Kate
My feedback
6 results found
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72 votes
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commented
We need to make it easy for people to have composting toilets, rainwater cisterns, and other systems that take the burden of water pollution off of storm sewers, streams and the nearby Georgia Strait/Salish Sea.
We need to make it hard for businesses to put any chemicals into the sanitary or storm sewer systems, as even our sanitary treatment is ill set up to handle chemical waste. Basically it filters and settles our biological waste, then sends the clear leftovers out right now... on average. Cleaning chemicals need to be detoxified, and sanitary sewers reserved for bio wastes only.
The heat pumps under Millennium village actually extract heat from the wastewater pipes there. More needs to be done to protect the ocean - returning water should be cold and clean. The money spent marketing this city should be shared with revitalizing our wastewater treatment into something worth being proud of. Then I'll think of Vancouver as a truly world class and green city worth its pristine surroundings.
Kate
supported this idea
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113 votes
Point taken that adjusting costs of different travel modes to support more sustainable choices is a good idea. The City will continue to review parking fees to better reflect street value and market demand, and the Greenest City Plan adds a more explicit environmental lense to this work. Transit fares fall outside City jurisdiction, and there are multiple factors to consider. Fares are an important revenue source for TransLink; at the same time, it is important that prices are affordable and equitable.
Kate
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commented
More transit! Cheaper transit! Parking lots in the burbs at transit stations to be free, to take the load of the longest most congested part of the commute!
I hate to say it, but Toronto has already done this. Not only that, but parking lots unused by businesses on weekends generally are not filled with towing signs there as they are here, so it's possible to find parking easily near a station on the weekend. They also have a weekend transit pass for two adults and up to three kids or so...
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92 votes
Some interesting ideas here.
First, a bit of clarification: London doesn’t prohibit cars from entering the city centre; rather it imposes a fee to discourage their use. This is commonly called congestion charging and it can serve multiple purposes: first, it reduces motor vehicle congestion so that the people who really need to drive (e.g. goods movement, taxis, and essential service vehicles) can get around without getting stuck in gridlock; second, it provides a potential revenue source which can be directed to support improvements to more sustainable modes (public transit, active transportation).
Congestion pricing is an interesting idea for Vancouver — both as a means to reduce congestion and to generate revenue to improve transit service. It might make more sense to think about it at the regional (rather than city centre or municipal) level, though, given that it would affect travel patterns across the metropolitan area. It would also…
An error occurred while saving the comment Kate
commented
Oh, Yeah! London charges a high fee to drive downtown.
There are SO many single occupant vehicles because there is relatively cheap parking downtown, and relatively poor transit in most residential neighbourhoods - taking an hour in rush hour from the burbs not on a major line to downtown.
Translink would have to double the length of skytrains and double bus service to handle the extra riders though; it's already impossible to get on the train downtown at Nanaimo and Commercial in the mornings - why such short trains?
Kate
supported this idea
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314 votes
Included in the Draft Greenest City Action Plan.
Kate
supported this idea
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408 votes
Provincial jurisdiction.
An error occurred while saving the comment Kate
commented
Wow, emotional arguments on the anti-helmet side as well as the pro side.
Europe is great, and we need their cycling culture from city hall to driving costs to fashion of arriving sweaty with or without a hat or helmet. Helmet presence or absence don't make a culture... get over it. The police should enforce helmet law less, but don't make it a huge focus, how reactionary and counterintutive. Focus on the main things: infrastructure, fun events, police enforcement of driver endangerment of cyclists, driver ed. and defensive cycling.
Personally I agree that targeting infrastructure and driving speed as well as driver education and error will be more effective in protecting cyclist safety en masse than helmets and putting onus on cyclists. Read the supreme court case law on cyclist accidents and you'll have a perspective change on what causes accidents for sure.
Nevertheless, I don't think we should get rid of the helmet law, because it is an incentive to buy a helmet, and most tickets only require that you buy one instead of prescribing a fine. Oddly I bought my first helmet to look cool, but didn't wear it when I started uni where it wasn't law to wear one... peer pressure. I bought my second upon moving to BC to comply with the law, and thankfully wore it.I've been hit hard twice by cars, and the first time was very lucky not to bash my head (carrying but not wearing my helmet at the time, as I'd been peer pressured into not wearing it in my early 20s..._) while feeling the car whiz past inches away and flying at it and the pavement after being hit from behind. The second time years later here in Van, I rolled in midair and bounced the back of my head hard on the ground after being hit from the side by someone running a stop sign on a bike route.... Maybe I wouldn't have died and entered the statistics of cyclist lives either way, but I know several head and face-injured cyclists too busy coping with daily life now to join lobby groups, and feel fortunate not to have found out whether that later hit could have made me one too. It's sad, but I fully support helmet law (perhaps less enforced than the above driver ed considerations) as helmets definitely reduce head injury risk at low speeds like both my painful collisions. Of course there are more serious injuries at speed, but most accidents are low speed.
As for the bike sharing scheme, why not just make a loophole in the helmet law that waives it for participants? The federal government (or was it the province of BC?) has done that for boating operator training: only operators of rented boats need not show proof of passing a safety course. Liability is with an insurance company, and the operator as with most outdoor gear rentals.
Parents will still have to figure something out for kids. Kids fall all over the place. Skating helmets and snowboarding helmets are taking off, so why the fuss about cycling ones for kids?
Anyone trying to make a strong case that helmets are just over the top and unbearable should try clonking their head hard against the pavement by surprise and with unexpected help from someone else before they keep browbeating us with how unfashionable and useless they are. I want a review of ALL literature, not just a set of a few favourite links, or I won't be convinced, having clonked my own head and enjoyed a helmet. It's emotional... but so are you, you helmet haters.
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404 votes
A critical challenge for Vancouver. Laneway housing, STIR, the 20% Inclusionary Zoning Policy, and other programs and policies are intended to help increase housing affordability— see http://vancouver.ca/housing. The draft Greenest City plan recognizes the importance of affordability and will review additional strategies, e.g. unbundled parking.
Kate
supported this idea
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An error occurred while saving the comment Kate
commented
Yes, one-bedrooms are myopic planning in support of real-estate flippers rather than families and workers or students sharing to save on costs. Few of us can afford to buy or rent a one bedroom until midlife, then family and work-wise it's too late to just buy that so we move to the 'burbs.
