CANADA
The end of Canadian real estate insanity [Globe and Mail]

INTERNATIONAL
Most Ambitious Transportation Projects of the 21st Century [AOL Travel News]

This year’s Venice Architecture Biennale is about people, not plans [The Guardian]

Which Way for The Future of Planning in L.A.? [The Planning Report]

Livability in rural and small town America [Transportation for America]

Windy City [BLDG BLOG]

Photograph by Lisa Ewasko

A look at Vancouver through the eyes of a fellow Winnipeg resident.

By Lisa Ewasko, re:place Magazine

A newly graduated student of Environmental Design at the University of Manitoba, I recall  the stress of scrambling to find the funds on one of a few over-used credit cards to fly to Vancouver in the coming May. The purpose of most pleasure trips away from Winnipeg, or any other small Canadian city or town for that matter, is usually to visit the friends that had the guile to move away, and to simply “get the hell out”, with no sense of remorse in the seat next to you. This trip was solely a visit to taste the city that was on the tip of everyone’s tongue - the world is taking notice to the success of Vancouver as a model to successful urbanism.

The term “Vancouverism” has been coined as if urban sustainability, transit-oriented development, walkability, urban design and planning for increased density have germinated in Vancouver. Regardless of my skepticism (or perhaps it was instead an awareness of the impending envy I was about to experience, would eat me alive) Vancouver has developed a strong political mindset to evolve as the greenest city in the world and is planning to do so by 2020. Initiatives as the Greenest City Action Team, prove that the city had no intention to lower the bar post-Olympics. Vancouver has set the standard for sustainable urbanism in the country, successfully communicating the language of good design, and more importantly, one that is experienced in the public realm. It is with great hope that Vancouver’s influence will be felt across the country in cities like Winnipeg that continually toil with their sense of identity and place, and lack a commitment to environmental design as the key to a livable, more sustainable, and vibrant city.

Photograph by Lisa Ewasko

It is the simplest thing to be able to take a bus, walk the sea wall and look out over the ocean. The day that I was on the UBC campus was rainy with low cloud cover. This was such a beautiful expression of landscape and urbanism, to not only experience a campus of that scale with such a sense of natural majesty, but also a number of incredible landscape projects including the Botanical Garden, the First Nations House of Learning, the Museum of Anthropology, the Beaty Biodiversity Center and the Nitobe Memorial Garden. Each unique in identity and location with cues from the surrounding landscape. Architecturally speaking, the built form of the city has a particular hue of green-blues, greys and and an obvious sense of repetition. Aesthetically, this works to have such an intense density without taking away from the borrowed landscape.

The influence of the landscape and value of public space in Vancouver is apparent everywhere. Months prior to my visit the Queen Charlotte Islands were renamed Haida Gwaii,  translating to “Islands of the People”, this is indicative of the consciousness and sense of place that the landscape informs and influences everything to the type of shops, use of parks, public art, and food which is unique to Vancouver.  The experience of taste and food is incredibly telling of the values and beliefs and responsibility that the people of Vancouver share. Our friends live three houses off of Commercial Drive in a basement suite with upside down clay pots of tomatoes hang outside the window on a terracotta patio. In Vancouver of course, it is referred to “garden suite”.

I was taking photographs at one of the organic grocery stores on Commercial Drive - referring to it as ” the Drive” would suggest I was a hip local, but taking photographs in an organic grocery store most definitely implies that I was not local, and certainly not hip. Taste was such a large part of my experience in Vancouver and such a backbone to the Commercial Drive neighbourhood - it was necessary to document - so many specialty shops owned and operated by people with such a passion for food and their community.  It was amazing to see such a wide range of organic and locally produced products and restaurants in one neighbourhood. I can honestly say I ate some of the most delectable vegetarian and vegan food I’ve ever had. There is certainly an accessible artistry and richness to the taste and abundance of food in Vancouver that is affordable, decadent, and most importantly local.

Photograph by Gordon Price (via Price Tags)

Vancouver as an urban model that is geographically unique and vast has opened up the possibility for such a beautiful and diverse landscape to inform sustainable urbanism across the country, creating an aesthetic and atmosphere that speaks true to its sense of place and culture. I can’t stress enough that this is not to give excessive praise to Vancouver’s planning, urban and landscape design or to suggest the city is a utopian eco-village, but that one’s experience of the intense natural beauty is certainly enhanced, made more accessible and open for interpretation by its urbanism. Douglas Coupland’s Digital Orca is a fine expression and interpretation of a culture and place that is emerging as a leader in sustainable technology and design.  At the core of what makes Vancouver so successful is the way in which the landscape is viewed, experienced and valued as the source of our evolving and complex Canadian culture.

***

Lisa Ewasko has  B. Env.D. in Landscape and Urbanism for the University of Manitoba. Her interest in landscape has stemmed from her connection to the prairie landscape and culture.  She has worked with community organizations in Winnipeg, with a focus on how reinterpreting public space and the community are effectively changing the urban landscape.

INTERNATIONAL
The Truth about London’s Cycle Superhighways [The Big City]

FedEx Makes More Efficient Deliveries with Zero Emissions Electric Bikes [The City Fix]

Model city Singapore shows symptoms of urban stress [Yahoo News]

Pakistan Flood Sets Back Infrastructure by Years [The New York Times]

Four powerhouse teams named finalists in central waterfront design [Crosscut]

“The Arctic Perspective Initiative (API) is a non-profit, international group of individuals and organizations whose goal is to promote the creation of open authoring, communication, and dissemination infrastructures for the circumpolar region… it is a transnational art, science, and culture work group consisting of partner organizations from five different countries – Germany, Slovenia, UK, Iceland, and Canada. Arctic Perspective uses media art and the research of artists to investigate the complicated, global, cultural, and ecological interrelations in the Arctic, and to develop concepts for constructing tactical communications systems and a mobile, eco-friendly research station, which will support interdisciplinary and intercultural collaborations.”

- from the API mission statement

Edited by Andreas Müller – Published by Hatje Cantz Press (2010)
Review by Sean Ruthen, re:place magazine

There is and always has been an unexplainable attraction to the north, like some shared human lodestone. Whether for its great expanses of pristine and breathtaking sparseness, or the cultural richness of the different indigenous nations that live there, there is something about it which has long fascinated us. Like the unexplored depths of the planet’s oceans, the North represents one of the few remaining places where Nature still reigns supreme, where at best we can try to adapt our warm-blooded bodies to the microclimates of the temporary shelters we erect there. On two previous occasions, re:place has reviewed architecture books on the Arctic – Extreme Architecture and Modern North - but none have demonstrated the breadth of enterprise that is at the heart of the Arctic Perspective Initiative (API).

Begun in 2006 when three of the group’s founding members sat down with the elders of Igloolik, Nunavut, the API has since become a sanctioned research body by the European Commission. This ongoing project will end in 2013, from which will be presented the outcome of Arctic Perspective – Third Culture, with the goal of providing the template for a two-way communication between the existing indigenous nations of the north and the developed nations to the south. At its core is the intent to not make the mistakes that have been made in the past, and to create an awareness and respect of the Arctic that just may save it and the people living there from complete catastrophe due to changes to their ecosystem.

The first of four volumes, or cahiers, to be released, “Arctic Perspective: Architecture” focuses solely on the enterprise of habitation in the Arctic, and includes a design competition to the same end, as well as four critical essays related to architecture and the North, giving the volume its theoretical breadth. Three planned future volumes/cahiers will look at the politics of the Arctic, its relationship to technology, and of course its natural landscape.

As it happens, the timing for the book’s release couldn’t be more apt, as just recently the media (and even our own federal government) have demonstrated an increasing interest in it, certainly while Canadian F-15’s are being called to our northern borders to disembark Russian planes which have curiously appeared on the horizon. Whether a gold rush or the relentless pursuit of oil, the developed nations of our world have often had their wrists slapped for trying to exploit its resources, and so does API arrive as a new steward for the Arctic, hoping to use new and old media alike to communicate the critical mass that we could shortly find ourselves faced with in the North, if governments and their corporate cronies are allowed to have their way.

Most importantly though, and not unlike other humanitarian organizations such as Greenpeace and the UN, the API has as its mandate a bottom-up methodology, in that they are not interested in seeing the North solely on their own terms, but through the eyes of the indigenous nations that already call it home. This is an important focus of this first volume, and sure to be a recurring theme running in the volumes to come.

Presented in a sparse and no-nonsense format, the pages of text allow the sixteen colour pages in the center of the book to pop out, themselves a collage of images culled from the competition entries. While the essays in the volume, including one on ‘Arctic Architect’ Ralph Erskine and another on Buckminster Fuller, provide effective counterpoint for the book, it is the design competition itself which is its raison d’etre.

Conducted in 2009, the competition as put on by API called simply “Mobile Media-centric Habitation and Work Unit,” asked entrants to design a habitation with life support and work station for use in the Arctic, with the adjunct of it having to be mobile. The design brief as well required that the solution be a sustainable one, providing renewable energy and waste recycling along with its communication systems. Pending available funding, there was also built into the competition the possibility that the winning prototype could be built and tested in the North. With cash prizes for first, second, and third place, the book presents in some detail these three schemes, while a handful of others are presented in brief summary, accompanied by selected images from their presentations.

As would be expected, the 103 entries from thirty countries ranged from the serious to the whimsical, with the three winners demonstrating a critical understanding of the terrain as realized through the indigenous traditions of building (and surviving) there. While one of the winning entrants appropriated forms of architecture and responses typical to the terrain, the two others went one step further and realized a habitation that could be collapsed to the footprint of a dogsled. A more whimsical, Archigram inspired entry made the media centre out of a VW camper van.

Each of the essays featured, as introduced in the editor’s foreword, are excellent companions to the design competition visuals and text. The first by Marilyn Walker provides the anthropological perspective, complete with photographs of typical indigenous dwellings such as yurts or iglus. She points out that the Igloolik dialect, along with many others have 100 words for snow, of which many relate specifically to snow as a construction material.

Two essays on Buckminster Fuller and Ralph Erskine, by Carsten Kohn and Jeremie Michael McGowan respectively, provide the book with both the architectural primer for the mobile house, as well as the first true modern architect of the North. The essays are then themselves bookended between the competition, and two documented accounts of travels through the Arctic, the first a rather empirical account of a voyage through the Northwest Passage, the other a more recent journey taken by members of the API to visit an ancestral ground along with several Inuit families in Nunavut.

Arctic Perspective is without question a timely publication from Hatje Cantz, with future volumes bound to be as invaluable resource as this. And as sure as the magnetism of the North, like its Aurora Borealis, continues to draw our gaze to its horizon, the API looks there also as a chance to set things right between Nature and our old-fashioned ways, for better and for worse.

***

For more information on the Arctic Perspective Initiative, go to www.arcticperspective.org.

For more information on the Arctic Perspective book series, go to www.hatjecantz.de.

**
Sean Ruthen is an architect working, living, and writing in Vancouver.

INTERNATIONAL
Cafe Life, PDX Style: Recreating the Euro Bar [Enzyme PDX]

Family-size apartments in urban areas could help smart-growth communities [The Washington Post]

Groundbreaking NYCDOT Pedestrian Study Recommends Testing 20 mph Limit for Neighborhoods [Tri-State Transportation Campaign]

Spit, Glue and Maybe Even Chewing Gum [The New York Times]

Portland streetcar success has fueled interest elsewhere [Stephen Rees's Blog]

INTERNATIONAL
City parks, bringing urban centers back to life [The Washington Post]

INTERNATIONAL
The Suburban General Store [Metropolis Magazine]

CANADA
Victoria’s ‘tent city’ on verge of becoming public health hazard [Globe and Mail]

INTERNATIONAL
The Challenge of Making HafenCity Feel Neighborly [Der Spiegel]

A disdain for urban planning is the problem, not overcrowding [The Guardian]

Cities scramble to woo first wave of electric vehicles [Boston Herald]

Californians Dreaming About the Next Metropolis [The New Republic]

Driven Over by I-69 [Next American City]

New Cultural District Takes Shape in Hong Kong [ASLA The Dirt]

How an economic bust can spark a civic-planning buzz [Crosscut]

INTERNATIONAL
To Catch Cairo Overflow, 2 Megacities Rise in Sand [The New York Times]

In Oregon, Students Seek Key to a Sustainable City [The New York Times]

A High-Tech Titan Plagued by Potholes [The New York Times]
World’s Fastest-Growing Megalopolis Hides in Fog [Wired]

Running bike-sharing networks through smartphone [Grist]

By John Calimente, re:place Magazine

August 17, 2009 was a day to remember: Vancouver became the first Canadian city with a rail link to its airport.  BC’s largest capital project had begun construction in November, 2005, with the cost forecast to be between $1.5 and $1.7 billion. This figure would increase to $2.05 billion by the time the Line was ready, three months ahead schedule.

High ridership from day one

Encouraged by free fares on opening day, the opening drew 85,000 people from around the region who wanted to get the first ride on the $2.05 billion system. Only 50,000 had been expected. Even on the second day, when riders had to pay fares, 70,000 locals came out to ride the line. A clear trend was developing.

The Canada Line’s next big test after opening day was when direct bus routes between downtown and Richmond, Delta, and Surrey were reconfigured to turn around at Bridgeport station. September 8th saw 15,000 commuters take the Canada Line to work, up from 9,000 the previous week.

By November, the River Rock Casino at Bridgeport Station was already seeing 15,000 extra visitors per day, entering the casino building via a covered walkway from the station. River Rock also reported that the majority of their visitors were now arriving via the Canada Line.

On January 18th, a few weeks prior to the Winter Olympics, the $5 AddFare surcharge was added for trips originating at the airport. A decision was made to not charge extra either for trips to the airport or for those with prepaid tickets. Part of the reason probably lies with the fact that it would take constant enforcement to make sure everyone entering or leaving the airport paid the surcharge, especially in the absence of fare gates. Around this time the National Post reported that the Canada Line was already “operating near capacity”, though this was a large understatement given what would happen a few weeks later.

As I reported earlier, during the 17 days of the Winter Olympics in February, 3.9 million people rode the Canada Line, or an average of 228,000 per day. The Olympics also provided the opportunity for many residents to try out the line who might not have otherwise done so.

Perhaps this is one reason why ridership has not suffered post-Olympics. Automatic passenger counters installed since the first day of ridership paint a picture of increasing gains. Since April, the Canada Line has averaged 104,000 riders per day, numbers that weren’t expected to be seen until 2013 at the earliest. Average weekday boardings have steadily increased by about 1,000 to 2,000 per month, from 101,676 in April to 104,682 in May, 106,320 in June, and 107,198 in July. Overall average boardings, including weekends, are inching towards 100,000, with 94,223 in May, 97,969 in June, and 99,210 in July. For TransLink, 100,000 riders is the break-even point for operating costs, while the financial break-even point for the line as a whole could arrive as soon as 2020.

Changes due to Canada Line

Much of the ridership has come from transit users who used to take the 98 B-Line or the buses that now turn around at Canada Line stations in Richmond. Some riders have also switched from the #15 Cambie, #17 Oak, and #10 Granville routes. Prior to the introduction of the Canada Line, there were about 60,000 transit boardings per day in the corridor, with 40,000 of these on the 98 B-Line. A recent TransLink survey found that 51% of riders had previously taken the bus, suggesting that the line has won many new converts to transit. Many of these new riders are visiting the Vancouver Airport. Travel by transit to the airport is up from 3% transit mode share pre-Canada Line to 15% now. Among employees working on Sea Island, transit mode share is up 4%. As well, there are clearly a great number of residents in Richmond and along the Cambie corridor who may not have been comfortable driving or taking the bus to downtown Vancouver, but are now visiting the city more regularly because of the presence of the Canada Line.

And vice versa. Before the Canada Line I had rarely visited Richmond due to the volume of cars on the roads and the difficulty of walking in a streetscape unfriendly to pedestrians. But this has been changing very quickly as Richmond embraces a more human-scaled development in its downtown, something it has been pursuing for the past 10 years. As well, the City of North Vancouver has been densifying the area within walking distance of its SeaBus terminal, knowing that the airport is now within easy reach by rapid transit. Both municipalities are far ahead in their completion of station-area developments compared to the City of Vancouver. The Cambie Corridor planning process only began in January of this year, which means that any major developments won’t be completed for many years.

Bus riders have also benefited from the Canada Line. Many of the articulated buses that were formerly used on the 98 B-Line are now increasing capacity on the #43, 44, and #49 routes, while others have been retired. A less obvious benefit has been more frequent turnaround times on routes like the #351, which has seen a nearly 40% jump in ridership due to more frequent service and the reliability of the Canada Line when entering downtown.

It is unfortunate that Richmond currently experiences waits of 7 to 14 minutes between trains at Aberdeen, Landsdowne, and Richmond-Brighouse stations, as all of them are heavily-used destinations, especially when there is still a great deal of underutilized capacity available. Currently only 16 out of 20 trains are put into use during peak periods, reduced to 14 trains during off-peak hours. TransLink is planning to run 16 trains at all times by August 2011, which will increase frequency to about once every three minutes. And the ultimate capacity of the line is 300,000 boardings per day once a third cars is added to each 2-car train set. That’s about 15,000 passengers per hour per direction, up from the roughly 5,000 at present. The Expo and Millennium Lines together only handle about 240,000 boardings on an average weekday.

Negative impacts

Of course, not everything has gone smoothly.

The area hardest hit by the Canada Line construction hasn’t seen much of an uptick in customer traffic. While Oakridge Centre and locations close to new stations have seen 10-20% increases in foot traffic, Cambie Village has been left out, primarily because the area was not granted its own station. It is really incomprehensible that a Canada Line station was not built at 16th Avenue, since Cambie Village is the only truly complete neighbourhood along whole length of Cambie Street. In January of this year, 40 merchants filed a lawsuit against the builders of the Canada Line for the reduction in revenues caused by the ‘cut and cover’ method of construction used between Olympic Village Station and Marine Drive Station. While this method apparently saved $400 million in construction costs, the ensuing mess at street level caused businesses extreme financial hardship. $600,000 has already been awarded to Susan Heyes, who used to own a maternity clothing shop on Cambie Street. And if the merchants win their suit, expectations are that the payout will be in the range of 20 to 40 million dollars.

As well, the trolley wires that were in use along Cambie Street prior to construction were not replaced after the completion of the Canada Line. As a result, diesel buses rather than clean electric trolleys now run the #15 Cambie route, at reduced frequencies. If Vancouver is moving towards becoming a greener city, it can’t afford to be removing electric trolley routes in favour of diesel buses.

Taxi drivers were another group negatively impacted by the opening of the Line. The Vancouver Sun reported in October of last year that business was already down by 10-15% in the month that the Canada Line had been open, and probably higher in areas close to stations. Even business travellers have been foregoing the $35 cab ride to take the Canada Line to hotels in Yaletown and the downtown core. A recent report in the Province suggested that taxi drivers have now lost 30% of their business.

Limited budget

And due to budget constraints, the stations themselves have proved a major disappointment for anyone who has visited rail systems in major metropolitan areas. The stations are bare bones and small. The platforms already seem to be crowded with people most of the time. It was truly short-sighted to build 45 metre platforms instead of 100 metre platforms, especially underground. Of course longer platforms would have been more expensive, but just imagine the cost of digging up the street again to lengthen platforms in 10 or 20 years’ time. There are also too few elevators. I wish we could have learned something from the Expo and Millennium Lines and put in more than one elevator per station. If an elevator needs to go out of service, how are the elderly or the disabled expected to get out of the station? On the second day of operation, when one of the elevators at Langara-49th Avenue was not working, I helped a man with his wheelchair-bound father ride up an escalator in order to exit the station. This shouldn’t have been necessary.

More connections to existing lines would have been welcome as well. The connection between Vancouver City Centre station and Granville station is convoluted and time consuming, so much so that many people don’t know about it. Most riders will change to the Expo and Millennium Lines at Waterfront station. And this brings up the other issue - the missing link from the end of the Millennium Line to the Canada Line. While discussions on what technology will be utilized for the Broadway Line to UBC will continue for many years, it seems obvious that the Millennium Line should at least terminate with another rapid transit line. A connection to the station at City Hall would make sense, with an intermediate station at Main and Kingsway.

Moving forward

The Canada Line has shown that the Lower Mainland is ready to embrace rapid transit in a big way. With ridership easily hitting its targets ahead of schedule, there should now be little debate about whether people will ride new lines if we build them. We just need the political will and the money to start moving forward.

John Calimente is the president of Rail Integrated Developments. He supports great public transit + transit integrated communities + urban life lived without a car. Follow TheTransitFan on Twitter.