From the Coquitlam Now – June 10, 2011

by Jennifer McFee

Local mayors have been vocal about the fate of the long-awaited Evergreen Line. Now Tri-Cities MPs are having their say.

So
far, the federal government has contributed $417 million towards the
$1.4-billion project, while the province has added another $410
million. However, the project remains off-track due to a $574-million
shortfall, which includes a $400-million commitment from local
government that has yet to materialize.

For Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam Conservative MP James Moore, this delay is “mind-boggling.”

“For
three and a half years, we’ve set aside $417 million and it’s been
collecting dust because local governments haven’t anted up their third
of the share to build the Evergreen Line,” Moore said.

“The
province is onside. The federal government is onside. But local
governments and TransLink haven’t anted up their third of the funding
and it’s time that they did. The public is getting impatient and so am
I.”

The delay is becoming an embarrassment, Moore added.

“Three
and a half years ago we announced it, so it’s borderline embarrassing
that local levels of government have been waiting this long to figure
out how to pay for something they said was their top priority,” he
said.

“If this is the local government’s top priority — their
No. 1 priority, the most important thing — and it takes them three and
a half years to figure out how to pay for it, I think that is
mind-boggling.”

On the contrary, New Westminster-Coquitlam NDP MP
Fin Donnelly believes the federal government needs to do more to help
close the funding gap. The 2011 federal budget presented Monday did not
address transit infrastructure like the Evergreen Line, he added.

“We
see that there’s a $574-million gap in the $1.4-billion Evergreen
Line. The local government is struggling. TransLink is struggling to
commit its share of the funds. I think we need to have all levels of
government at the table trying to solve that problem, and the federal
government could have been a positive contributor to that,” Donnelly
said.

“They’re certainly commended to have provided over $400
million to the project, but obviously with a $574-million gap, there
still needs to be a role for the federal government to close that gap
and build the Evergreen Line.

“We’re so close, so we need the feds and the province and the local government working together.”

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From the Georgia Straight online – May 20, 2011

by Eric Doherty

On Thursday (May 19), a large and determined group of New Westminster residents gathered to find out what design TransLink would be pushing for the first section of theNorth Fraser Perimeter Road. Instead, the crowd burst into boisterous applause when Sany Zein, TransLink’s director of roads, announced that TransLink would cancel the North Fraser Perimeter Road portion of the Gateway Program because local residents and New Westminster council would not support it.

New Westminster residents have proved a force to be reckoned with. Mayor Wayne Wright referred to the first NFPR open house as “a donnybrook”—slang for a mass brawl. It was this outspoken opposition that forced provincially controlled TransLink to back off on the United Boulevard extension, the first phase of the NFPR in New Westminster. If they had proceeded it would have cost about $175 million for a short stub of freeway and an overpass that would feed more traffic onto the already congested New Westminster street network.

“This is an example of what is possible when you get citizens involved in important issues. Now is the time to go back and focus on public transit,” said Andrew Murray, a member of the Council of Canadians’ New Westminster chapter. “We also need to fix the dysfunctional way TransLink operates; this needs to be an issue in the upcoming provincial election.”

Roadway expansion is one of the main drivers of increasing greenhouse gas emissions in B.C. and globally. While our provincial politicians talk about cutting carbon emissions, the reality is that they are often spending our money to increase the emissions that threaten the stability of our climate.

Until recently, the NFPR and the whole Gateway freeway megaproject looked unstoppable. Work is continuing on the $3-billion Highway 1 freeway widening which includes the replacement for the Port Mann Bridge. Despite vigorous resistance by local residents and legal action by the Burns Bog Conservation Society, work on the $2-billion South Fraser Perimeter Road freeway continues in Surrey and Delta. However, as the price of gas soars and concern about global warming mounts, spending billions on roadway expansions may no longer look like such a great way for politicians to get re-elected.

The people of New Westminster have shown that “unstoppable” projects can be stopped with determined resistance. Now it is time to stand up and demand an end to the Gateway freeway megaproject. Our limited resources should be invested in thing like electric trains and public transit, not on making global warming worse by spending billions on freeways.

Eric Doherty is a member of the Council of Canadians’ Vancouver-Burnaby chapterand StopThePave.org.

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From The Tyee – May 13, 2011

by Erick Villagomez

Vancouver is well-known for its approach to urbanism,
and using densification towards creating a more liveable city. In
reality, however, this popularity is focused on the relatively small
area of Vancouver’s downtown core and the neighbourhoods immediately
surrounding it. Moreover, emphasis is often placed on the city’s
podium-towers as the future of sustainable urbanism.

The vote Tuesday by city council to approve
the Cambie Corridor Plan, allowing mid-rise towers of up to 12 stories
along that key artery — and taller towers at Marine Drive and Oakridge
intersections — shows a different version of what the future may hold.
More recent developments in Vancouver outside the downtown core, such as
Olympic Village, have successfully deployed a mid-rise urbanism, and
the Cambie Corridor Plan builds off many of the lessons learned from
such projects, instead of the renowned downtown peninsula.

Recently, I conversed with Vancouver’s
director of planning, Brent Toderian, about the Cambie Corridor Plan,
and what it means for the future of Vancouver and the City’s approach to
urban planning. Here is a condensed version of that discussion (with a
longer version found here.)

Erik Villagomez: This is the first
time since 1928 that a large area of the city, spanning multiple
neighbourhoods, is attempting to be planned comprehensively. Can you
talk about how it differs from past approaches that focus more on
developing small pockets of the city individually?

Brent Toderian: “It’s
true, the Cambie Corridor work represents the largest and most complex
area planning exercise — crossing several neighbourhoods and involving a
significant intended transformation over time — that we’ve ever
undertaken outside of the central area. I’ve also suggested that the
corridor will eventually become the third most significant area of
complex urbanism in the city, after the downtown and the Broadway
Corridor.

“Originally, the planning department had
conceived the work program along Cambie Street as a series of station
area plans, and that would have taken a long time — six to eight years
in total — to do one at a time. Not only was that approach lengthy and
time consuming, it also, to my mind, thought about the street and
transit line in the wrong way. It didn’t think about the corridor as a
corridor, but saw the corridor as a series of individual areas. And it
didn’t necessarily think about change along the corridor in the areas in
between the stations. From my perspective, you don’t have to choose one
or the other, you can do a corridor approach that recognizes the
transit-related commonalities and consistent principles along its
length, but also recognizes the unique identity of the station areas.

“And that’s what we’ve done — a corridor
approach that also breaks the corridor into distinct neighbourhood
areas, each with their unique identity.”

Read full article

From the Vancouver Sun – April 27, 2011

By Gillian Shaw

Starting today, Vancouver becomes the first city in Canada to become
host to Daimler’s car2go, a car-sharing service that makes Smart Cars
available at rental rates that start per minute.

The launch, which
comes after a limited trial last fall among some Vancouver businesses
and non-profit organizations, marks car2go’s second foray into North
America after the company expanded its service from Europe to Austin,
Texas, in late 2009.

Unlike services such as Zipcar or Vancouver’s
Modo – The Car Co-op, which offer rentals by the hour after which cars
must be returned to their pickup location, car2go lets users take
one-way trips. For example in Austin, cars can be reserved ahead of time
or picked up on the spot and dropped off somewhere else, as long as its
within the program’s operating area.

Car2go is seen by some in
the industry more as an alternative to taxis or bike-sharing programs
than to traditional car sharing. But in a city where there’s more cachet
in talking about the car you don’t own than boasting about the one
taking up space in your driveway or parking garage, demand for
car-sharing services is growing.

“I think Vancouver is a great
choice for car2go and I’m eager to see how it does,” said Beth Breisnes,
who with her husband Jon Breisnes gave up car ownership two years ago
and instead uses Modo cars through their membership with that co-op. “I
think there is definitely room for a service like that, a one-way
service,” said Breisnes, who is a director of Modo.

Mary-Beth
Kellenberger, Frost & Sullivan automotive and transportation global
program manager, said in choosing Vancouver, car2go is coming into an
area where there is already a strong base and an awareness of car
sharing.

“You don’t have to grow it from scratch,” she said.

The
popularity of car sharing is growing, said Kellenberger, fuelled by a
number of factors including the cost of car ownership and for Vancouver
and Toronto the cost of real estate, which is more of a priority for
many than car buying.

From The Province – April 26, 2011

by Frank Luba

Protesters blocking construction of the South Fraser Perimeter Road continued their camp-out Tuesday below River Road in Delta.

They
have food and shelter and some of them are determined to stay on the
site until the $1 billion project is shelved or they are removed.

The
camp, which was established Friday, was busy Tuesday. But except for
one truck that showed up early in the morning there has been no sign of
anyone attempting construction — or confrontation.

There were more than a dozen people camped on the site after 11 p.m. when Eric Doherty showed up Monday night.

Doherty is with StopThePave.org, one of the organizers of the occupation along with the Council of Canadians.

The
SFPR project, which connects Deltaport to the TransCanada Highway with a
four-lane highway, is more than 25 per cent of the way to its 2013
completion date.

But Doherty said Tuesday he doesn’t think it’s too late to stop it.

“Lots
of freeways have been stopped after they started pouring concrete,”
said Doherty, who pointed to a prominent Vancouver landmark as an
example.

The Georgia Viaduct is a remnant of the freeway that was
proposed for the city and which would have bulldozed through Chinatown
had citizens not fought against the plan for more paving.

Now, the
Vancouver civic government is musing about whether the viaducts should
be taken down at some point to return what was roadway to residents.

But
the situation in Delta is a little different because the SFPR has been
on the drawing board for a long time and is now a vital part of the
provincial Gateway strategy.

Signs at the occupation camp dub it
‘Falcon’s Folly’ because it was introduced by former Transportation
Minister Kevin Falcon, now the finance minister, after his failed bid to
become leader of the provincial Liberal party and the Premier.

Protesters are at the SFPR site for varying periods but they plan to keep a constant presence there.

Carmen Mills, an organizer with StopThePave.org, was helping in the camp’s makeshift kitchen Tuesday morning.

She
said people have been coming by with donations of food, including one
woman who brought a freshly-cooked turkey on Easter Monday.

That type of support gave Mills hope.

“I’m definitely planning on being here as much as I can,” said the East Vancouver resident.

“We’re
here until we feel we’ve made significant progress in waking people up
to what’s going on here, and stopping the highway, or they carry us
out,” she said.

Delta police are monitoring the protest, which they said they expect will extend into next week.

From W2TV – April 24, 2011

by Sid Tan

On April 22 (Earth Day) 2011, a tent city was established to oppose the
South Fraser Freeway. Entry is located at 10749 and 10739 River Road in
Delta.

In this “day after” report, three directors (Harold Lavender, Dave
Murray and Sid Tan) of the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council
departed to the action site after a four hour Board development meeting.

More people are needed to camp overnight as there is safety in numbers.
Show your solidarity by dropping by. Donations of food and firewood
needed.

www.stopthepave.org
www.gatewaysucks.org

More details at http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/putting-barricades-back-earth-day/7033

W2TV: Direct Action Opposing South Fraser Freeway from Sid Tan on Vimeo.

The video:
The Times They Are a-Changing written and performed by Bob Dylan. Shot
on a Zoom Q3 Handy Video Recorder by Sid Tan who edited with AVS Editor
on HP dv6622ca laptop, also used to upload.

Read original article and watch video

From Discover News – April 6, 2011

by Nic Halverson

Despite shifting into higher gear within the consumer’s green
conscience, hybrid vehicles are still tethered to the gas pump via a
fuel-thirsty 100-year-old invention: the internal combustion engine.

However, researchers at Michigan State University
have built a prototype gasoline engine that requires no transmission,
crankshaft, pistons, valves, fuel compression, cooling systems or
fluids. Their so-called Wave Disk Generator could greatly improve the
efficiency of gas-electric hybrid automobiles and potentially decrease
auto emissions up to 90 percent when compared with conventional
combustion engines.

The engine has a rotor that’s equipped with wave-like channels that
trap and mix oxygen and fuel as the rotor spins. These central inlets
are blocked off, building pressure within the chamber, causing a shock
wave that ignites the compressed air and fuel to transmit energy.

The Wave Disk Generator uses 60 percent of its fuel for propulsion;
standard car engines use just 15 percent. As a result, the generator is
3.5 times more fuel efficient than typical combustion engines.

Researchers estimate the new model could shave almost 1,000 pounds
off a car’s weight currently taken up by conventional engine systems.

Last week, the prototype was presented to the energy division of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is backing the Michigan State University Engine Research Laboratory with $2.5 million in funding.

Michigan State’s team of engineers hope to have a car-sized 25-kilowatt version of the prototype ready by the end of the year.

Read original article with illustrations and video here