools of any municipality in the province. And its population is expected to surpass that of Vancouver in the next 20 years.

Also, the 18-24 demographic in the Fraser Valley is growing at six times the provincial average.

The most efficient and “green” way to move large numbers of people is via light-rail transit.

Given the population growth in this region, this transit option should be a no-brainer.

So, build it and they will come. Just ask the sardines.

[The Province]

Once The Province hops on the bandwagon, you know something is going here.

It’s my understanding that there are two things holding back restored rail service on the Interurban route: TransLink and Kevin Falcon.

TransLink tends to operate in its own little bubble and isn’t nearly as progressive as one would hope. Not to mention they are continuously behind schedule in implementing their plans. You may attempt to blame that on lack of funding, but when they refuse to even try a cheap, innovative idea like rail for the valley, you know that the planners there are rather stuck up in their data analysis and can’t quite think outside the box. Not a personal attack here - just TransLink as a whole ;)

Their excuses include lack of density and population along the route. Of course, they don’t mention the big key that The Province’s editorial mentioned - build it and they will come. If you give us roads and highways, of course development will be car oriented. Open a railway and the shift won’t just immediately happen, it will happen over the course of years. But it will happen. Just look at the success the Millennium Line now is with all the new high rise developments around the stations - not that long ago it was called a major failure and waste of money. Which is exactly why we shouldn’t build an expensive fancy system that will take years to attract sufficient ridership. Restore Interurban service cheaply at the beginning and begin upgrading, adding new trains, and double tracking the route as ridership increases. Cheap, effective method to wean us off cars!

TransLink is giving the same crap to Vancouver with their Downtown Streetcar plan. Ironically enough, a new streetcar system in Vancouver and restored community rail in Surrey would both cost just over $100 million. Anyways, TransLink’s excuse is that the streetcar will take ridership away from bus routes and that they hadn’t incorporated a streetcar in their long term transit expansion plans for Vancouver. God, what a friggin’ stupid excuse. Buses can be diverted elsewhere in the region! And talk about a bureaucracy if they can’t even see what a smart idea it would be to have a sleek, modern streetcar linking many of the attractions in Downtown Vancouver.

The second reason rail for the Valley isn’t coming anytime soon is Kevin Falcon. Before Gateway came along, he gladly gave $75,000 provincial dollars to Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Society. Ever since though, there’s been no money, nor any provincial support for the restoration attempts. First, he decided highways are the best solution to traffic congestion for the Valley. Then, after some arm twisting by his boss, Mr. Campbell, he included a short SkyTrain extension into Surrey as part of the Provincial Transit Plan. Falcon has, however, also promised that the Province will launch a study into the possibility of restoring rail service on the Interurban route - although I haven’t heard of any progress on this initiative. So unless he suddenly changes his mind, I don’t see him supporting rail for the Valley. And expect the typical spin in the study.

Which is all quite unfortunate, because all we would need is one of these two to hop on the rail bandwagon and it would get done like *that*.

Time to enter politics, eh?

I was rummaging through some statistics this morning about Surrey. Stumbling upon the Transportation graphs, I found something rather bewildering - the stats showed that SOVs, or single occupancy vehicles, were, beating the trend, so to speak, and decreasing in usage in Surrey! 

This is quite amazing, especially considering our options out here in terms of transportation alternatives. 

It’s a spectacular feat and a wonderful trend. Especially since Vancouver won’t get all the attention now!

Private vehicles were the primary mode of transportation in 2006 of those who commute to work.  The share of commuters traveling by vehicle as driver declined from 2001 to 2006.  This was accompanied by a complimentary growth in travel by vehicle as a passenger and by public transit.  Carpooling activity may be captured by either category of vehicle use since this statistic tracks an individual’s most common mode of transportation. 

The primary mode of transportation throughout Metro Vancouver in 2006 is vehicle as driver. This mode is used by a smaller share of the commuting labour force in the inner municipalities of Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster.  The Metro Vancouver average excluding these municipalities is 75.8%.  Surrey is in line with this at 76.1%. 

What the paragraph above tells us is that Surrey residents are doing the best they can to go out of their cars with the resources they have. It is the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, and New West that have some of the best transit in the region - for this exact reason, they were taken out of the equation. So, in terms of comparing our driving usage with other places that have crap transit - we’re about equal. Just imagine our transit usage if we had viable alternatives - like rail or BRT!

The more I cycle, the more I realize that bikes should become a whole new category in legal and urban planning terms.

Right off the bat, most people would, at least presume, it’s unsafe to cycle on the same road as a car - at least without any good physical separation. This is, all things considered, a huge deterrent to cycling as both a mode of recreation or of transportation.

Now, legally, bikes are considered in the same league as motor vehicles. Thus why they are destined for the road and not the sidewalk.

It’s funny how some laws just become benign though. I could understand why, legally, in a city’s core you wouldn’t want bikes interacting with the people on the sidewalks and would rather them be in the same league as cars. However, the case is completely different in the suburbs. Out here, there’s either not enough population density, or attractions to gather in one specific area, that would require bikes to get off the sidewalks out of the safety of pedestrians.

Frankly, that’s the reason most people I see in the suburbs bike on the sidewalk! There’s nobody to run into! Unlike on the road where they are supposed to be…

Anyways, the problem you get in the city core is, although cars may be driving slower, the deterrent is still there. In this urban space, you essentially require three main infrastructure elements for a complete street - designated, separated space for cars and buses; designated, separated space for bikes; and designated, separated space for pedestrians. Of course, this becomes strenuous in terms of the ultimate amount of space available. However, if you take space away from the cars, and give it to bikes, you’ve created a market based situation and traffic will naturally redistribute.

With the suburbs, it’s a different story. Right now, in Surrey, they’ve adopted a policy of building “complete streets”, which basically amounts to: designated, separated space for trees and plants; designated, separated space for cars and buses; designated space for bikes; and designated, separated space for pedestrians. This means boulevards, car lanes, bike lanes, and sidewalks.

Now as I mentioned, it’s actually quite a waste of space to build sidewalks where pedestrians don’t walk. It’s even stupider to also designate space to bikes which bikes won’t use.

It’s actually a very easy solution. And there’s two steps about it.

1. Allow bikes on all sidewalks that don’t have the pedestrian traffic to necessitate separation due to safety and collision concerns.
2. Stop building sidewalks - start building multi-use pathways with separation from the cars’ road space.

Step 2 is a more long term plan and policy, but it’s an improvement - it gets bumpy after a while from cycling down sidewalks.

Here, instead of using street space for small sidewalks and small bike lanes that nobody uses, you combine the space and end up creating a wider path for both users. Furthermore, it attracts more cyclists due to the separation factor.

What say you? Time to change a little policy?

Been doing some studying on restoring rail service to the Interurban. I see its long term value as a commuter rail route that will facilitate far better movement between towns and city cores in the Valley, but still enabling long distance travel east to Chilliwack or west to Vancouver. The advantage of standard at-grade rail has always been its flexibility and cheap price, so I don’t like the idea of immediately making it into an LRT system. Besides, LRT is more suited for an urban setting with high densities - something that, truthfully, isn’t the strengths of most communities along the Interurban’s route (as compared to other areas of the Valley).

In any case, there are many arguments against restoring service, from cost to population density to competition with planned BRT routes - however, these are obviously excuses. If there’s the political will to get something done, it will get done.

As of this moment, at my current understanding of the problem, there’s a few things going on.

1. The FVHRS is restoring an original Interurban vehicle to run as a historic/tourist train between Cloverdale and Sullivan. They are years behind schedule, and won’t likely be done the restoration until late 2009.
2. TransLink does not support restoring rail service on the route because it cannibalizes its current transit expansion plans for the Valley. All public transport must be either run, or have the approval, of TransLink.
3. As much as it would like to bring rail back, the City of Surrey does not have the capital funds to upgrade the route for, even community, rail service - let alone a real, strong, regional transit connection. Thus it is pursuing partnerships, and providing limited funding, to help FVHRS get it’s historic/tourism train off the ground.
4. The federal government is doing a review of allowing passenger service along national rail corridors that could impact any rail revival attempts.

So, what is the estimated cost to bring back the Interurban?

Well, according to the UMA Study done for the City of Surrey:

…operating an accessible, modern Community Rail service every 20 minutes during peak weekday periods between the Cloverdale and Scott Road Stations, with a connection to the Scott Road SkyTrain Station on a single track with sidings, with some limited double track sections in the station areas in order to provide accessible service, and a signal and communications system for the corridor. The high order of magnitude cost estimate for this service is projected to have a total capital cost range of approximately $80.0 million (i.e. using British Parry People Mover vehicles) to $110.0 million (i.e. using Talent LRT vehicles) and an annual operating cost of approximately $6.0 million. This is on top of the $9.0 million capital cost sunk for Phase One, noted above bringing the total capital cost for Phase Two range to $90.0 to $120.0 million range.

The capital costs include the following components: right-of-way and grade crossing improvements; passenger stations; adding vehicle storage and maintenance facilities and track access to the maintenance/storage facility at Sullivan Station; modifying some industrial sidings; double tracking the station areas to ensure physical separation of right and passenger services; providing adjacent station parking and pedestrian access improvements;providing new LRT- like vehicles; installing fare revenue collection equipment; and implementing a train communication and signal system to ensure safety of the system.

Course, running peak service is rather retarded. I mean, yes, it will aid a few of us who travel downtown, but it certainly doesn’t help the majority of residents who travel, throughout the day, *in* the South of Fraser area. That’s why I liked the old Interurban timetable I found. Service wasn’t at super high frequencies like that of the SkyTrain, but it was more than peak periods - it was a couple runs throughout the day. And it had specials for the weekends!

According to the UMA Study, Southern Railway currently only runs…

… up to four freight trains daily (two in each direction). One train usually leaves from their New Westminster yard about 4:00 pm or 5:00 pm going eastward and returns westward to New Westminster between 10:00 pm and 12:00 am. Another train leaves the New Westminster yard between midnight and 1:00 am and returns to their New Westminster yard between 6:00 am and 7:00 am depending upon the level of coal/freight traffic moving on the main freight rail service line out of the region.

So, theoretically, there’s no reason we couldn’t run service beyond peak periods. Seems like the busiest times for the route are around 12am. And I can actually testify for this, considering I can hear the train when it runs through Cloverdale, a couple of blocks from where I live.

I truly believe that it’ll take a real pilot project, where people can get on a train and ride it along the route, to really bring the community support out in droves. I suppose that’s kind of what the City of Surrey is trying to do by supporting the FVHRS’ initiatives. However, I have a different idea.

So, based on what we know, here’s the times the tracks are busy:

• 4 pm - 5 pm
• 10 pm - 1 am
• 6 am - 7 am

Now, TransLink already has a commuter rail system - the West Coast Express. It’s my understanding that that service has five actual trains, with god knows how many cars that are attached to each “set”. They are used in peak periods on weekdays only.

So, here’s my proposal:

TransLink should take a West Coast Express train after rush hour Friday night, and plop it down in the railyards in Surrey near the Patullo Bridge. Then, starting from 7 am to 4 pm, run the service, up and down the route.

Theoretically, if it takes about 40 mins from New West to Cloverdale, you could create a timetable that would have the train coming back to each stop, every hour, in an alternate direction. Take a look:

Let the freight go by from 4 to 5, and then put it back on for evening service. Do this all weekend. See how it goes. Watch for the reception it gets.

And you wouldn’t have to spend a penny. Maybe get some wooden step stools to get on and off the train. And make it free. Let families hop on and take the route roundtrip depending on their departure point. Let people take surveys of the service. Have sketches showing what a possible rail system would look like.

We have the train. We have the time. We have the initial agreements from Southern Railway.

Let’s make it happen. Once people see how revolutionary this would be for Surrey, and the possibilities it opens up to the whole Fraser Valley, the campaign to bring back rail will be unstoppable!

I was at the Surrey Archives today, and while going through a *ton* of documents, I came across an old timetable from the BC Electric Railway’s Interurban Line. Here’s a quick rundown of what I found from the 1924 timetable:

• Service ran three times a day in both directions, for a total of six runs both east and westbound, all the way from Chilliwack to New West and back again. There was additional runs leaving from Jardine (in Langley), and from Cloverdale (in Surrey).
• Times were spaced out throughout the day, rather than the rush hour commuter service the West Coast Express provides.
• Westbound from Chilliwack to New West: 8:05A, 1:40P, 6:20P
• Eastbound from New West to Chilliwack: 12:15P, 5:50P, 9:00P
• From New West, it took:
  • 24 mins to Newton
  • 40 mins to Cloverdale
  • 53 mins to Langley City
  • 1 hour and 40 mins to Abbotsford
  • 2 hours and 40 mins to Chilliwack

Nathan Pachal, former writer of the VALTAC blog, started up his own site today. I found some more recent timetable information on his Document Archive. This rundown covers Interurban service in 1950, just before it was shut down:

• Service ran three times a day in both directions, for a total of sux runs both east and westbound all the way from Chilliwack to Vancouver and back again. Service was express from Vancouver to New West - local service on this stretch was provided by the Central Park Line (the equivalent of the Expo Line SkyTrain).
• Westbound from Chilliwack to Vancouver: 8:00A, 1:30P, 6:10P
• Eastbound from Vancouver to Chilliwack: 8:25A, 1:20P, 5:30P
• There was special early runs on Fridays, and late night runs on Saturdays (i.e. leave Vancouver at 11:33P, leave Langley at 1:50A)
• From Vancouver, it took:
  • 45 mins to New West
  • 1 hour and 9 mins to Newton
  • 1 hour and 25 mins to Cloverdale
  • 1 hour and 38 mins to Langley City
  • 2 hours and 25 mins to Abbotsford
  • 3 hours and 25 mins to Chilliwack

I personally find it fascinating that we were able to run a regional rail service, throughout the day, back in the 20’s, compared to our terrible lack of service today. I suppose that’s what happens when your rip up a transportation network - it takes a while to rebuild.

I can hardly imagine how much of a boon restoring service on the Interurban would be, even just for my transportation needs. My main places of travel are Cloverdale, Newton, Whalley, Fleetwood, Langley, Burnaby, and Vancouver - and the Interurban would serve five, possibly six, of them! That’s nearly everywhere I go.

That said, it doesn’t really help the denser areas in North Surrey. However, it would be huge to communities east in the Valley! I can’t even imagine how convenient and enjoyable a rail ride would be, going from Cloverdale to Langley in 13 mins, Cloverdale to Newton in 16 mins. Having a direction connection from downtown Vancouver to Surrey, without all the stops that the SkyTrain necessitates, would be AMAZING!

Please. Bring back the Interurban. I’ll do anything. Just give me my rail service!

I was going through the South of Fraser Area Transit Plan today, and I was reminded that, given the choice of what rapid transit services they wanted, almost all residents South of the Fraser turned down SkyTrain.

According to the document, TransLink reps gave residents colour coded lengths of tapes to place over a regional map as part of a visioning process. The length of this tape was based on a reasonable estimate of the budget TransLink would have for expansion.

• 1 piece of SkyTrain = 5 pieces of BRT
• 1 piece of LRT = 3 pieces of BRT
• 1 piece of BRT = 1.5 pieces of Frequent Bus services

Now, let’s examine the outcome of this visioning process.

SkyTrain

There was very little agreement for this expenditure, primarily because of the cost and the limited penetration into the South of Fraser that results by spending all available capital on this type of rail. Most participants started out with SkyTrain but then began to understand the tradeoff between service single corridors versus creating a network of services.

LRT

There was more agreement on this investment with a number of corridors being highlighted. However, overall, the network remains thin because rail takes up the majority of the budget. Most participants picked out corridors shown in previous transit strategies such as King George highway and 104th Street in Surrey of Fraser Highway from Surrey to Langley. The Southern Rail (Interurban) corridor was highlighted in Workshop but it did not appear in the other 24 maps. Interestingly, there was limited support for the northern section of the line.

BRT

The network and the level of agreement for Bus Rapid Transit echoes the market research. It is interesting to note that as the budget is spread among les expensive alternatives, the network that can be created increases both in scale and popularity. Respondents seemed to understand the concept of the B-Line as Bus Rapid Transit and were interested in extending a similar network throughout the region, including to Abbotsford.

————————————————————————————-

Now, take the above into the context of almost a year or two ago, before the Provincial government decided to invest $4 billion into our transit system.

With this change, I think it’s safe to say that we have a slightly larger budget now. When taking this into account, I think choosing to develop at least one of the major transit corridors in the SoF region as LRT would be a smart move. There are numerous advantages to choosing rail over bus, despite what some would tell you.

Furthermore, TransLink has a terrible reputation for stalling upgrades or expansions years after they were necessary. Obviously, the B-Lines have been a success. However, if you don’t meet initial success with quick expansion, typically through providing more buses, the whole experience diminishes in quality and convenience quite rapidly. Just try riding either the 98 or 99 B-Line and you’ll quickly find out that they pale in comparison in terms of definition as “rapid transit” beside our SkyTrain system. The routes get stuck in traffic, the bus doesn’t have much of a premium interior, and you can never get over the simple fact of overcrowding.

I think the SoF area has a prime opportunity here to convince Mr. Falcon to redirect the money in place for SkyTrain expansion in Surrey to provide us with at least one LRT route - and heck, throw the rest of the millions into more buses for our future BRT routes - so we can avoid having to stand for 45 minutes on the Fraser Hwy.

During the Surrey Mayor’s State of the City address, while discussing transportation in BC’s second largest city, Dianne Watts said:

“I for one am a firm believer that instead of SkyTrain expansion in Surrey we should be looking at At Grade Rail. At Grade Rail is significantly cheaper, easier to build and much more aesthetically pleasing than Sky Train. Surrey cannot wait until 2020 for improved rail transit. At Grade Rail can be completed much faster. I have great confidence in the potential of At Grade Rail, and I am currently having City staff analyze this option so that we can move it forward.”

This is a terrific move on the part of the Mayor. It great to know that she understands the added qualities that LRT presents to Surrey over SkyTrain - not just cost efficiency per km, but also aspects like the streetscape asthetics.

While I understand the reasoning for SkyTrain to UBC and to Coquitlam, I am a vehement supporter of the development of a new rail transit network based on LRT. Surrey is in the perfect position to be the beginning spot for this new network and will set the city apart from the North of Fraser’s transportation planning of the past few decades. It’s saying “We will chart our own path, learn from your mistakes, and build the best rail transit we can”. And that rail transit will be based on LRT!

Hopefully Surrey City Council will take a nod from Vancouver, and continue to push forward on the Heritage Rail Project. It would be a fantastic business case for LRT South of the Fraser if we can have a demonstration up and running in the next few years!

Good job Dianne! You just got my vote for November!

There’s a story in The Province today about Surrey continuing it’s so-called “made in Surrey” approach to regional growth, although this time the city has a leg to stand on.

There’s a strong possibility that following the LRSP update, Metro Vancouver will gain stronger powers to enforce cities in the region to play along properly with the regional growth strategy - something Surrey has a reputation for “derailing” due to it’s sprawled development.

One of the current large problems in the region is a growing lack of industrial land. As most should be aware, Vancouver and Burnaby are actually making the situation worse by rezoning industrial land for high density condos. Just take a look downtown: False Creek North and South, Yaletown, Coal Harbour - all former industrial lands. Burnaby is playing a similar game, building condos along the SkyTrain lines, usually on land that is or was industrial.

Now, it’s perfectly debateable whether or not these rezonings were justified and are actually improving quality of life. Certainly, it’s a very complex debate, ranging from the Province building rapid transit along industrial corridors in the first place (in an attempt to avoid NIMBYs), to Vancouver pursuing a word renowed smart growth strategy for the Downtown Penninsula.

The fact remains though, that industrial land is disappearing quickly and cities north of the Fraser are doing nothing to replace the lost plots of industrial lands.

This leaves Surrey is a difficult situation. Jean Lamontagne, General Manager of the City of Surrey’s planning department:

“Many municipalities have converted large areas of industrial land to higher uses, such as residential,” Lamontagne said in a report to council.

“Surrey is now being expected to make up for the shortcomings of others.

“It is expected to provide storage, distribution and truck storage for the region. It is clearly not acceptable . . . as they do little for the tax base of the city,” he said.

In the article, Dianne Watts, Mayor of Surrey, outright dismisses the option that Metro Vancouver will be able to overrule the City’s land use authority:

“The pressure to convert industrial land to residential is very high in Surrey, but we’re saying no,” she said.

“The region is looking at other communities to pick up the slack. It wants to fix mistakes of the past, but one community can’t supply industrial land for the region.”

Then, Vancouver Councillor Suzanne Anton steps in and completely misreads the whole situation with this statement:

“Surrey wants to be able to upgrade industrial land to commercial land [and produce more tax revenue]. Surrey is saying more loudly than others that they don’t want to be told what to do,” said Anton, who sits on the Metro planning committee.

Surrey has never wanted to replace industrial with commercial. Frankly, industrial lands provide better jobs in the long term for residents. In fact, Surrey has pursued a very intense strategy of protecting or expanding industrial lands in the city.

But it gets better. Anton then goes in for the knockout:

She admitted Vancouver recently converted industrial land in Southeast False Creek for a future residential community of 15,000. But she said Surrey shouldn’t point fingers.

“Do we want to get into who shoots up on the Downtown Eastside and where they come from?” she asked.

BAM!

How dare Anton try and claim that all the homeless, mentally ill, and drug addicted in Vancouver are somehow Surrey’s problem?! How dare she reinforce a negative persona on both Surrey as a city and claim to define it’s type of residents?!

That type of verbal attack on a neighbouring community should not be occuring by any mayor or councillor in the region.

In fact, it’s quite debateable, but if it wasn’t for the SkyTrain, Whalley wouldn’t have even gotten half the problems it did in the 90’s. And where do you think those people were coming from - oh, right, VANCOUVER!

As one of Surrey’s initiatives under the Cultural Capital of Canada designation, the City has funded a digital art project named “Glocal: Your World in Motion“. Here’s the synopsis from the project’s site:

Glocal is an interactive screen and online artwork now in production by a team of local artists: Sylvia Grace Borda, M Simon Levin, and Jer Thorp. They have envisioned building a massive community media experience that will challenge perceptions about the city of Surrey, Canada’s fastest growing metropolis.

With the use of digital cameras and motion capture, audiences will witness how speed, size, density and diversity have enabled Surrey to exist in local and global (Glocal) consciousness.

All the content produced under the banner of the Glocal project will form a large relational artwork in which ‘moving’ images of Surrey will become a central point of exploration. This interaction will then be repeated internationally through community workshops and public exhibitions. When realized, audiences will be able to compare, contrast and examine the world from all points of the globe – and experience how we all share the same horizons … and how we have a lot in common with others, wherever you are!

So how can YOU become part of Glocal and Think again about what’s cool where you live.
The Glocal team of artists will be residing online and at the Surrey Art Gallery TechLab to guide you on your way. Surrey youth and residents can become partnering artists through a series of mentoring workshops developed by the team. The team will also be producing low-tech toolkits to help you record your world in lots of new and amazing ways….

The project already has a Facebook page and a Flickr pool.

It sounds interesting enough, but I fear “Glocal” will be just another waste of time and money. I found it quite surprising that, as of yet, I didn’t even know this project was even in progress. For such an interactive and multimedia project, it hasn’t seemed to reach out to the local web community at all. Is this just another case of artists sharing their art with no one else but other artists?

Furthermore, the pictures that are currently posted on Flickr are nothing more than a series of boring, webcam shots. It’s like this group of artists is being paid to sit at a computer, make faces, and take pictures of themselves. I want that job!

We’ll see where this goes, but as of yet, I am not at all impressed.