Last week environmental organizations put out a proposal for a "Better Future Fund" aimed at the next BC election coming in May.  It proposed to take the provincial carbon tax and apply revenues to various initiatives to green up our energy expenditures.  The biggest chunk they earmarked for transit while proposing other investments in energy efficiencies for buildings and local community initiatives aimed at reducing our carbon footprint.

The community piece was pretty light on details, and the fund proposal missed the mark on active transportation - nothing in there about cycling and walking which, in many BC communities, are rapidly growing as viable transportation choices for more and more of our citizens and, unlike some of the other proposals, have a much more immediate and direct benefit in individual and community health.

I put out a news release to point out the missing link here, unfortunately all too typical of those who can't see the trees for the forest.  They get the big picture but don't always grasp some of the details of how to get there.  The Better Future Fund is still well intended and a good start to an important discussion, but we need to make sure that the practical solutions that we need to help people make more sustainable choices are spelled out in some detail and appropriately funded so that the sticks of the carbon tax are better paired with the carrots of real options for more sustainable lifestyle choices in how and where we live, and in the transportation choices we will be making several times a day, every day.

March 12, 2013

For Immediate Release

Better Future Fund Incomplete Says Cycling advocate

The Better Future Fund proposed by leading environmental organizations is a good recipe for BC’s carbon tax, but it is missing some essential ingredients, says Capital Bike and Walk Executive Director John Luton.

“Dollar for dollar, investments in cycling infrastructure is one of the most efficient and effective means of shifting travel choices to sustainable modes”, he said. 

“Carbon taxes need to be paired with investments in cycling infrastructure to help people choose cycling for more of their daily travel needs”, says Luton, “and the Better Future plan is a missed opportunity to make that point. When it comes to transportation, there is more than one shade of green”.

Victoria already has the highest mode share for cycling of any city in Canada, and can do more, but cities need helping funding the capital projects that are needed to attract a broader demographic than we’ve been able to grow so far. Cycling is not only a viable choice on its own, but, in larger cities, it also partners well with the transit that Better Future supporters want to fund, and has a coincident benefit in individual and community health.

Capital Bike and Walk has been working with local advocates and others in the province through the BC Cycling Coalition to develop a vision of what the province could achieve with new investments in cycling infrastructure.  He says the plan would not only help shift travel choices to more sustainable modes but would also help BC better compete with other jurisdictions putting money into cycling tourism initiatives that are growing jobs and new, sustainable economic modelsy.

Quebec is growing thousands of jobs around their “Route Verte” project; Vermont’s cycling tourism industry is bigger than maple syrup and locally, businesses and many BC communities are already building their own strategies to attract green tourism.

“Moving BC forwards to a more sustainable model needs to pair more of the carrots with the stick of the carbon tax.  We can’t just punish people with new costs – we’ve got to give them a range of options that will help them make the transition now and in the future.  We need the transit plan, but it has a much longer gestation period and higher up front capital costs than does cycling infrastructure programs”, said Luton.

“Provincial investments in cycling have been working, but programs have too often been cut to meet fiscal pressures.  We need to tie carbon taxes to program spending that makes good policy sense, and putting money into cycling is essential to a better future for BC.”

For more information:

John Luton, Executive Director
Capital Bike and Walk Society
johnluton@shaw.ca
250-592-4753
250-886-4166 (cell)

BC Cycling Coalition provincial recommendations at:

http://bccc.bc.ca/take-action/

New bridge, refurbished economy.

The recent award of a contract to build the new Johnson St. Bridge will have some critics looking for a new storyline.  Pretty clearly the fiction that the deal was on the verge of collapse was overblown.  Construction will start soon and some will continue looking for new theories to explain away the public process, democratic referendum and a solid professional design and development process that is moving the new crossing project along.

Council critics will be left behind as well, pointing fingers at the majority who have consistently voted to proceed despite the claims of sinister intent that are likewise overstated.  More perplexing, though, is a newfound interest in downtown vibrancy possessed of some of the same voices who are finding the wind at their backs has turned and their ship has now sailed, and seemingly rudderless.

Anyone who took the trouble to read the economic impact assessments that weighed a potential refurbishment project against the choice of a new bridge would have found the impacts to the downtown economy of a bridge rescue mission unsupportable.  Potential losses were pegged at as much as $13 million a year, dwarfing what impacts they have lately noticed from market shifts to the new Uptown mall in Saanich.  If the rush to the burbs is built on convenient access and plentiful parking, how come they didn’t notice the gross inconvenience of losing the old bridge for a couple of years?  (The only viable means of refurbishing structural elements and getting at the shaky foundations was deconstruction and off-site reworking that has, in any event, proven unfeasible).

Certainly business voices in the city were, after initial apprehensions over costs, quickly convinced of the sound choice embodied in the new bridge.  They, as well as anyone, understood the engineering analysis as well as the very real problems of losing a vital crossing would be for the centre of the region’s economy.  Like most who have had a more practical sense of the issues, the hair on fire claims that a cover up of a cheap and easy fix was being ditched by empire builders just didn’t hold water.  More so, the recognition that the functionality of the system design represented in the new road alignments and added levels of service for cyclists and pedestrians maintained a balance that would have been thrown off-kilter by lane reductions or other closure schemes sometimes promoted by dissenting voices.

The bridge is an essential connection to the city’s downtown for many in Victoria as well as for those who live in municipalities beyond our borders.  Shutting it down would send them off to other commercial and retail destinations to avoid the headaches of getting downtown via other routes that are even today oversubscribed and not really direct links for many of the trips to downtown businesses in particular.  Why is that point lost on the supporters of a “vibrant downtown economy” who have been taking aim at the bridge project?  Add economic illiteracy to their sandbox grasp of transportation system design.

As much as some would like more parking, more travel lanes for their cars, just as there are those who propose to shut it all down and imagine everyone will walk or bike to every destination for every trip, neither is going to happen.  We’ve achieved something of an equilibrium where extra capacity for cycling and walking trips will help people make more sustainable choices, but those who choose to drive, or who must, will keep the level of service they have now, at least as much as they have had since 1924 when the current bridge was completed. (Transit services and goods movement would run into their own problems if the “greener” solutions were implemented).  What’s useful to know, however, is that the new bridge also caps capacity at those same levels for cars and trucks, and this despite the clear signs of fresh new growth in residential and business development immediately west of the bridge that will generate many thousands of more trips a day to and from downtown.  Most of that growth will be on foot or by bike – the bridge already accommodates more than 1 million trips per annum by bike, some figure larger on foot.  Both will enjoy service improvements that will accelerate those numbers when the new bridge arrives.

Word to the wise on that one too.  Developments on both sides of the bridge owe at least something to the new project.  The uncertainty of a decision, the very questionable resilience of the existing crossing and even the lack of cycling and walking features were an impediment to their moving forward.  Those “concerned” about the city’s economic vibrancy have now another shaky platform to climb down from.  The new bridge is a positive, not a negative, for Victoria’s economy and it’s time to move on.

Next steps will see the start of construction as the city’s freshly secured contractor starts poking holes in the harbour bottom for new foundations.  It will also be the foundation of a new era in the city’s history and one we can look forward to.

Investing in a more vibrant downtown . . .

Happy to add something more to the discussions about how to inject some new vibrancy into Victoria’s downtown economy.  It’s something that I’ve at least had something consistent to offer over the last few years.  It’s a bit of a contrast to new converts who have more recently discovered the issue and are looking for new voices and new ideas to bring to the table.  Notwithstanding that any strategy will need to be a team effort, requiring everyone on council to be pulling in the same direction, more or less, it would be as useful to have some confidence that there is a coherent connection between the “nice things to say” and the “better things to do”.  Talk is cheap enough, but concrete action is going to cost more, both in real dollar terms and in the expenditure of political capital to support investments or make decisions that may be at odds with the sometimes confusing directions offered by the changing winds of more populist positioning.

Case in point is the Pandora Green project that our last council was pilloried for, from both left and right, for being either too expensive or aimed at disenfranchising those for whom a tent city was, at least then, a convenient soapbox on which to stand in defense of our street population.  Most of our council, at least, was focused on a coherent and consistent strategy to aggressively pursue funding and property opportunities to increase access to diverse housing and shelter options for our most disadvantaged citizens.  It’s still a better, and actually a cheaper, solution for everyone than the tent city debacle that plagued what is now Pandora Green only a couple of years ago.

Homelessness is still a problem enough, but the opening of a new shelter and another project to rescue bankrupt hotels is now paying off, in some measure, in the provision of supportive housing for some of those most in need.  For the afflicted neighbourhood along Pandora, the disappearance of the boulevard squat has been a welcome relief from the downward spiral of disorder, and the new plaza and boulevard improvements are creating a more livable environment for both the more transient users of Our Place to the more permanent residents living in apartments and condos dotted around Harris Green.  Over the longer term, the revival is also likely to attract more local business investment that is as likely to pay for the costs of the project through increased assessments, contrary to the hand wringing of those who have, as always, decried the expenditure of public funds unfairly extracted from their pockets.

 

The other fiscal dividend may still have a long gestation as we try and realize the savings that will emerge from a strategy that shifts management of what was an increasingly intractable policing problem to a more appropriate social services model.  Police calls to the area dropped by more than 25% soon after the completion of the project and, along with the housing and other supports we so desperately need in our community, the longer term prospects for at least containing the growth in policing costs should emerge from investments that work in concert with one another.  Making downtown and nearby neighbourhoods more attractive and reducing the impacts of difficult social issues is going to be key to sustaining, if not reviving, some of our economic vibrancy in Victoria. 

That’s a lesson that should be understood by the councillor now promising to make the downtown economy a priority.  Scoring political points by looking for ways to cut the city’s investment in affordable housing made for a good few news stories, but it was never a good strategy for building a healthy downtown economy dependent at least as much on presentation.  Likewise, her campaign video trashing the city’s investment in Pandora Green probably made friends and influenced votes, but I hope the councillor will be so good as to at least rethink, if not climb down from that particular plank, or prank.  Making mileage with the grass-roots community was good politics then, but there’s a new year coming and a new parade to chase, even if the more comprehensive and coherent collection of plans and policies built to emphasize downtown density, new economy industrial zones and other more substantive approaches to economic diversification are in play.  Teamwork, it seems, is less appealing when it’s all about being a new voice, a different voice, an independent voice.

I’ll be watching to see what’s under the Christmas tree next year.  It’s bound to be something fresh, or at least half-baked, again.

New look for an old problem

Nouveau bean counters have kept quiet about a recent parks project that emerged in James Bay, a neighbourhood near to downtown in Victoria, BC, though numbers of other park projects have borne the brunt of ire over the expenditure of tax drawn funds aimed at greening the community. 

Fisherman’s Wharf Park underwent a transformation over a few years, turning a patch of grass, and not much more, into a first rate, interactive playground and, towards another end of the field, a more extensive and expensive project of rain gardens and other features designed to replace conventional storm water management utilities with a more naturalized and effective system to gather up the overload of winter storms and filter the water before it finds its way back into the nearby harbour.

The very visible and stunning project was welcomed by neighbourhood activists, but found some dissenting voices among those whose more basic objective is to prevent the spending of tax dollars on anything they can see, let alone a seemingly superfluous window dressing project aimed at presentation, more than effective management of the city’s always too generous budget resources or physical assets.

Moving the project ahead over the term of the last council was no easy feat, with some eyebrows raised over costs associated with the improvements, while at the same time willfully blind to the benefits delivered by new approaches to managing some of the more fundamental services of urban infrastructure that cities remain responsible for.  Many are, at best, unfamiliar with the maze of pipes and other utilities hidden underground – the ones that carry the water to our taps, take away the waste after it’s been flushed away, or the hundreds of kilometers of storm sewers that are there to channel the floods of wetter seasons, draining the roads and carrying water away from our buildings and houses so we can continue to function as a city more than a swamp.

In Victoria, as in many other cities, those pipes are aging in place, and not very well, with some of our own system 100 years old or more.  Where breakdowns occur, the cost of digging in and replacing pipes is an expensive and repeating emergency that has to be dealt with, and the slow but steady replacement of the unseen infrastructure a dauntingly costly exercise, the magnitude of which is grasped by few enough of our neighbours.  It’s the unseen deficit of infrastructure, once built by previous generations and that we are now seemingly resistant to repairing or replacing as the bills come in.

I was reminded last year, of how little appreciated the assets held by the city contribute to our quality of life, or how cities deal with the routine and mundane impacts of our weather patterns, even as the climate evolves towards something more ominous.  Why waste money on planting more trees, I was asked by one critic?  I offered that a tree was a very good investment, actually, not the least for its ability to suck up huge quantities of rainwater that might otherwise find its way, unhappily, into your basement if the rest of the system was overtaxed.  We do happen to live in a city where it rains, at least on occasion and sometimes heavily.  Storm water systems can only manage so much and sometimes must rely on the natural environment to pick up the slack.

The new park design is more complex, but likewise substitutes manufactured underground utilities with a more sympathetic and natural design.  It’s one that can handle the storms and provides the added benefit of filtering toxins out before the water returns to the ocean.  It’s open and it’s simple.  If a system were to clog up or break down, it would be accessible and serviceable, though the need is so much less likely to arise since it better mimics natural ecosystems than a drain grate and pipe buried under ground, asphalt or concrete.  There are no valves and mechanical features to malfunction, since those are likewise taken care of by natural design – the landscape is its own safety valve, absorbing or storing water and slowly letting it percolate back into the water cycle.  It looks expensive, but apart from the initial capital works, the system maintains itself much more cheaply and the initial costs are not so different, really, than those we pay for the infrastructure you cannot see.

The new Fisherman’s Wharf park opened in the fall of 2012, with, ironically, some on the new council in attendance, including those who are lately looking hard to find new targets for cost and service cuts, claiming to be focused on the essentials.  Some of the discussions at council seem to have been aimed at parks, greenways, bike lanes and other facilities viewed as “nice to do”, over what cities “must do”.  That shows at best, a lack of creative thinking and a short-sighted approach to how cities manage assets and responsibilities.  Longer term costs are an issue as much as immediate capital challenges, and, truth be told, some of the costs can be covered through the increasing assessments associated with rising land and housing values in a neighbourhood much improved by the addition of a beautiful and natural park that provides the same essential services anyway. 

We need to start looking forward to the future, not back into it keeping our eyes firmly fixed on the past, and one which, in so many ways, may not have worked so well in any event.

Blue Bridge Critics Falling Down, Falling Down . . .

Above:  Geotechnical work for the new Johnson St. Bridge was underway in October of 2012 as city staff worked through competing bids for the construction project that will start soon.  Rumours of the imminent demise of the project are unfounded.

Op-eds in the Victoria Times Colonist have played out some of the tit-for-tat around Victoria's Johnson St. Bridge project.  Suffice to say the latest piece, similar to other agenda driven commentary, makes scant use of the facts.  The Request for Proposals process is now complete and technical evaluations are taking place that will inform a recommendation to Victoria City Council which, myths notwithstanding, will make the final decision on the award of a construction contract.

Here, for your reading pleasure (or otherwise), are some rejoinders to the last op-ed on process and product.

Process

The process has always had flexibility for numbers of tasks and business negotiations, but always understood has been the completion dates for partnership funding and the construction schedule afforded by fisheries windows.   Extensions have been sought by proponents, all three of whom remain interested in winning the project, hardly indicative of a desperate for a deal scenario.  Budget limits are understood, whatever the contract language, and that is shaped by specialized legal counsel rather than any direction aimed at fleecing taxpayers.  Project elements, particularly specific scope changes that add new responsibilities and associated costs have been presented to council, in open forum, and endorsed by majority votes.

At the outset of the bridge decision process, Ross Crockford was concerned that the process was moving forward too quickly.  What’s changed?

Detailed design and construction optimization have always been in the hands of the successful bidders, just as indicative design is, and remains, under the direction of the city’s consulting engineers at the MMM group.  They’re responsibility is to ensure delivery of the bridge as proposed to council and Victorian’s in the successful funding referendum.  Evaluations of optimization strategies or details of design will be conducted, as they should be, by expert engineering staff and consultants who are responsible to council and the public to ensure that the bridge delivers on the fundamentals of design and function outlined during the referendum.

Recommendations will be forwarded to council, where decisions will be made.  Councillors will no doubt have access to information, in confidence, to protect proprietary business interests, as they would with any project in Victoria, or any other jurisdiction receiving multiple, competitive bids for any contract or project.  The awarding of the contract will ultimately be at the discretion of council, and reported on at public committee and council meetings.

The inference that this approach to decision making on proposals submitted to the city is unique to Victoria or to this project is not credible.

Product

The fundamentals of the bridge are sound and the storyline that continues to be promoted of an untested design unfounded.  The technology is well understood and refinements will be proposed to ensure functionality for a unique bridge, as it would be for any bridge project.  There are few bridges anywhere that are not sensitive to their setting, context and unique construction challenges.  The single leaf bascule at this location is an appropriate solution.  Securing the deck mid-span is a less optimum design than a resting span on one side for good engineering reasons, whatever the traffic above.

The save the bridge campaign pressed by Mr. Crockford has sought to preserve a single span structure, making his claims on this issue less credible, if not hypocritical.

New comparisons

Comparisons have been made with a Miami project, another strategy that failed on so many indicators in the promotion of the “No” vote during the referendum campaign.  Like the many bridges that were offered up during the counter petition and referendum campaigns, this new example similarly fails to provide a credible comparison.  Critics will find what they like and leave out the facts that don't support the storyline.

Miami is at the very low end of earthquake risks and codes will be significantly different.  The seismic resilience of our own bridge is at the highest end and the cost differential for our project is only the incremental difference between our lifeline bridge designed to withstand an earthquake at an 8.5 magnitude (to offer to most commonly understood reference), over a less robust 6.5 event, quite different from a concept of bringing a bridge with no seismic resilience to even a modest, if not full code compliant structure.  The city settled on the maximum code available to meet a variety of objectives.  The cost comparisons on that element of the project are not credible.

Cost comparisons are, in any event, out of date.  The Canadian dollar was 5 cents below the U.S. dollar at the time of completion of the Miami project and inflation would also have to be accounted for.  Florida is also a “right-to-work” state where wages are suppressed by legislative construct, reducing some input costs, but also exposing users of this particular procurement model to risk factors associated with higher injury and fatality rates, as well as questionable quality and timeliness of project delivery.

The Miami project also excludes numbers of other features and incorporated numbers of other projects that were added, and endorsed, for the new Johnson St. Bridge project.  They include road-works on approaches, particularly on the west side where road design has been found to generate an accident profile; elements of a harbour pathway project that will link to the bridge and other networks for cycling and walking; a separate bridge and trail piece to connect the new E&N rail with trail with the Galloping Goose and a terminus for both trails; as well as public art, bumpers to protect against vessel traffic, movement of a secure data line and other unique elements to our project..  None of these are provided in the “accounting” comparisons made between Victoria’s project and Crockford’s latest example.

Free association

While Mr. Crockford characterizes the city as “desperate” for a deal, it seems Victoria is more likely in the driver’s seat.  With three competitive bidders all eager to win this project, the city is not facing the prospect of relying on a single bidder who can dictate price.  The suggestions that city council will act as a “rubber stamp” can’t be taken seriously.  Final decisions on contracts always rest with council, and with this project in particular, there have often been divergent opinions on the choices before both the current and previous council.  Ross Crockford likes to characterize any decision with which he and his media sponsors disagree as a “rubber stamp” decision.  Far from pushing on with a project on the wrong track, the bridge is moving forward as intended, as endorsed by the council that made the choice in the first place, confirmed by a majority of new councillors and proceeding to meet the timeframes set in place to meet the important constraints for fisheries windows and funding partnerships. 

No amount of hand-wringing or story-telling in support of a failed agenda will change the facts.  It was a sound decision, made by those charged with making that choice, to choose a new bridge over the too good to be true fairy tales of a rescue and refurbishment project.   Bids have closed and a contract will be awarded soon.  Watch for more visible signs of the project to start appearing in the harbour and on the landscape around the bridge project.  Crockford, no doubt, will continue to tilt at windmills.

Housing on the Block

 

Last week Victoria City Council voted to cut funds for affordable housing.  The vote will be considered for adoption this week and deserves a second look.  It's indicative of a problem with so many governments who see themselves as an investment bank rather than a service provider.  Governments don't collect taxes to earn good financial returns, rather they collect them to fund the services and build the assets necessary to sustaining healthy communities.  Good on those who saw that difference in the first place.  Here's my letter asking for reconsideration.

Please reverse your GPC vote to cut Victoria's housing programs.

Clearly we have made a lot of progress in generating new partnerships to expand our supply of affordable housing and new private sector projects are moving forward that will add more market rentals.  Still, the job is not finished and the private sector alone cannot meet the specialized needs of disadvantaged populations and the many who remain homeless in our city.
 
Victoria needs to hang on to the leverage the city can exercise through funding contributions and partnership programs.  We cannot do that through the CRD alone.  Ensuring that projects are sensitive to local concerns will still be best addressed when the city has a strong voice at the table, and that voice is strongest when we have the leverage of being a major funding partner.

Victoria does face financial challenges, just like every other municipality in Canada.  It is simply not good enough, however, to wait until other governments return to the housing field to deal with the problems we face today.  There are still homeless on our streets and projects that will be needed to house them take time and planning.  The respite of a weak economy is not a long term solution.

Likewise, the obsession with funding challenges is also short term.  Many projects initiated by yours and previous councils are moving to planning or are nearing completion.  They will add to your assessment roles and help support the services Victoria citizens expect their city to deliver and the assets you are charged with managing.

Looking for budget efficiency is important to our citizens, but it is not your only task.  Housing now and in the future is key to the healthy of our economy, our community and our citizens.  It is critical that Victoria remain committed to that agenda by ensuring the resources and the influence the city exercises through our own programs are supported.

Please make sure that the good work we have started as a community does not stall and rethink the funding cuts supported at committee.

Your ship has sailed . . .

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luton/8063607537/in/photostream
 

Another in the seemingly unending stream of harebrained letters hit the paper today, floating the fantasy that the city could be better served by a fixed link crossing in place of a new Johnson St. Bridge.

 

One premise of the letter is that the bridge lifts only for the occasional sailboat to pass through the channel.  Quite the contrary, an active and vibrant shipyard continues to operate at Point Hope and it will be a surprise to some how large some of the ships are that get pulled onto land via a marine railway that cost no small sum for the owners of the shipyard.  They’ve added a few spurs so that numbers of vessels can be anchored in the yard for repairs and maintenance. 

 

Many are much too large to fit under the existing bridge of course, and federal regulations would require a clearance of some 185 feet for a fixed link over navigable waters.  Even were those regulations to be tweaked to accommodate local conditions, the idea of a fixed span is unworkable if not nonsensical, and would require the alienation from productive use of great swaths of land downtown and in Vic West, eviscerating any of the imagined cost savings proposed by such a foolhardy project. 

 

Point Hope is already one of, if not the largest single taxpayer in the city, and choking off their business would be compounded by the disappearance of many smaller businesses that would have to be razed to fit in ramps and other infrastructure to facilitate a fixed link in support of the “free flow” of traffic the writer is desperate to pursue.

 

The shipyard is at a most perfect location for their operations and those others that will continue to suggest the city just move them out of the centre to a location more convenient to their myopia know nothing about how Point Hope operates let alone the next phase of their planned growth.  A graving dock that would allow them to work on larger vessels, perhaps even new construction, would fit nicely into the harbourfront and, in contrast to the complaints of some, contain some of the noisier operations with a more sheltered facility.

 

The graving dock plan, by the way, emerged after the referendum on the new bridge, even before a new federal shipbuilding program was announced, and has required some of the scope changes for the new bridge mischaracterized as a runaway budget by critics masquerading as media.

 

Point Hope has been a shipyard for almost 150 years, employs hundreds of skilled tradespeople and supports hundreds of other small businesses in the city.  It is a huge asset to our local economy in so many ways and, with their more ambitious plans, will employ some hundreds more, pumping more dollars into a city treasury that faces revenue challenges most of us are familiar with. 

 

Barring the predations of new councillors who imagine that they have a better idea for the use of the land, or want to promote more punitive strategies for dollar extraction from the shipyard business, Point Hope has a promising future that includes many more ships larger than the limited imaginations of commentators who continue to dredge up ideas I thought were scuttled long ago.