Posts from — October 2009

The staff report to next week’s Transportation and Traffic Committee on the Burrard Bridge trial declares the project a complete success: car and pedestrian traffic unaffected, cycling traffic up 26 percent on average but much more on weekends.

It proposes to develop a final design for bridge remediation that does not include widening the sidewalks, a saving of about $30 million.

Read the complete Mustel Research public opinion survey on the trial here.

To read this link, sent along by Andrew Yan, of Bing Thom Associates, one would t think that elimination of elevated freeways like the the Georgia Viaduct is not only becoming routine but is a quick route to urban utopia.

Bridge to a Cool Planet marchers occupy hill at Science World as MLA Spencer Herbert checks messages.

Vancouver’s 1980s peace movement had a decided green tinge to begin with, a No Nukes flavour that morphed quickly into a mass peace movement called End the Arms Race, so broad that both Mike Harcourt and Gordon Campbell marched in the front row with labour, community, religious and peace activists.

Today’s movement to control climate change is back to the future. While the 1980s marches may have helped avert the planet’s end in a series of hot, bright flashes, we’re now in the industrial age’s slow cooker, and all powers, not just superpowers, must be part of the solution.

So it seemed fitting that Cambie Bridge was closed at noon for thousands to seek a Bridge to a Cool Planet, and a hour later a much smaller gathering stood at the south end of Seaforth Park, near the city’s peace flame, where Park Commissioner Stuart MacKinnon helped Vancouver and District Labour Council president Bill Saunders unveil a monument to Kinuko Laskey.

A survivor of Hiroshima, Laskey emigrated to Vancouver, where she refused to talk about her experiences for many years. Ultimately, however, she felt inspired to speak out and became a powerful voice in the city’s mobilization against nuclear war.

The Kinuko Laskey monument unveiled today at Seaforth Park by the Vancouver and District Labour Council.

In my column this month in Business in Vancouver BC’s forest union leader warns of tough bargaining ahead: an interview with Steve Hunt.