LRT car of the future, from the City of Surrey website
Over the past month, we’ve seen intense political bickering and positioning around public transit in Metro Vancouver.
Events are moving quickly, and I hesitate to offer conclusions — except to suggest that the struggle between the B.C. Government and local mayors threatens to overshadow the question of how to build a better transit system. Continue reading
Derby Reach regional park, Langley
Greater Vancouver’s regional authority manages 138 square kilometres of parks and protected zones, an area 30 per cent bigger than the City of Paris. Staff put the number of park visits in 2012 at 10 million. The regional land inventory includes key sites across the region — Pacific Spirit (adjacent to UBC), Burnaby Lake, Lynn Headwaters, Campbell Valley — as well as a growing number of cycling and pedestrian greenways.
Despite all this, the proposed restructuring or dismantling of the regional parks system has attracted little attention beyond a couple of news articles in April, 2013. As the Metro Vancouver Board launched a parks services review, reporter Jeff Nagel quoted prominent mayors as suggesting that the region and municipalities are duplicating each other’s efforts. Continue reading
Metro Vancouver’s industrial zones directly employ an estimatd 235,000, or close to 20 per cent of the workers in the region. Waterfront and trackside industry are important to the success of Port Metro Vancouver, a complex that stretches along 600 kilometres of coastline and river’s edge.
However, most of the region’s available industrial land is occupied, leaving limited room for growth. One result is that land costs are high in comparison with other Canadian and U.S. cities. The federally-regulated Port authority is currently conducting a public review of land use, and has made noises about annexing agricultural land in the municipality of Delta. A consultation report from the process suggests that this proposal has run into considerable opposition. Continue reading
The Metro Vancouver regional authority has fired an unexpected shot to signal serious intentions around its 2011 Regional Growth Strategy.
At a closed meeting on Wednesday, May 16, Metro’s planning committee voted to take legal action if the Township of Langley, a member municipality within Metro, continued with plans for residential development on Trinity Western University property. Members of the Township’s council responded that the regional politicians were exceeding their authority. Continue reading
Fraseropolis 