Vancouver staff released a 368 page PDF today to council recommending the approval of the next big steps forward for the Northeast False Creek and the Viaducts Replacement Project. Council receives it for approval during the 09:30 a.m. meeting on Wednesday January 31, 2018.
For anyone wondering what “city-making” means — this is what it looks like. It’s big; it’s ambitious; it’s expensive; it’s transformational on a huge scale.
It now includes the Housing Vancouver Strategy, seeking to “. . . permanently secure long-term affordability of all future social and affordable housing units . . ” within the plans’ areas.
Other big things:
- Potentially generating $1,700M in public amenity contributions (see para 10.1, p43)
- Build-out estimated to take 20 years
- 10,000 – 20,000 new residents, all within many transportation choices
- 6,000 to 8,000 new jobs
- 1,800 new social housing units (estimated 3,250 residents)
- 32 acres (or so) of new parks and open spaces
The report also provides a comprehensive summary of the public consultation results, the approach to the longer term implementation of the NEFC Plan and Viaducts Replacement Project, and an update on the emerging design for the parks and open space in the future Northeast False Creek.
. . . Given the unique circumstances in Northeast False Creek of creating a plan that is dependent on a substantial infrastructure replacement project for all of Vancouver, the report summarizes some critical technical work that City staff and consultants completed to ensure that the plan can be implemented following Council approval. On the transportation and infrastructure side, there are now detailed designs (90% construction ready) for removal of the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts, approximately eight kilometres of street with associated bicycle lanes and accessible sidewalks, improvements to approximately 40 new and existing intersections, and plans for the relocation and upgrade for approximately 16 City and third-party utilities. In terms of parks and open space, Park Board and City staff have been working with our international consultants and the community on the conceptual design for the largest and potentially the most impressive addition of parks and open space in the downtown in decades, and the report updates Council on the emerging design including a recommendation to continue collaboration with important interests into early 2018.
For those deprived so far today of a reason to foam at the mouth — the report contains the word “bicycle” in 14 places, and the viaducts are still coming down (p 47, table 2). Let the ranting begin.
If you’d rather have a constructive and public bash at the plan, why not attend City Council, and be a speaker, when it’s presented for approval to council at the meeting that starts on Wednesday January 31 at 09:30 a.m.
It doesn’t matter what the report says to people who want to rant. They’ve never looked at any plans and don’t intend to. They just want to complain about something and this is as good as any I suppose.
Thanks for the sweeping generalization. You could also say the same about city. Vision want swhat they want, and they’ll get it so long as they’re not given the boot.
Aside from a couple million spent filling it out, this plan is still pretty much the exact same thing that Beasley proposed 6 years ago. Has the feedback mostly confirmed that Beasley’s plan was perfect from the start?
I’m still waiting to see a survey that supports this project in public opinion. The poll on Kenneth Chan’s Buzzfeed article says this has 27% public support with 21K votes. Although that’s still better than Vision fared in the by-election. That’s been the general trend all the way along. I recall when the Re:Connect competition was on, an empty poster with text telling the city to leave the viaducts standing had several times more votes than several well developed concepts put out by architects.
I’ve still not seen anything that has shown that the city seriously thought about retaining and improving the same area with the viaducts in-situ. Most of these plans could be executed with pretty minor modifications.
All in all, I’m continually disappointed by our city, but I doubt they’ll get anywhere
on this plan before Vision gets the boot.
By connecting the dots between livability (mixed use), accessibility (multi-modal transportation) and affordability (social housing), Mayor, Council and staff are making a smart bet – that today’s legacy building is unlikely to be undone by those craven few who subsist on political ambition and continue to peddle the simplistic anti-Vision, anti-bike lane messages.
You’d have to build a set of wildly progressive, substantive, and well-planned campaign policy planks to sell the public on upending this.
That’s quite the document. I believe this development will result in a vibrant community, one that will be lucky to have so much park space so close by. High rise living isn’t my cuppa, but with the level of population increase new services and amenities are sure to follow. The Arbutus tram will, hopefully, have a branch line running down Pacific Blvd. as well as up to Water St (return on Cordova) and west to Stanley Park. This will bring another dimension to a walkable neighbourhood with a rail transit link to downtown, South False Creek and the west side.
One image that briefly appeared in the early renderings was a huge Geneva-style fountain in the Creek on the centre axis of Georgia Street, making its giant column of white water visible from afar. I sure hope that idea isn’t lost. It may need a private sponsor. I nominate Concord Pacific.
After reviewing the previous park conceptualization renderings, I think the treatment at he water’s edge will be critical. The renderings had a very narrow focus on the gravel beach access while cutting off views of a potentially overpowering and ugly underside of the cantilevered seawall path. The view from on top of the cantilever will be wonderful, but the experience may not be very pleasant from the small beaches that will frame it from below. We will see.
The remaining park plans seem well thought out. I understand the remnant segment of viaduct that was to be a token salute to the High Line was removed for stability reasons. Just as well. This is a unique enough locale and city and we don’t need copy cats of what is in reality the restoration and adaptive re-use of cool wrought iron heritage railway architecture, not a concrete freeway. The long pedestrian bridge over Pacific will no doubt be very well used, as will all bike lanes and car-free spaces.
When you think of the town planning principles of the late 60s that tried to bring forward the destructive power of inner city freeways populated by cars from the sprawling suburbs rolling over derelict land, I think with this plan we can say we have truly evolved.
It’s not perfect, but what is? Lots of congratulations are due to all involved, most especially to the volunteers and stakeholders in the neighbourhood, and to the city for bringing this one forward with patience and great depth of thought. Other cities please take note.
No-go on the pedestrian bridge. IIRC, it was abandoned by the time of the last open house; all N-S foot traffic is going to cross at-grade at Carrall.
As for the Pacific branch of the downtown streetcar, the design team said they were planning it to be in mixed traffic west of Quebec – and we know from our neighbours down south how well that works.
I’m more excited about the food/entertainment district – that, right next to the stadiums and Tinseltown, might just give Robson a run for its money.
//One image that briefly appeared in the early renderings was a huge Geneva-style fountain in the Creek on the centre axis of Georgia Street, making its giant column of white water visible from afar. I sure hope that idea isn’t lost. It may need a private sponsor. I nominate Concord Pacific.//
Definitely. Or a giant waterfall like in the Townshend proposal: http://www.townshendla.com/projects/plaza-of-nations-42/
That fountain was proposed on the Georgia axis as a counterpoint to the 1936 Royal Jubilee fountain in Lost Lagoon also on the Georgia axis. Its location was to also intersect the Carrall Street Greenway axis which is intended to ultimately extend, via an overpass to CRAB Park, as a water to water ped and bike feature. I recall a sketch prepared by Bing Thom showing this compelling fountain location in the creek. Perhaps the fountain could honour his contributions to the city. Maybe Westbank could considering contributing.
Still not sure about all the intersections. Between cars turning right, jaywalkers, and motorists/bikers/pedestrians who just flat-out disregard signals, even three additional lights can turn a road into a parking lot.
I’m on board with the rest, though.
The first thing to do is deal with right turns on red, by designing protected intersections to go with the protected lanes. Use the lessons from Burrard and Cornwall, and Burrard and Pacific.
Agree with Alex, it is quite a document.
I recall thinking, when I first heard about the potential of taking down the viaducts, why was that important? What would be the gain? I participated in a lot of the workshops and planning sessions mentioned in the report, over the past few years, from Great Streets workshops, to Sustainability Workshops, to Park Design workshops, with open houses and meetings and discussions with planners all along the way, and it became clear through the process that there was a significant opportunity here, to create more than could otherwise be built. This is a huge opportunity for the City. I hope all councillors are on board with it. It isn’t perfect IMO (not happy that the Georgia Ramp was downgraded to less than a complete street) but overall, very good.
Free land ie mega $s to re-sell. Who owns this land ? province or city ?
There are multiple landowners, because many of the parcels will have to be adjusted to accommodate the new street network. In general, the freed up land is owned by the City, but they also have to purchase/swap for other land for that street network, public plazas, etc.
A bold & wonderful plan .. and with the massive CACs in place for 1800 social housing units and the new law that 25% of new condos must be rentals (that must be sold below market to attract buyers) it is guaranteed that new condos will be very VERY expensive .. and drag the older inventory up with it ..
It will also help gentrify East Van along Hastings although some bolder action there would be useful, such as a subway station and more bulldozers and new density ..
I wish they were ambitious and pushed for more density giving even more benefits and more below market options
Density will provide below market option beyond the already 25% forced rental properties (to be sold well below market value for a similar non-restricted condo) ? Even more than 1800 social housing units in prime location steps from water front and downtown ?
Sorry Thomas I didn’t understand your response
You stated “more density” as if that implied more affordable housing. Hence my questions.
Yeah, affordability is as much of a profitability/demand problem as it is a supply problem. Advocate for more density, you get more condos; better to advocate for more co-op or city-owned housing as a percentage of existing density.
Yes more coops on free land would help. Who’d supply the land for free though with CACs by the tens of millions at stake, over and above land value, ie hundreds of millions of foregone revenue for city or province. How much affordable housing is built on native land, here or at UEL, Jericho land or Tsawwassen, for example?
Lots of material here for a good detective story. A real “who done it” thriller. A crime scene, finger prints, missing bodies and clues lying up and down Hastings Street. I passed St. James church where the choir was practicing for the big day and they sure were melodious even with a few of them being way out of tune. I headed over to the Ovaltine Café where the locals were drying out. I sat down at the counter and pulled out my pad and began scribbling: It was another rainy Friday in Slumberville ……………….
This is for those who still question the wisdom of demolishing the Viaducts, as contained in Vancouver’s just released NorthEast False Creek (NEFC) Plan.
Between 2007 and 2010 (prior to my retirement from Planning in late 2011), the City’s NEFC team was developing a detailed Area Plan for implementation which assumed the viaducts were a given. Why would we think otherwise? Viaduct removal was nowhere on our radar. But as the team struggled to address the full range of planning and urban design objectives, development economics, provision of affordable/social housing, parks, etc., etc, we kept running into the obstacles that the viaducts presented….serious compromises to most objectives, sacrificed potential qualitatively, quantitatively and economically, not the least of which was foregoing the freeing up of two City-owned blocks either side of Main St. (800 Main from Quebec to Gore Streets). The list of missed opportunities, diminished “value” (value in the broadest sense, not merely dollars), just kept on growing. This was entirely aside from any concerns about viaduct aesthetics, the under-viaduct environment or negative references to a long-abandoned 1950’s discredited elevated freeway philosophy.
We had to ask – what compelling benefits are provided by the viaducts? The bottom line boiled down to a convenient vehicular access in and out of the Downtown, certainly a worthy benefit. But at what sacrifice to other compromised objectives as well as foregone opportunities! This is the point at which serious investigation of an at-grade street option began for the entire NEFC Plan area. Was there an at-grade street arrangement that would at least equal, or surpass, the viaducts’ vehicular capacity in terms of the City’s overall transportation policy for future Downtown and False Creek Flats development? The ensuing comprehensive investigation has delivered a re-designed “complete streets” network proposal that addresses this issue. Full details of this network are being advanced.
The City’s NEFC Plan illustrates a broad-based approach that can provide a truly transformative environment for this entire east end of the Creek, with vastly improved connectivity to, and enhancement of, surrounding established and future neighbourhoods, the full benefits of which will be passed on to future generations of Vancouverites. The comprehensive process with wide-ranging public consultation through which this Plan has evolved has yielded an outstanding detailed vision.
It was another rainy Friday in Slumberville……… when I uncovered the first clue in a pile of paper: “there is an opportunity”. Hmmm, there it was in clear unmistakable written English. Possibly very incriminating. Opportunity, opportunity. The word rolled around my empty head until finally I thought to myself, yes, certainly that’s it, of course, a crime of opportunity. I followed the paper trail through a bizarre collection of glossy photos, diagrams, pie charts, plans, and undecipherable numerical projections………….. nothing here I thought to myself, a dead end. I went outside and lit up a smoke.
Chapter 3
I drifted back inside. ……”she was practiced at the art of deception”…… Mick was on the airways again. I pointed to an empty booth and asked for an Ovaltine. I hung my fedora on the rack and sat down opposite so I could watch the water dripping off the rim. I turned my attention back to the pile of paper labeled NEFC. I mumbled to myself parlour tricks one after another. I started making notes: build an island / get ready for the big flood / beautiful streets. I took out my magnifying glass and started going through the asterisks and making more notes. Costs: 50m to repair / to replace 185m / 200m / 375m jeeze it’s headed North of 500m in another few years, rising faster than an elevator on Howe Street.
Note to self: play these numbers on the next 649.
The waitress brought over an empty cup. I said thanks for nothing. Bacon and eggs? No appetite. She sat down opposite me. Aren’t you a mood, eh? She placed her arms on the table and clasped her hands together, she tossed her long blonde hair back, she did that glamour flirt thing, she leaned forward and curled up her lips, squinted with her bright blue eyes and stared straight at me. Eh?
Billy Jo, they are trying to knock down the bridges over there, they want to build an island so that they are ready for the big flood when it comes. Do you know how much half a billion dollars is? We can pave Hastings Street from one end to the other with one hundred dollar bills and still order stake and lobster for two and I threw her a wink. Seriously, Billy Jo, it’s a crime of opportunity, it’s against moral laws. We are going to drown in the big flood, while they are going to be sitting high and dry on Treasure Island. If I was an architect which I am not but if I was I would be proposing a dam with a lock across the mouth of the creek and for another 50m I would keep those bridges just in case. I would be using most of that money to save the entire town and with the left overs I would turn this street here into a beautiful street. I would fix this place once and for all. That’s what I would do. We got to prevent this heist from going down.
Billy Jo, I stumbled upon a street man down on the sidewalk this morning. Hastings Street. His guitar was filling up with water. I turned it over and drained it out. Still good for the blues I suppose. He was wearing a tattered old suit, very clean and shaven too. Stone dead he was. Billy Jo it was the strangest thing, he was smiling, yes he was. I called in an incident. He was the only one smiling out of hundreds and hundreds languishing there: laying, sitting, leaning on something, just plain falling down, or keeling over all along Hastings Street. I tell you Billy Jo, there is something going on with the gravity down there. I know who he is. I used to see him coming out of Number 5 Orange sometimes when I was going into court to testify. He was a big rock and roll man. Started impersonating Mick….”you can’t always get what you want”……he was always looking up, word on the street was that he had something to do with a building that fell down so they nicknamed him Look Up which I bet caused some confusion at first.
It’s a terrible situation Billy Jo when the only people smiling are dead.
You got a book out? I like well written fiction. But fiction it is.
Thanks for the thought but writing is not my thing, detective work is my game. Jackie Dawn.
Chapter 4
I shifted gears to something light. How did that audition go Billy Jo? Real swell, she replied, I’m going to be a movie star, I’m getting out of this dump. I landed the harlot role, it’s the main thing. Fingers came up with a Go Pro and Buzz the drone man is gonna do a flythrough of the neighbourhood. We let him come up with the title: Connected Don’t Matter Here. We got some bucks from cultural affairs for an art film, we’re having an exclusive screening at the Fire Hall Theatre, the Mayor and Council is invited along with other dignitaries living on the street.
Good for you Billy Jo, now how about that bacon and eggs, Ovaltine, toast and jam. I turned back to the paper pile and started on the notes: 1/4m reports / 17,500+++blind men driving haste st /day / de tour. I finished dipping toast. Billy Jo slapped down the bill. How do you like my new card Billy Jo?
Jackie Dawn Detective.
Where you off to now Jackie?
I got a new case. Cultural misappropriations. I’m heading down to the Art Gallery to investigate. I turned over my card got out my pencil: IOU lots / I’ll be back.
Chapter 5
I got back to the office in the late afternoon for a meeting with Beans Johnson. He was sitting in my booth. I ordered the Ovaltine.
Beans is a legend on the street. He has a theory, The Theory of Everything, which he once explained to me in great detail the gist of which in his words goes something like this: I won the lottery, the big one…..(ntf get 649)….so I decided to clone myself three times over and all at the same time so I would have a team called me, myself and I consisting of an Architect, a Planner, and a Lawyer (to be used for hiring Engineers and sueing people as he explained). At the time I considered him stark raving mad, but the more I thought about it, the more it started to haunt me bad, it could be true, it’s possible I suppose.
Beans is good when he’s on meds, a regular idiot savant. He can calculate anything. I opened my trench coat, pulled out my NEFC file from a deep pocket filled with notes and files, it’s all about mobility these days. Mobility and speed. I talked to him straight: Beans look at this here picture and answer me this: How many trucks will it take to haul away those bridges? Hmm just eyeballing it I would say 200,103 rounded up. And how many trucks would it take to haul away the roads? Well it’s 150,091 rounded up cause the last one is not a full load. How about digging up the sewers? 45,243 rounded up, always round up. And putting them back down again? Oh that’s more 100,010 and that’s precise. OK good, now how much asphalt if you get it from a Kinder Morgan pipe? Well it’s not a pipe that goes all the way to the Tar Sands, but say if it’s a 12-inch pipe under pressure then it’s just short of crossing the Fraser River on the upstream side. OK, now how much carbon emissions is all that combustion gonna make? Well then, that’s 20+15+45+10+the Kinder pipe divided by 3 so that would be……….. a toxic lung choking cloud 35 stories high covering the entire downtown………. for three days. Only the penthouse people would survive. You forgot to count traffic jams Jackie. That don’t matter Beans. Thanks for helping find the missing bodies, they are piling up and the waters are rising. This crime is close to getting solved.
Why do they want to knock down those bridges Jackie? What about the homeless? Where are they gonna sleep at night? In a box next to the sub-station. No, Jackie, I can’t do that. There is not a crow or a rat, a skunk, or a racoon and no songbirds anywhere near that place. My brain would just plain short out. No, Jackie, no.
Chapter 6
Shift change, let’s go Billy Jo. We’ll take the tandem up to the Hall. We blew a tire turning up Main right in front of the Carnegie. Fast Eddy was there hawking stuff, so I put the strong arm on him: I’m confiscating these two bikes I said. Ah, come on Jackie, I gotta have a life. A life of crime ain’t no life Eddy, hand em over or else.
Main was choked with car chaos so we headed down Pender turned onto Columbia and hit the seaside trail by the Big Tent Circe de Solei……. I wonder what’s going to happen…………all the clowns, the trapeze artists, the drum rolls, the applause……….onward to the Village we went where we stopped for a breather on the Canoe Bridge. I love that bridge, forward looking, very romantic, I wonder who did it, I always wonder, sometimes I dream about it when it’s raining. I said, Billy Jo, ah, we ah, we got a go.
We went past Bicycle City, that new place coming soon, I read about it on PriceTags, some place I can afford, I’ll move out of the Marble Arch, maybe…………….I don’t mind being a party to an idea without complication. We turned up Spyglass Place, dumped the bikes at the police station with a note: FOUND. I took Billy Jo’s hand and she took mine, we started walking up the hill to the Hall.
We took seats in the balcony, side by side, where I finished jotting down my notes. Billy Jo, are you ready? Yes, she said, the ducks are all lined up in a row, I got them organized 1, 2, 3, 4. They signed in one after another because they only get five minutes each and the story is twenty minutes long at least, Buzz has Act Two: The Passing of a Streetman. He is going to roll the fly through video, including the funeral scene, I know you missed that, Jackie, so I’ll tell you about it right now because it was very exciting, and well, things are moving so fast……….
She continued, we gave Look Up a real send off. The Oval Playboys, all four of them planned for it to take place on the centreline just outside the Carnegie on Hastings, somebody found a picnic table, so they laid him out under a white sheet, it wasn’t really him, it was a dummy from Dressew, but nobody knew that. I played the nun role quietly standing beside the dummy. The Playboys had guitars and they sat two aside facing out and started playing the Stones. It was rush hour. They told me to be brave, nobody will run over a nun and it will have a calming effect. Never-the-less chaos rapidly erupted. It was like a scene out of Apocalypse Now…………all the drivers were yelling, and screaming, shaking their fists all to the utter amazement of those lying, sitting and wandering on the sidewalks. Buzz got two full minutes of video for the DVD before his drone got tangled in the trolley lines. The whole thing ended badly sort of but at least the boys had a dry night in the tank. I got off on account of the nun costume. So that was that, and just so you know what else is coming, Bagman is going to do Act Four: The Summation of Waste and the Wages of Opportunity.
Chapter 7
This project fails to take into consideration its’ global context: climate change.
This project does not account for the enormous carbon footprint caused by the Viaducts replacement plan.
This project creates a public health hazard by placing social housing adjacent to a high radiation source.
This project does not connect neighbourhoods as promised.
This project reduces public waterfront.
This project is just an unproven idea.
This project is opaque.
OK Jolson give it up. People don’t care about stuff like that. Follow the money and state the facts. That’s good detective work. Half a billion bucks to replace some old bridges is a lot a dough. You got to ask why? when you could fix them for 50 million clams. All that cash just to race cars around in places we never been before. You got to ask why? when we should be laying train tracks. All that money just to knock things down. You got to ask why? when less than a block away thousands of people are just dying to stand up. Detective work is all leg work, Jolson. Did you ever notice that people spend their whole life trying not to fall down, and when they stumble they look around to see if anybody noticed, that’s because they are embarrassed. So, how come they don’t get embarrassed over all those people lying down on Hastings Street? Are they scared they will be next? Is that why? Instead of chasing after paper dreams we ought to face our fears and help those people get a leg up. That pile of paper labeled NEFC don’t cut it on the street, there is no place for them in that pile of paper, no future, it’s a case of missing bodies everywhere you look. A crime of opportunity, that’s what it is if they can pull it off.
Yours truly, Jackie Dawn
Chapter 9
Folks started drifting into the Oval late in the morning, where recriminating confessions began. Justin who was number one on the roster started things off by saying he probably should not have worn his wig. The street calls him Justice when he’s got his wig on. I thought it was OK because we are a part of the British Empire, and Your Worship is heard a lot in the Chamber. It dignifies things. He made the case that Council is full of lame ducks who would not be around for the consequences, so he suggested a referendum at the next election, he even suggested the question: is it better to be ugly or is it ugly to be better? That is probably not going to be asked, but he got the ball rolling.
Buzz showed his video once he got the lap top going, there was some delay as he forgot the password and His Worship had to ask for silence while Buzz went into a deep meditation. He admitted to us that he was playing for time, trying to run down the clock like they do in the second period. He only had one slight, very slight worry about the sound track: “please allow me to introduce myself / I’m a man of wealth and taste”. It might have been a little over the top as he pondered things. His flythrough started with the funeral scene, flew down the hill to Pigeon Square, took a left turn and picked up footage of folks sleeping under the bridges. I thought it worked, cast a spell over the Chamber for sure.
Beans Johnson played spot number three. He did the numbers, mostly pointing out the omissions which he claimed amounted to billions. He wanted to know why the city was going along with knocking down the peoples’ roof as he put it when there was no plan to keep the homeless dry.
Next up was Bags who is part French and so he started going on about the United Nations and that the only people trashing the planet are Trump and the City of Vancouver. Either we are in accord or not he said. It was an admonishment of sorts.
Billy Jo organized a surprise: She said, it is not as if we are against Jimi and The Star Spangle Banner but Mick is the Empire and then the Playboys started singing, “you can’t always get what you want”.
Well, I just took it all in because politics is not my thing anyway, I’m just a detective. I have to say though that Billy Jo, in the role of the nun, was very moving.
Chapter 10
The skaters in the back booth were thumbing through a collection of Banksy pieces. Awesome. Radical. We need some.
Now that’s sad. Why does everybody want to be somebody else? Have what somebody else has? Why is every blank wall a target for a crime of opportunity? Every old bridge? Don’t ask Jackie, there’s no answer, drink your Ovaltine.
Chapter 11 the Bankruptcy Act
………tomorrow is the big day Jackie, Valentines Day Jackie, she said with a flutter, eye flutter that is……. “forget that honey……….today is the big day down at the Hall…………..big pressure deadline, complete the dossier, deliver the high lights, write down notes………..get a lotto ticket”…….. “ah, Jackie come on, a girl needs chocolate now and then”…………… “Billy Jo, you got to relax about Saint Valentine….romance and devotion…….and all that……..today it’s the dossier, tomorrow the paycheck”. business in Slumberland never slows down
note to file: look up Frankie
It was another slow day in Slumberville when Frankie walked through the door.
And so it turns out according to Frankie and Frances Bula that the city planners defended intrusion into view cones on the basis that two international panels have recommended some taller buildings be allowed to punctuate the skyline. Really, said Frankie? We have to go ask strangers what to do? We don’t know what to do? I thought it was the job of the planning department to know what to do. Maybe we should stop spending money on planners who don’t bother planning but instead spend their time hiring people from foreign places to tell us all what to do. Don’t we already have enough problems with foreigners bidding up and buying up our town? Hey, wait a minute, are these the same people? Hey, Jackie is this another crime of opportunity?
Chapter thirteen
It could be a crime Frankie, or it could be the way things work in this town. Why are you bothering me about this anyway? Can’t you see my sign hanging on the hat rack? office hours 10am to 12am. Come on Jackie, you’re sitting in a booth in a café drinking Ovaltine at 3pm in the afternoon! Just sign this petition, will ya? It’s a petition aimed at the Mayor asking him to proclaim a new civic holiday: Bystander Day.
What the hell is that?
It’s pretty simple if you just look around and observe people, you can conclude from watching people that we are a town of bystanders, everybody is a bystander waiting to see how things go down and then ……………………. well, for example the other day I was over at the Carnegie on the Main Street sidewalk when this pigeon fell out of the sky. How often do you see that? Just about never I say………….so anyway the poor thing ended up flat on its’ back, wings outstretched, laying on the centre line, twitching. All the bystanders of which there are many in that part of town ran out into the street and formed an inquisitive circle around the victim of nature, this of course caused a traffic jam, again.
You should have heard the talk: save the thing from the cars, it’s half dead it don’t matter, don’t touch, it might have the avian flue, put it out of it’s misery, is it on drugs, get a box, call an ambulance, no call the dog catcher, where is the Birdman? Bystander crowd talk, all of it, and that’s when the light went on …………….. the realization that we are nothing but a town of bystanders!
So I thought to myself that if we are a town of bystanders then we ought to have our own civic holiday, it’s just as simple as that, nothing else to it, Jackie. So I started going up and down Hastings Street collecting signatures from the bystanders. 5,000 so far and counting, whata you say Jackie?
First, I just have one question Frankie, when are you going to celebrate Bystander Day?
Chapter fourteen
Ah, Jackie, you shouldn’t have, that’s so sweet ………….. the chocolates and the roses ………. the singing card, how do they do that? Beats me, Billy Jo, it’s artful though isn’t it?
The skater boys came tumbling through the front door all excited about Banksy. He is going to help us save the skate park under the bridge, one of them said. It’s not right to take away our park with a good bridge over it. We are going to get him to do some art work under there, turn the place into a UNESCO World Heritage Site, you know…………get us some protection from the toonie-loonie people. Fight big money with big art that’s what we’re gonna do.
Chapter fifteen
I can’t make the rent Jackie. I can’t take it anymore Jackie. That creepy landlord of mine is gonna come around, he is gonna roll his eyes, he is gonna make suggestions Jackie………..and she burst out in tears, began sobbing uncontrollably. I don’t get angry very often, but this situation put me over the edge, so I said, don’t worry Billy Jo we are going to move to the country. When Jackie? When? Is tomorrow soon enough Billy Jo? Today would be better Jackie, a guy like that breathing down your back……I am having nightmares every night, nightmares which I can’t tell any one about……………and she started crying all over again.
What the hell is the matter with her, said Frankie. Just about everything I said. Can’t you see what poverty does to people? Just walk down Hastings Street, every last one of them a victim of another human being, that’s the reason why I took up detective work. I wanted to get to the bottom of things. I listened to the stories and there is only one conclusion that can be made about the city.
You better have a good story Jackie, because that is one big claim suggesting intelligence on your part ……………….and I ain’t sure you got what it takes. There is a fine line between smart and stupid and when you are on the edge there is a high chance you are going to fall on the stupid side.
I got an answer alright. And it goes like this: Poverty is an invention of the city. It’s an economic industry, the misery industry by which many benefit including drug dealers, bootleggers, petty criminals, and the slum landlords in this neighbourhood. There is no such thing as poverty in the countryside just poor people. Did you ever think about that Frankie? City people have turned poor people into a resource upon which they now depend for their livelihoods. There is a lot of interest in keeping poor people poor, Frankie.
Hey Billy Jo, how about you take this $100-dollar bill, you go down to the Greyhound station and get us tickets to get ourselves out of here, how about Hope, Billy Jo, Hope, B.C.?
Chapter sixteen
The viaducts were still standing when we boarded the Greyhound bus at the Main Street Station. It’s easy to leave town if you want to. The seat window scrolled through a blur of people, buildings, power poles and machines while dump trucks full of waste raced down the highway along side. Time is money they say.
Maybe none of this matters, said Billy Jo and she turned her big blue eyes on me as if…………well as if she was right. We passed the city limits sign, but there was still plenty of city to be seen sprawled far and wide across the landscape. Maybe they should move the sign said Billy Jo and I thought to myself that they could put it on wheels and keep moving it every few days. Greyhound rambling was starting to take hold of my thoughts.
Billy Jo I said, how about we stop at Bridal Falls?
The letter from Hope, Jackie Dawn, detective.