Category — Budget 2009

Council’s decision to double investment in cycling infrastructure this year is winning widespread acclaim. As one friend notes, it’s easy to double a small number and shifting $1.7 million from car-oriented spending to bike-oriented spending, raising the total to $3.4 million, was barely a fender-bender for the car budget.

Next year, with its strategic planning process, is where the real effort is needed. I’ve received more e-mail on this initiative — all positive — than any other since we took office in December.

The titanic battle to secure 122 new taxi licences in Vancouver hit an iceberg yesterday when Victoria’s Passenger Transportation Board (PTB) elbowed its way into the regulatory queue and rejected applications for 60 cabs before City Council even considered the matter.

Council deferred a decision on 122 new cabs at the industry’s request last October, in the throes of the civic election. In December, however, Vancouver Taxi and MacClure’s Cabs went straight to the PTB for 30 licences each. This would be on top of 111 new cabs added in 2007, an increase of 23 percent.

Oddly their applications were opposed by Yellow Cab, which is the strongest advocate for a big new increase. Why? One industry veteran explained it this way: “Welcome to Taxiland.”

Normally, the PTB would wait for the city to weigh in. Not this time. The decisions posted in the April 15 weekly bulletin rejected both applications.

A critical question considered by the PTB is public need. Board adjudicator Dennis Day analyzed two weeks worth of Black Top despatches in late 2008 covering 73,865 trips. An astonishing 96.8 percent were serviced within 10 minutes or less. The only exceptions: Friday and Saturday nights, when club traffic slows the response time. After cataloguing the decline in tourism revenue and cruise ship visits, which predated the current recession, Day ruled the evidence “is not supportive of the case for an increase in the number of taxis.”

Meanwhile, the city’s Taxi Roundtable grinds forward. Council will soon be briefed on the results and a report to council will follow. Will any of it matter?

Day concluded that “there is no evidence before me to support that the applicant has made any attempt to continuously monitor service levels in order to assess the impact of the last round of expansion or to substantiate the need for further expansion of the fleet.” No new taxis in Taxiland.

Woodwards towers, April 2, 2009

Gilbert Morven, right, with (left to right) Westbank's Ian Gillespie, architect Gregory Henriquez and Gary Jobin of Bladerunners.

In a hectic 60-minute tour of the Woodwards project today, organized by developer Ian Gillespie and architect Gregory Henriquez for Premier Gordon Campbell, Mayor Gregor Robertson and city councillors, the most important speech was made by construction worker Gilbert Morven.

A member of the Nisga’a Nation, Morven is one of 18 Bladerunners working on the project who began as a trainee and begins work tomorrow as a crew lead hand.

Bladerunners takes street youth, often aboriginal, and supports them to undertake jobs in the construction industry.

Morven told the visitors of how the job, which he started “when it was just a hole,” has changed his life.

As a result of his time with Bladerunners, Morven hasl eft behind a very bad period. He still has little money, because he’s retiring his debts, but expects to qualify soon as a rebar worker with Red Seal certification. “After that, my wage bumps up and I’ll be happy as hell.” The VIPs burst into applause.

The experience has been so transformative that Morven has begun reaching out to other aboriginal young people who could benefit from his story and the program. It was a small example of the changes former councillor Jim Green, who was also on the tour, has always promised could flow from thoughtful development.

My favourite shots from the tour, including views from the roof, here.

Word that Vancouver City Council might cut the budget for the city’s two 2010 live sites triggered a wave of e-mails to councillors from worried Yaletown residents and businesses.

They love the idea of two weeks of activity at David Lam Park, on one side of them, and Larwill Park, the parking lot next to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, on the other.

But council approved cuts to the two-site budget March 24  and left the door open for further reductions, including possible elimination of one site,  if reduced budget projections fail to pan out.

The next day this warning from the IOC: Vancouver is planning more downtown “activation” for the 17 days of the Games than any previous Olympic city,  summer or winter. “They’ve made the observation that we may not need as much as is being planned,” VANOC executive vice-president Dave Cobb told reporters.

Huge sections of the downtown peninsula are scheduled to be converted to free or limited access party areas, including the two city parks, a large Concord Pacific area between Science World and the Plaza of Nations, long stretches of Robson and Granville, and Robson Square. That’s not to mention the countless national “houses” for visiting teams and other Olympic-related installations.

It may not be sustainable.