Steven Forth
My feedback
40 results found
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50 votes
A strategy in the Draft Greenest City Action Plan is to give economic development priority to green sectors, and develop a green technology centre and network, along with other specific infrastructure and demonstration projects.
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commented
Two quick points - artists and writers are a critical part of a resilient society - they make ideas real to people through stories, images and experiences that disrupt our assumptions and bring us together.
What does a city that attracts the young entrepeneurial and creative class look like? Certainly it needs a green infustruture and support for green lifestyles. But it also needs galleries and museums, street life, plenty of opportunities for people to meet and ideas to fly, and it needs affordable housing. An integrated strategy needs to address all of these.
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An error occurred while saving the comment Steven Forth
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Easier said than done but necessary if we are to truly be a green and sutainable city. Many things will need to happen:
- New programs in core sutainable technologies at the universities and colleges (I'll check and see if ECUAD is offering cradle-to-cradle productdesign courses)
- Investment equity, the VC system in Vancouver is already totering and will need to be energized
- A pool of commited entrepreneurs
- Some early-adopter buyers - is the city ready to step up for this?
- Some core infrastructure for smart-grid, up cycling, green building systems ...
This thread needs to get a lot more concrete as a green economy should be a foundation for the rest of the green Vancouver effort. -
52 votes
The City recently began implementing 30-km/h speed limits on local street bikeways.
Other measures may require changes to provincial legislation. In these cases, the City’s role will be to advocate for appropriate changes to the legislative framework around cycling.
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commented
Hi Jason - In fact most cars come to a rolling stop at stop signs, not a complete stop. I think this idea is worth looking into, what do they do in Amsterdam and Copenhagen?
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234 votes
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This goes beyond municipal or provincial and possibly federal jurisdiction, but I believe that if we are to move to a truly sustainable economy our basic approach to ownership and responsibility has to change. One aspect of this is that the person or company that mines a resource, processes it, distributes it, all the way down the line to the consumer remains responsible for all externalities. In other words, one can not transfer responsibility for environmental costs through a sale, the sale would cover only added value, usage and so on. This is a fundamental change to property law, but given the depth of change needed to shift to resilient/sustainable economies in which all externalities are captured into the cost/value equation we need to think more deeply and find new ways to make markets work for us.
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commented
I would look at a stronger version of this - the company that sells something remains responsible for its recycling or disposal. This obligation would not be transferable but could be aggregated, so that each person (including companies as persons) in the chain of custody is severally and jointly legally responsible for disposal and liable for damages with no statue of limitations. This is not something Vancouver can do but I do think it is a necessary change to our legal system.
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18 votes
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Yes, this is crucial on many levels - improving fishing and therefore local food, improving net primary productivity (which should be a critical sustainability/resilience metric), and in providing a more diverse environment. Will have to find a vote to allocate to this!
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133 votes
Implementation of the City’s streetcar plan (http://vancouver.ca/streetcar) might help to enable this, by providing dramatically improved transit service to Granville Island.
An error occurred while saving the comment Steven Forth
commented
Hi Weaver, can you share CMHC's reply to you on bike parking in Granville Island?
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18 votes
Hobby bee keeping guidelines under review and there are beehives on top of City Hall. For details on the City of Vancouver bee keeping initiatives, please visit: http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/socialplanning/initiatives/foodpolicy/projects/beekeeping.htm
An error occurred while saving the comment Steven Forth
commented
Great idea, pollinators are a keystone function in our ecosystem and we should be very concerned about their health and creating spaces where they can thrive. Perhaps we should even allow urban bee keeping! I am out of votes at the moment but plan to reallocate some votes soon!)
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3 votes
Neighbourhoods in Vancouver have been undergoing community visions and plans for many years, and most communities now have these in place. They aren’t focused specifically on sustainability, but many have a strong sustainability focus: http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cityplan/visions/
An error occurred while saving the comment Steven Forth
commented
I like this idea. We need to build stronger and more diverse communities within Vancouver. One communities approach to sustainability and resilience could be quite different from another's, and we need to explore many different options as the best patterns are (i) not yet known, (ii) will change and (iii) will be local. Even sewage treatment, waste disposal and energy storage could be more local - see http://t.co/0xjxmhE
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48 votes
Small orchards are being planted by the Park Board in golf courses and at Sunset. Plans are in the works for more community orchards. This is a strategy in the draft Greenest City Action Plan.
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commented
A lovely idea, and it would also help to grow communities and community values and help people to meet each other. The traffic circles are already starting to do this. This will be a 'commons' and it will be a good experiment to see if Vancouver can grow a set of community values that allows us to govern the commons together.
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21 votes
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commented
We (Vancouver) should also be leveraging the expertise at the International Centre for Sustainable Cities http://sustainablecities.net/ here in Vancouver.
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4 votes
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commented
You are of course welcome to run for office.
An error occurred while saving the comment Steven Forth
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Or maybe they do, as they elected a mayor who had a green agenda. Representative democracy at work. Bites to be on the wrong side of history doesn't it.
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54 votes
Ecological footprint impacts of different food choices form part of the data gathering; examining the City’s regulatory and policy tools to encourage lighter footprint living is included as an action.
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commented
If you are a vegan and think that means you are living a sustainable life you should stop and look at where soy beans, rice, wheat and corn come from. Subsidies to all forms of industrial agriculture need to be phased out. And there are places where raising food animals is the best and most sustainable use of land.
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commented
In general we need to stop all agricultural subsidies, especially corn.Instead of subsidizing production we should be finding ways to support local production and consumption. Certainly industrialized beef, pork and chicken production is destructive and does not pay its full economic costs. But the same is true of most rice, soybean and corn production.
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155 votes
An exciting idea that will be given serious consideration.
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commented
I agree with Neil that the helmet law and a Bixi style system are incompatible. More seriously though, does Vancouver have the downtown trip patterns needed to sustain a Bixi style system? I don't know, but I think this needs serious study. I would not like to see this drain off funds needed to make bike commuting in Vancouver easier and practical for more people. And helmets do save brains, I wear a helmet whenever I possibly can regardless of legislation.
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commented
I enjoy using these as a tourist in Montreal and Paris.I also see a lot of business people using them in these cities. I have used the Montreal system to go to business meetings. I doubt I would use it much in Vancouver. This is something that needs some serious study to see when it should be introduced. We can't do everything.
Note to Lawson: I seldom drive, I cycle to work everyday. I would be happy to pay taxes for better and salfer cycling, but I would like car users to pay the full cost of the roads, parking lots, fuel subsidies, health subsidies and environmental costs that we pay for them. I suspect car users owe cyclists a lot of money.
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360 votes
This is acknowledged as a key strategy to better integrate cycling and transit. In 07/2009 the City committed some funding for secure parking facilities at Broadway-City Hall and Olympic Village Canada Line stations. The City has also conducted a feasibility study for a downtown bike centre.
An error occurred while saving the comment Steven Forth
commented
It is more than just a place to leave a bike. Practially speaking, we need to be able to shower and change as well. I am fortunate in that I have usually had this but it really is the key to cycle commuting. If we can require offices to have parking surely we can ask that they provide showers and changing rooms.
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226 votes
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commented
Moved my votes to another theme with the same intention. I still support this idea though!
Steven Forth
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An error occurred while saving the comment Steven Forth
commented
Meant to add that we need to think in terms of the entire watershed, certainly the Fraser River and the rivers flowing into Burrard Inlet and English Bay, maybe the entire Salish Sea.
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2 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Steven Forth
commented
What a wonderful idea. Too bad I am out of votes. Perhaps we could get Inform Interiors as a sponsor. Making the outside liveable and better linking interior and exterior space while linking ourselves to the environment should help promote green thinking.
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506 votes
The draft Greenest City Action Plan includes a variety of actions to support the availability of local food at the local level.
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commented
Everyone in Vancouver should be in walking distance of locally grown food.That would be a huge step froward and it can be encouraged through zoning. It might also support a related goal of hacing more locally-owned businesses so that capital can pool and be reinvested locally.
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176 votes
The City has supported projects that have voluntarily unbundled parking (e.g. Spectrum), and is actively working to gain authority to require unbundling in new development — this requires changes to Provincial legislation. In 2008, the City proposed the Unbundled Parking Resolution to give BC municipalities the authority to require unbundling in new development. This was passed by the Union of BC Municipalities. Provincial response to date: The Ministry of Community Development will review the proposal and refer the issue to the Development Finance Review Committee for discussion.
An error occurred while saving the comment Steven Forth
commented
I like this idea. I woudl add that commercial zoning and permitting that requires businesses to provide parking should be phased out. This discriminates against companies that support responsible transit. We should discourage over supply of parking and (as in Tokyo) require anyone that buys a car to also lease and pay for a parking space.
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34 votes
Recommendations for greening existing businesses include recommendations to support building of local supply chains. This idea is included in the draft Greenest City Action Plan
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70 votesSteven Forth
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3 votes
This big picture framing questions are very important in the work of the greenest city.
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