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My ride on our new public limo

August 17th, 2009 · 44 Comments

As promised, here is my Globe story on my advance ride of the new Canada Line. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t able to include even half of the details and observations from my two hours riding the line, but I’m sure some of you are out there now critiquing it with your sharp eyes so I […]

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And speaking of public art .. the fat fork by the Cambie Bridge

August 16th, 2009 · 5 Comments

Any of you been wondering about that thing that looks like a giant tubular fork on the east side of the Cambie Bridge, near the Olympic Village? (Perhaps not — you’re probably all so well-informed that you’ll post lengthy messages on my blog giving me the technical specifications of the fat fork and how it […]

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STOP to public art, says False Creek resident

August 16th, 2009 · 40 Comments

I got an email recently from a sad-sounding False Creek resident who recently witnessed city workers installing this piece of public art at Charleson Park in Fairview Slopes/False Creek. I haven’t heard anything from anyone else besides what Michael Ferreira has to say here. Anyone else noticed this and have thoughts on it? Here are […]

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Let a thousand flowers bloom amid the traffic

August 14th, 2009 · 7 Comments

I’m up late trying to make my (bad word bad word) iPod downloads work and browsing the net, which gives me some time to link to these lovely photos that Gord Price has taken of one of our weird and wonderful new community gardens we’ve sprouted. This one is in the heart of the downtown […]

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Canada Line hoopla about to begin

August 14th, 2009 · 41 Comments

You may not know this out there in non-media-land, but a major frenzy is about to break out over the opening of the Canada Line. It’s all hands on deck for the opening Monday, where about 40,000 are expected to ride the line in the eight hours it’s open and free. It sounds like parties […]

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Canada Post drops plans to sell downtown building

August 12th, 2009 · 22 Comments

For the last couple of years, the potential sale of the grand old Canada Post building on Georgia Street, that massive memento of 1950s architecture, has been of great interest in the planning and development community. There was a bidding process at one point and the city went to great lengths to make sure the […]

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Cities prepare to turn staff over to Olympics-related work

August 11th, 2009 · 40 Comments

Get ready for it. By the time everyone gets back to work in September in Vancouver and Whistler city halls, it’s essentially going to be all Olympics all the time. As part of that, those two cities, along with others that have venues, like Richmond, have also been identifying who among their staff is going […]

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Please save irreverent quasi-journalism and read K & K

August 10th, 2009 · 15 Comments

I was trolling the Internet tonight (an excellent time-waster, for those who have thousands of words of overdue stories to write, once they have checked the last 200 Twitter posts of everyone they can think of in the universe and googled all previous boyfriends from the 70s) and noted that one of my very favourite […]

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Architect takes up city’s new mini-suites policy

August 10th, 2009 · 8 Comments

It will be interesting to see, in five years, how much new housing is created by some of the city’s “gentle densification” policies, as they call them: laneway houses and lock-off suites inside condos. As other media reported last month, almost two dozen people lined up to apply to build laneway houses as soon as […]

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More depressing news for Vancouver gripers: Others love us

August 6th, 2009 · 16 Comments

This column from San Diego is quickly making the rounds here (thanks to Gordon Price’s blog for alerting some of us to it), thanks to its lavish praise for all we do. Just when I thought the complacency might loosen its grip. For those who can’t stand reading about how great Vancouver is — and […]

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