Tag: New Westminster

3 shorts: Traffic, Coal, and Anvils.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I am crazy busy these days, and I’m not feeling that good right now. Work and other life-like things are causing me a little bit of stress at this moment, and I am about to take off for a little vacation, before which I need to get a lot of things done. Also, there is apparently some sort of holiday coming up which requires preparation and such. So blogging will be a little light this December. I need to concentrate on real life, Ms.NWimby, and trying to get a little exercise and reading (for sanity preservation), so my writing time is something that might have to give a bit for a short while.

To hold you, my dedicated readers (Hi Mom!), here are some short takes on the local news stories that seem to matter right now, and yes, I’ll keep them short:

1) Pattullo Traffic resulting from Port Mann tolls: It is too early to tell anything. At this point we have anecdotes, and the plural of anecdote is not data. We will all have inkling feelings traffic is a little better or a little worse, but the true impacts will not be known until well into the new year, when we get some data from the City and/or TransLink. Good to see New West and Surrey are having Council-to-Council discussions about the fate of the Pattullo though. My only question is what too so long.

2) The proposed coal terminal in Surrey: The alleged dust concerns bother me none: worse stuff than a little coal dust will enter our airshead from the BunkerC and diesel burned by the boats and trains transporting the stuff, and the facility will not be used for storage, but just for direct transfer from the trains to the barges. Still, the stuff is kind of nasty as far as any spills into the River, and the idea that we are happily shipping lower-grade thermal coal to be burned in far east power plants seems to thumb a nose at the idea of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Profiteering from Climate Change while saying it is a problem and “someone else should address it” is a bit, I don’t know, unethical, isn’t it?

3) The latest revelations about the MUCF deal going sour. Apologies to Chris Bryan and all the Twitteratti who have been all over this, but this (seems to me) much ado about very little. Admittedly, I have only given a quick read to the heavily-redacted document attained by FOI and posted by the NewsLeader, but it appears to outline the pre-Memorandum-of-Understanding phase of the negotiations between UPG and the City. Seems the developer made an initial offer to build the entire building and then give the semi-finished MUCF Anchor Centre over to the City, at a cost to the City close to the $35 Million earmarked for the project in the DAC funds.

At first pass, this sounds like a much better deal than the $94 Million the City is currently estimating the complete building will cost. $35 Million is definitely less than $94 Million. But we are not comparing apples to apples here.

Remember this drawing? The MUCF sandwich: this is what the City is budgeting: $12.5M for a three-level car garage, $41.5M for the completed MUCF Anchor Centre, $33M for the Office Tower, and $7M for “fitting out” the tower once a client is found. The City now has complete say over all aspects of design and layout, and once built, the City will own all of it – the $94 Million building, the land it sits upon and the air it sits within. Much of that will be a sale-able asset, or will return a revenue stream.

Although much of the financial detail is redacted, we can develop a pretty good picture of what the deal offered by UPG looked like from the document in the story.

The City gives UPG some undisclosed amount of money, which is apparently close to the $35 Million available from DAC Funds (7th bullet point, Executive Summary). For that, the City gets the shell of the MUCF Anchor Centre.  Even the fit-out and appointment of the MUCF Anchor Centre is at the cost and risk of the City (see third paragraph, page 23), and not part of the guaranteed cost. The City does not get the two-level parking lot: it belongs to UPG, and if the City wants their own level of parking they need to pitch in another $7 Million. (see note 5 on page 22). The City cannot even dictate the parking rates in its own MUCF Anchor Centre.  The City would still own the land under the MUCF Anchor Centre, but not any of the air parcels for the two levels of parking or the tower. Actually, they were bound to leasing some of that air space for the exclusive use of the Office Tenants for $1 a year, for perpetuity (Point 7, Page 27) and keeping the rest of the airspace free for perpetuity to protect the views of the tenants, for no compensation. The City would need to pay for the demolition of the existing structures and takes all of the demolition/ excavation/ contamination risk; Even the risk of changes in construction costs or delays in schedule fall on the City, not UPG (See note 8, page 25)

Another way to look at this deal: UPG gets to build and outfit a $40 Million office tower building, $5 Million worth of parking spaces, and two retail outlets (the restaurant and coffee shop) on land they are given for free in the centre of an urban downtown adjacent to a busy crossroads and a SkyTrain Station. Their timing, construction and marketing risk are externalized, to the point where they even get final approval on what is built across the street (point 8, page 27) while they maintain the right to make all of the contracting decisions. For this, they have to build the City a $35 Million building, but the City is going to pay them the $35 million for that building! So their first sale is guaranteed by the City!

Yikes. With all due respect to everyone involved, suddenly I’m not surprised the subsequent attempts by the City and the UPG to complete a deal based on this proposal didn’t work out. I cannot imagine what the critics of the failed deal would have said if they saw this deal signed by the City.

Actually, I can imagine. I just imagine it being very similar to what they are saying now.

Our New Motto?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

There has been a little recent on-line and print chatter about the “Royal City” moniker. It seems to stem from an off-hand comment by noted New Westminster philanthropist and style maven Bob Rennie, who suggested if we want to sell more condominiums, we should update our image. Lose the “Royal City” and the Crown motif, and start fresh.

Our Mayor, never one to lack vision, suggested off-the-cuff that to some people in New Westminster, the idea of losing the “Royal City” might be considered blasphemy. And we are off to the races.

There have been letters to the editor, lots of on-line chatter, both sides of the issue have been discussed. The subsequent announcement of the Anvil Centre naming, a name that nods deeply to traditions, mixed with its appropriately-modern NFL-Helmet-ready swoopy logo only added fuel to the low smoulder. Fanned again by Councillor Cote’s recent post on a much better local blog than this one admitting to mixed feelings about the return of “swag lights” to Downtown New Westminster. Do these lights demonstrate an excitement and sense of place, or do they just evoke a historic time that ain’t coming back, and perhaps the money could be invested better elsewhere?

I was, up to now, a little ambivalent about these ideas. I like the “Royal City” moniker, although I am anything but a royalist. There is a tradition there worth preserving, and there are (to quote myself) ways that a clever marketer can bring excitement to the Royal City motto without evoking paisley wallpaper and tea sets. I don’t think it looks like Snoop Dog’s jewel-encrusted crown or Kate’s foetus, but I honestly don’t know what it looks like. Hey, I’m a scientist, not a marketing guy.

However, it occurred to me reading this week’s paper that our solution may be at hand. Our good friends at the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure have already provided us a handy new motto, and they are already splattering the new logo all over the roads South of the Fraser:

Artist’s rendition – I haven’t seen the actual signs.

Goodbye “Royal City”. Hello “Toll-Free Alternative”.

That’s right, we think of New Westminster as a community where we live, work and play, where we raise our kids, do our shopping, go to the park, and spend our idle time polishing our crown motifs and complaining about the Socialists. The Ministry of Transportation sees New Westminster as a place where drivers who don’t wish to pay for use of the $3.3 Billion bridge they were all clamoring for can instead zoom along surface streets, past our residential driveways and through our school zones! We have arrived! .

Think of all the tag lines opportunities:

“400,000 drivers a day can’t be wrong!”
“Stay for the stop lights – then please move along”
“Our pedestrians may be slow, but at least they’re soft!”
“Don’t have $3 for a toll? We have dollar stores!”
“If you lived here, you’d enjoy this traffic all day!”
“We put the ‘rough’ in Thoroughfare!”

Again… maybe I just don’t get marketing.

UPDATE: Astute reader and man-about-town Jeremy pointed out to me that “Royal City” isn’t really a motto, it is more of a nickname. You should take all of those times above where I misuse “motto” and stick in “moniker” or “nickname” or some such word. I would do it, but I’m lazy, and busy, and tired from a hard curling weekend.  

This is vitally important because the City already has an official big-M Motto right there on its Wikipedia page: “In God we Trust”. And there’s nothing dated or old fashioned about that!  

Tunnels as problem solvers.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

It’s inevitable, whenever discussion of traffic issues in New Westminster carry on for long enough, the topic of tunnels come up. Makes sense, as we are overloaded with traffic and there is no undeveloped space upon which we can build more lanes. So there is a portion of New Westminster population who figure tunnels are the solution to all of the City’s through-traffic woes.

During the last Municipal Election, one mayoral candidate evoked the McBride Tunnel as the solution to the increased traffic that would be caused by expansion of the Pattullo Bridge. Captain Johansen told of a grander plan for tunneling the entire stretch of McBride to the legendary Stormont Connector. John Ashdown doubled-down on this idea by dreaming of a tunneled McBride, Stormont, and entrenched Royal Avenue.

There are two criticisms common to all of these plans: they will cost a fortune, and they don’t solve any actual problems.

Road tunnels in urban areas are notoriously expensive to build and connect to the existing road network, and what is being proposed would be the long road tunnels for Canada. McBride alone would be 2km, Stormont to the Gaglardi interchange another 2km. Add a trenched Royal Ave, and that’s 2 more kilometres. Each of these individually would be much longer than any existing road tunnel in Canada (the Massey Tunnel is just under 700m long, slightly shorter than the 730m Cassiar tunnel).

Length isn’t the only problem. Tunnels in urban areas have to deal with decades worth of utilities under urban roads: sewers (storm and sanitary), water and gas pipes, electrical and communication ducts. Varying fill materials, shoring foundations, contamination, archeology: it’s a mess down there. Moving all of those things out of the way to push a trenched road through is expensive and difficult. Not to mention the disruption at the surface during construction. For this reason, shallow cut-and-cover road tunnels are often no cheaper than deeper bored tunnels, which can avoid these entanglements. You can ask the folks in Boston about these complications and how they can result in runaway costs. Transportation Engineers I have talked to have estimated $4 Billion for a McBride Tunnel and surface Stormont connection. I cannot imagine anyone at any level of government coming up with that order of cash to solve New Westminster’s little traffic inconvenience.

Especially as these expensive tunnels are not likely to be an effective solution, but will only push the traffic pinch points a few hundred metres up the road to inconvenience another neighbourhood, or fill up our underground space with cars to go with our car-filled above-ground spaces. Anyone who thinks a bypass tunnel solves traffic problems has not spent enough time trying to drive through Seattle at rush hour.

If cost -recovery programs are included, then the tunnels will simply be avoided, as the Brisbane experience is showing. There, a tunnel under an urban area built to bypass traffic lights and allow “free flow” is failing: going bankrupt only two years after completion. As we have learned with the Golden Ears Bridge and will soon learn with the Port Mann, people will tolerate a lot of inconvenience to avoid even a nominal toll. Car commuters are not rational in their choices regarding cost and time management. If they were, they would not be in cars, commuting. It’s a tautology.

That aside, there is a place for tunnels in a developed urban environment, and maybe part of New Westminster’s traffic woes can be helped with judicious application of tunneling as long as we put trains, not cars, into those tunnels.

Hear me out here.

Many of the costs and troubles related to road tunnels do not apply to rail tunnels. A 2-track rail tunnel can be as narrow as 10m, but for practical purposes, must be over 6m tall. A road tunnel can be slightly shorter, but would be significantly wider (the Massey tunnel is about 4.8m high, but more than 23 m wide). With trains running through them, not individual trucks and cars with flat tires, finicky engines, erratic drivers and “Baby on Board” stickers, train tunnels require less air-moving capacity, groundwater and seep control, fewer “safety features” like escape tunnels, buffer zones, lighting or climate control than car tunnels. Train tunnels, for all these reasons, are an order of magnitude less expensive to build than road tunnels (presuming, of course, that they can be bored deeper than the majority of existing utilities).

The difference in cost is enough that it was rationally decided that if you want to take your car through the Chunnel, you need to park it on a train first.

It is no secret in regional transportation planning circles that the biggest “pinch point” for goods movement is not New Westminster’s road network- it is the New Westminster Bridge. The 108-year-old steel swing bridge is the only rail crossing of the Fraser River this side of Mission. Even the regional transportation study back in 2003 that established the need for a “Gateway Program” identified the New Westminster Bridge as a high priority – the highest priority for all rail upgrades. Along with the Port Mann, expanding Highway 1, the SFPR (all funded and being built) and long before the NFPR, the Massey Tunnel or Pattullo – the New Westminster Bridge was the critical almost-missing link.

New Westminster Rail Bridge: still solid after 108 years. Please
ignore the big, showy, youthful, orange bridge next to it! 

Yet the Gateway Program has been silent about this imperative issue. Nothing has been done for several reasons; at least part being the difficulty of building an adequate replacement (read: two tracks, and not a swing or lift bridge that impacts rail schedules) in the spot where the bridge currently resides. Trains hate hills and the Navigable Waters Act requires minimum clearance over the River for fixed bridges: the Pattullo has 45m, the New Port Mann about 42m. The ground on the Bridgeview Side has an elevation of about 3m above the River, meaning the bridge would have to lose something like 40m between midspan and Surrey. That isn’t a problem if you are driving a car – a 6% slope is almost invisible to a car, and would require a 650m-long ramp, not unlike the current Pattullo approach. However, to a freight train, that is an insurmountable slope. Trains require a slope closer to 2%, and consequently the offramp on the Surrey Side would need to be 2km long!

For this reason, the idea of a tunnel under the Fraser at that point was considered in that same 2003 report on regional transportation needs. The navigable channel under the bridge is maintained to 10m depth through the dredging program (to accommodate 11m draft ships at least two hours a day – tides and freshets really mess with elevations when you use the top of an estuarine river as a datum – good thing we have geographers!). So the bottom of the tunnel would need to be something like 20m down, requiring a km-long slope from mid-stream to the surface at Bridgeview. Long, but not unmanageable considering most of it will be underground.

The New Westminster side gets more interesting, though. The current train bridge hits the land at about 5m above the river, just above Front Street. From the north pillar of the bridge, McBride would only be about 200m distant. A new 40m-high rail span could therefore only slope down to about 35 m elevation over that distance, which would put the rails on the green grass slope above Columbia Street. I cannot imagine how to connect those rails to the existing rail network without some sort of aircraft carrier-style elevator.

Bring an under-river tunnel in 20m below grade, and you can similarly forget connecting to the existing east-west rail line under the Pattullo Bridge. A new east-west connection would be required, and this is where things start to get exciting for New Westminster, as the only logical connection is a tunnel under New Westminster. A tunnel that connects the rails yards at Sapperton to the rail yards at Quayside. I can think of two ways these tunnels can go. But first, look at the current layout of rail lines in New Westminster.

Existing rail lines in New Westminster, click to see bigger version.

A dreamer would envision three tunnels, each of them about the same length as the existing rail tunnel under North Burnaby. These tunnels would generally be deep-bored tunnels, not cut-and-cover, so there would be few issues with utilities, archaeological sites, or contaminated sites. Luckily, the materials that make up New Westminster hills are pretty competent and easy to drill (mostly sedimentary rocks of the Eocene Huntington Formation, if you care to know).

For the most part, this new infrastructure would be similar in size and scope to the existing Burnaby rail tunnel that connects the current Second Narrows Lift Bridge to the former rail yards around Still Creek. Not many people know about this 3.5km long rail-only tunnel dug in 1969. You may even have ridden your bike along the Frances-Adanac Bike Route and passed the building at Frances and Ingleton, thinking it is some sort of well-armoured house or Hydro substation, when it is actually a ventilation building for the train tunnel about 40m below:

Tunnel Ventilation Structure at Frances and Ingleton in North Burnaby. 
Approximate route of existing 3.5-km Burnaby Rail Tunnel connecting the
Still Creek area to the Second Narrows – the only Rail Crossing of Burrard Inlet.  

So envision this tunneling scheme (obviously diagrammatic – concept, not details) and think about the realized synergies!

Proposed Tunnel Option 1: Dashed orange lines are bored underground tunnels,
well below City infrastructure. Red lines are retained surface rail. Click to enlarge.

We remove the bottleneck at the New Westminster Bridge by exapnding it to two rails and removing the swing bridge schedule hassles (remember, the #1 priority for goods movement in the region). This also opens up numerous possibilities for commuter rail, improved Via/Amtrak service, and opens up valuable industrial land in Surrey that now has long rail ramps on it.

There is no longer a reason to connect the Sapperton rail yard to the Quayside rail yard via east Columbia and Front Street. Those two yards can be connected via the east-west tunnel connecting the Hume Park area to the west foot of 4th street. The rail companies will no longer have to deal with the level crossings between the two, along with the speed limits, traffic and pedestrian issues they present. We have just achieved whistle secession between Braid and Stewardson.

The unnecessarily-complex level crossing at the foot of Braid would see a fraction of the rail traffic it sees now, as it would only see use as access to the small BNSF yard at Sapperton and spurs into the Braid Industrial Area. It would effectively dead-end at Sapperton Landing Park. The through-trains would be in the tunnel, resulting in fewer trains across these routes and increased safety and predictability for drivers.

At the other end, a tunnel dropping two lines below Stewardson near 4th would allow access to the Quayside yard, the SRY bridge to Annacis, and all points west. A re-configuring of the yard would allow the dead-ending of rails in front of the River Market. Your access problems to the Pier Park are solved, your whistle problems are solved, and Front Street becomes more viable human space again. (note this will not address the other rail-related noise issue in the City- the shunting and idling issues at the Quayside yard, but I’m sure James Crosty and Friends will have that situation managed soon enough.)

An alternate, and potentially cheaper, solution would look something more like this:

Proposed Tunnel Option 2: Dashed orange lines are bored underground tunnels,
mostly below City infrastructure. Red lines are retained surface rail. Click to enlarge.

We lose some of the benefits of simplification of the Braid intersection, but perhaps gain a consistency with the existing rail operations, although many of those operations in areas impactful on the City will be moved underground, just to allow acceptable grades between the sub-river tunnel and the existing rails at Sapperton and the Quayside. The total tunnel length is reduced (one 3.2km tunnel instead of three tunnels totalling almost 7.2km), but the interaction with existing utility, road and rail infrastructure is greater, and therefore the construction costs may not be much lower. There are people much better trained than I to advise on which actual tunnel configuration is optimum!

Another argument for these tunnels is that they help solve some of our actual traffic congestion problems. Every container that is on a train is a container that is not on the road. This project improves the competitiveness of the train system for moving goods from Vancouver Harbour and the DeltaPort to points east (including the intermodal yards in the northeast sector and the industrial areas on Annacis), and it moves all of these containers without trying to share space with other trucks, cars, buses  bikes, and the livebility of our city.

Yes, it is up to 7.2 km of tunnelling, but compared to a cut-and-cover McBride tunnel which would be the longest road tunnel in Canada, none of these rail tunnels would be longer than the existing Burnaby tunnel, and combined length they would be much shorter than the longest rail tunnels in Canada- actually a combined length similar to the combined bored and cut-and-cover tunnel for the Canada Line, except without all the expensive underground station costs!

So to summarize: we make the Port and rail companies happy by removing the big bottleneck at the New Westminster Bridge, we remove a significant number of level crossings, open up our waterfront, re-claim valuable downtown land for non-rail use, achieve our whistle cessation goals, and improve the Braid crossing safety issues, while improving rail connectivity and freeing up community streets. All for a cost that would likely be much less than that for an imagined cut-and cover tunnel solution for cars.

Here is a tunnel idea I could support.

on the Shark Fin Soup Bylaw

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

This Monday New Westminster City Council is going to attack one of the great environmental issues of the day: the unsustainable harvesting of sharks for their fins.

These fins, when boiled long enough to get the urea stink out, dried, powdered, and added to soup, provide a certain gelatinous texture that apparently proves your wealth and success in some cultures. Their harvest from depleted shark populations is one of those long-standing environmental concerns that has only come to popular knowledge due to recent video-recorded cruelty to charismatic megafauna, and it is a certain cause celebre these days. I really have no problem with that.

One only has to look at the long list of animals endangered or made extinct because someone claimed eating bits of them will give you an erection to see just how asinine humans are in the collective, and how easy it is for a protected cultural belief to result in the decimation of an ecosystem. Sharks are important animals in the ocean, and just as banning the global ivory trade is an important step in protecting the elephants, banning shark fin may play a role in protecting endangered sharks. So ending the popularity of shark fin soup is probably a good thing.

In fact, a professional organization I work with, the Environmental Managers Association of BC awarded a grant a few months ago to a grass-roots organization called SharkTruth, who work to raise awareness at the consumer level about shark fin soup and the associated unsustainable harvesting of sharks. I fully supported this choice for a grant recipient, because I agree with their cause and the approach that group takes (if you care about this issue, please think about helping them out!).

So why am I against a Shark Fin Bylaw?

Ultimately, it is the Federal Government who (through a document called the Constitution Act of 1982) has the mandate and the responsibility to protect the oceans around Canada and the fishes within. It is also the sole level of government empowered to negotiate and sign international agreements like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna. It is also empowered to prevent the import and sale of things like ivory, rhino horn, tiger gall bladders, or whatever is getting sick old men up these days.

This is not a job that municipalities should, or even can, do. Do we imagine Bylaw officers inspecting the backs of restaurants for signs of shark fin? De we expect that offending soup is confiscated by a Bylaw officer, taken to a lab for analysis to determine if it indeed contained shark fin and not the much cheaper alternative (gelatin, which is kind of gross when you know what it is, but at least it is a by-product of meat possessing and can be sourced sustainably), then spend 6 months putting the case together to take the Restaurant Owner to court to recover a $1000 fine? Is this how you want your property tax dollars spent?

Of course it will never happen. The Restaurants will take Shark Fin off their menu (talk on the street is that the Starlight Casino hosts the only restaurant in town that sells shark fin soup) and, if they are unscrupulous, will continue to sell it in a hush-hush kind of way for special events only, and no money will be spent on enforcement at all.

So what purpose the Bylaw? To “shame” the restaurants into hiding their shark fins? To show support for a noble cause? I hate to be the guy who says this: but doesn’t the City have bigger environmental responsibility fights to put their energy into – ones they actually have the jurisdiction to do something about?

It has taken only a couple of months for this idea to come to the City, and for a Bylaw to see third reading. Meanwhile, it has been 18 months – a year and a half- since I went to Council to remind them that we are one of the few municipalities in the Lower Mainland that does not have a Tree Protection Bylaw. In June of 2011, Council resolved the following:

“WHEREAS trees are essential to air quality, esthetics and quality of life;
BE IT RESOLVED THAT New Westminster develop a Tree Retention / Removal Bylaw for both public and private property.”

…and we have not had a single update on progress towards that Bylaw in a year anda half.

Protecting the trees in our neighbourhoods is something our City Council has the power and the jurisdiction to do. Saving sharks in the East China Sea is both outside of their jurisdiction and beyond their powers. So, why is there a rush to do the second and no interest in doing the first?

Yes, the worldwide decimation of shark populations and the trade in shark fins is a legitimate concern. The City can (without a Bylaw) express their support for the banning of shark fin imports- it can even choose to publicly shame businesses that choose to serve it, or refuse them a business licence (as they threatened to do recently with a legal medical marijuana dispensary). But to what end?
For the Feds to deal with this issue domestically, it would only require an update of the Species List under the CITES Act to include those species of sharks that are used for fin trade: it wouldn’t even require a new piece of legislation. No debate, no committee work, just a feat of Ministerial signature would get it done. The necessary inspection and enforcement procedures are already in place, and it would allow Canada to be one of the leaders internationally in the protection of sharks in the world’s oceans (wouldn’t it be nice to once again be the leader in something positive?).

My MP has already been outspoken on this issue, the Minister of Fisheries isn’t really interested in dealing with the issue, nor is the Federal Minister of (cough) Environment. This, however, is the only place where useful action on this issue can happen. Supporting Fin Donnelly to get action at the Federal Level and, in turn, the International Level is the appropriate way to address this issue under the Constitution of Canada.

Then City Council and Staff can stop wasting their time, and get on with that 18-month old resolution to start protecting trees in the City.

on Plagiarism

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Plagiarism:, according to Wiktionary, the on-line crowd-sourced dictionary, it is defined as:

”the copying of another person’s ideas, text, or other creative work, and presenting it as one’s own, especially without permission.”

Now, I used someone else’s ideas and text right there, but that’s not plagiarism, because I did two things: I made it clear that those were not my words, but someone else I was quoting; and I provided a link or reference to the original source.

In today’s internet world, there is so much information out there from so many sources, that plagiarism is a serious issue. Just look at the hassles Margaret Wente went through recently – clearly cribbing another person’s work, and representing it as her own. When caught, her professional reputation suffered, as did the organization she represented (the Globe and Mail Newspaper).

But she is a journalist, in a unique position of public trust. Writing is her business, she should know better. This is a issue of much discussion in schools and universities: it is so easy to Cut & Paste another’s work and claim it as your own, that teachers have a real struggle keeping ahead of it. When caught, students in high school can expect a zero score on their paper. In University, a student is likely to fail the course, and (if the offence is repeated or flagrant) – to be kicked out of school for academic dishonesty.

But what of politicians? We had a bit of a plagiarism issue here in New West during the last municipal election, one likely more attributable to lazy campaigning than real malice. After all, copying definitions word-for-word from Wikipedia without attribution is to plagiarism what running your parking meter down is to theft- pretty predictable and low-impact in the grand scheme.

So it is somewhere between those two extremes when a person in the public eye- say a former (and potential future) elected official keeps a blog journal that is presumably their writing and thought, but ends up just being cut-and-paste phrases from other sources, jumbled up into a slightly-changed narrative, with nary a mention the sources.

This gets slightly more concerning when non-specific claims of authenticity go out on Twitter saying such things as “Understand what is HAMAS, to understand why people are dying. Read me at…” or “I finally said something about Gaza, read me”, with links to a long-form cut & paste master class in plagiarism without attributions.

Would any reasonable person just assume what you are going to read under an invitation “read me at...” to find out what “I finally said…” will be the original work of the author?

Unfortunately for Paul Foresth, it is a big internet, but not big enough. His two recent posts on the current Hamas-Israeli conflict (a strange topic for a Provincial candidate to spark up about, but whatever) are prefect examples of when borrowing ideas, using sources, or even forwarding others’ work veers off into out-and-out plagiarism.

First note that neither the post on “Rockets” or the one on “Hamas” ever provide citation or reference to other sources. Even the few “quoted” sections are generally without attribution. This is a bit of a concern, because just about every sentence written in those two blog posts can be found written elsewhere on the web, by different authors, and (this is important) in different contexts.

Compare the ”Rockets ” post to this story on the CTV News website:

Paul Forseth: “In Brussels, officials with the European Union have also weighed in on the conflict. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama have said that Israel has the right to defend itself. However, it is unclear how far that support will extend, if Israel considers another ground incursion into Gaza.”

CTV News: “ In Brussels, officials with the European Union have also weighed in on the conflict. Speaking to a gathering of foreign and defence ministers Monday, EU policy chief Catherine Ashton called for an end to rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel. Meanwhile, Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt urged an immediate ceasefire, and a subsequent review of wider issues between Israel and Gaza.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama have stated publicly that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas-launched missiles. But it’s unclear how far that support will extend as Israel considers a ground incursion into Gaza.”

Or this Part, where Mr.Forseth both fails to cite CTV News, and fails to cite the person CTV News has the good sense to attribute the quote to:

Paul Forseth: “Four years ago, when there was a ground offensive, a ceasefire followed and there was the hope that calm and reason would prevail. Effectively what it yielded was an opportunity for perpetrators in Gaza to restock their arsenals by smuggling in stronger missiles from Iran.”

CTV News: “If he chooses to put troops on the ground, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu risks increasing military and civilian casualties and losing outside support, said Mackey Frayer. ‘Four years ago, when there was a ground offensive, a ceasefire followed and there was the promise that calm would prevail on both sides,” she noted. “Effectively what it yielded was an opportunity for militants in the Gaza Strip to restock their arsenals with stronger missiles.’”

Here is a pro tip to check if what you are doing is plagiarism: if you remove quotation marks from an article, and nothing else, then you are plagiarizing
.
I won’t go through that article paragraph-by-paragraph to point to all of the plagiarized points, but I will point out that the afrementioned 55-in-a-50-zone style of plagiarism is there as well: cribbing a definition, unattributed, from Wikipedia:

Paul Forseth: “Hamas (Arabic: حماس‎ Ḥamās, “enthusiasm”, an acronym of حركة المقاومة الاسلامية Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, “Islamic Resistance Movement”) is the Palestinian Sunni Islamist political group that controls Gaza City.”

Wilkipedia: “Hamas (Arabic: حماس‎ Ḥamās, “enthusiasm”, an acronym of حركة المقاومة الاسلامية Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, “Islamic Resistance Movement”) is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist[5] political party[neutrality is disputed] that governs the Gaza Strip.”

The more recent  “Hamas” post at Forseth’s blog is on the same topic, but no less original. Almost all of the text is copy-and-pasted from this article. Not linearly, as Mr. Forseth took the time to break it up and re-arrange parts, but pretty much every sentence in the Forseth post is cribbed, uncited, from this single source. Compare:

Paul Forseth: ”The Hamas Covenant, states that the organization’s goal is to “raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine,” i.e. to eliminate the State of Israel (and any secular Palestinian state which may be established), and to replace it with an Islamic Republic. The thirty-six articles of the Covenant detail the movement’s Islamist beliefs regarding the primacy of Islam in all aspects of life.

Hamas views the Arab-Israeli conflict as “a religious struggle between Islam and Judaism that can only be resolved by the destruction of the State of Israel.” Hamas uses both political activities and violence to pursue its goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel and the secular Palestinian Authority.

The 1988 Hamas Covenant states that the organization’s goal is to “raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine,” i.e. to eliminate the State of Israel (and any secular Palestinian state which may be established), and to replace it with an Islamic Republic.”

Martin Frost (excerpts, in order they appear) : “According to the Washington Institute, Hamas views the Arab-Israeli conflict as “a religious struggle between Islam and Judaism that can only be resolved by the destruction of the State of Israel.” Hamas uses both political activities and violence to pursue its goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel and the secular Palestinian Authority. [Clip]

The Hamas Covenant, written in 1988, states that the organization’s goal is to “raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine,” i.e. to eliminate the State of Israel (and any secular Palestinian state which may be established), and to replace it with an Islamic Republic.

The thirty-six articles of the Covenant detail the movement’s Islamist beliefs regarding the primacy of Islam in all aspects of life. The Covenant identifies Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and considers its members to be Muslims who “fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors.” Hamas describes resisting and quelling the enemy as the individual duty of every Muslim and prescribes revolutionary roles for all members of society; including men and women, professionals, scientists and students.”

The parts that were not written by Martin Frost were either extracted from this YnetNews story:

Paul Forseth: “What is this fighting all about; it is religion. It is about the struggle of Political Islam against anyone it decides is in its way. Hamas regards the territory of the present-day State of Israel — as well as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — as an inalienable Islamic waqf or religious bequest, which can never be surrendered to non-Muslims. It asserts that struggle (jihad) to wrest control of the land from Israel is the religious duty of every Muslim (fard `ain).”

YnetNews: “Hamas combines Palestinian nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism: It regards the territory of present-day Israel – as well as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank – as an inalienable Islamic waqf or religious bequest, which can never be surrendered to non-Muslims.Furthermore, Hamas asserts that struggle (jihad) to regain control of the land from Israel is the religious duty of every Muslim.”

Or lifted from arcane Google books found on line:

Paul Forseth: “During the election campaign the organization toned down the criticism of Israel in their election manifest and only stated that they are prepared to use ‘armed resistance to end the occupation’.”

Compared to the last paragraph on page 194 of this book:

” During the election campaign the organization toned down the criticism of Israel in its election manifesto, stating only that it was prepared to use ‘armed resistance to end the occupation’.”

Lucky for Mr. Forseth, he is only running for office, because if he was a student in any decent school, he would at least be on academic probation by now, or would be taking the long bus ride home to explain to his parents why he wasn’t going to finish Law School after all.

The Shops at New West Station are open.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

It’s been seven months since I reviewed the then-just-opening Plaza88 Transit Mall. At the time I was excited about the prospect and what it means for the City, while being a little puzzled by a few of the choices made. Overall, my feeling was that the project is brilliant from an urban planning perspective, less than stunning in its execution.

I have since attended a movie on opening weekend (Avengers – remember that? Greatest Movie Ever? Yeah, I forgot too…), have shopped in a few of the stores, have whinged on-line about the use of sandwich board advertising throughout the pedestrian space, visited friends who live in the towers, boarded and de-boarded scores of Skytrains, and have lamented the loss of the 8th Street crosswalk that served the pedestrian public gallantly, but somehow raised spite in the heart of the City’s transportation staff. In short, I have had a pretty full Plaza88 experience.

This past weekend, however, was something new. The Grand Opening of what is now re-branded The Shops at New West Station took place on Saturday. With new owners who are presumably more used to running malls than the developer who built the buildings, I was looking forward to walking around the site with fresh eyes, and sampling some of the businesses.

I started off Friday night, by attending another movie: Skyfall. I can review in a relatively spoiler-free way by saying lots of shit got really blowed up in that movie. Jolly good blowed up, indeed. The good news is that it seems people have discovered the Landmark Cinemas. The theatres were full enough that there was a (short) line-up in the men’s room. Our theatre was better than 90% full (thanks on-line reserved seats!) which is a good sign. Much better than a few months ago, when I went to a movie and there were a dozen people in the building, and 5 of them walked in with me.

This time, I ran into a former co-worker who I had not seen in a few years, he says they come down from Burnaby to see movies here all the time: this is their new destination. It is easy to see why: the theatres are comfortable, seats are great, the screens are proportionally large to the room size, and they don’t feel the need to turn the volume up to 11, ticket prices are reasonable, the Popcorn has actual butter that came out of a cow. All good news.Even Ms.NWimby was pleasantly surprised by the experience.

Interesting that when we got out of the theatre, there was the unmistakable sound of construction – 9:30 on a Friday! It seemed they were burning the Midnight Oil getting some furniture and lighting fixtures finished for the Grand Opening, only 14 hours away. No minute like the last one!

Back in the morning for the Grand Opening, my first feeling was fear. Fear for these four guys and their impossibly small barbeque.

Because this was the line-up for barbequed foods they were going to manage. With that little barbeque. Good luck guys.

There were crowds all over the place, as there were some giveaways and some live music and some kids activities. Despite the cold weather and rain, there were many people about: and it felt like a really fun, active human space.

The hard work of Friday-night’s the midnight oil burners was apparent in some finishing of the overhead space and installation of sitting areas. This is, again, a simple but great improvement on the original aesthetic of the space. It was great to see people sitting in the outside space under the Skytrain rails. Although the Safeway/Starbucks Patio/Bunker was empty, there were lots of people on the new seating, although the weather was perhaps a barrier to lounging on the more whimsical furniture.

With more businesses coming in, there is now something to do on all three levels, and with the movie theatre now drawing them in, there is still potential to grow for some of the remaining available lease space.

Also promising is the new treatment on the “back side” of the venerable Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant that is adjacent to the transit plaza. It is great to see, again, future deck seating on the plaza, although the hard fencing (alas, probably required because of the liquor licence) again creates a barrier. Hopefully, when the Tim Hortons opens there will be outside seating as well, and this plaza entrance will be bustling – to both pull people into the Shops at New West Station and to pull people from the Shops to other businesses in New West.

Overall, my feelings about the Plaza88 The Shops at New West Station are a lot more positive than they were just after the complex opened. There are still a few growing-pains type issues (see the ubiquitous “slippery when wet” areas – shouldn’t outside pedestrian mall areas be higher-grip?), but it looks like the place is starting to develop its vision.

There are still some growing pains ahead, I don’t suspect every small business there now to survive, but several will no doubt prosper: and the mix of goods and services will change until the right mix is found. Surely, the opening of the Anvil Centre and attached office complex will help, as wound improved connections between the inside of The Shops and the other businesses on Columbia – the undeveloped Kyoto Block is the next piece in this puzzle. But who could possibly know what the future will bring there?

Thrifty Pedestrians

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 4 Comments.

I think I love Thrifty Foods.

All of the sudden there are a lot of grocery options in New Westminster. No less than three Safeways, all of them of the recent-design mega-big variety; a Save-On-Foods of the slightly-too-compact urban style, an IGA that is seemingly a little crowded out and increasingly out of the way, along with Donald’s at the River Market and other smaller boutique-type options. Notably, Thrifty’s is the only Grocery spot in Sapperton (7-11 excepted, of course). The only grocery deadzone appears to be Queensborough (although, someone might tell me they have groceries in Wal-Mart: I’ll never know).

I have nothing against Safeway, and think their willingness to put a storefront on a Transit mall is a bold move worthy of praise, but I generally find their prices a little high, and their approach a little too “corporate”. I am “personally” thanked by checkers, with few of them taking to time to look at my actual name before saying, blankly, “Thank You Mr. Moose” (A Safeway Card under the name Space Moose was a bit of culture-jamming I engaged in a few years back. Note, if William Jefferson Clinton wins a big prize in one of those Save-on-More Card contests, I’m not sure how hard it will be to collect. But it makes my junk mail more interesting).

Alas, we tend to buy our groceries within walking distance, which means the Save-on-Foods with its less-than-optimal aisle widths, it’s strange practice of labelling all of its fruit as multi-origin (“Apples: USA/Canada”), and its distinct paucity of humans working the checkouts.

Aside: Look, the automatic checkout is never faster or more convenient for the shopper than having a person check your food, unless there are not enough checkout staff. If you think I can enter the code for apples (fuji or ambrosia? ) or lettuce (green leaf or romaine?), operate a bar-code scanner, and fill a grocery bag faster or more efficiently than someone who does it 8 hours a day, you are crazy. Essentially, Jimmy Pattison is getting me to do the work of his staff – because he doesn’t have to pay me. . –end rant

I would be remiss to also point out that Ms.NWimby does most of the grocery shopping for the household. This is mostly because of her advanced ability to shop ahead a week (instead of my tendency to buy for today and tomorrow), but also because she found me no fun to shop with, as I am generally an ornery retail customer (having grown up working in retail and having high customer-service expectations) and not much fun to be around when assaulted by bad retail decisions.

For smaller “just-pick-up-a-few-things” trips, I tend to run up to the Uptown Market on 6th – a small shop that always impresses me with their variety, quality, and customer service. In the summer, the drive to buy local often leads us to Hop-On Farms on Marine Drive- for garden-fresh produce. Weekly trips to the Royal City Farmers Market just about rounds out or grocery experience.

So I have only been in Thrifty’s a few times, but I might need to start about making it the usual – maybe I’ll buy a cargo bike, and take some of the load off of Ms.NWimby. The thing about Thrifty’s is that it is everything I like: they have a good mix of basic groceries and higher-end fancy stuff. They have a nice produce section, and I know what is being grown domestically. The space itself is expansive and comfortable, the lighting is soft and organic. I’m not assaulted by offers to save more by buying more than I need. And when I am done shopping, an actual human being helps ring up my purchase. In fact, there are actual human beings working throughout the store – unobtrusive but helpful. I just wish it was walking distance.

I hope (and expect) that Thrifty’s will prosper in Sapperton, even though it is currently neigh-impossible for many Sapperton folks to walk there. And here is where my second rant of the blog post begins:

The City of New Westminster has, as I have noted many times before, a Pedestrian Charter. The Charter says that the City puts a high value on pedestrian safety and access, and that walking will be prioritized over other forms of transportation within the community.

Meanwhile, for the entire time Thrifty’s has been open, the sidewalk leading north from Thrifty’s up Columbia Street has been closed to pedestrians, with no accommodation made for safe passage of those on foot. People walking down Columbia from Royal Columbian Hospital or any other business in Sapperton (not to mention about 70% of the residences in Sapperton), need to cross Columbia for a block, then cross back at Simpson Street to get to Thrifty’s.

This might be a minor nuisance, except there is no safe crosswalk at Simpson Street! Right where Thrifty’s entrance/exit abuts the “closed” sidewalk, there is nary a street sign, paint on the ground, pedestrian sign, flashing light on anything to facilitate the safe crossing of the street. I stood there on a recent Sunday afternoon, and watched as people (young, old, single, groups, adults and children) walked out of the store, and made the choice between weaving through the “no pedestrian zone” barriers and tape (there was no active construction happening) or braving an unmarked crossing of a busy street while laden with groceries. Never did I see a car stop to let people cross. Even with light Sunday traffic, it was a terrible situation.

Problem is, it has been like this for months – has no-one in the City recognized this problem? I know I brought it to the attention to someone on staff two months ago, but nothing seems to have been done. Of course, I shouldn’t have to bring it to the attention of staff: when the sidewalk closure was approved to facilitate ongoing construction on the Brewery District site, was no though paid to how people were going to get past the site, to the one significant pedestrian destination south of the site? That is what a community with a Pedestrian Charter should look like. A crosswalk would take $100 worth of paint, the contractor building the new building should have to pay for it.

Or, for an example of what should have been done, walk up to Uptown Property Group’s development on 6th Ave and 5th Street and look at the hoarding arrangement there. There are concrete blocks and scaffolding cover to protect pedestrians from construction and from passing cars during construction. The point is, pedestrians are accommodated as important road users, and are not forced to cross the road unsafely (although, I note, there are marked crosswalks at every intersection near there to improve safety there as well). What’s good for Uptown should be good for Sapperton.

I just wish there was a Thrifty’s Uptown.

NextUP and Risk

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 5 Comments.

This weekend, when not on the curling ice or licking my wounds in the lounge after, I was kicking up my heels at the NextUP event: Dancing Dweeb; Old and Tweed; Almost Seventy.

It was a fun evening, recognizing the emerging leaders of the “new” New Westminster, as selected by the Newsleader. My  impression from the organizers is that the City does a very good job recognizing its tradition and history, and its long-serving community members, but we rarely acknowledge the up-and-coming generation of potential leaders. As a Citizen-of-the-Year nominee said to me last week (and I paraphrase): “It is nice someone is recognizing those with positive viewpoints and optimism, instead of always hearing from the City’s boo-birds!”

The result is an interesting collection of New Westminster residents: from an internationally-recognized author to a Sportscaster who takes time from reporting on the Olympics to coach the local High School football team, to some of the City’s biggest cheerleaders. There are volunteers, business owners, innovative thinkers, and other community-builders.

And one random blogovator.

The guest speaker was the most inspiring part of the event for me. Mark Brand of the Save-on-Meats social empire. If you don’t know his story, here is a story about his unique approach to community-based business. Or watch this bank commercial to see another look at his story:

I loved Mark’s talk, because he gave us just enough of his stunningly diverse upbringing to let us see into his motivations in building community, and because it always felt he was talking from the heart (I also admired that he wasn’t afraid to drop a well-applied f-bomb in front of the Acting Mayor!). However, Mark’s talk mostly got me thinking about risk, how different people measure the reward part of the risk-reward equation, and how we measure success.

The NextUP group included people like me, who do our thing (if you consider whinging on-line a “thing”), and people like Tej Kainth who do lots of things all the time, all for the building of community. But I have comfortable job and a comfortable life: not rich, but not worried about money, because I can afford to eat and I don’t spend much. I have the luxury of volunteer time and energy and ability (and recognize those are luxuries many cannot afford). But I don’t really take risks in my life. I rarely have. So coming out of the NextUP event, I wanted to acknowledge those people in our City who have taken and are taking risks.

I think about NextUP honouree Paul Minhas – who took a risk on Columbia Street almost a decade ago, when few others were forecasting the resurgence of the Golden Mile. He decided he could run a place that had good food, a friendly atmosphere, an artistic setting, and (here is the magic) live music every night! More than a jazz club, the Heritage Grill hosts open mic nights, poetry, LGBT events, bluegrass, rock-a-billy, flamenco, mariachi – you just don’t know what you might hear one night at the Heritage. But it is always live, and it is close-up and intimate, so you can have a beer with the artist between sets. I have met much of my New West Social Network indirectly through Paul, as his club was willing to host Green Drinks – an event where he surely sold more connections and conversations than actual drinks (aside:  look for a return of Green Drinks New West edition in 2013). The point is, Paul was right, and his risk has paid off for the neighbourhood where there are now a half-dozen nice spots to get a beer (but still only one dedicated live-music venue!)

Or NextUP honouree Mark Shieh, who saw the empty husk of the Westminster Quay – almost derelict after 20 years of failure to find momentum – and took a risk. He risked his energy, his credit, his money. A Mechanical Engineer opening and running some sort of new-style urban shopping mall: Crazy. Mark is still taking that risk, as tenants are arriving, some prospering, some likely just waiting and hoping that their own risk will pay off. But look at the River Market on any given Saturday, and you can see that there is something being built here from which we are all benefiting.

I had friends visiting from Calgary/Toronto last weekend, and was proud to take them down to the Market for brunch, and show them the optimism of the Market, the beauty of the location, and the quality of the food! I didn’t feel like I had to take out-of-town guests down to Vancouver to “show off” my community. Between the River Market, the Pier Park, and Antique Alley, we had a great afternoon in New West.

What the two Marks and Paul have in common is that they took the risk, for which many more if us are receiving the reward. I think especially of Mark Brand, who seems to have taken a series of huge leaps, run several businesses, and seemingly never made much money. A guy with that kind of entrepreneurial spirit and relentless drive could be driving a Ferrari and choosing what shade of white shag would best suit his yacht. Instead, he is building a social enterprise – building a community. For his own benefit surely (we build the world we want to live in), but also for the benefit of untold future entrepreneurs using his “incubator” kitchen, and for the neighbours who for whatever reason haven’t had the opportunity to find success in our society.

I admire these risk-takers, from someone not nearly as brave. But you got me thinking: maybe its time for me to take a risk or two. There are a few things I would like to see happen in this City that will take a more hands-on approach. Maybe it’s time for me to take a chance.

In which I once was wrong.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Nothing worse that being criticized by someone who is right…

I just received a comment from someone on a post I wrote a few months ago, and it deserves more attention than being buried as a comment in a months-old post (I also like his style: mixing compliment with insult so subtley, that I somehow feel better about being called an idiot). So read the post here, and here is the comment from “D Calen Knauf” in its entirety:

Interesting view you have, not as negative as I had hoped. Naive and selfish negativity towards skateboarding is much more fun to debase. I have several issues with this article and with your proposals to improve the state of skateboarding at pier park. Right off the bat you propose more skateparks. That is like saying “god I hate it when runners wizz by me when I’m walking in the morning, clearly there aren’t enough running tracks and ovals. Let’s build some more!” that is not solving anyone’s problem. The reason people are skateboarding places other than skateparks is because that is what skateboarding is all about. Maybe you grew up in a community of people that really appreciate structure, rules and segregation. There are many other groups of people that don’t find that type of activity engaging or fun and prefer an activity with creative freedom and a sense of personal challenge. Skateboarding started in the street and will always be there, just like walking, running, biking…

As far as damages go, the damage you see now is as far as the damage will go. It’s concrete, not stucco, it gets a little dirty, the edge rounds off and that’s about it. Roads get tire marks on them sidewalks get scuffed and chipped from use, why do you all of a sudden feel that these edges are any different. It’s a patina on the city, like the green oxidization on the Vancouver hotel roof. You mention that the park was so nice with kids laughing and people playing guitar… well personally I don’t have kids and don’t appreciate the sound of their laughter the same way you do. Same goes for the guitar, or basketball, or… the difference between me and you is that I–like you mention– realize that I am living in a society, and realize that what I like doesn’t always align with what other people like, and I realize this and put up with their annoying kids yelling and laughing, their bad guitar playing, and their loud basketballs, and hope that they will give me the same curtsey.

I pay taxes just like you, probably more, and would like to see an end to kids laughing and basket ball and guitar playing at pier park… just kidding, but that’s how ignorant you sound.

Funny, after I wrote that blog post, and parts of it got picked up in the local paper, I had several people who I know and respect ask me why I was so against skateboards? That was not my intention. At first I blamed this on the Newspaper only mentioning my negative comments, and not mentioning the “positive part” where I suggested constructive solutions. It took some friends to point out to me that I really was sounding more like Abe Simpson than I thought. Sucks to get old, and sudden self-awareness definitely doesn’t help.

First, the criticism I got from some friends. One pointed out that I was complaining about youth doing something collective, creative, athletic, and constructive, and I seemed to only see the negative impacts of it (noise, scuff marks, concrete wear). He was absolutely right.

A second friend pointed out that more skateparks or structured facilities were not going to solve my alleged problems here, because I didn’t understand what the skaters were doing. They weren’t looking for a place designed for skating, they were looking to apply their skills in places not specifically designed for that purpose. This is where a lot of the creativity and skills growth related to skating comes from. As a non-skater, I maybe didn’t recognize this (but as someone who dabbled in BMX and mountain bike trials riding, I probably should have – again, blame my advancing age). It sounds like that is what you are getting at with the “running track” allegory.

So, mea culpa: you are right. I kind of missed the point with that one. We live in a society, and we all need to recognize when we don’t understand a situation. Maybe I should have just sat down with those guys at the park and had a conversation. Maybe the commenter above was one of them, and could have provided me a better understanding of the situation from his viewpoint.

Thanks for commenting.

The Coffee Crossing and bigger problems

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

New Westminster is a pretty pedestrian-friendly city, despite the hills. Our high urban density means services are always nearby, we have exceptional access to rapid transit, and our infrastructure is pretty good. Our City-wide “Walkability Index” is among the best in the Lower Mainland and Canada, and the City’s transportation plan emphasizes the importance of walking as a form of transportation, through the City’s ACTBiPed, and a Pedestrian Charter.

This is not to say everything is perfect. We still have too many pedestrians hit by cars, too few marked crossings, and accessibility challenges in some areas (including a general paucity of sidewalks in Queensborough). Overall, the City is doing a pretty good job, and the Staff and Council generally understand the issue, but there is always room for improvement.

Last week we had two news stories that demonstrate both the good and the bad.

There is talk that plans to “improve” the Coffee Crossing in uptown are on hold, and in this case, not fixing a problem that isn’t actually a problem is a good thing.

That pedestrian crossing is, actually, a very effective one for pedestrians, as Bart Slotman suggests in the article above. It is short, the cars are travelling slowly and they tend to yield to pedestrians more than most crossings. If there was any improvement needed, it might be as simple as getting rid of one or two parking spots (like where the gold Chevy truck is in the story above), to increase visibility for both driver and pedestrian. However, there is no need to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to install signals to “fix” a pedestrian crossing that basically works and is not demonstrably unsafe.

If there is any perceived problem with this crossing, it is that it emphasizes pedestrians over drivers. It is occasionally inconvenient for the minority of users because drivers may, on some occasion, need to wait for 10 or 15 seconds for a line of pedestrians to cross. In extreme events, this may stretch to 30 seconds (the horror). This “problem” is built on the assumption that roads are for cars, with pedestrians a temporary inconvenience. The alternative point of view (supported by the Pedestrian Charter) is that roads are for moving people, and people moving using their feet have as much right to the road space as people carrying 1500kg of metal and plastic along with them.

This intersection is in one of the busiest pedestrian-use places in the City – the businesses and residents of Uptown rely on a safe pedestrian environment to go about their daily lives. If the busiest pedestrian location in the City is inconvenient for drivers, they can move a block over. This crosswalk is an important part of that safe pedestrian environment. If it delays the occasional through-driver by a few seconds, then so be it.

The second story provides a great suggestion for what to do with the money saved by not installing lights at the Coffee Crossing. The residents of Massey Heights have been concerned for years about the safety of 8th Avenue through their neighbourhood, both for drivers and pedestrians.

The problems on the Heights part of 8th Ave are pretty standard, from a traffic-management view. The road is a major arterial carrying a lot of traffic through residential neighbourhoods. With the slope, the sightlines are often challenging, and it is easy to underestimate your stopping distances as the hills gradually steepen. An engineering response to this is to make the road very wide to improve sightlines, but this invariably encourages drivers to go faster, especially as there are no speed controls between Cumberland and East Columbia – it is a 1.5km long, 12m-wide speedway that bypasses narrower, more speed-controlled alternatives (6th Ave, 10th Ave, etc.). This rather sucks if you live in the neighbourhood or try to walk across 8th Ave.

The old-school solution to the pedestrian problem was to build a narrow, dank pedestrian tunnel under 8th around Richmond Street, to keep pedestrians from causing traffic to slow down. As unappealing as the tunnel is for most people, for most of that stretch of 8th, crossing the road has been a daunting enterprise. It is almost impossible at rush hour, as a line of a couple of dozen cars approach from the west, then as they come to an end, a line of several dozen cars arrive from the east. Better road marking and signs will not cause that line of cars to break just because someone is at the crosswalk – they are all trying to make the next light. This is the place for pedestrian-activated flashers.

The ACTBiPed and the Victory-Massey Heights residents have been complaining about this for years. It looks now like the City is going to put some resources towards fixing the problem, and they are looking for your input.

My suggestions? First, forget the tunnel at Richmond Street, and do the job as recommended:.

This should be a fully-signalized intersection, one with full crosswalks painted on both sides. Richmond Street is a major north-south connection, close enough to the Crosstown Greenway that it is a major pedestrian and bike route to the Hume Park area and to Burnaby. Given the nature of the intersection and traffic, and slope of the hill there, full stop lights are overdue.

As for Sherbrooke Street, I frankly don’t care if they close off Sherbrooke and Devoy (best ask the local drivers), and the sidewalk bumps help pedestrians (although they make things slightly less comfortable for cyclists). However, this is the place where a pedestrian-controlled flasher is needed. Traffic regularly hits 80km/h along here (despite the 50km/h limit), with long lines of cars between light signals at the distant intersections.

The same is the case for where Williams and McKay intersect 8th Ave, 300m to the west. This is another major pedestrian cross-street, where it is neigh impossible to cross safely as a pedestrian during rush hour. I suggest we need a second pedestrian-controlled crossing here. There is mention of “improvements” at that intersection, but no details provided. Clearly, all of the safety issues that exist at Sherbrooke also apply at Williams, and similar treatments are appropriate.

There is an on-line survey at the City’s website on the topic of 8th Ave improvements. You might want to fill it out right away, as it closes this Thursday. Please take 5 minutes and ask them to assure that pedestrian safety be the #1 priority in this residential neighbourhood. Accommodating through-traffic is important, but a distant second to the safety and livability of our neighbourhoods. We need a fully-singnalized intersection at Richmond, and pedestrian-activated flashers at both Sherbrooke and Williams.