GC 2020
657 results found
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Regulate non-road emission sources like diesel generators, lawn mowers and leaf blowers
Diesel particulate matter (PM) is one of the biggest air quality threats to human health in the city. Its health impacts include lung cancer, heart and respiratory disease, and even premature death.
Non-road emissions, which are a significant source of diesel PM, come from a broad range of sectors including industrial, construction, recreational, lawn and garden, agricultural and other sectors. Their emissions often occur close to ground level and close to where people live, work and play. While emission standards for new non-road engines are already in place, older equipment will continue to be used for decades.
The city should…
82 votesCity of Vancouver to assist Metro Vancouver in their Non-Road Diesel Engine Initiatives & consider application to City of Vancouver equipment. This idea is considered in the draft Greenest City Action Plan
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Gardens on apartment property
Most 3-storey walk-up apartment buildings have boring empty front lawns. These lawns could be replaced either with garden plots for the inhabitants, or with landscaping of native plantings to provide habitat for birds and insects. Create a system so that if the people in that specific building weren't interested in gardening, their plot would be assigned to other neighbourhood gardeners. (Since you wouldn't want to replace boring lawns with even more boring empty plots of earth/weeds.)
81 votesSeveral private apts and co-ops already have gardens. This is done at the discretion of the land-owner.
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Allow greenouse enclosures around courtyards/patios (ie. do not count these in floor space ratio)
Promote more variety of local food growth and longer growing seasons by encouraging greenhouses to transform underused residential courtyards and patios into personal food production centers. The City Development By-Laws currently discourage such greenhouses by counting them towards the total floor space of the building, preventing them from being added to existing houses, and forcing developers to choose between an extra room in their house or a greenhouse (guess which option most people would choose).
79 votes -
Convert streets to mini parks, green linkages and/or open space
The conversion of streets/asphalt into mini parks with bike paths, green linkages and landscaping would optimize pedestrian and cycling access, and improves neighbourhood connections. Incorporate walkways, large trees, low shrub planting, furnishings and special features.
78 votes -
Offer a more extensive and tailored range of transit passes, Berlin-style
We spent a month in Berlin, Germany and purchased a month-long transit pass that allowed us to travel only AFTER 10 am.
The pass cost significantly less than a normal transit pass (good for 24 hours) and because we were not commuting, we were not inconvenienced in the slightest.
Also, in New York, we bought week-long passes.
These sorts of discounted pass options make sense for locals and visitors alike and make it easier to convince people to get out of cars or cabs. I would like to see a greater range of transit passes available at several different price…
76 votesThis is a great idea, but outside the city’s jurisdiction. This is something TransLink could consider, perhaps in conjunction with the SmartCard rollout expected in 2013, which will enable new and more equitable pricing schemes.
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make food not lawns
Stop planting grass and instead plant food that people can eat. The big living roof on the convention centre has grass right now but it, and other roofs and lawns could have edible plants living on them.
74 votesThis idea is included within the draft Greenest City Action Plan. It has been started, with City-owned property being converted to community gardens and green streets. See: http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/streets/greenstreets/index.htm
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Develop more useable and green school grounds
School grounds could be more attractive, green, home to habitat. Encourage more greening and beautification of school grounds with plantings, more trees and arboretums. Encourage community gardens on school grounds for educational and aesthetic purposes.
73 votes -
Prioritize cycling infrastructure and policy
Vancouver will not convince anyone of being the 'greenest' city without a huge modal shift towards cycling, walking, and public transit.
Cycling infrastructure is already improving (e.g., new Dunsmuir two-way bike lane), but policy needs to improve (e.g., a transportation hierarchy, with pedestrians followed by cyclists at the top).
Also, we will NEVER get the general population cycling daily without repealing mandatory helmet legislation. It just won't happen -- it's too inconvenient.
73 votes -
Protect our coast & inlets. Being green requires being blue when you live on the coast.
We can't be the greenest city in the world without taking care of our coast and ocean area. We need: urban marine protected areas; strict regulations for oil tankers; habitat enhancement; the best sewage treatment in the world; pesticide bans; beach clean-ups; and a beach culture that revers the ocean and what it provides us!
72 votes -
Reduce residential encroachment on agricultural land
In order for us to have more local food in our supply chain we need to protect the agricultural land we have in the Lower Mainland including the Fraser Valley. Right now residential and commercial land zoning is encroaching too much on our prime agricultural land. Soil is a resource that must be protected!
71 votesThe City can advocate for the protection of the ALR. This is an action identified in the draft Greenest City Action Plan.
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Revitalize the False Creek Flats
False Creek used to end all the way out before Clark Drive as tidal flats 100 years ago, before the construction of a bulkhead near Quebec street to keep the tide back. These tidal flats formed an important estuary system for the salmon-spawning creeks which flowed into False Creek and is essential in bringing back any of these lost streams and the salmon they support.
Deconstruct the bulkhead and allow the tide to wash in and out through a series of tidal canals. The canals could lead to estuary parks where streams like Brewery Creek and China Creek could pour…
70 votes -
Bring community gardeners together with those who have extra yard space
Create a program for homeowners & community gardeners to work together. For example, elderly people who want to stay in their homes but can no longer maintain their yards, would have their yards maintained by gardeners, in exchange for garden space in the home owner's yard to grow food.
69 votesA great idea and one that has already been started by City Farmer. Check out the great tool they have created to link those with space with those looking for space to garden: http://www.sharingbackyards.com/browse/Vancouver,BC&welcome_box=3
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Add a rapid transit line to the valley
Driving along the #1, it seems ridiculous to me that we're widening the highway and adding more bridges, which will just INCREASE commuter traffic.
What we should really be doing is providing an alternative to jumping into single occupancy vehicles to commute into the city, in order to DECREASE commuter traffic.
It's inconceivable to me that there is no rail line out to Abbotsford, Chilliwack, etc.
67 votesOutside City jurisdiction. While improved transit service South-of-Fraser is important, the Greenest City plan focuses on projects within municipal boundaries.
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create incentives for every homeowner to install Photovoltaics, Wind Turbines, or Solar Hot Water
We have to have a GREEN REVOLUTION to really make a difference in our attempt to be "Sustainable". We have to remove our dependence on fossil fuels. Every home could generate enough power to run most of its appliances. We need a smart grid.
Read "Hot, Flat and Crowded" by Thomas Friedman.
"10 easy steps for a green future" - sorry, some sacrifice is required....
64 votesVancouver’s Solar Homes Pilot is offering $4300 towards the cost of solar hot water systems in Vancouver – this is roughly 50 per cent of the cost of a system. The funding is available to 30 homes on a first come, first served basis. In order to qualify for the rebate, your system must be installed by December 31, 2010.
Beginning January 1, 2011, we will be offering $3,000 towards the cost of a qualifying system. Systems must be installed by February 15, 2011.
Will consider extension of program to other areas/technologies.
Details here: http://vancouver.ca/sustainability/SolarHomes.htm
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Mandatory soil volume requirements for street trees
Large mature trees provide 70% more economic and environmental services than small trees.
It takes 25m3 of uncompacted soil to grow a large 40cm diameter tree.
The city needs to mandate soil volume requirements to get the trees that will provide all of the environmental values that we look for from trees - shade, stormwater reduction, air pollution reduction, energy savings...
"Nearly all of the associated problems result from one underlying cause: loss of the water-retaining and evapotranspirating functions of the soil and vegetation in the urban landscape" EPA commissioned report - Urban Management in the US.200864 votes -
Zero waste
Create a Zero Waste Plan as has been done in other cities to reduce waste on a timeline of progress
64 votesThe Draft Greenest City Action Plan includes a Zero Waste Action Plan.
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62 votes
The City has an existing pilot incentive program for solar hot water. Incentives and financial tools to support the proliferation of renewable energy is included in the draft Greenest City Action Plan. Details here: http://vancouver.ca/sustainability/SolarHomes.htm
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Apartment and condo-dwellers get Freezer Compost Bins for collecting organic scraps
Freezing organic scraps is the only sure way to get rid of fruit flies, odor, and the leftover, hard-to-clean rotting food messiness associated with composting. There are flexible silicone containers specifically designed for storing scraps in freezers. When it's collection day or you're ready to empty into a collection site, vermicomposter, or wherever, you just flex the container and the frozen scraps pop right out. Now that's an idea! Don't let the city give us plastic containers that we'll need to buy liners and bags for, make them give us a real solution instead!
61 votes -
Stop the distribution of free newspapers
How many different free newspapers can you count that are distributed across Vancouver ... handed out at Skytrain stations, available in boxes on almost every street corner downtown and left in bundles for those of use who live in apartments and condos.
Many of these newspapers end up in garbage cans or tossed on the street creating litter.
My suggestion is for the City to ban the distribution of these free newspapers as people value what the pay for - if they really wanted them, they'd purchase them.
If the City isn't willing to ban these free newspapers, at the…
61 votes -
Plant edibles
My neighbourhood is full of boulevard trees and planted round-abouts, however, none of this vegetation is edible!
Instead of horse chestnut trees, plant real chestnut trees. Instead of oaks and maples, plant apple trees, crab apples, cherry, even peach.
Instead of hedges, try blueberry/huckleberry bushes or rhubarb.
We can increase our food security by putting our available green space to good use!
60 votes
