Much buzz among the commercial-building crowd about the entry of Credit Suisse/Swissreal Investments into Vancouver’s downtown office scene with a proposal for the 800 West Pender block. (My Globe story here.) The proposal gets its public launch tomorrow. With three towers already approaching construction (University Club site on Hastings by Oxford, 745 Thurlow at Thurlow […]

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Not quite as visceral as the letters asking you for money to prevent wild animals from getting caught in leghold traps, but almost. This is the pitch to the faithful from NPA fundraising chair Rob Macdonald for the party’s planned $2.4-million campaign. RE:          Gregor’s Teflon Coating and Strange Leadership Style is Wearing Very Thin I […]

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It’s that time again, when political parties tell us about great new projects that are on the way that will make the city great but won’t cost taxpayers anything. Wednesday, the NPA’s Suzanne Anton announced that it would push ahead to get a downtown streetcar, which would not require a city investment. Or maybe. I […]

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There was so much buzz the last couple of weeks about the amount of money that Non-Partisan Association chair Peter Armstrong and fundraising chair Rob Macdonald were raising that I had to pursue this story. Interesting that they are talking like this so early in the campaign. Party fundraisers usually don’t like to say they […]

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Political junkies, fill your boots figuring this one out. Here’s my story. This changes the look of the chessboard.  

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Good scoopola by Jeff Lee at the Vancouver Sun, thanks to someone clearly unhappy about this going on behind the scenes. What do you think? Should the city have bailed them out or not? Done it in camera or not? (Jeff’s blog post indicates the vote was unanimous.)

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Lots of tweets and emails flying around about this column, posted below, in BIV from former NPA councillor and NPA mayoral candidate Peter Ladner. While never naming the NPA directly, he warns that it’s a “mug’s game” to mock and attack efforts at urban agriculture. Ladner did not write this column in response to the […]

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Consider this blog post my once-monthly quota on all things bike-related. People who don’t like noise or violence should stay away from the comment section. That said, I continue to find stories that make me think about the incredible worldwide push on to make bicycles a significant part of urban transportation systems. Is this part […]

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A scary headline on my Globe story today says the Sustainable Transportation Coalition is campaigning for property-tax increases to kickstart the $700-million transit expansion that TransLink has proposed. Are they really? No, people like former NPA councillor and Business in Vancouver founder Peter Ladner are not in favour of permanent property-tax increases to pay for […]

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Portland is not the nirvana that urban planners and Portlandia fans would have you believe. It’s got persistent high unemployment that its own economic development commission has noted is worse than other cities. The famous streetcar and light-rail transit? I’ve concluded that that is the only option the city has, since it has about 60,000 […]

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