One more take on the issue of parking reduction in cities, here from Seattle. I should note, given my current location, that the parking rates throughout Paris are a flat 2 euros an hour (about $3.25) — not that exorbitant, surprisingly. I believe the rate on Hornby, where I park regularly is $4 an hour. […]

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This is a strange moment for me, but this post brings all of you news that I am going to be writing from France and Italy very temporarily. That means I’ll still be following the usual Vancouver civic dramas, thanks to the wonders of modern and technology and ongoing emails from my spies, but I’ll […]

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For those of you without Penny Ballem on your Google alert, this story just popped up on the Globe’s website.

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About 2,000 mayors, city councillors, aldermen and wardens (as they’re called in some places in Canada) were up in Whistler this weekend talking about everything from creating green cities to fighting back against American protectionism to getting the actual dollars rolling that the federal government promised for stimulus spending on infrastructure. A lot of the […]

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I’m surprised no one has picked up on this, but amid the raft of reports about closing down streets, rapid-bus lanes and you name it, there’s also this report from crazy busy report-writing crew over in engineering. It recommends reducing the minimum and maximum required parking spaces to be built in for new commercial and […]

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As I mentioned in my previous post, there are lots of simmering undercurrents in the city’s attempts to plan Northeast False Creek. One of the biggest is what is happening with the Vancouver Art Gallery. If you’ll recall, Premier Gordon Campbell made the strangest announcement of all time last May when he said the gallery […]

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It’s a difficult story to follow but the Saga of Northeast False Creek is a fascinating one and will continue to develop because there are so many interests at play in that area, the big stretch of land that faces the Olympic village across False Creek. There’s a tussle over whether the Vancouver Art Gallery […]

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Sorry for posting this so late … a very busy day today for many reasons, which also caused me to miss council so I’m hoping people will post on what they think came out of the various council meetings. But anyway, here is my story with a round-up of people’s thoughts on what is happening […]

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Sean Holman has a doozy of a story in today’s Globe. Sean has a copy of an e-mail from former board member Mike Bruce, announcing he is quitting the party and urging others to do the same, because of the mayor’s silence on explaining to party members why he made comments during the campaign appearing […]

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While trolling the Great Big Internet Sea for something else, I stumbled across this essay from the author of the recent book attracting attention in the human-psychology world, Where Am I? Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon But Get Lost in the Mall. One more take on the debate about taking space […]

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