Frances Bula just posted the following on her blog – worth repeating here to ensure as wide a circulation as possible:
Frances: As Vancouver’s new chief planner begins his job, architect/urbanist warns about Vancouver’s “toxic conversation”
When Vancouver’s new planning director, Gil Kelley, made his first public appearance last Wednesday in a speech at the Vancouver Playhouse, he did so at the invite of an organization called the Urbanarium.
One of the group’s key members, architect Bruce Haden, started the evening with a thought-provoking and very candid introduction about the serious challenges facing Vancouver as the city and other municipalities grapple with growth pressures.
My colleagues and I recreated the Urbanarium in part because of a profound concern we share about the coarsening of the public conversation over the last few years around city building pressures and opportunities in Metro Vancouver.
In particular, I know there have been many concerns in the design and development community that the Vancouver Planning department has become more risk averse and rule bound than in previous years. In contrast, I know from multiple conversations with citizens engaged in the city building conversation that the level of trust in the planning process is extremely low. So a Director of Planning has often had the near impossible task of being the meat in the sandwich between outraged citizens and outraged architects and developers.
This is not new, but I want to talk about this critical issue in three ways.
First, our purpose here is to welcome Gil to this new and crucial role – but not to expect him to offer any prescriptions for solving ANYTHING yet. It is a new role in a new City for him – and it would be completely counter – productive to ask for responses to complex challenges that would be raw or half cooked, given that he has only been in the job two weeks.
Let’s give him some time to breathe and learn.
Second, about the bigger picture. I believe we are in very challenging times globally. And I believe that our ability to act cooperatively to generate strong solutions to global challenges depends on our connectedness and so our ability to work together effectively. Unfortunately, when I look around the world I see a real decline in day to day civility and social trust at the time when we most need it.
And while our good neighbours to the south in the pre-election weeks are perhaps the most disturbing current example of that lack of civility, we are not immune to that disease. In recent Vancouver planning conversations that I have been a part of, the willingness to disparage people personally, to attribute communications about complex issues to conspiracy theories, and to assign thoughtful people trying to do their best into simplistic us versus them camps has shocked me.
And we are at an important time. The City is taking leadership in multiple major initiatives that are crucial to our future. The Greenest City 2020, The Arbutus Corridor and Northeast False Creek are only some that spring to mind. It would be untrue to say that in the past those sorts of plans would have proceeded without controversy – and nor should they have. But I put to you that responsible informed conversation has often been present in the major redevelopments that have shaped Vancouver today – to all our benefit. As an aside – many of the great past City of Vancouver chief planners that helped guide those past discussions are in the room today.
A stunted urban conversation has never served our city well, and will not do so in future. My fear is that Vancouver is heading towards a circumstance in city making where every project is viewed in terms of warring camps. This is a recipe for disintegrating civic relationships, wasted time, money and passion, and worseresults for everybody.
Gil is coming from a San Francisco context, where he knows well that the rigidity and aggression of the urban conversation inhibits good people from participating, and corrodes the quality of city life.
A small example from another place where hysteria reigns too frequently:
This is from Streetsblog New York City:
“ the city announced plans earlier this year to relinquish three parking garages it owns to make way for 280 units of new social housing, all of which would be reserved for people earning less than the average income in the area. …. Since the plans were announced, a group of residents organized under the banner “Save Manhattan Valley” to fight the development. This group’s street flyers read: “This Street Parking Space Will Disappear Soon If You Don’t Act” . “In addition to the toxic noise and air caused by construction, you can expect added pollution from idling cars, double parking, honking, stress and accidents.”
Apparently municipal garages are more needed than social housing in an area with three subway lines.
We are not so far from this level of toxic conversation here.
And we have all contributed to the current too often denuded state of the urban discussion in this city –
I can say with shame that I have worked to push projects through for clients that have had zero concern beyond profitability.
I have also seen citizens I know care profoundly about my neighbourhood personally disparage planners trying to do a hard job responsibly.
I have seen developers claim that minor changes to enhance a project will lead to bankruptcy.
I have seen planners focus on the minutae of regulation at the expense of helping to get great things built.
These are all examples of short term thinking and failures of courage and commitment that serve to reduce our ability to build a better place to live for all of us.
So my last point is this.
In this context, it’s easy to look for a savior. But, with perhaps a clumsy paraphrasing of the words of JFK, I think the right question to ask is not “what can Gil Kelley do for us?”. The right question to ask is “how can everyone in this room help Gil Kelley to succeed?”.
Most importantly, what can we do to learn enough to have an informed opinion, and what can we do listen respectfully to each other, while respecting each other’s deeply felt views? And, despite much evidence to the contrary, I believe it is entirely possible to both have a passionate point of view and to be a good listener. And I know none of you would be in this room if you did not care about this place passionately.
Let’s challenge each other to excellence in making Vancouver extraordinary.
Thoughtful comments, Bruce. I think the development community has a lot or work to do to mend fences and engage people early on, esp. when proposing things that radically alter their cherished notions of THEIR communities.
On a slight tangent and as Michael Geller suggested elsewhere, perhaps a fitting tribute to Bing Thom would be to finally find a permanent home for the Urbanarium, perhaps on Granville Island. I can see either a repurposed building or an open design competition to help accomplish this goal and drive interest, including $$.
Urbanarium has already expressed serious interest in the north east Emily Carr building. Richard Henriquez mentioned it too at the Gil Kelley event.
Eric – since I didn’t attend the event, I didn’t know this. Thank you.
I began reading this with high hopes, but they collapsed as the examples mounted up. Clearly, the purpose of calling for increased civility is to reduce opposition to the speaker’s own views.
It is perpetuation of what the writer of this linked article describes so well:
“every time drivers are demonized and bicycle riders and pedestrians are valorized, I am excluded from social value and I am treated as if I am a thoughtless polluter instead of a worthy member of our society who has the right to participate in and move about this city.”
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/09/29/Disabled-in-Vancouver/?utm_source=weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=031016
So what the speaker you’ve quoted is doing here is calling for something that he is not himself demonstrating that he can do: respect and tolerate people who hold positions he disagrees with. It is the eternal paradox of tolerance, and it requires us to transcend and even relinquish our own belief systems in order to understand where other people are coming from. It requires, also, the very rare skill of admitting the flaws and trade-offs of our own ideas. The example from New York of parking garage vs. social housing is actually perfect. In order to effectively navigate to a harmonious outcome, one has to do two things: acknowledge that the petition writers are likely correct in their forecast, and address the other, unspoken concerns that may underlie their vehemence. Yes, it can be stressful for property owners to live next to social housing. It can be stressful living next to a strata titled development too. Or rental. Can we talk about that? As long we cannot, there is not going be any civil discourse. Because social housing is being “valorized” above the people with whom you apparently want to have civil discourse. In truth, what he is saying is that those people should shut up.
And “shut up” is basically the modus operandus of this blog, so the posting of Haden’s message here exacerbates the impression that that is Haden’s basic premise. Even if Haden means well, a dearth of self-scrutiny means that he is saying the opposite of what he appears to be saying.
And that is precisely how Frank, in the comment above, has taken it: his take-away is that the point is to OVERCOME other people’s “cherished notions” of “their” communities. Not to respect or understand that is IS their community, their notion, their life.
Moving forward, it is the Haden and Price Tags types who will do the most to make Gil Kelley’s job stressful, because they don’t tolerate opposition. It’s classic expert contempt for what they deem non-experts, a false dichotomy given some clarity here: http://quillette.com/2016/07/27/what-experts-do-and-dont-know/. What Gil Kelley will have to do to overcome the power of expert self-regard is figure out who he works for – the experts or the public – and at some point, so will the elected officials who hired him.
Ah so it’s kind of like in the 1990s when Men were demonized during a time when feminists were still sorting out what was what. It alienated some potential allies. It’s good we’re past that now. I think that it’s short sighted for people to criticize cars. It’s not necessary as it’s obvious that they’re not the right solution for some trips. There’s no need to point it out or say that someone driving is bad to ask for more choices.
There is also another effect going on. The idea that a previously disenfranchised mode of transportation having now got a few things is seen to be getting too much. The mode that previously was solely supported is now not the only one. From a position of privilege, equality looks like oppression.
That article is oddly presented. Remember writers don’t write the headlines and that makes them often misleading about the content of the article. The headline and sentence under the picture appear to make it seem like the article writer is complaining that cycling infrastructure is impeding disabled people’s mobility but if you read the entire article you see that it has little to do with that and more about loss of handicapped parking spaces (or people parking in them). All the proposed solutions have nothing to do with cycling as well.
Good letter though. I fully support inclusion. People who rely on their bike for their mobility and who have no other choice can totally relate to having limited choices and wouldn’t want the same inadvertently put on others.
If “shut up was the modus operandus of this blog, none of us who disagreed with a post would be here, including you, Karin.
This blog is very much interested in different opinions and public discourse. A few have had their comments removed because of not following the posting guidelines. These guidelines are there to encourage the discussion by people of different opinions. If they had written the same message in a different way the comment would not have been removed.
I disagree that “shut up” is the modus operandus.
“different” opinions ?
Do we have ANY suburban car loving bloggers in here ? truck drivers ? Single moms with mini-vans ? Low income folks ? Pricetags’ opinion spectrum is not very diversified. It is very narrow: mainly university trained / academic, manly white, mainly male, above average income, “progressive” aka NDP / anti-conservative. Representing say 10% of society. Where are the other 90% ?
Ha, I love the Freudian typo “manly white” .. I meant mainly white ..
One wonders what would be the outcome if the most prolific commenters took a break from multiple comments on every topic? Perhaps the ensuing room that would be created in the discussion would appear more welcoming to under-represented cohorts.
It’s hard to talk and listen simultaneously.
Allison Tom is quite right about not being able to park on 10th, where many medical offices are located. When the planning for this new bikeway came along it was repeatedly pointed out that removing parking on this stretch was not only ludicrous but vicious and cruel to those needing access to doctors and clinics that are all along this stretch.
Nevertheless, the righteous bike lobby soldiered on and city hall giggled with them as they ripped out parking for the demon cars.
[Ed: comment edited for violation of comment policy]
Nevertheless, the righteous bike lobby soldiered on and city hall giggled with them as they ripped out parking for the demon cars.
This is false and a deeply irresponsible comment. Construction is scheduled to start in 2017. A final design has not be chosen.
Well, I’m glad to hear that. I distinctly remember discussing this here a few months back and the lobbyist was adamant that parking shall be removed in the Health Precinct because the medical buildings all have parking inside.
Anyone that has empathy with, or struggled with, or helped the disabled or the infirm will not be pleased if the city compounds their misfortune.
As a participant in the planning workshops for the 10th Ave design, along with representatives from all the different health care facilities along 10th Ave between Cambie and Oak, I can say that Eric’s comment bears no resemblance to what happened at the workshops, or what the recommendations of the participants were.
As a family member of a regular user of medical offices in three buildings with separate parking in the area, I can testify first hand that the removal of car parking on 10th will amount to a mosquito bite of inconvenience. Walking and transit are viable options for us too for about half the time.
The only people who may be more inconvenienced are couriers, taxi drivers and HandiDart passengers. Perhaps Jeff can clarify if provision was made for street access for these people via drop-off zones.
The commercial drop off zone I recall is near the Van City branch on Cambie, and is for couriers, etc.
The drop off zones further west along the street, in front of multiple buildings, are for passengers, whether by car or Handi Dart, and are designed with curb cuts, level drop off zones, and so on, all things that aren’t there today.
The need for drop off zones will be more acute due to the closure of the parking across from Willow, part of the creation by the hospital of a pedestrian corridor running north south, roughly along the Willow alignment, and not part of the City work to 10th.
Thanks for clarifying, Jeff.
The city didn’t giggle at all. This is complete nonsense.
Here’s the plan so far.
http://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/10th-avenue-corridor-project-past-updates.aspx
Have a look and you can see how the city has been doing a lot of work to make sure that deliveries and drop offs are able to happen. This is not giggling. This is working out a design to reduce conflicts in a place that currently isn’t working so well.
CoV
The 10th Avenue Health Precinct parking facilities experience high occupancy rates. All options require removal of 74 to 77 metered parking spaces from 10th Avenue –
Some residential permit parking on W 10th Avenue between Oak and Laurel Streets will also need to be removed.
Plus changing part of 10th to one-way.
Why? Because the city wants 10th for bikes. How about 13th? No thanks, we’ll take 10th. How about 8th? No thanks, it jogs a bit. We’ll take 10th.
Eric, the Off Broadway bikeway (7th and 8th) is an alternate to 10th, depending on origin and destination of each user. Currently, the east/west bike traffic is divided between the two routes. Shifting all the bike traffic to one or the other solves one street’s issues while worsening the other. Recall also that people on bikes often want to access locations on Broadway/9th, and we are unlikely to make changes to bikeways on 9th until the whole subway question is resolved. Until then, 8th and 10th together compensate for the lack of infrastructure on 9th.
13th isn’t really an option, but 14th is. Now we are getting to a discussion of a minimum grid, and what the spacing should be for protected bikeways. Contrary to some claims here, there are not demands to put bike infrastructure on every street at this time. But a minimum grid does make sense, it served the streetcars well.
Eric: “Why? Because the city wants 10th for bikes”
That is a very narrow view, and seems aligned with the original article about toxic conversations. The goal is actually to improve the street for all users, respecting our transportation hierarchy. That parking that you claim is being sacrificed on the altar of cycling is also the reason there aren’t sufficient passenger loading zones. Compare the number of people being dropped off per hour to the number that are parking. The parking is also a contributor to collisions along this stretch. Check out the statistics. The parking makes the pedestrian experience worse, but by reducing it the City can introduce curb bulges to reduce crossing distances, wider sidewalks, pedestrian refuges, and so on. Finally, the parking is an impediment to ambulance access, given the narrow roadway. One car parallel parking can delay an ambulance, and four blocks of that activity can delay an ambulance multiple times.
Saying that none of that matters, and it is all about a bike lane, just seems wrong.
Thank you for your extensive explanation on the imperatives of bike traffic and their essential routes. It perfectly confirms that the Health Precinct with their medical clinics and the doctors’ offices are mere inconveniences in the relentless mission for the most direct cycling roadway and are to be dealt with through the usual so-called consultations, whereby interested parties are placated with admonitions that their views will be taken into account, while the primacy of cycling is held firming at the top of any interim and/or any other decisions. We knew that.
Eric: It seems to have completely passed you by that the Health Precinct is a destination for many people on bikes. Doctors, nurses, other staff, patients… You do know that one of the largest bike centres for commuters is at VGH, right? Why the us vs them? It isn’t productive.
The original article spoke of “short term thinking and failures of courage and commitment that serve to reduce our ability to build a better place to live for all of us” Worth a read.
So, the message from MB and Adanac is “shut up about this blog shutting people up.” It’s so easy from behind a pseudonym, isn’t it.
MB, the “shut up” message isn’t effective if opposing messages are actually banned. It’s far more effective and empowering to let them be stated, and then also let the shaming be public. That way, the blog can appear to be tolerant while spreading a message that disagreement is risky.
That’s not what I wrote.
I am of the opinion that it’s better to let people write whatever and then respond to them if others feel they’re wrong on a topic. I don’t support just banning messages if they are following the forum rules. I support discussions and perspectives that are different than mine.
The forum rules are pretty simple to follow and are there for a reason. I didn’t think them up but I accept them. I’m subject to them as much as anyone else.
Karin, the commenting policy is clear and unambiguous. Have you been shut up? Have I? No to both, even though we provide often extensive rebuttal to posts.
Speaking of rebuttal … shut up about this blog shutting people up … seems to be a tortuous use of language. Notice you can be criticized, but not asked to shut up?
Say whatever you like but “keep it civil and on topic.” Seems reasonable to me.
Sorry for being off-topic, but what were the recommendations for 10th ave design? There’s nothing on the city website about what was said or recommended at the workshops. Just curious.
The City had created three alternate designs, and presented them to the workshop participants. We used those designs to frame a conversation around street change impacts, with reps from all facilities, plus the fire and rescue reps, Persons with Disabilities Advisory Committee, Van City, and so on. The focus was on the health0 precinct, from Cambie to Oak. The three design alternatives are shown in Adanac’s link, above.
Some key points:
* Both halves of the room (two groups, with reps from different constituencies in each group) preferred the unidirectional bike lanes, ie 2 one way bike lanes, over a two way bike lane on either the north or south side of 10th. This was partly due to the improved predictability around bike/pedestrian interactions, ie no bikes coming from where pedestrians didn’t expect them, common in a 2 way bike lane
* Ambulance ingress/egress was a key discussion point
* There was a strong push for more passenger loading zones, especially at the eye care centre, spinal cord centre, etc. Today cars and Handi Darts unload in the street, blocking traffic and creating collision risks
* There was strong support for the proposed pedestrian bulges, raised crosswalks, pedestrian refuges, etc.
* There was support for closing Heather to through motor vehicle traffic at 10th. If it is done on the north side, it has less impact on hospital operations (food and laundry delivery, for example)
* There was strong support for removing street trees where necessary, with a request that they be replaced where practical. The most impacted are the small new trees on the south side, near Oak, and they can apparently be moved.
* All options reduced metered street parking. Given the 3800 off street spaces (from memory) there was more interest in creating the loading zones and pedestrian improvements than in trying to retain more of this metered street parking.
* There was support for the one way operation of 10th at the east end of the health precinct
The City took all of that feedback (and much detailed discussion about specifics for access to each building) and went back to refine the proposals. I understand that we may see the next phase of consultation in late November, but don’t know a date. Once the Health Precinct is firmed up, the City will proceed with work on the remainder of the 10th Ave Bikeway (Trafalgar to Victoria), with the stated aim of making it All Ages and Abilities for the complete distance, in support of Vision Zero (no traffic fatalities) and other City strategies.
Thanks. I saw the proposals, but there was nothing about what was discussed and suggested at the workshops. Is it policy not to publish that stuff?
Now I’m curious how you’d do loading zones with the unidirectional bike lanes. Won’t that necessarily require vehicles to stop in the lanes?
Bike lanes pass inside of the passenger loading zones. These are bike lanes separated from road grade. Imagine the bus stop on Dunsmuir, with an island for passengers to board. At least that is what I recall from the preliminary concepts. I think it may show in the display boards that Adanac linked to.
I don’t think the City has any policy about not publishing, they are simply not up to the next public consultation phase yet. There were public consultations on how people used 10th, and introducing the project. Then they developed concepts, and worked with a stakeholder group over two days of workshops to get feedback. They are refining their concepts, and will come back to a broader public consultation this fall. It is all pretty standard, with the challenge (IMO) that other active transportation projects got advanced simultaneously this year related to downtown lanes, Burrard/Pacific, SW Marine, Adanac, MOBI, NEFC Seawall, SEFC Seawall, and so on. I suspect it is a capacity issue.
Thanks again. I’m still having a hard time visualizing that. The plan is to have only a single lane of traffic on 10th, so the loading zones would have to block the traffic unless there’s some bulge into the cycle lanes… Oh well, I guess I will look when the next generation of design comes out.
As to the publishing, I understand the staff is busy and new concepts will come out later. I’m just surprised that there isn’t documentation of what was discussed and what participants said, just like you posted here (ie minutes of some kind). That doesn’t seem very hard or time consuming, and it would certainly increase transparency and reduce scepticism that the consultation is really just window-dressing, and the real decisions have already been made.
Since you have the inside track with staff, maybe you could put that to them…
Here is a conceptual drawing. There is a single lane of traffic along the eastern section, but it is two way near the ER entrance. This drawing is the bidirectional bicycle lane, but the unidirectional is similar in concept.
http://i349.photobucket.com/albums/q367/jcleigh/Posts/10th%20Ave%20Bikeway%20at%20Willow%20-%20Bidirectional%20Option_zps5yrss7li.jpg
A comment on publishing the results of the workshop. The workshop participants didn’t make any final decisions. They provided their input on the options, from their perspectives. There was a room full of people, and only two were there representing cycling infrastructure, most of it was traffic circulation, and so on. It is just that bike infrastructure gets the headlines. Each of us was charged with taking the discussion back to our own groups that we represented, and feeding that info back to the facilitators, often after the meeting. I wrote a report on the two days for my group, and circulated it, then consolidated the feedback. I believe other reps did something similar. The test for us will be when we get to the next round of consultation, to see if the input has been considered, and what other issues came up during the design process.
bar foo: I will raise the issue of publishing a summary of workshop findings. Thanks.
I’m very surprised to hear that people prefer a design that has a bike lane on the south side of 10th. Turns onto southbound Laurel, into Emergency and parkade traffic at (I think) Heather make up a significant proportion of all motor vehicle traffic on 10th.
I’m also surprised the double bike lanes option was recommended because it consumes the most land leaving less space for drop off zones and all other road users. Having been a bike commuter on Hornby I do understand the issue of pedestrians not expecting reverse flow cyclists, but expected that to be outweighed by the above two points. I expected a north side lane to be a nearly unanimous choice.
My recollections: If one is concerned about the passenger loading zones on the north side, the south side looks preferable. If one is concerned about ER access on the south side, the north side looks preferable. But in both cases, the intersections, and the passenger loading zones, are conflict spots where people may not expect bikes to be coming from other than the usual direction. Also, people unloading may not be steady on their feet, and may have reduced vision. Also, bikes travelling east are going downhill, and so could be moving more quickly. The counter to that is that with unidirectional lanes, people on bikes travelling up hill are likely to be going more slowly behind the passenger loading zones.
Some cyclists preferred the bidirectional bike lanes because they offer a passing zone when there are no oncoming bikes. In a unidirectional bike lane, those people may choose to overtake on the roadway, where it is bidirectional.
Whereas unidirectional bike lanes take marginally more space, if there isn’t room for two way vehicle traffic anyway that becomes less of an issue. This is from memory any my own notes; the design engineers may present something different when we see the next round of consultation.