Cascadia Report

Category: Vancouver

  • Canada bails out Olympics budget

    The 2010 Olympics are getting another $100 million from the national and B.C. governments to cover soaring construction costs.

    The capital budget for the games has swollen 23 percent since 2002 to $520 million, despite trimming or cancellation of some projects. The spending plan came under scrutiny earlier this year in comparison to the$1.2 billion budget for the games in Turin, Italy. Vancouver organizers say they have less to build and that the venues can be completed with the current budget.

    Critics maintain that the projects still lack transparency and accountability. They charge that the true cost is hundreds of millions more because project costs have been shifted to other agencies for accounting purposes.

  • Region grapples with water shortage

    It’s hard to imagine in this soggy region, but water resources are under pressure.

    British Columbia is starting to run out of groundwater thanks to soaring population, more wells and climate changes including less snow, according to the latest in a series of water-related stories in The Tyee.

    Researchers don’t know exactly how much groundwater is withdrawn now, the story says. But there’s evidence of dropping acquifers, especially in the Okanogan and on Vancouver Island. With the area’s population forecast to grow by a third to one-half by 2020, alternate water sources need to be found.

    Meanwhile, in the Portland area the EPA recently designated a major aquifer under Clark County for closer consideration during construction projects. The decision doesn’t automatically stop any projects but is a sign that the health of the area’s water resources should at least be a factor.

  • Conference tackles what makes Cascadia unique

    A conference starting in Vancouver today explores the similarities among residents of Cascadia. Scholars, pollsters, environmentalists and others will discuss how we relate to the region’s geography and our “spirituality, ecology and social transformation.”

    This is how the organizers describe it:

    One focus will be on how public life is developing differently in the continental Pacific Northwest because of the region’s cultural openness, signified by a record low level of devotion to formal religion. The flip side of this phenomenon is an unusually passionate interest in “spirituality,” including reverence for nature.

    The event is all day today and Friday at Simon Fraser University. Call 604-291-5855 for more details.

  • Vancouver wooing Seattle passengers

    A newly appointed Seattle representative of Vancouver airport is launching a campaign to encourage more travelers from the region to use the Canadian airport for international flights, getting them to go north instead of through SFO or LAX.

    The number of passengers from Seattle connecting through Vancouver to Asia soared 40 percent from 2004 to 2005, according to the report in the Puget Sound Business Journal. Seattle passengers account for about 5 percent of all YVR traffic to Asia.

    And no wonder. Vancouver has 117 weekly flights to 8 Asian cities and 75 weekly flights to 11 European cities, according to the report. Seattle has 36 flights a week to three Asian cities and 24 flights to three European ones. Some of that is because Vancouver is Canada’s West coast metropolis.

    The development manager at Sea-Tac is quoted as hoping that near-capacity flights from SEA will attract more carriers. But the airport has lost fllights to Tokyo, Osaka and China in recent years.

  • Vancouver airport workers strike averted

    A strike by 250 security workers at Vancouver airport was averted Tuesday morning when their union agreed to mediation. A work stoppage could have disrupted travel because other airport staff unions reportedly were planning to honor picket lines.

  • Restraining Cascadia’s nanny side

    Restraining Cascadia’s nanny tendencies seems about as easy as eliminating salal from one of the region’s fields.

    vancouver fireworksJust as Seattle seems to grow up and enjoy itself, opposition fights to keep it quiet. The number of licenses to sell liquor, for example, has risen almost 60 percent since 1997 as new clubs and bars have opened.

    But Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is harassing bar and club owners into signing agreements with a long list of operating limitations designed to make them “good neighbors” by keeping the area around their businesses quiet after hours. The city has obsessed for years over how to handle benign strip clubs and police regularly crack down with excessive force on club-going crowds downtown.

    Now this week city police handed out a record number of tickets for “boating while intoxicated” during the annual Seafair hydroplane races. Editorialists applauded the crackdown.

    There are similarities in Vancouver, where at least some residents have been trying to shake the city’s “no-fun” image with a campaign and a web site, funcouver.com. Why become just another picturesque town filled with restaurants and shopping but scant nightlife?

    The city is considering if it could loosen its drinking laws. Drinking at the summer fireworks show should lead to less enforcement in general, according to the argument.

    Clearly the rules are local land-use issues that need to take into account the wishes of all the residents. But they should consider that having places to party, let off steam and celebrate is part of what makes Cascadia’s unique quality of life.

  • Cascadia ports may get new local competition

    Ports in Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver are Cascadia’s shipping gateways. Now an American man is investing up to $500 million to build a container-port operation in Prince Rupert, a town on the British Columbia coast about 500 miles north of Vancouver.

    A story in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday explains that the new operation through tiny Prince Rupert could shave two days’ transit for goods from China bound to Chicago. Ships would arrive in the town’s naturally deep harbor and travel across Canada on a train line that has excess capacity (instead of on congested routes through the U.S.).

    The project still faces many obstacles. But it underscores how much competition Cascadia’s major ports face.

    A couple of years ago Vancouver benefited while Seattle, Portland and California’s ports suffered through a strike. Each port has since expanded to meet demand from the booming trade with Asia, providing more business for everyone.

    Yet when an inevitable downturn in business comes, the key question will return: who can do the business fastest and at the lowest cost?

  • Oil spill pollutes near Squamish

    Squamish oil spill by Vancouver SunAn oil spill near Squamish, British Columbia, threatened a sensitive bird habitat and covered several Vancouver sailboarders in slime this weekend.

    About 8,000 gallons of heavy bunker oil leaked Friday and quickly soaked into a nearby marsh. The estimated size of the spill fell during the weekend but locals were questioning the response, especially since a similar spill occured nearby exactly one year ago.

    A similar, larger bunker oil spill along the Washington coast in 1991 killed thousands of birds and spurred debate about oil shipping in the area. This month marked completion of Washington’s response to that accident: a habitat-restoration plan and stationing of an emergency-response tug nearby.

    What will be B.C.’s long-term response to the repeated spills?

  • Trains aren’t just for tourists

    Skytrain BC Transit 2000Vancouver, one of the two big Cascadia cities with functioning mass-transit systems, has a new tourist sight: its trains.

    The city’s SkyTrain is selling automated guided tours for the light rail line. For C$24 riders can rent headsets that provide commentary of the train’s route and walking tours in several neighborhoods along the way — in six languages.

    Apparently 16 percent of the train’s 200,000 daily riders are tourists, so the transit system figured it makes sense to turn them into an additional revenue source.

    Meanwhile in Seattle, where the first beleagered train line is three years away from opening, a local columnist piled on last week by suggesting that urban trains really are just for tourists. Maybe Vancouver’s example will force such critics to come up with more creative rationale to slow progress.

  • If vancouver fails at wooing the Chinese…

    Vancouver isn’t doing enough to woo Chinese business, according to a Vancouver Sun article explaining how the city is trying to catch up.

    “We didn’t even have a protocol person until last year,” said Mayor Sam Sullivan. The city created a position in October just to handle foreign visits. Fourteen official Chinese delegations have visited since January and one or two unofficial ones visit each week, the paper said.

    Contrast that focus on building business ties to Seattle, where Mayor Greg Nickels is mired in debate over $3,400 the city spent on a video about replacing the waterfront viaduct. Meanwhile Governor Chris Gregoire gets criticized for not addressing “the potential downsides of globalization.”

    One result of the attention: Vancouver has 52 nonstop flights a week to China, promoting economic and cultural ties. Seattle has none.