Vancouver Secrets

Vancouver Solves Global Warming – Trap and Trade

Now that we are the only place in North America with a carbon tax, which I think was supposed to stop global warming, Vancouver has decided to make cars slow down even more and force a commute into downtown to become more difficult.

From our Vancouver Sun:

Car commuters (of which I am often one) may prefer not to see it in such terms, but the power and sense of entitlement a car confers is a political act, especially in an age of global warming, where every car trip is an incremental crime against nature.

This is the commuter’s secret thrill — the speed and ease and selfishness of a car — because necessity very often has little to do with it.

Most people drive not because they must, since there are other ways to get around, but because they want to. The bridge doesn’t just carry traffic, it carries addicts.

The solution is to convert a grossly overloaded bridge that lead into downtown, The Burrard Bridge, into a pedestrian overpass. The bridge has 6 lanes, and they are going to convert one into a bike lane. Brilliant.

They nixed the idea of a pedestrian bridge because it would cost more, preferring to create an even bigger traffic jam heading in and out of downtown. Just in time for the Olympics, when the city is expected to set new records for traffic jams.

The agenda is to make downtown Vancouver a no-car zone. Trap cars and trade them for Kitsilano bikers.

Ultimately this means that when the Olympic office leases expire next year, the vast empty office space will be impossible to rent. Ask a Cambie street merchant what the public transit policy means to them. If they are still in business.

The good news is that now the Golden Ears bridge is complete, there is now good (and urgent) reason to move your business out of downtown. The Fraser Valley is beginning to make a lot of sense, and is slowly getting an infrastructure to allow for easy access – in and out. Employees can live in homes that are affordable and actually have money left over to pay for gas and food…. or a bike if they decide they want one.

Although the Fraser Valley doesn’t have panhandlers and hookers on every corner, injection sites, weekly protests, or bike lanes… life is good out here.

Since I no longer work downtown, I have been there twice in the past 6 months. Not to eat or shop, but because I had to go there. I really don’t miss it.

Give downtown to the cyclists – The Fraser Valley is now open for business – and cars.

Did I mention the 6-8 months of rain?

photo credit: Canadian Veggie