And we’re off.  Len, my partner, and I are off to cycle the Erie Canal in New York State - his roots.  A few days in the Adirondanks, and then up to Quebec City to help with their birthday celebrations.

See you in late July.

“Staycation” seems to have caught on. The idea of staying home for your vacation may be a new concept for those who have reason to get out of town, but, really, where better a place and time to be than Vancouver in the summer.

The streets of the West End are blissful: quiet, green, uncrowded.   And there are discoveries to be made - like a transformed Nelson Park.

It took years, and lots of consultation (hey, it’s right next to Mole Hill; you can imagine.)  The results are better than I expected.  The park is nicely divided into comfortable spaces by the desire lines - paths placed where people really want to go - each for different users, including of course dogs and their friends.

Overall, Nelson Park seems so much more European. 

If there’s one thing I’m noticing this summer, it’s how European the centre of Vancouver is beginning to feel.  As more people walk and cycle, as the number of cars diminish, you can feel that the Downtown and the West End are not that far from being reapportioned, where more space is allocated to handle the disproportionate number of people not in cars.

Nothing made that clearer than Canada Place this afternoon.  Thousands of people were swarming towards the waterfront, filling up all the space on the sidewalk - but there was no place else to go. They weren’t allowed on the roadway - even though there lots of empty space there, given the few number of cars.

It was crazy.  The cops were keeping the road clear for literally a handful of vehicles and access to the parking, but at the expense of the crowd.

People were already spilling off the curbs, jaywalking, and generally doing what made common sense.  But the police were charged with their duty.  The priorities were all wrong.

My hunch: when Vancouverites get used to car-less streets during the Olympics, we’re not going back to this way of managing things.  Cars will not take priority over tens of thousands of feet.

This just in from Rick Cole, the City Manager of Ventura, California - and one of the most articulate voices for Smart Growth in America.  (He was also a councillor in Pasadena.  A great speaker, too)

Take a read of this interview in which he discusses “the triple-witching hour - heating up the planet, running up unsustainable debt, and running out of cheap energy” - and reflect on its relevance for us just up the coast.

An historic election cycle, rising gas prices, a struggling real estate market, and a global credit crunch are forcing voters and politicians alike to rethink the behavior and models that have shaped American life since the middle of the 20th century. In the following TPR interview, Ventura City Manager Rick Cole makes a persuasive case that Americans must find a way to ensure that the silver lining in these troubling times will be new development standards based on the smart growth model.

With the unprecedented run-up in gas prices at the pump, do you think smart growth is an idea whose time has finally come?

Yes, but I’d offer two qualifiers. First, gas prices will go down. They’ll never go back down to what we paid a year ago, but the slowing global economy will eventually bring some temporary relief. Second, we can’t put long-term policies at the mercy of immediate crises. I think it’s important to take the long view. It’s not today’s gas prices that will force adoption of a smart growth model-suburban sprawl is doomed by the triple witching hour of heating up the planet, running up unsustainable debt, and running out of cheap energy.

That view has yet to penetrate the media and political mainstream. The dominant voices insist we can restore business as usual either by greater production of existing energy sources or by switching to new energy sources-or both. Even most environmentalists focus on greener cars.

Understandably. We’ve been building both our landscape and our economy around the car for more than 60 years. Even if we adopted a universal program of smart growth across America tomorrow, it would be decades before we had repaired and reshaped our landscape and economy to a more sustainable model. In the meantime, there will be tremendous pressure to exploit existing and new energy sources to maintain the suburban model we live in. But we can’t ignore Stein’s Law. Herb Stein was the pragmatic economist who first observed, “Things which can’t go on forever, don’t.”

Will California be a leader?

We should be. We can only continue to be the sixth-largest economy in the world if we adopt public policies that will reduce energy waste, curb greenhouse gas emissions, and reinvest in older communities. But not only that, we need to harness this vital transformation to produce high wage private sector jobs and new wealth. If Silicon Valley can continue to make money on innovative technology, California as a whole should be investing in a new landscape and a new economy that is also exportable to the rest of the world. Obviously, our current civic and political culture is too mired in partisan division to make these changes. But California’s landmark Climate Solutions Act (AB 32) is going to force many of these issues sooner and more radically than most people now realize.

Why will AB 32 be such a dynamic driver of change for smart growth?

Because we can’t possibly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 without reducing vehicle miles traveled. With transportation producing 40 percent of the problem, improved fuel efficiency will help-and so will switching to alternative fuels. But those gains are essentially wiped out by the offsetting increases in population and mileage that people are traveling. We can’t continue to replicate sprawl and comply with AB 32. Attorney General Jerry Brown may have jumped the gun by suing San Bernardino County over their General Plan, but the longer we delay rewriting every zoning code in the state, the higher the price we will pay in the long run.

That price is staggering. I haven’t seen figures for California, but The Economist says that this year alone, the oil-importing nations will transfer $2 trillion dollars to the oil exporting nations. That’s money that won’t go to improve our infrastructure, won’t go to protect our environment, and won’t go to educating our youth. It goes out our tailpipes.

Is there a connection between the cost of sprawl and the state’s budget crisis?

Absolutely. Let’s remember the role the infamous “car tax” played in all of this. Back in Virginia, repealing their vehicle licensing fee got a Republican elected Governor. So Pete Wilson, ever the opportunist, jumped on the bandwagon. The Democrats went along with a big cut so they didn’t get run over. But they insisted that if revenues fell, it would automatically go back up, which is what Gray Davis let it do. That cost him his job, and his successor has never made up for the lost revenue. On top of that, he’s floated a $20 billion transportation bond that’s heavily tilted toward highway spending that only compounds our structural deficit.

To his credit, he’s put in a Caltrans director who frankly admits we can’t build our way out of congestion. Our green governor has yet to publicly admit it, but it’s another example of Stein’s law: that which is unsustainable eventually comes to a stop. The budget crunch, climate change, and peak oil are forcing a day of reckoning. Back in 1995, Bank of America’s “Beyond Sprawl” report predicted this day: “As we approach the 21st century, it is clear that sprawl has created enormous costs that California can no longer afford.” But it has taken gas at $5 a gallon for people to wake up and smell the fumes.

Do you think the change will be driven by the market or by public policy?

House prices have plummeted in Victorville and Palmdale. All across the state there are promising examples of smart growth, form-based coding, mixed-use, and transit-oriented development. But we haven’t quite reached the tipping point yet. That makes for a volatile situation.

One thing that gave me hope was the way McCain’s stupid gas tax holiday played out on the national scene. Hillary Clinton grabbed it and tried to use it beat Obama in North Carolina and Indiana. It was the first time the gas issue had surfaced and clearly she thought she had a winner. But Obama showed incredible backbone, especially given the high stakes of being double-teamed by both McCain and Clinton. He had the guts to call it what it was: “A phony scheme that’s typical of how Washington works.” When the votes were counted, her gas plan tanked. McCain is still pushing it, but it just ties him into the failed Bush agenda. We’ll see whether the November election fosters a climate for change we can believe in.

What about at the local level? Will it get easier to build in a greener and more sustainable way?

Easier? No. Building anything will be hard for a while yet-both economically and politically. But California has shown incredible resilience over the past 150 years. Our growing population and changing demographics will open up a huge market for reinvesting in our older communities, in and around the core of our key regions. Now is the time to prepare for that opportunity. Remember during the last deep real estate downturn, Pete Wilson abandoned his promise to tackle statewide growth management. His excuse was, “I wish I had some growth to manage.” The tragedy of that missed opportunity was that it wasn’t long before growth again overwhelmed our capacity.

What if we’d not only put in place a coherent growth management strategy, like Oregon, New Jersey, or Maryland, but we’d also established the collaborative regional structures in place in metro Denver, Salt Lake City, or Portland? Today, we’d be finishing the Subway to the Sea, the Gold Line extension to Ontario Airport, and we’d have regular commuter rail between Ventura and Santa Barbara-and $5 gas would be a little less painful.

Can that still be done?

It will be done. But it’s too early to see who is going to do it. The job is open.

Download the latest Price Tags here.

What do the residents of False Creek North think of living in one of the largest centrally located, high-density, pedestrian and family-oriented mixed-use neighbourhoods in the world?   

Hardly anyone thinks to ask the people who move in after a project is designed and built.  In this case, graduate students at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning, under the guidance of Professors Wendy Sarkassian and Larry Beasley, set off to find out how False Creek North is meeting the needs of those who call it home.  The good and the bad.

Based on the report - Living in False Creek North - this issue is a summary of their findings, extensively illustrated.

It’s been the best piece of public policy in years: more tax on what we want less of; less tax on what we want more of. 

Yes, the carbon tax - on which a short-term political price must be paid, for long-term benefits.  How often do you see politicians taking that kind of risk?

Gordon Campbell’s courage in this case makes the hypocrisy of the NDP all the more appalling.  Carole Jame’s pretense (”deception” is a better word) is that taxing the major emitters won’t impact downstream users directly, i.e. the people opposed to the ‘gas tax’ - another misnomer.   Somehow, it’s implied, carbon will be reduced but the consumer won’t have to pay.

One way or the other, carbon must be priced so that it affects behaviour.  The virtue of the carbon tax is that consumers get to make decisions to avoid or reduce the tax in the first place.  

Most offensively, the  NDP ignores the redistribution of benefit to low-income people.  The tax cuts and dividends disproportionately go to lower income people, many of whom probably don’t drive. How extraordinarily rare to see a right-wing government engage in economic redistribution.

Many in the media are doing the same thing to the carbon tax - emphasizing only the tax increase, not the tax cut - that happened to the vehicle levy.  After weighing the costs and benefits, TransLink chose the option that made the most sense.  Then the media weighed in, reframed the issue (a ‘tax grab’) and amplified the critics, without fairly discussing either the options or the consequences. After the levy was killed, tax increases went on to the property tax and the benefits - more transit - were reduced - the lose-lose option. (And, to note, it was the NDP provincial government that killed it.)

If the carbon tax were delayed or rejected, we’d not only lose the momentum of carbon reduction (which would likely be reimposed inthe future in some more draconian and inefficient form), but also the benefits of tax reductions on income and the redistribution of the benefits.   

And the political message would be clear: don’t take the risk to do something sensible, long-term and principled if your opponents can discredit your message and take political advantage. 

From the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce:

We stand at a turning point for US transport. Real gasoline prices have already surpassed the peak levels that followed the second OPEC oil shocks, and even when adjusted for potential fuel efficiency improvements, have increased to the point where they will dramatically change driving behaviour in America.

Gasoline consumption is ultimately about how many people drive, the distance they drive and the type of vehicles they drive. On all three counts American face a massive change.

Us too.  But we’re going to spend our billions on widened highways, new bridges and plans to extend the freeway network to every part of this region.

UPDATE: Sun writer Pete McMartin added the following at the end of his weekend column:

… it doesn’t look like gas prices will be falling soon, if ever — then governments are going to have to reconsider their infrastructure priorities. Why invest billions in twinning a Port Mann Bridge for car traffic, when what the Fraser Valley suburbs will desperately need in the future is rapid transit rail and bus lines, not more freeways?

What are the economics of building the premier’s vaunted Gateway Project and environmentally irresponsible perimeter roads when rising gas prices might render them economically unviable? Why consider road expansion of any kind when there will be fewer and smaller cars on the road?

Say this about Harvey Oberfeld, ex-BCTV reporter: he’s memorable.  And not just because of his girth.  He provided a distinct look at provincal politics when he was covering that beat, giving another reason for politicians of the day to be adraid, very afraid, of a press gallery that reinforced the raw-meat quality of B.C. politics.

Now that’s he retired, all too soon, he’s keeping the spirit alive on his blog: “Keeping It Real.”  But this time the target is frequently his previous employer, now CanWest Global

Sometimes it’s not easy to speak out on the media.  It’s kind of strange, because the very people who spend their working days going after others, often with great glee, criticising the world around them (in most cases, justifiably so!)   are very thin-skinned when others turn the spotlight on them.

All the more fun, then, to see how Harvey makes ‘em squirm.  A definite addition for your Favourites list.

A few items on cycling during Bike-to-Work week.

First up, if you missed John Pucher’s great talk - Cycling for Everyone: Lessons for Vancouver from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany - then check it out here. 

Said the “Copenhagenize” blog:

I can only say that it is absolutely brilliant. It’s an hour-long filmed seminar with legendary John Pucher at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.   See the film now.  Quickly.  It’s wonderful.

John wasn’t at the Car-Free Cities Conference in Portland last week (”Live Free or Drive”) - but he would have loved it.  Best part was hearing about what’s happening in places like New York, San Francisco and Amsterdam.  The panelists were educational and entertaining - and confirmed that Vancouver is way behind when it comes to new initiatives.

And what issues are they working on in, say, Amsterdam?  Well, this:

Actually, this is in Portland - but it’s indicative of what’s coming.  Namely, bike trailers and attachments of all kinds that make the bicycle more useful for real life - and that take up more road space.  Typically, these pedal people are moving more slowly with wider loads, and start to back up the cyclists behind them on narrow paths.  Amsterdam is recognizing they have to provide passing lanes for faster cyclists if they’re to avoid bike rage.

Yup, it’s come to that.

It’s not new, but more cities are adopting Bogota’s Ciclovia - the temporary or permanent closure of a major street (or streets) to motorized vehicles so that people are free to use the roadway without concern for their safety.  Portland had a Sunday Parkway event at the end of the conference.  Gil Penalosa (brother of former Bogota mayor Enrique Penalosa, and now executive director of Walk and Bike For Life in Ontario) gave a great presentation - and here’s his interview with BikePortland.

In Vancouver, we have Critical Mass, of course, and the Vancouver Cruisers.  I confess I was unaware of this group, which hold rides periodically around the city on their classic cruisers, until they showed up at Leg-in-Boot Square on the South Shore of False Creek last weekend.

You’ll notice that no one is wearing a helmet, and they’re all dressed in street clothes.  No Lycra to be seen.  I think this a deliberate attempt to ‘Europeanize’ cycling in Vancouver, to make it accessible to everyone, a normal activity integrated into daily life. 

Loek Hesemans nailed it in Price Tags 99: Cycling has been a subculture in our cities - a way to express identity: “to create a sense of togetherness, of companions in adversity finding support with each other.”  It may be a necessary phase, but as John Pucher stresses, cycling must be for everyone if it’s to truly effect change on the scale we need.

The time is right: major issues are coalescing - climate change and peak oil, obesity and public health, traffic congestion and livable cities.  Decision-makers are more open to ideas that previously would have seemed too fringy to be comfortably embraced.  Budgets - the sincerest form of rhetoric - will follow.

And speaking of dollars, what I am I doing with my Campbell Cash?  The Tyee’s helpful campaign to direct the hundred-dollar dividends to organizations that can make better use of the money than most of us gives you some choices, and mine is the High School Bike Crews - another grass-roots campaign by Arthur Orsini.

Giving away money for cycling is the next best thing to actually doing it.

There’s no doubt that False Creek is one of the most admired locations for planned residential communities in North America - from the South Shore project designed in the 1970s, to the South East ‘Olympic Village’ now under construction. But the largest of them all can be found on the North Shore - Concord Pacific Place - as well as some of the adjacent neighbourhoods.

But what do the people who live there think? It’s very rare that they’re even asked, once the development is approved, built and sold out. Well, not in this case. Thanks to the work done by the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC, under the guidance of past planner Larry Beasley and social planner Wendy Sarkissian, we now have the results of a post-occupancy study of False Creek North.

The Sun’s summary is here. You can read the full report here.

My column in the current Business in Vancouver:

No quick or easy fix for affordable housing policy

When it comes to the cost of housing in Vancouver, there are so many perspectives, it’s easy to lose your own.

Some mayoral candidates have put “housing affordability” at the top of their to-do lists.

Gregor Robertson says he will foster an “affordable housing boom.” Al DeGenova will lever “appropriate development densities” into hundreds of millions of dollars. Raymond Louie will do it by “better using the city’s assets.” Peter Ladner and Sam Sullivan speak about homelessness and social housing on their websites, but they don’t tackle affordability head on.

So, if I may, some cautionary notes for the candidates:

“Affordability” is like “density” – everyone thinks it’s a good or bad idea depending on how it affects him or her. It’s good if it gives you an option to get what you want – say, a condo downtown. But if you’ve already got one, there’s no personal benefit when more is proposed for somebody else. And if additional density for more affordable housing means an actual lowering of housing prices, well, that’s a problem.

Because that would mean assessed values would fall – and a policy-maker who set out to achieve such a thing would be committing political suicide.

No one thinks a politician would – or could – deliberately make housing prices fall in Vancouver. But if they’re not prepared to do so, that has a pretty significant implication. It means “affordable housing” in Vancouver can’t be seen to affect the value of the housing around it. Infill housing mustn’t lower current property values. Therefore, infill housing must be seen to be expensive if it’s to be accepted in expensive neighbourhoods.

The very effort needed to make new and denser housing acceptable – design controls, planning reviews, neighbourhood consultations – are all things that add time and cost. Result: more expensive housing – which then becomes an argument for those opposed to a policy such as eco-density. The savvy municipal politician understands there are limits to the public’s desire for affordable housing.

So when it comes to constructing housing policy, a mayor and council need to take a longer perspective. The problem we face today will undoubtedly change, for at least two reasons.

First, and unpleasantly, volatile changes in energy, the environment, financial markets and geopolitics are beginning to overlap, roiling markets and changing people’s assumptions about our way of life. The problem we try to solve today will assuredly be different in scale and type tomorrow. A quick fix by definition is not a solution.

Secondly, while turmoil may well mean more short-term pressure on Vancouver’s housing stock, in the medium term some current problems may solve themselves – particularly the four-generation problem.

In Canada, there are four generations alive at the same time, all pretty much in good health, from grandparents to grandchildren. And three of those generations all want to live separately. That’s a lot of pressure on the housing stock at one moment – but that moment will pass. What happens as the baby boomers dispose of their homes?

We’ve also built a huge stock of highrise condos. They may not be delivering widespread affordability today – but they can tomorrow. The West End of the 1960s illustrates how well a housing stock can age, becoming more stable and affordable over time. If Yaletown and Coal Harbour had not been built, however, the West End would be under brutal pressure today, rather than remaining accessible to lower middle-income renters.

So don’t junk eco-density. Squabble over the name if you must, but keep the momentum going. Vancouver does densification really well – and it needs to keep doing so, even if the payoff isn’t immediate. We need a 21st century version of the Vancouver Special: housing that blends in, is simple to approve, easy to build, sub-dividable and adaptable.

Once again, that takes time. A housing policy that sets a steady course may be even more essential in volatile times, so long as it’s resilient. Remember: no quick fixes.