Posts from — August 2011

A TV show featuring families cooking was taping yesterday in Leg in Boot Square, oblivious to the grisly leg-in-shoe discovery unfolding nearby at the Plaza of Nations.

Question: why did the latest leg-in-a-shoe discovery, found floating near the Plaza of Nations yesterday, bypass Leg in Boot Square on the south side of the Creek?

The latest floating foot is not the first such find in Vancouver, as news reports suggest. Leg In Boot Square is actually named after a similar discovery made about a century ago on the south side of the Creek. (I live nearby.)

But the square, intended as animated public space in the middle of the city’s first sustainable neighbourhood has always been — dare I say it? — pretty much a dead zone unless a television show is filming, as it is this week.

What message does this latest discovery carry? The public has a right to know.

A long-simmering conflict between ATV users and cyclists is coming to a boil along the Kettle Valley Railway, where the federal and provincial governments spent millions to replace the Myra Canyon railway trestle after it was destroyed by the Kelowna forest fire in 2003.

In many locations along the route, recently resurfaced parts of the trail are being degraded by ATV users, whose wide, knobbly tires often churn the surface to loose sand. That’s no problem for an ATV, but the end of the road for a cyclist.

Now the BC Cycling Coalition has weighed in with an appeal to Victoria to enforce bans on ATV use along the old railroad right of way, which has emerged as the province’s leading cycle tourism destination. ATV users are pushing to have the entire route opened up for them. [Read more →]

Is relief in sight for commuters jammed on B-Line buses on Vancouver’s Broadway Corridor? That may depend on the outcome of the HST referendum and Premier Christy Clark’s election calculations.

Despite the dramatic growth in ridership since the 2010 Games, Translink has no funding to add new service, never mind complete the Evergreen Line. Evergreen construction would clear the way for final planning on the Broadway Corridor, where Translink’s options are getting positive reviews in the latest round of consultations.

The Translink Mayor’s Council meeting that must green light a new funding formula, including a proposed increase in the gas tax, is less than a month away. After some serious confusion, Premier Clark has endorsed Blair Lekstrom’s tentative agreement with the mayors on the gas tax, but the ever-fractious Mayor’s Council has some major players who are almost certain to oppose ratification.

If the debate is unfolding in the midst of a provincial election triggered by the HST referendum result, and on the eve of the Nov. 19 municipal elections, any outcome is possible. Riders, hold on tight.

Jan Broocke,  director of the Passenger Transportation Board, says  there are a number of inaccuracies in my account, published here earlier this week, of the PTB’s review of a proposal to allow suburban taxi firms to send 15 percent of their fleets into the Vancouver market on Fridays, Saturdays and special event days.

The clarifications are helpful, but don’t change my view that the suburban firms’ application should not be processed until Vancouver has evaluated the current pilot program that added 65 temporary licences to Vancouver’s fleet. That won’t happen until early 2012.

For the record, here is Ms Broocke’s letter: [Read more →]