Posts from — December 2011

The Beyond the Border deal signed between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week should provide a major boost to the Amtrak Cascades service between Vancouver and Seattle by allowing pre-boarding customs clearance for passengers at both ends.

The new policy will cut 20 to 30 minutes from the trip to Seattle. Trains now sit at a siding in Blaine for at least this long while US customs officials do their duty.

Seattle’s Bruce Agnew, of the Cascadia Institute, hailed the agreement in a briefing note to many of the political and transportation leaders who have worked to build the Cascades service on both sides of the border. The Beyond the Border gains follow on the heels of Ottawa’s decision to waive customs inspection fees on the Seattle train that were putting the entire service in jeopardy.

Agnew noted that the agreement specifically provided that both sides “will conduct full pre-clearance of travelers and accompanying goods at Vancouver, BC, for passenger rail and cruise ship traffic destined to the United States. Negotiations to this end will be completed by the end of 2012.”

The Cascades gains are a rare bright light on the US rail scene. Just a few years after Barack Obama promised major investments in high speed rail to boost the economy, the rail modernization program is stalled by budget cuts and partisan wrangling.

Vancouver planning director Brent Toderian has provided this useful review of the re:CONNECT winners – and the judges’ comments — in the city’s recent contest to reimagine the Georgia Viaducts and the East False Creek flats.

Work is continuing at the city to integrate the contest proposals with in-house work that will inform public consultation on a new transportation, scheduled for release in the spring.

A fascinating new tool — an interactive map of ICBC’s  BC bicycle accident reports — is making the rounds on Velolove, a listserve I find indispensable for following cycling life in the city.

The work of Eric Promislow, who recently produced it at the Open Data Hackathon at Foodtree, the map gives a visual impression of hotspots and and new insight into what’s working on the cycle system. (Of course, the many accidents that go unreported will not be here.)

Promislow writes that he has relied on data from “5,478 incidents over 2006-2010 with a latitude, longitude, month, and year. There are another 1,044 incidents that report only a town, month, and year.  I left these off the map to avoid grouping 100s of hits near the city hall.”

Nonetheless, the map shows some fascinating trends. The 10th Ave. bike route in Vancouver, for example, shows many incidents. Is this the result of high bike volumes? No doubt yes, in part, but I find car traffic intense on this route in the medical district between Oak and Cambie.

There’s another cluster along Burrard, a route I have avoided for many years, Now the Hornby bike lanes provide a safe alternative one block away.

And the crossing at Clark Dr. and 10th: it has problems, as many cyclists have been complaining in recent weeks. Despite special signalization and a refuge area in the median, this crossing remains a risky one for cyclists.

The “ideas” contest to brainstorm new options for Vancouver’s viaducts and the East False Creek flats was the most successful in the city’s history: more than 100 entries, 4,000 voters in the “people’s choice” online voting, 15,000 ballots cast, hundreds of online comments from the public.

But when the panel of eminent judges released its decisions last night to a packed auditorium at SFU Woodwards, there was only one point of agreement. This proposal received both an honorable mention and a win in the “people’s choice” category.

When the proponents’ names were unveiled — neither judges nor online voters knew who developed the proposals — the team included a remarkable group including Norm Hotson, Larry Beasley, Jim Green, Margot Long and many more.

Here’s the city’s summary of the entire contest:

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