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Entries from January 2016

TransLink mayors call for cancellation of new rapid-bus lines in Surrey/Langley + more til funding found

April 13th, 2012 · 21 Comments

Just one thing after another at poor old TransLink. Hard to believe how much people loved it during and after the Olympics, when it was whisking around a couple of million people a day. Now it’s everyone’s favourite whipping boy, with lots of blame being heaped on and not much discussion about how this region […]

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BIG buzz over the imminent appearance of Bjarke Ingels

April 10th, 2012 · 43 Comments

Can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the town in such a tizzy over a visiting architect or planner. Danish superstar Bjarke Ingels (if that doesn’t produce some knee-jerk “I hate this guy already” responses, this ain’t the Vancouver I know) will be in town the next two days, explaining his unusual upside-down pointe tower […]

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Judge rules that people who don’t want to sell in condo-like project can’t be forced out

April 10th, 2012 · 26 Comments

Hundreds of thousands of British Columbians now live in strata-titled housing. But, since it’s still a relatively new form, it’s not clear to all how those owners are jointly going to decide what to do as their buildings age. I wrote about this issue in Vancouver magazine recently. Now, in one of the cases I […]

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Vancouver pilot shows 50 per cent of households diligent about recycling food scraps

April 5th, 2012 · 60 Comments

The city has had a test going since last September with 2,000 houses to see how residents respond to having their regular garbage reduced to once every two weeks and being encouraged to recycle all their food scraps into their yard trimmings bin. I’ve been wondering how it’s going and yesterday, I got a chance […]

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Some condos are selling like slushies in hell but not all

April 3rd, 2012 · 70 Comments

Marine Gateway at the foot of Cambie. Sold out in a day. Telus Gardens in downtown Vancouver. Sold out before the public launch. Silver in Metrotown. More than 3,000 people signed up waiting to buy. That makes it seem as though it’s all boom times in the condo/real-estate world again. Not so, my friends, as […]

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Vancouver food carts in a golden era but will it last?

April 3rd, 2012 · 2 Comments

Another week, another glorious trumpeting of the success of Vancouver’s food carts! Yes, I know some of you are getting tired of the way Vision is riding this golden goose. But don’t be cynical. Think about the days of only hot dogs. Anyway, I did do a story for the Globe here on the latest […]

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Not an April Fool’s Day joke: TransLink’s 12-year struggle to find money

April 1st, 2012 · 50 Comments

Transit funding: the most boring topic on the face of the earth, right? Until its problems happen in your backyard. Here’s a story I contributed to in the Globe about the long struggle of this unique transportation authority to find ways to pay for its system. While there are undoubtedly things to criticize about the […]

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City to build water-rise-control barrier on False Creek?

April 1st, 2012 · 16 Comments

As many of you will recall, the city has been working to adjust its building standards near the Fraser River, False Creek and Burrard Inlet to adapt to new projected sea-level increases over the next 100 years. Many of you weighed in on that. One of the solutions that has been discussed was a flood-control […]

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