Category Archives: Environment

It’s time to start building post-Olympic Vancouver

Posted on by
6

The more I learn about city building and international affairs, the more I realize that Vancouver is truly the poster child for 21st century living in this world. We’ve just gotten oh so much right throughout the years.

Vancouver is one of the most diverse, and yet exceptionally tolerate, cities on Earth. Our nation’s origins lie in the nonviolent cooperation of the British, the French, and the First Nations, leaving us with the legacy of a remarkable ability to accept, and indeed thrive through, diversity. Our open borders, and at times rocky racial history, have given us with the quaint and peaceful ethnic mosaic of modern Canadiana – perhaps the most appropriate choice for cultural diversity in a global age, at least in comparisons to the ruthless racism apparent in America and Europe.

We’re also one of the most livable and sustainable cities on the planet. Due predominantly to the beauty and awe of our natural geography, we’ve built up a city that aspires to exist in its image. We preserved our green spaces for all to enjoy, and ensured that our urban habitats attempted to live up to our extraordinary natural environments.

Age is almost certainly a factor in our success as well. Vancouver has developed remarkably quickly and is the epitome of the post-industrial city. In fact, we at times lament the diminishing supply of industrial lands, as if all good jobs relied on factories. However, the train of progress chugs on, and despite an official lack of so-called industrial properties, our economy keeps moving. Propelled by the information age, Vancouver lives in the knowledge and the creative economies. In this city, overall happiness is the most important factor to our lifestyles.

With such remarkable successes, it’s no wonder we’re consistently named the “world’s most livable city” and touted by our government as the “Best Place on Earth.” And while it may sometimes seem like we do truly live in one of Earth’s paradises, we need to ensure that the spirit of trailblazing continues. Success is no reason to stop pushing the envelope. Every improvement we make here, on the ground, contributes our short-lived experiment that is Vancouver and sets an even higher standard in quality of life in the world. We cannot rest on our laurels; we must continue to build Vancouver into an even greater, greener, healthier, more productive, and more happy city.

With that in mind, here’s a list of improvements we need to collectively begin working on in this post-Olympic era:

Revitalize Robson Square

Revitalizing and redesigning the old, rundown Robson Square into a truly vibrant, modern living room of the city. Robson Square could be so much more than it is and has the potential to become the heart of downtown Vancouver. Close Robson, pave the muddy grass, install flexible seating and a new stage, add in water and nighttime lighting features, plan programming every weekend – there’s so much potential here.

Improve our cultural institutions

Strengthen our existing, and build many new, cultural institutions. The VAG and Science World are both in the midst of renovation and expansion plans, while the Celebration of Light continues to teeter on the brink of financial collapse. The Museum of Anthropology, the Vancouver Film Festival, the VSO, and the Arts Club could be so much more if only they reached out to new audiences. Canada Day and the Christmas Parade have recently returned from six feet under. And where’s our New Years Eve celebrations, or Nuit Blanche arts festival, or vibrant street life? I, for one, am not so sure that the answer to this conundrum relies on simply more government funding either.

Build a post-automobile region

We are entering a post-automobile era in the world and Vancouver should be taking the lead. Here’s the reality: nobody in downtown needs a car, most in the City of Vancouver can survive without a car, and a number of regional town centres are up-and-coming car free centres of urbanity. Our urban spaces need to reflect this post-surburban reality by reclaiming car space for separated bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and eclectic pedestrianized streets. We no longer need the archaic half-built freeway infrastructure in our Downtown – tear them down and replace them with new urban districts. We need to build more connections and accessibility to transit forms such as streetcar networks, whose resulting increase in economic development more than pay for themselves over time. We need to provide truly safe bicycle paths and facilities so that people can ride without fearing for their lives. We need to continue to extend our rapid transit networks as quickly as possible to continue this transition to the post-suburban reality.

Capitalize on SkyTrain by building urban villages

On that same note, we need to adopt a more aggressive policy of utilizing and capitalizing on our existing transit infrastructure. SkyTrain needs ridership to support its expansion and building adjacent development to transit stations is one of the best ways to both produce riders while also creating great urban spaces. Urban villages, the like of which have been built in Joyce-Collingwood, Brentwood, Metrotown, and Edmonds should exist at each and every station. There is absolutely no reason 29th Ave, Nanaimo, Langara, Scott Road, or Braid are surrounded either by single-family homes, or worse, deplorable industrial land. We’ve failed on this note and the only way to truly utilize our transit system to its fullest extent, and realize our collective capital investment, is to build urban villages around each and every stop.

Rail for the suburbs to transform their communities

Keeping with transit, our suburbs need rail infrastructure and they need it immediately. Surrey, Coquitlam, Langley, Delta, and the North Shore lack any significant connections to rapid transit and this is inhibiting their transition into post-automobile, post-suburban places. In fact, many of these communities are crying out for the transit investment. If we build it, and develop it properly with urban villages at each stop, the entire region will quickly come to be as livable and vibrant as Downtown. We should never have invested $3 billion into a dead means of transport; the only question now is when new money can be put into forward thinking economic infrastructure for the post-suburban future.

Region-wide green building policies

We are well on our way to a greener way of life with a variety of actions being taken by the provincial government on climate change; striking in a place already well known for its sustainable policies. However, we can and must do more. Our two main sources of emissions come from transport and buildings. If we can move far more people out of their cars and into transit, we need primarily concern ourselves with construction. The City of Vancouver already has some of the most aggressive green building policies around, but a lack of regional consensus on this matter will allow developers to skip the regulations by building outside the periphery. Taken on at a regional level, green building policies could send a strong signal to developers and investors that Metro Vancouver is ready and willing to take the long term commitment required to build a far more sustainable, and ultimately livable, urbanity for people and for the environment. There must also be programs to encourage the green retrofit of a wide array of existing and heritage buildings.

Continue to protect green spaces

Sustainability is more than just emissions though. We need to continue efforts to preserve, enhance, and perhaps even restore, green spaces across our region. We will soon have the cleanest water on Earth – a remarkable feat. Let’s aim for the cleanest air; an effort that will pay dividends in reduced health costs over time. We need to continue efforts to clean up our rivers and watersheds, our forests and our mountain ranges. How about imagining a new urbanity, one that lives harmoniously with nature? Perhaps we should welcome nature back onto our door steps and, with the help of a lush urban forest, less asphalt and concrete, and far more greenery integrated into our landscape, bring natural species such as heron or ravens back to replace the invasive seagulls and pigeons.

Promote energy self-sufficiency

While we are fortunate to have an abundance of clean, green hydro energy, we must pursue a policy of energy self-sufficiency and encourage our city centres to live off-the-grid as much as possible. We need programs in place to support and build more district energy systems, solar arrays, and wind turbines.

Develop an economy based on creative entrepreneurialism

All this comes at a price and Vancouver needs to confront the challenge of making a living while doing what you love. We are in the knowledge economy and about to enter an era of creativity. No longer do great jobs come from general manufacturing or forestry. And who said that “high paying” jobs were “good jobs” anyways? Furthermore, why can’t somebody have a living wage off valuable service employment? We need to come up with new economic realities for the people who want to have their cake and eat it too. This means doing everything we can to support and foster a sense of creative entrepreneurialism in all Vancouverites. In doing so, we can provide the citizenry with the skills required to make a self-sufficient, fulfilling living on their own terms – one that doesn’t require McJobs from America or offshore global connections to a continuously corrupt Asia.

Well, that’s only a starting point. I hope this is a call to action for you and helped imagine the possibilities, the challenges, and the wide array of exciting opportunities that we face in post-Olympic Vancouver. The most important key to remember though is that we are creating an example for the rest of the world to follow – changes that may not seem big to us are huge on the global stage and people are looking to us to lead the way. Let’s not fail them, or ourselves, by accepting complacency, but rather adopt the spirit of progress and continue to push our experiment that is Vancouver even further ahead.

Copenhagen and the global leadership deficit

Posted on by
1

November 17th will go down in history as day that the very best of our human intentions – ingenuity, collaboration, understanding – were superceded by our very worst habits – greed, ideology, confrontation.

It was on this day that Environment Minister Jim Prentice informed the media that Copenhagen will fail to produce a binding climate change treaty to replace Kyoto.

It’s no wonder though. Canada is not only eschewing any leadership role in the process; it has become recognized as of the few countries that are deliberately blocking a new treaty.

If you are not willing to be part of the solution, then at the very least, don’t become part of the problem.

Please don’t try to claim that this unwillingness to achieve the goal at hand; this failure to think and act boldly, is anything less than ideology.

For over a decade, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard denied the existence of climate change. The country was at best at climate change laggard and at worst a global blocker of the Kyoto treaty. A worldwide consciousness awakening, coupled with several years of experiencing climate change effects first hand through amazing droughts, convinced the Australian public to elect Kevin Rudd in 2007. Despite being years late to the table, his first action of business was to finally ratify Kyoto into Australian law.

In the political game that is Copenhagen, several nations showed similar audacious courage in revealing their poker hands to the world.

Japan’s recently elected leader Yukio Hatoyama upped the ante of his predecessor’s commitment of an 8% reduction in ghgs by announcing, in September, a 25% emissions reduction by 2020. The global carrot was the first to drop among nations and was conditional upon a new treaty at Copenhangen.

In October, Europe, the one region of the world that has stuck to its international commitments and actually reduced carbon emissions, sent a clear message that it intended to remain a global leader and pioneer in this fight. If a deal had been struck at Copenhagen, it offered to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020, and 95% by 2050!

Brazil, the oft forgotten rising global power among developing countries, made a political gesture to the world in November, proving that developing nations can take a responsible course of action on climate change, while continuing their rise in living standards. The country offered to reduce emissions by 40% by 2020, which included plans to reduce deforestation by 80% within that same timeframe.

Despite the best intentions and efforts of these daring leaders, the momentum on the side of the deniers and the blockers won out.

And yet, I can’t help but feel, if only a couple more countries had made similar brave commitments on the international stage, we would not be at this loggerheads.

Perhaps if Obama had made climate change a short term priority over health care reform, the USA could’ve also put forward a bold emissions reduction offer.

Perhaps, if Stephen Harper was not the head of our government, and Canada experienced a change in leadership similar to that which shifted public policy in Australia and Japan, we too would have made a courageous commitment – something that would’ve held weight considering our clout with the oil sands.

However, it was the soft bigotry of low expectations that destroyed the global momentum on climate change.

November 17th will become known as the day when the strategy of pressuring lame-duck politicians was realized to be fruitless.

It must be aborted.

The only way we can effectively solve the most pressing issue in today’s world is to support, encourage, and elect leaders like Kevin Rudd, Yukio Hatoyama, and Luiz Inadio Lula de Silva.

The question is, who’s Canada’s equivalent?

How highways undermine our livability

Posted on by
6

I have always believed that issues are not black and white; that there are always shades of grey and no ultimately right answer. This state of mind had led me to believe that, despite the coming onslaught of massive freeway expansion, our region would continue to meet its livable goals. More recently though, that state of mind has shifted, primarily thanks to a trip down to CarTown USA – Los Angeles.

What’s interesting about LA is the strikingly similar geography they share with us. It’s as if we were both given the same free slate to work from, featuring beautiful mountains, vast low valleys, and waterways a plenty. The obvious difference being the series of choices that both regions have made throughout the decades, leading us to our vastly different cities.

Vancouver is the world’s most livable city; the place that preserved its natural beauty and made density work in post-suburbia North America.

Beautiful, majestic Vancouver

LA is the freeway capital of the world, notoriously renown for its smog warnings, unbearable traffic, and concrete-enclosed river.

But with all its problems, LA is fighting to turn things around. They know that their auto-utopia has had many consequences and they have a drive to change their ways.

Unfortunately, in Vancouver, the situation is a bit different.

I can’t help but feel, that thanks to all the praise we receive, we’ve rested on our laurels and failed to keep pushing the livable envelope.

For all that we’ve learnt, Vancouver still has so far to go. Despite the dramatic transformation of the Downtown Peninsula, we’ve all but neglected the quickly forming suburbs to the east. These people need methods of mobility and, prior to the Millennium Line and Golden Ears Bridge, we hadn’t built any major new infrastructure since the 80′s. In that time, the Metro population grew from 1.3 to 2.3 million! No wonder traffic has gotten worse!

And the response from our government has been swift. They’ve embarked on massive infrastructure improvements, from the Canada Line on the transit side, to the Pitt River Bridge, South Fraser Perimeter Road, and Hwy 1 expansion on the road side. Some may say it’s a balanced approach, however I’d argue differently.

One need look no further than our sister city to the south to see that building more highways to facilitate mobility does not work to improve our lives. In fact, new research in the past couple years is beginning to prove that traffic is flexible and will increase or decrease based on road capacity.

LA, smog and highway capital of the continent

Bulldoze a bridge, and traffic disappears! Actually, the people look at alternatives, either by mode, time, or route.

The same happens on the other side of the coin. Build a bridge, and traffic increases. People adjust their mode, travel time, or route to incorporate that new crossing into their daily lives. If building a new bridge decreases overall travel time, that route looks more favourable for drivers – and for current transit riders.

By expanding our freeways, not only are we removing the current disincentive to drive (traffic), but we are also making transit a worse choice. Rarely does transit beat travel times today. By speeding up driving, we are simply encouraging more people to ditch the bus and hop back into a vehicle.

Transit is not the poor man’s car (the American perception), nor is it simply the pulse of a major city (the London perception), but the primary transportation method in the 21st century. With the crisis of climate change, the obesity epidemic, and the decline in overall happiness in our modern lives, the ultimate solution lies in building our cities around transit infrastructure.

We can solve these major problems, but only if we have the courage to imagine a new region; one that breaks free from the industrial grips of the car and the highway.

So, it is a question of one or the other – the car or transit; LA or Vancouver. There is not an option for balance here, especially in an equation that already has cars transporting 90% of the population.By expanding our freeways, we are simply locking a generation into their cars and off of transit.

Single occupancy vehicles created the colossal failure of a city that Los Angeles is today, and they have learnt their lesson. They are looking to a bright, green future, where residents take the train to Hollywood, the San Fernando Valley, Pasadena, and LAX.

El Monte Transit Village, connected by the LA Metro

Where children no longer have to suffer from asthma, due to the poor air quality of their surroundings.

Where people don’t have to spend hours sitting in traffic to get to work; time that can be better spent with family or friends.

Where neighbourhoods are complete, allowing residents to easily get to their local grocery store or book shop.

Where pedestrians on the streets are the measure of a healthy society, not the number of gym bunnies.

Where kids can safely bike to their school, without fear of getting run over.

We haven’t learnt this lesson yet.

Come 2013, we’re destined for a harsh, congested, wake up call.

Gateway Program highway expansion, looking westbound on Highway 1, just before the Port Mann Bridge in Coqutilam

Los Angeles highways in Boyle Heights, where the I5, 60, and 101 intersect

Geoff Meggs, Bing Thom call for removal of viaducts!

Posted on by
2

As you may recall, back in January, I wrote a blog/letter to Mayor Robertson asking him to examine removing the Georgia and Dunsmuir St. viaducts. As I explained, they were a physical barrier in the long term development of a livable Northeast False Creek, and if removed could provide tremendous opportunities for the City to leverage its land and fund projects such as social housing or the Downtown Streetcar. To me, switching an old section of freeway that doesn’t actually connect Downtown with anything, and replacing it with housing, parks, amenities, and a streetcar – well, it just makes logical sense.

Apparently, it did to Bing Thom as well. According to a guest post on The Tyee by Vancouver City Councillor Geoff Meggs, the eminent planner/architect has commenced studies examining the feasibility of such a concept, including traffic impacts and potential revenues from development of the land.

Another interesting piece in this puzzle is the announcement that the viaducts will in fact be closed during the Olympics. While we all know that the Olympics will be a great time to test new, more sustainable methods of transport, I did not at all anticipate that it would also provide us with an opportunity to evaluate whether Vancouverites could live without the viaducts.

The case was made, and now the movement has begun.

Tweet this, share it on facebook, blog about it – pass on the news. Let’s make this happen!

Rebuttal to Sun op-ed “Surrey looks to connect with its future”

Posted on by
5

This is my rebuttal to the infuriatingly biased, and misinformed, op-ed from Jagdeesh Mann, the editor of the South Asian Post, which was printed in the Vancouver Sun.

I must preface this by saying how ridiculous it is for the Sun to print one side of this story and not the other. And we call this journalism?! It makes my blood boil.

On the southern fringe of Bear Creek Park is Surrey’s political Ground Zero: a dusty moustache strip of land that was once the city’s dump. The city plan is to pave a roughly one mile stretch of road which would run primarily through a Hydro corridor, thereby minimizes any impact on the flora and fauna calling this strip home.

Was part of Bear Creek Park a former city dump? Yes.

Does that mean that area surrounding it is worthless? Not by a long shot.

Does the fact that the proposed road run under a Hydro corridor minimize environmental impacts? Not at all. There is absolutely no logic to this statement whatsoever.

While the battle is as much about disturbing the tranquility of 84th Avenue — one of Surreys major arterial roads — it is invariably only a smaller battle in a much bigger narrative about what Surrey is and where it is going — or rather where it is being pulled to by the tides.

This is, most absolutely, about the larger issue that has always plagued Surrey – its rate of change and the effects this has on its diverse residents.

However, on a smaller scale, it fundamentally has to do with transportation and how we move about in our city.

With the pace of growth that we experience (which is actually likely to pick up as the economy recovers) it is imperative that we find ways to move about more efficiently. We cannot indefinitely continue to expand roads, just as we cannot continue indefinitely to build more houses.

At some point, all of our land will be developed. Thus we must build houses vertically, meaning more people using the same amount of land.

The same can be said for mobility.

Unless we intend to utilize our land resources in the most inefficient means possible and build more highways for more single-occupany vehicles, we must change our way of thinking.

Our streets must become multi-modal transport corridors where more people use the same amount of asphalt. This means making mass transit the priority.

I find it laughable and simply absurd that Mr. Mann’s overall theme consists of arguing that to be a true city, we must extend 84th and build our road network to keep up with population growth.

What he fails to realize is the long time picture as I just described it. We are going to be built out and its going to happen soon.

And as any real city understands, the heart of a vibrant culture lies in population density, while mass transit is the true pulse of urban mobility.

I guess Mr. Mann is still living in the teenage Surrey of today, and can’t see the mature Surrey of tomorrow.