Tag: Ask Pat

Ask Pat: short questions

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Sleepless asks—

A few short questions :

1. The trains are still whistling downtown as of the end of September. Any update on the progress w.r.t. whistle cessation?

Answered, for the most part.

2. Will New Westminster be following in the footsteps of Vancouver to require business licenses for Airbnb rentals?

I don’t know, but I suspect so.

I have done a lot of research and had a lot of discussions around Short Term Rentals. It was a big topic at the UBCM conference this year, I have brought the discussion to Council, and even organized a community conversation on the topic. It is an interesting topic from a Local Government perspective, and something I think we need to act on.

From what I have learned (and I reserve my right to change my opinion here if presented with better reasoning of evidence), I think Cities should regulate the practice of renting out residential properties to short term users (i.e. any rental situation not already regulated by the Residential Tenancy Act or the Hotel Keepers Act). I think a business licence should be required, and the City should be performing inspections to assure that rental suites meet building code and fire safety requirements. We also need a regulatory structure to manage the inevitable neighbourhood concerns and conflicts.

That said, I don’t think Vancouver’s regulatory approach is the most effective, and may be more punitive that necessary. I look instead at the approaches of Tofino and Nelson. New Westminster is unique city in that we are a small city in the middle of the metropolis. We also have a high rental population, and through progressive policies are seeing much more rental coming on line over the next few years, so although our rental vacancy is still low enough that it is a serious housing affordability issue, I think we are on the right track towards addressing that. We also, as City, have very few hotel rooms, and no serious intent (that I know of) for anyone to build more. With our walkable neighbourhoods and high transit connectivity, our well connected small business community and burgeoning “cool” factor, Short Term Rentals can be a positive economic driver for the City. We can make this a good news story – if we do it right.

3. Has the city considered moving the library downtown into the Anvil building? I grew up in a town where the city council built a white-elephant ‘civic center’, much like the Anvil building, but after seeing it going mostly unused for a couple of years, they converted one floor into a large and modern public library, and the resulting increase in traffic resulted in revitalization of the center and eventually the surrounding downtown area as well.

No. There is no room in the Anvil for a Library. And in that sense, I take exception to the idea at the Anvil Centre is a “White Elephant”. For the most part, the Anvil Centre is fulfilling expectations for the uses it was intended. The Museum and Archives are settled in their new home, the New Media Gallery is regionally lauded. The convention and rentals side of the business is doing great, and the theatre program is finally starting to come together. The community arts spaces are programming up, and although there is still more work to do on this aspect of the centre, it is already serving its intended role providing opportunities for residents to practice arts, with more positive development to come.

Yeah, the restaurant space is still empty, but we now have a solid tenant with a great vision. I remain a little disappointed about the street expression of the space – I think we need to find more effective ways to open up the ground floor to the street and vice versa to make that space more lively. Hopefully the restaurant will start that process, but I don’t think that the complete solution. I have a few ideas here, but will hold them close to my chest until we have a better opportunity to work with the Anvil staff and develop some of these ideas. However, the main point is that there simply isn’t any “unused” space in the building to allow for something like a remote library.

Conversely, we are investing quite a bit of money in the existing Uptown main branch of the library to fix some building issues and fit customer needs better. The Library is the City’s most used public facility, and it is suffering a bit from age and traffic, necessitating the investment of a few million dollars in repairs and refit. The second “satellite” library in Queensborough is by any measure a success serving a community separated by a bridge and a little too much distance from Uptown.

I would suggest, if we were looking at more of these satellite library locations, that Sapperton has a more compelling case for need than the Downtown. However, We also need to put that idea into the perspective that we are a small City: 70,000 people within 15 square kilometres. There is a serious question whether satellite campuses for the Library make sense across that space, or whether the significant investment should be better spent in making our single branch work more effectively. However, that bigger idea may be a question for the Library Board, of which I am not a member.

Ask Pat: Whistle cessation update.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 6 Comments.

I’ve been a little behind on my “Ask Pat” responses. There are a few questions on different aspects of the Whistle Cessation theme, so I’ll cover them all with my answer to this one:

J.S. asked—

RE: new westminster train whistle cessation

I do not understand this project. There is a law saying train has to sound its horn at every crossing. Is there a law require it to be so loud that the entire town can hear it? Instead of throwing money on all these cessation projects which seem to be going nowhere, can’t train horn simply be modified so it is less aloud like a car horn or even a bell? Canadian train travels slower than a car. And I believe the law meant for it to be heard at that intersection only.

Yes, that would make total sense, but the answer to your first question is a completely absurd “yes”.

Train horns are designed to call attention to a train approaching a lonely rural road on the Canadian Shield at 80km/h, and therefore blow at something exceeding 100db for a regulatory more-than-20-seconds-for-every-crossing. That might make sense on a snowy rural crossing 100 miles east of Thunder Bay, but in the middle of a busy urban area the volume of the horns is clearly absurd. Especially then the crossing already has gates, bells, flashing lights, and the train is rolling along at 20km/h with a gigantic diesel engine chugging away at the front of it.

But the Railway Safety Act has a tendency to err on the side of caution, probably for good historic reasons. So we are stuck with this absurdity.

I would normally say “call your MP”, except that I know your MP has been working on rail interface issues for years, and has been stonewalled by successive governments and the simple intractability of trying to get the rail industry to behave as a good neighbour in urban areas. There is a bunch of long history here, related to the railways that built the Nation thinking and such, which was at one time, when railways were part of the National Enterprise, compelling, but now seem so much hollower now that the rail companies are just another multinational corporation charged with the holy duty of returning shareholder value… but I digress.

The City is, as you may have heard, working on bringing “Whistle Cessation” to our level crossings. This requires a significant amount of safety engineering, most of it patently absurd, to provide redundant safety measures enough that the Act and the railway operators are satisfied that absent-minded pedestrians and drivers won’t physically be able to wander into the path of a train. The City needs to pay for these works, and the rail companies that own the crossings both have to approve them, then decide (after the work is done, natch) if it now constitutes adequate protection to no longer require every person in a 5km radius to be alerted of the trains’ presence.

The works in New West have been painfully slow. There were a few engineering challenges, including the need to order some special equipment that could only be provided by a supplier approved by a railway. The multiple steps of design, pre-approval, engineering drawings, waiting for clearance, approvals to work in the right of way, waiting for the rail company to do the bits only they are authorized to do, getting authorization to do the bits we are authorized to do… it was painful.

However, I am happy to announce that the City has officially notified all of the stakeholders who need to be informed* that the City will officially request that Whistle Cessation be brought into effect for the two Front Street crossings through a resolution at Council scheduled for February 6th, 2017.

There are also three level crossings in Sapperton, and I have no idea when whistle cessation will be brought to those. The engineering requirements as far as sight lines and approach angles for cars under the Skytrain pillars are such that it appears simply impossible to meet any existing regular whistle-free standard. We will try, and new road infrastructure along that corridor will be viewed through a lens of whistle cessation, but barring radical ideas, I’m not making any promises about when that will actually occur.

*The list of Stakeholders who were officially served letters informing them of the City’ intentions for the February 7th meeting included the four rail companies that regularly operate on that line, plus PLM Railcar Management Services (Canada) Ltd.; PROCOR Ltd.; General Electric Railcar Services Corporation; the Canadian Fertilizer Institute; the Canadian Chemical Producers Association; the United Transportation Union; the Transportation Communications International Union Systems Board; UNIFOR; Teamsters Canada Rail Conference; Travailleurs Unis Transport (1843); the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen; the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union; GATX Rail Canada; Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 279; International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the Propane Gas Association of Canada Inc. Dear God I hope we haven’t missed anyone. It’s absurd.

ASK PAT: Q’Boro watercourses.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Someone asked—

Hi Pat,
My partner and I live in Queensborough. We are both plant lovers and native plant specialists, and have come to love our little place by the river – such a magical mix of water, plants, and living things… We often take walks along the waterfront and up and down the tattered side roads with their open ditches filled with teeming plant and animal life. We are constantly enjoying the native plant life that has been cultivated and also occurs natively in the area, but have a number of concerns.

First and foremost, we recently noticed that in the last month or so, a large number of big trees and shrubs were removed from the riverfront with no notice. This is the side that faces Annicis Island, and I believe a lot of the trees were deciduous. Willows, Mountain Ash, and other trees were chopped down as well as the other herbaceous and woody plants. This is something we notice happening on a small scale along the ditches as well. Most importantly, we’d love to know why these large trees were cut down, most likely because of disease or pests, but absolutely no signage was placed on the path in the Aragon where all the cutting happened, and we are very curious about the city’s policy on controlling these wild areas, if any. Could you send some information our way please in terms of this? We’d also love to know what the plan is for the large biodiversity of plant and animal species that are consistently being eaten up by the growing development and if these open ditches and waterways will somehow remain untouched. We are looking forward to new development, the Q2Q bridge more than anything and additional retail, but it worries us to see so much changing too. We would also like to know what to do when we see ditches and waterways which are being clearly polluted by the nearby industrial?

Thanks so much for fighting for a better city for us all. We look forward to your responses, and finding a way to make Queensborough more of an example of environmental stewardship. There are few places like this left – water, plants, and living things together – that have the potential for so much life and health, and unfortunately there is much work to do still, and remediation to be completed on what was done long ago.

This is going to be one of those good-news bad-news answers, depending on how you feel about ditches/watercourses. I’m likely to go on at length here, as there are actually several questions here, and I’m going to try to hit them all systematically.

I also love the Queensborough waterfront, especially the south and east sides where the City and developers have invested in the restoration of the waterfront, and have effectively made it a comfortable human space and an ecologically productive space. We just had the 4th (5th?) annual shoreline cleanup along South Dike Road, and the impressive recovery of native species and ecology along the river is always inspiring.

qb4

The fate of inland ditches in Q’Boro is, however, one of those political hot-button issues, where someone is going to be unsatisfied whatever the City does. For all the people in Q’Boro who love the frogs, the dragonflies, the ducks and even the occasional stickleback, there is at least another who hates the murky water, garbage accumulation, loss of parking, and general untidiness of having an open ditch in their front yard. I’m not going to opine whether you are outnumbered or not, but you are definitely outvolumed by people demanding that the City get rid of the ditches and install “proper” sewers as soon as possible.

From an ecology point of view, some of the watercourses in Q’Boro are protected by the Riparian Areas Regulation (RAR), a provincial regulation that is, quixotically, managed completely by local governments. Not all “constructed watercourses” are protected, however, as ephemeral and isolated watercourses and those already severely impacted are not determined to have high enough ecological value to receive full protection of their riparian areas. Further, the riparian protection need on some of the larger ones plays second fiddle to the need for maintenance to keep the water flowing and houses from flooding.

The City performed an ecological mapping exercise back in 2010 that, amongst other things, showed the classifications of the watercourses in Q’Boro. Several of the larger ones (Class A and Class B) are protected, and are not likely to be filled in the long-term. There are provisions on in the RAR for preserving and improving the quality of the habitat around them, including trees and shrubs, which can curtail development and prevent them from being filled. When you balance the need to maintain these watercourses as conveyances with the need to protect the ecology, I wouldn’t say they will remain “untouched”, but more that our engineering folks will try to protect the native species and habitats as best they can while keeping people’s houses dry.

Filling in even the smaller, unprotected ditches creates yet another problem, this one purely engineering. An open watercourse can store and transport a lot more water than if a pipe was dropped into that watercourse and it was covered up. To replace the storm water management and flood protection capacity of all of the open watercourses in Q’Boro would require huge pipe infrastructure, and all of the associated catch basins, inspection chambers, and pump infrastructure. To make matters worse, the soils in Q’boro need just as much engineering and densification to hold up a sewer pipe as they do to hold up a housing complex, which significantly increases the cost. Don’t get me started on the shallow water table and the construction/maintenance problems it causes.

Therefore the City has developed a longer-term strategy to plan for, and pay for, drainage infrastructure improvements whee they are appropriate, and addressing the eventual filling of the smaller, disconnected ditches that are not protected by the RAR. New developments in Q’Boro pay into a special DCC earmarked for drainage improvements, separate from the mainland and dedicated to works in Q’Boro. When a developer builds in Q’Boro, we take advantage of the soil densification and drainage planning they are doing to make it more affordable to install new infrastructure.

Residents in the Single Family House neighbourhoods who wish to have the drainage closed on their block can do it through a “Local Area Service Plan”, where they get the work done in a cost-sharing with the City (and pay for it over time through their taxes), as long as it isn’t a watercourse protected by the Riparian Areas Regulation (i.e. Class C or worse). We received a report to council in September 2014 (see page 88 of this lengthy Council agenda if you are curious).

Now onto the trees. We do have a recently-adopted Tree Protection Bylaw that applies to new development, City lands and private lands. I don’t know the details of the tree removal you are talking about, but if it happened after the Tree Bylaw was adopted (January 13, 2016) and didn’t occur on Port-owned land, then there should have been a posted permit. If the trees were hazardous or dangerous (as determined by a professional Arborist) then they will be replaced on a one-for-one basis. If they were simply removed to facilitate development, they will be replaced on a two-for-one basis. It isn’t perfect (two young trees don’t necessarily provide the ecological benefit of one mature tree), but it balances the limits of power a local government can do when approving development on treed lots with our desire to have more trees in our community. When planning for trees, one must have a 20+ year vision.

What to do when you see industrial pollution in ditches? First off, you need to know if it is really “pollution”. The groundwater in Q’Boro is similar to adjacent Richmond, in that it is a product of being a former peat bog. The lack of gradient and boggy soils result in stagnant groundwater that, for a bunch of biochemistry and geochemistry reasons I won’t get into here (did I mention I’m an Environmental Geoscientist working in soil and groundwater protection?) has very low dissolved oxygen, low pH and lots of dissolved metals like iron and manganese. When that groundwater hits our ditches, it is exposed to atmospheric oxygen, causing those metals to precipitate out in to metal oxides (making it murky and rust-coloured), and in the presence of biology, more complex metalliferous organic compounds. What sometimes looks like and oil slick in the water may actually be a natural “metalliferous sheen”

That said, all the ditches in Q’Boro connect directly to the Fraser River without any kind of water treatment, so real polluting substances going into the ditches will more than likely find their way into the river. Section 36 of the federal Fisheries Act says you can’t do that, and enforcement of that law falls on Environment Canada. However, response to smaller spills in to fish habitat is a multi-level cooperative effort between EC, the provincial Ministry of Environment, the Coast Guard (if it hits the river) and local governments. In that sense, who you should call first probably depends on the situation.

If you see something curious, but you are not too sure, either use SeeClickFix or contact the City’s Engineering folks, and they will check it out.

If you see what is clearly a spill, and are worried about fish or see potential impacts to ducks or any such concern for wildlife, you should contact the provincial spill reporting phone / app, and they will triage and determine the proper level of response and response agencies.

If you see a dangerous spill, such as an overturned gasoline truck or a dump of dangerous substances where there may be human health or property damage implications, you should call 911 and ask for the fire department. They will be able to determine a safe response strategy, can arrange for evacuations or road closures, and can coordinate with the City’s engineering folks and senior governments whose job it is to stop the spread and coordinate the clean-up in a way that keeps people from getting hurt.

Finally, what can you do to see more ecological protection of Queensborough, and New Westminster in general? You might want to make contact with the New Westminster Environmental Partners. They organize the Q’Boro Shoreline Cleanup every year, and are always looking for interested and knowledgeable people to help with environmental protection advocacy and works. You can also consider joining the City’s Environment Advisory Committee, which advises Council on topics environmental. The application period for 2017 is open right now, and we don’t generally get a lot of applications from Q’Boro for City Committees. Bringing your voice to the table may help the City make better decisions regarding ecological protection of your neighbourhood.

Whoo Hoo! Two ASK PATs in a row that end with plugs for joining City Advisory Committees! People should really apply!

Ask Pat: Whither bike lanes?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

It’s been a while since I answered an Ask Pat question, and there are a bunch of them in the queue, so I’m sorry if I haven’t gotten to yours! I’m a little over programmed right now. All good stuff, just too much! So here we go with an Ask Pat from a guy with a suspicious name:

Patrick P. asks—

Hi Pat. I find it totally bizarre that while we allow new apartment towers to be built with hundreds of new parking spots for cars, it seems no thought has been given to mitigating all the extra traffic on the road, or to giving people a cycling alternative — or to the impact on our environment. We have no dedicated (separated) bike lanes, and my bicycle commute to central Burnaby has been a challenge as there are no signs indicating a safe route. Moreover I am very worried for the safety of children like mine who want to get around town by bicycle.
Are there any plans to make our city more cycling friendly, particularly around shopping areas? What can I do to help?

I hear you. As a person who rides a bike for recreation and for daily chores, and tries to commute by bike as much as I can, with a partner who commutes to Burnaby every day on a bike, I know we aren’t yet where we should be as far as cycling infrastructure. Short answer to Question 1 is yes, answer to Question 2 is way down below at the bottom of this post, so fix a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy (or just scroll past all the fluff to the bottom couple of paragraphs)

There is a strange thing about traffic in New West: it mostly isn’t us. Two great statistics that tell you about our traffic problem is that the City has the highest percentage of its land dedicated to roads of any municipality in BC, and that New Westies drive less and own fewer cars per capita than the residents of any municipality in BC (with the exception of the City of Vancouver). Yet traffic is our #1 problem, because people like driving through New West. Presumably, they like it because they don’t have better options, not because of the nice views or the friendly demeanor of our residents.

So in that sense, if we have a car traffic problem, it isn’t the people living in towers on top of SkyTrain nodes. The extra 300 residents with (following our demographic trends) 200 more cars, used only 50% of the time, are a drop in the bucket of the 400,000 cars a day (a number I do NOT have a source for, but a number used anecdotally to describe our through-traffic for rhetorical purposes by virtually everyone) that ply our streets. There is an entire political conversation about whether parking minimums for new developments are good public policy, but I don’t think that is where you are going with your question.

Arguably, providing more housing alternatives in New Westminster (including those towers on SkyTrain nodes, and “missing middle” family-friendly housing forms) will act as a disincentive to people commuting through our City, by providing people better options that living to the east of us when they work to the west of us (you can change either of those directions to point to the same problem). The entire model for the Regional Growth Strategy and Regional Transportation Plan is based on that idea – compact, transit-friendly, mixed-use development as opposed to car-centric sprawled single-use development. New Westminster is (IMHO) leading the way for this development model regionally, and is, unfortunately, still straddled with the traffic impacts of neighbouring communities not talking as active a role in changing how they develop to suit the regional vision.

But you live in New West, work in nearby Burnaby, and want to be more comfortable riding your bike to work and to shop. Even better you want to feel safe sending your kids off to school riding their bikes. You (and I’m not just saying this because of your great given name) are part of the solution, and are fortunate to have the opportunities in your work/life/health/etc. to make that choice. The City should be making it easier for you.

I think we are, but perhaps not as quickly as either of us would like, through implementation of our new Master Transportation Plan. Passed before I was elected (although I served on the advisory committee), this plan represents a monumental shift in how we, as a City, are going to look at investing in our transportation system.

First off, it places active modes at the top of the priority list:

heirarchy

To me, that means we are going to spend less on making the asphalt smooth, and more on making the sidewalks, bike routes, and transit system operate better for all users. To you and me, that may seem obvious; to enshrine it in a master planning document means we are charged (us elected types and staff of the City) to do it, and put our budget where out mouth is.

What does this look like on the ground? For the first time, New Westminster is investing in green paint. It has taken a bit of time, and in the first year of MTP implementation we really invested more in primary pedestrian and transit accessibility (we are aiming for 100% accessible sidewalk curb cuts by 2018, and 96% accessible bus stops, which leads the region on both counts). We have also staffed up a bit in our transportation department to expand our ability to plan and deliver these projects. This next phase does include some significant cycling improvements.

We have already identified some “quick wins” for cyclists, where a bit of engineering can make a few key links on our established greenways work better. You will see things at 20th and London Street, 7th Ave between Moody Park and 5th Street, under the Queensborough Bridge in Queensborough, and between Braid Station and United Boulevard (for a few examples) right away. A few other slightly more challenging issues (a hill-friendly bike route connecting Downtown to Uptown) are being worked on, as are designs for the Agnes Greenway, and an extended greenway from Braid Station to Sapperton Landing Park. Safe Routes to School and Safe cycling to school are also high on the priority list.

As an aside, you probably have no idea how much that green paint costs. On a square-foot basis, it would be cheaper to do engineered hardwood. But we will probably save long-term on maintenance.

The best I can offer you is small relief in the immediate future, with a long-term vision towards a properly developed integrated and complete bike network. It is going to take a few years, but the MTP gives us the vision, and I think Council has the political drive to make it happen. When compared to Vancouver, we are a small municipality with a limited budget, so multiple separated bike lanes and the assorted infrastructure (lights, signs, paint, paving) to make them really work ideally, are an expensive prospect. I can’t guarantee they will arrive tomorrow, only that this is the direction we are headed, and I’ll be advocating for our budget allocations to suit the priorities we have set through our MTP.

If you think you have good ideas about cycling infrastructure needs in New West, there are two ways you can help.

You can apply to join the advisory committee in the City that works to make New West a better place for cyclists, pedestrians and transit users: ACTBiPed. I happen to chair that committee, and served on it for a couple of years before I was elected. I think we have managed to make it an effective group where staff and community members work together on “big picture” strategies, and also take time to dig into the detailed design elements of new infrastructure to assure they work for active transportation users. The City is receiving applications right now for 2017 Committee appointments, and you can get all the info you need to apply right here.

If working within the system doesn’t satisfy your needs, you can also get involved with the local HUB Chapter, who advocate for better cycling infrastructure and funding, locally and at the regional level. New West hosted their AGM a couple of weeks ago, and it was great to hear about the work being done in the local chapters across the region. The local group is also instrumental in getting elementary school kids trained to ride their bikes safely, running cycling safety and skills courses with the School District. They are also a very helpful voice at the table when we are making decisions about cycling infrastructure in the City. You should become a member, and then decide if you can give them your time, donate them some money, or whatever combination of the two fits your lifestyle the best!

Finally, you can ride your bike, and use SeeClickFix when you run into problems, to let City staff know that good cycling infrastructure is wanted, and bad cycling infrastructure is noticed, by residents of the City.

We are working on the MTP, on making this a better place to ride a bike, but we could always use more motivation from our residents!

ASK PAT: Electrical utility

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Chelsea asks—

Why does New Westminster have its own electrical utility? What benefits does it deliver to residents and businesses? Seeing as every time Hydro raises its rates to pay for new infrastructure or repairs we have to raise ours too.

Reason I ask is that as a single homeowner living in an apartment, I pay a flat rate that is higher than BC Hydro’s step 1 rates, and I never use enough electricity to move me into step 2 if we were on BC Hydro. So basically…families and people who use a lot of power over a two-month billing period are getting a discount compared to BCH, and I’m paying more.

We also don’t get the benefits of online access to our electricity consumption or basic things like e-bills. It’s nice that I could still pay my bill in person at City Hall if I chose…but I think I’d take being able to see my usage online, just like my cellphone bill or my cable/Internet.

I could have sworn I already wrote this blog post and drawn the graph below, but I can’t find anything in my archives, so I guess I just dreamed about it, or half-wrote it then moved on. So thanks for the reminder!

First off, we have our own electrical utility because we have always had our own electrical utility. It started in 1891, which makes it 70 years older than BC Hydro, and even 7 years older than Hydro’s grandfather, BC Electric Railway Company. Though most local municipal power systems across BC were amalgamated into BC Hydro (or West Kootenay Power, now FortisBC, or other entities), a few still remain independent.

The most obvious benefit is that the City makes money selling electricity. We purchase it at wholesale rates from BC Hydro, and we sell it at retail rates similar to what BC Hydro charges users in adjacent communities (more on this below). The difference between the two is about $8 Million a year. Some of that goes to pay for the operation of the utility (maintaining all those poles and wires, and the staff to do so) and contingency funds to pay for asset replacement as the system ages, but a significant portion of it goes into the City’s coffers, where it effectively offsets property taxes.

There are a few other benefits as well. We generally have more reliable power service and faster response during storm events, because we have dedicated crews and contractors who concentrate on dealing with New West issues while BC Hydro is sometimes stretched a little thin during large storm events. We also, by owning so much of our own utility assets, can leverage that for things like installing a fibre network (happening now) and district energy utilities (coming soon, I hope).

Historically, our Electrical Utility has emphasized reliable service and economy, and has (how can I put this politely…) lagged behind a bit on customer service innovation like on-line billing. They don’t have much of a web presence, and mostly operate out of a non-descript building adjacent to our works yard. Even finding out how our rates work can be a bit of a challenge with the City’s website, as most customers would not think to search for Schedule A of the Electrical Utility Bylaw to get answers. Really, in 2016, they shouldn’t have to. This is a place where a little Community Engagement effort would go a long way.

Now onto the rates issue. The City’s policy has been to maintain retail rates similar to BC Hydro retail rates, and overall when all of our different residential, commercial, industrial, and other rates are combined together, you find this is the case. However, the actual structure of how we charge is slightly different, and ultimately, some people pay a little more than they would on BC Hydro, some pay a little less.

As you have discovered, our base rate for residential users (the amount you pay to have an account, regardless of electrical use) works out to be a few cents higher per 2-month billing period (New West charges $11.92 per 2-month period, BC Hydro charges $0.1835 per day). We then charge a flat $0.0993/ kWh of use, where BC Hydro charges $0.0829 for the first 1350kWh per billing period (2 months) and $0.1243 for any above 1350kWh. So, although collectively, we pay about the same rate, residential users (like you and I ) who use less electricity probably pay more per unit relative to BC Hydro rates, that people who use a lot. To graph it out, it looks like this:

graph1

According to BC Hydro, the average BC household uses about 900kWh of electricity every month. If this average holds true for New West, then the average household is paying about $5.80 per month more than they would in a BC Hydro service area, or almost $70 more per year. Strangely, if you are an efficient apartment dweller and use half that amount of electricity, your monthly New West premium is even higher – at $93 per year.

If you use about 1130kWh per month, then your rates are the same as BC Hydro, and the more you use, the more your savings go up. At twice the average, 1800kWh/month, you would get about a $200 per year discount off BC Hydro rates by living in New West.

As our rate structure is flat, you are not subsidizing larger users – we all pay the same for each unit of electricity in New West. However, comparison to BC Hydro’s stepped rate structure gives the impression that we are encouraging consumption, but not doing enough to actively discourage it. If you add the base and metered values together, here is the true cost of what you pay for every kWh of electricity, based on your usage:

graph2

For context, my (admittedly back-of-the envelope) estimate is that the average New West household saves about $160 a year in Property Taxes (or, depending on your viewpoint, receives $160 worth of extra services from the City they don’t need to pay for through taxes) because we have an electrical utility and the profit it earns for the City. That might make you feel better, except that property taxes index with the value of your home, so again, the big-house-owner probably gets more benefit than the apartment dweller.

In summary, I don’t think this is good. I support the concept of City using the Electrical Utility to provide a financial benefit to the residents that own the utility, and offset their taxes. I support using “similar to BC Hydro” as the benchmark for our retail rates. However, I think the impression of benefitting larger users that is created by our flat rate structure sends the wrong message. I remember asking some questions about this back when I was still pretty new to the job, and I seem to remember getting a report that more of less confirmed what the graph above shows.

I’m not on the Electrical Commission, and I’m not sure when the next rate review will occur, but I’ll see what I can do.

Ask Pat: 8th Street

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

Pedestrian asks—

What is the future of 8th Street? Reading through the Master Transportation Plan I believe that I’ve spotted some inconsistencies. For example, on page 90 8th St is noted as a Great Street and that with a consistent 30 metre right of way it could become four lanes from Downtown to the Burnaby border. There is also discussion of potential bus priority access. However I don’t see any other reference in the MTP to 8th Street being a Great Street. Further, 8th St is classified as a Local Collector. According to page 136 Local Collectors should only be two lanes.

Can you provide more information that would correct these inconsistencies? What does bus priority access mean anyhow?

For what it is worth my personal perspective is that the current width of 8th St creates an artificial barrier in the Brow of the Hill neighbourhood. Further, the absence of a boulevard on the East side of the street and no street trees make for a lacklustre pedestrian environment. I’d hate for the street to be widened, making the problem even worse. With Fraser River Middle School opening up this fall, and developments at 4th Ave wrapping up around the same time, now is the perfect time to clarify direction.

In the short term: not much. There is no capital plan or budget right now allocated to changing the streetscape of 8th Street. There will be a few crossing improvements (Dublin, 7th Ave) and some local improvements as development occurs (like in front of Fraser River Middle School), and these will be informed by the long term vision provided by the Master Transportation Plan.

There is a typo on the MTP that may be causing some confusion. The reference to 8th Street being a “Great Street” on page 90 is wrong, as the Great Streets map on Page 108 and the entirety of Section 4.4 make no reference to it. This makes sense, as aside from a few short stretches, there is little retail on 8th Street, and there is little chance of it becoming a primarily commercial corridor like 6th Street or the other identified “Great Streets”.

As you point out, 8th St. has some other characteristics that don’t necessarily match the designated use. In the MTP it is designated as a City Collector road, but it has many of the characteristics of an Arterial, although the street varies in use along its length. The disconnect between how the road is designated, how it is designed, and how it works, is shown on the following table (all info from the MTP):8thtable

So outside of the MTP, recognizing there are no immediate capital plans changing the road, and to your point of it not being a very friendly road (dare I say “pre-Stroad”?) right now, what can we envision for the future of 8th St.?

lower8th
Google Street View, no permission sought.

The portion below Royal is exceptionally wide (more than 20m curb-to-curb in some spots), and is predominantly a pedestrian space, despite various attempts to corral and displace pedestrians to “get traffic moving”. This is the only part of 8th that has traffic volumes within the “City Collector” ideal – less than 8,000 vehicles per day. Everything about this tells me we should be reducing the driving width of this street, and improve the pedestrian realm. The massive daily flow of students between the New Westminster Station and Douglas College shouldn’t be crowded on a narrow sidewalk while waiting for pedestrian lights to change. The City should not have built the Anvil Centre (or allowed Plaza88 to be built) in such a way that parking garage entrances and loading bays disgorge into what should be a pedestrian-first place, but that ship has now sailed. This doesn’t mean we can’t think about re-allocating underused road space and shifting priorities to active users.

mid8th
more Google Street View, not sure how legal this is.

The portion between Royal and 6th Ave is essentially residential, although traffic counts here are higher. It operates as a true “collector” in the sense that the adjacent local roads dump traffic onto 8th as the route to the regional road system (be that Royal Ave, Canada Way, or wherever). The 15-m curb-to-curb width is still pretty wide for a two-lane road, and parking is both free and plentiful. A few curb extensions at important intersections (3rd Ave, 5th Ave) help improve pedestrian safety, but the open road feel definitely encourages travel speed greater than the regulated 50km/h, which combined with expansive asphalt and a general lack of trees, adds to the “barrier” feel you mention. There are some planned improvements around the new Middle School, but I doubt there would be any desire or political will to expand this road to 4 travelling lanes. The traffic doesn’t warrant it, and the impact on the livability of the community would be profound.

upper8th
but hey, Google just took these photos without asking permission…

The portion between 6th and 10th is harder to peg. The lanes are a bit chaotic, parking intermittent, and at more than 20,000 vehicles per day, the traffic is pushing the upper limits of what an Arterial should be handling. This is one of the main connections from the Brow and Uptown to the regional road network (Canada Way), so I guess it isn’t surprising that the end of all the collectors is a logjam. At the same time, it has a High School, one of our most frequented parks, some high-density residential areas, and our largest commercial centre. It is crossed by two Greenways and is frequented by a large number of seniors. It is a mess, and likely the most Stroad-like road we have in New West, but solutions here are difficult to find. There will be re-writing of the interface with NWSS when the new school is built, but I don’t see much other relief any time soon, mostly due to vehicle load.

Finally, Bus Priority Lanes are just that: lanes where B-line type buses can have priority over traffic uses, although not specifically bus-only lanes, as they may share space with right-turning cars or general traffic in some locations. They come in several flavours, but are not common in urban areas of the Lower Mainland. Highway 99 has them approaching the tunnel, and East Hastings through Burnaby has a version of this. They might be considered in the future for 8th if traffic loads increase to the point where congestion seriously impacts bus operations, but I do not think we would consider installing more asphalt to make them happen.

ASK PAT: Car allowance

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Mark asks—

Hi Pat

A question regarding the recent council compensation recommendations, specifically the car allowance. Given the city and council’s vocal support for increased transit spending, reducing traffic in the city and it’s occasional touting of how great the city is in terms of transportation mode share, why would council (well, you at least since we’re on ask Pat) support a flat payment for automotive use?

Given their advocacy on the matter, council members should be leading by example on this. The city has excellent skytrain and decent bus service, and is well connected regionally. Why not give councilors transit passes to cover their travel?

Of course not all commitments can be met by transit, and yes councilors should be free to expense appropriate mileage (or taxis, rentals, car shares, etc) related to their duties. But simply giving councilors money for their automotive expenses runs counter to what the city and council is pushing for.

Appreciate your thoughts and the time to reply, and thanks for keeping up the blog.

Yep, I agree with you. The “car allowance” is a stupid idea for a City of 15 square kilometres, with the densest transit coverage and highest alternative mode share of any community outside of downtown Vancouver, and a Master Transportation Plan that takes priority away from the private automobile as the primary form of transportation. We have a Mayor who walks to work, one Councillor who never drives and a couple others (including me) who make it a point not to use a car to get around within town. A “car allowance” makes no sense.

Of course, it isn’t a “car allowance”, or even the HR-preferred vernacular “vehicle allowance”. It is a “transportation allowance”, as we can use it on any mode we like. We can top up a Compass Card, hire a taxi, gas up our car, get a Modo membership, or buy replacement tires for my bike.

Of course, it isn’t even a “transportation allowance”. It is $100 we get to spend on whatever we want. We are not required to provide receipts or justification, so this is little more than a taxable top-up of our salary. As a Councillor, I will get $1,200 more per year above the “base salary”, and whether that adequately compensates me for the transportation cost related to my job is kind of secondary (which makes it different than our other expense allowances, because they are actually backed up by policy guidance and we need to provide receipts and get them passed by HR, just like any expenses you might accrue in your regular job).

This issue arises from the once-every-term review of Council remuneration, which is always a sticky point. I don’t want to get into a long discussion about how much elected officials should get paid here, because that is pretty philosophical topic with wide differences of opinion, and wasn’t your question. However, it is apropos to discuss what a good governance model is to determine how much elected officials get paid. The decision we made this spring was, in my look at it, more about approving the process than the numbers.

When it comes to local government in BC, it is up to the Mayor/Councillors to determine their own pay. This is a direct conflict-of-interest that is not only permitted under the provincial law regulating local governments, but required by it! In that context, good governance requires that Mayor and Council don’t make a capricious decision and write their own cheques, but that they permit the professional staff in their HR and Finance departments to determine an appropriate process to determine appropriate compensation. The best we (and by “we”, I mean citizens and elected types) can hope for is that the process is transparent and defensible. Where both transparency and defensibility break down is when one or more elected official tries to supersede or run around that process, be it for personal or political reasons.

The process we have in New West is that every 4 years, HR staff compare the wages and benefits of elected officials in New West to those in comparable cities – a collection of other Lower Mainland municipalities, excepting the biggest (Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond) and the smallest (Bowen Island, Anmore, Belcarra) and do regression analysis on several statistics (population, budget, size of Council), with the guidance being to keep our Council firmly in the middle. Between those every-4-year adjustments, annual increases are indexed to CPI. You may suggest a better system, but HR has explained their rationale through reports, find it defensible and transparent. The process made sense to me, in that I could understand the rationale, could follow the numbers and do the math, and it made sense, so I supported it.

As for the “vehicle allowance”? I don’t like it, think it is a bad idea for all the reasons you state. However, respecting the process that provides good governance makes it hard to pick and choose the results of that process. HR and our external consultants determined what constitutes fair compensation based on a policy guideline that was, essentially: do what other similar Cities do. Apparently “car/travel/transportation allowance” is now part of that. We could have rolled it into the regular wage and compared across the municipalities and come up with a wage number that is $1,200 higher per year, but HR determined that making it a taxable expense makes more sense from an HR perspective.

I’m not sure raising a stink and pulling apart that process is the appropriate way to manage my discomfort about the symbolism of a “Car Allowance” in 2016 in New Westminster. How do I do it without calling into question the process – one that I have essentially been at arms-length from to reduce the conflict of interest created by the legislative structure – and not opening the door for a very political discussion with everyone making whatever adjustment suits their specific desires, political position, or special idea? I would argue of all the decisions we make as a Council, this is one where our personal politics need to be ignored, and the decision made (effectively) by staff.

So I don’t really have an answer to the “Car Allowance” question (at least not one I could come up with and propose in a reasonable timeline), but it is clear my personal political opinion is that it is a bad idea. This is something I am thinking about as I think our entire organization at City Hall needs to do a better job walking the walk when it comes to Transportation Demand Management. We are asking residents and businesses in the City to adapt to a more sustainable transportation system, but are slow to adopt progressive change as a corporate entity. Obviously, that argument is easier to make if us elected officials take a position of leadership. I’ve put this issue on my To Do list, and hope to have a better answer for you prior to the next time we go through this exercise.

Ask Pat: City Vehicles

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Someone asked—

Hey Pat, recently heard that (according to the bylaw office) city vehicles are not required to obey parking regulations or bylaws and can ultimately park anywhere they want, at any time, for whatever reason with impunity. Is this really true?

The bylaw officer was right, but I think you may be reading too much into it.

The City’s Street Traffic Bylaw regulates who can park where. The Bylaw is a little long-in-tooth, and a new one is being drafted up right now (hopefully ready by the end of the summer), but for now, it is the best we have.

Section 400 of the Bylaw outlines the various parking regulations, and the following parts are relevant to your question:

413. Notwithstanding anything elsewhere contained in this bylaw, the provisions relating to stopping or parking of vehicles shall not apply to:
413.1 vehicles used in conjunction with the servicing of public utilities including telephone systems, electric systems, natural gas systems and cablevision systems;
413.2 municipal and other Government vehicles;
413.3 towing service vehicles; or
413.4 armored carriers;
while such vehicles are actually engaged in works of necessity on a street requiring them to be stopped or parked. This exemption does not relieve the drivers of such vehicles from taking due precautions to indicate the presence of such vehicles on the street while so parked or stopped.

So as long as the City Vehicle is being used for City business, and needs to be parked there to get that business done, then it is exempt from the laws. The driver is expected, however, to practice due diligence and take reasonable safety precautions while exercising that exemption. So I wouldn’t say it is total impunity, but it is pretty relaxed.

And really, do we want the City charging the City to park? Who needs the paperwork, and who is served by it?

ASK PAT: Begbie redux

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Sleepless asks—

Hi Pat,

I asked a question about train whistle cessation last year, which you answered on November 25, 2015. See: https://www.patrickjohnstone.ca/2015/11/ask-pat-whistle-cessation.html .

It is now six months after I asked, and four months into the new year, and the trains are still whistling away merrily downtown. In fact, the amount of whistling appears to have increased since the Front Street reconstruction project started.

I just noticed an update on the CNW web site (http://www.newwestcity.ca/database/files/library/Train_Whistle_Cessation_Update___May_2016(1).pdf), stating that: “formal application
for whistle cessation may need to be delayed until the Front Street upgrade is complete in August”. That is an additional eight month delay on a project that has already been delayed for almost two years!

In your previous reply, you stated that you are starting to question how the City sets timelines, and I couldn’t agree more. Why does every project undertaken by the city get delayed by months or years? Isn’t it time to have a long, hard look at the city’s planning processes and investigate why they keep failing to deliver projects on time?

Actually, since that conversation I have had some discussions with people in our engineering department regarding transportation projects and timelines, and I am slightly more sympathetic towards their challenges. Especially in regards to some areas where I have a specific interest: active transportation, transit, and accessibility issues. I don’t want to get into details here, but there are some resource issues internally, and some of the priority shifts that the new Council and the new MTP are demanding mean we need to spend a bit more time steering ship and little less time motoring ahead… the ship of government steers slowly, I’m afraid.

That said, many projects are moving ahead in a very timely manner. The Parkade east-refurbishment / west-removal project is pretty much on schedule despite a few early hiccups, and the Mews work is similarly looking like it will be completed reasonably close to on time, and on budget. Moody Park playgrounds, numerous smaller transportation projects, and policy work around Heritage Protection and the Tree Bylaw, things that are less visible but very staff intensive, were completed in a very timely manner. I wish I could say the same about the Begbie Crossing.

However, the Begbie Crossing work, along with the other whistle cessation projects, is not completely under the control of the City. The rail companies are replacing the rails, the level crossing treatment and the controls. They operate on their own schedule based on their own needs. Council commonly gets updates from Staff, and I am confident that we are doing everything in our power to get this project completed. I still hope the Begbie work will be completed by August.

However, you do raise the bigger question – why does it seem that projects always take longer than expected, not less time?

First off – and I don’t think this is unique to New West, but has become the default in our crazy busy hyper-competitive construction market – is a general industry trend towards overpromising and underperforming . Remember, most of this work is not being done by City crews anymore, the majority of it is contracted out. With many things on the go, it is hard to oversee every aspect of an operation – careful management of the Critical Path takes resources, which brings us to a problem more about New West.

We are a City of 66,000 people, relatively small in the great scheme of things. However, our expectations are the same as those for the residents of the larger cities that surround us. We have lots of things on the go right now, and a relatively small staff managing them.

I think some of this falls on Council, as we often create new initiatives before we see the existing initiatives completed. In my short time on council, there has been not just a “yes we can” ethos, but a “Yes we should!” ethos. Setting priorities is sometimes difficult, but never as difficult as slotting something new into an existing set of priorities is. If you look at our recently-completed Annual Report, you can see that we have set a clear set of priorities, which should help both staff and Council better coordinate our desires, which (in theory) should help us hit more deadlines. So I have taken to asking staff, when new initiatives come along, how they fit into our existing strategies, to assure we are not putting last week’s priority aside to address this week’s.

Which circles me back to the first point – I’m not sure we are doing that bad a job. Whistle cessation is definitely lagging behind, for many reasons outside of our control. The 4th Street Elevator is a notable timeline fiasco, and there is a great story to be told about contractor vs. designer vs. inspectors on that one. However, there are many other capital works, from road repairs to sewer and other utility work, that is coming in on time. We had a recent report to Council from SRY about the Whistle Cessation progress, on Queesnborough and Quayside, and it looks good.

I’m sorry the project that is having the biggest effect on your day-to-day (or more night-to-night) life is so stuck in purgatory. All I can do is continue to ask staff where we are with the timeline, and reinforce that this is a priority for the City and for Council. I hope you can get a good night sleep soon!

ASK PAT: The Timber Wharf

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Daniel asks—

Can we do something with the giant paved lot near Westminster Pier Park (where the shipping container W is)? It’s such a waste of space. Westminster Pier Park is amazing but i think the area could really use more grass space to lay down, play some bocce, toss a football around etc…Another suggestion would be providing additional basketball court(s), tennis courts. There is a real dearth of outdoor sport facilities in the downtown area. Could this empty lot not be temporarily re-purposed into any of these things rather than just the empty black surface it is now? Love what the city has done by putting volleyball courts adjacent to that lot, but are there plans to re-purpose the other lot as well?

We call that part of the park the “Timber Wharf”. My understanding of the history of the space (and this was before my time on Council) is that it was originally going to be programmed as part of the Pier Park project, but that got scaled back during the park development because of unexpected environmental remediation costs that stressed the budget, and generally unfavorable geotechnical assessments for that part of the wharf. The underpinnings are not in great shape, and are going to need some repairs and upgrades before the space is permanently programmed or anything heavy is placed on it, hence the temporary installations there now.

The longer-term plan is to program that space, which will make it more amenable for some of the uses you describe, but I think the priorities for spending right now are in trying to connect the park to the east to complete that part of the waterfront connection to Sapperton Landing and the Brunette River. The capital cost of upgrading the timber wharf isn’t in the budget right now, so I suspect the “permanent” fix is going to have to wait a few years.

In the shorter term, I would love to hear suggestions about temporary programming. We are pretty limited in regards to installing anything of significant mass (the engineering hassles with WOW New West were… substantial), and are even unlikely to be able to smooth the asphalt surface much, but paint and temporary installations are possible if we can find a bit of room the Parks budget.

This also gives me a chance to promote two cool things going on in that area in the very short term – like right now!.

Through a partnership with Live 5-2-1-0, Kids New West, Fraser Health, and School District 40, a Play box is being installed at the Timber Wharf. This is a box full of toys, balls, and outdoor games to help kids get active and have fun in the relatively un-programmed space. It is free to use, and will be opened every morning and re-secured at night. This is the first time this public playbox program has come to New West, although it has been successful in a few other nearby municipalities. If you have kids, take them down and see what may emerge!

There is no better time to go down to the Timber Wharf and check it out than during the Pier2Landing street party coming up on June 19th. We are going to be encouraging people to take advantage of the currently-closed stretch of Front Street that connects the east end of the Pier Park with the west end of Sapperton Landing Park. There will be live entertainment and arts and booths and a BBQ and the usual street festival stuff, but there will also be a lot of open road space on Front where you can bring your own entertainment (road hockey, anyone?). We can look ahead to a me when these two waterfront parks are connected by an urban greenway. Or we can dream of a time when Front Street is no longer a regional through-fare, but is an active street connecting residents to the waterfront – even those who choose to not strap themselves to a couple of tonnes of carbon-spewing steel and plastic first…

Dare to dream.