Tag Archives: Transportation

Experimental Car Commuting Community

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Thanks to epSos.de for the photo (From Flickr's Creative Commons)

It was bound to happen. When you have a superawesome Father-in-Law who lives in Maple Ridge and you on Main Street in Vancouver, well, sooner or later you’re going to have to live the life of a commuter.


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During our 97 kilometer, three-and-a-half hour round-trip, Michelle and I experienced a different kind of community than we usually do – the car commuter community (let’s go with carmmunity or commutermunity). Made up mostly of single-occupancy-vehicles, this community can be simultaneously fast and slow moving.  And sometimes, it doesn’t move at all. We definitely experienced a fairly speedy trip out to Maple Ridge, but were stuck in a Port-Mann-Bridge-twinning/Coquitlam-super-sprawl sort of construction-inspired gridlock during which we gazed up and around at the partially built overpasses and expanding lanes of concrete and asphalt.

First question: so, once the six or eight lanes of traffic cross the bridge – and then go into four or five lanes of traffic on the freeway – how will this traffic fit into the two or three lanes of traffic that choke Highway One about three kilometers into/past Coquitlam?

I know a few colleagues who commute each day from Pitt Meadows and Surrey (each from a different place, not from one to the other and then to UBC). And, on Wednesday, Michelle and I got a bit of a window into their worlds. Now. Not only am I on the more social side of the humans are social creatures continuum, but I’m definitely a hypertechnological, superconnected dude, too. I found it hard not to think about sending emails, text messages, and having The Daily Show or a podcast on in the background while I write a blog post and instant message Shipping Correspondent, Godfrey Tait while I read the latest selection of our book club.  On a more consistent basis, commutermunities would be a dangerous place for my socially wired, multi-tasking style.

Second question: what the heck does one do alone in a car for three hours (or more) per day?!

Finally, before leaving for Maple Ridge we filled up our 2001 Honda Civic with delicious gasoline. The cost of doing so typically ranges from about $55-$60. Upon returning home and parking our car, Michelle and I noted that the trip used up just under a quarter tank of delicious gasoline – logical extrapolation concludes that, if we lived in Maple Ridge we’d be using about a tank of delicious gasoline per week getting to and from our jobs in Vancity.

Third and final question: in a region where the collective earning potential is about 10-15K less than the Greater Toronto Area and 5-10K less than Calgary and that is also a community that is carbon taxed, property-taxed-to-pay-for-slow-to-expand-public-transit, and is in possession of the highest housing prices in the English-speaking world, how the heck does one keep up with and/or ahead of this rather perplexing mathematical equation?

Put It Out There: Talking into community

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AJ works in London as a rickshaw driver. He loves it.

He grew up in urban Bangalore and lives in London as a rickshaw operator.  “It’s kind of a busman’s holiday,” he explained in that Londonized Indian accent you sometimes catch in a movie.  He smiled a broad, a genuine grin, as he spoke.  “The bus driver spends all day behind the wheel and then when he goes on vacation he drives all over the countryside in a van.  That’s me, kind of.”

AJ puts it out there.  He has to.  If you were riding solo from Athens to London, the long way round through Spain and Portugal, you’d be putting it out there too.  And dear sweet Jesus did he ever put it out there.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Well, that’s not true – I see it all the time, just in super low doses.  AJ is the crystal meth of putting it out there, the double absinthe jaggerbomb.  One can learn a lot from a man like AJ.  I’ll tell you what I learned.

It was actually me who approached him in La Place de la Comedie in downtown Montpellier on

Watch the movie and you'll understand why it's here.

a Friday afternoon, just as the daytime workers were hopping in the TRAM and nightlifers were gearing up at the brasseries and bistros.  He was engaged in conversation standing beside his Kona, a cross-over bike he’d retrofitted as a touring bike.  Kona is a Vancouver company so I wondered if he were a fellow Canadian, a fellow tour cyclist.  The rest, as they say, is la histoire.  After minutes we launched into philosophical discussion, bike talk, and all the while AJ called out to passersby, a legitimate wellspring of energy and fervour.  I am no shy guy, really, yet I felt dwarfed next to this gregarious, fearless chatterbox, an Indian Dean Moriarty and accented Elwood P Dowd.

That night we visited with, well, everyone.  Old and young, interested and interesting.  AJ does not speak French and yet his immediate connection to people, like hummingbird to nectar, broke through with those bright eyes smiling and a “enjoy life!” being called out to the doldrums of social sinners, closed in their little lives.  The next day we rode our bikes down to the beach.  We saw AJ chase girls like a Jack Russel bent on a ball.  We’d sit watching the waves and AJ would pass talking with one group of girls, and then pass minutes later talking with another group.  We all laughed at his tenacity, his brilliant tenacity, and I caught myself staring an incarnation of outgoing I’d never seen before.  “Weeks on the road lacks certain…company, you know.”  It’d be easy to call fault to AJ’s shameless approach to the women he’d pass, but we decided to absorb it into the average that was his incredible…putting it out there.

The world needs AJs.  Sure, he’s probably taken as crazy as often as he makes someone laugh or think.  That’s society’s fault.  The world needs AJs because otherwise we’re left with those we know, those we avoid, and not much in between.

Talk more. Think less.

So I ask you: how often do you put it out there?  Do you talk with cashier who scans your groceries?  Do you get a giggle out of an old woman on the bus?  Do you ever just talk to someone without wanting anything in return?  Are you afraid to do it?  I admit that I sometimes am afraid.  I’m afraid of being mocked, rejected, or thought an idiot.  And my world is smaller because of it.  So today I am going to up the ante.  I’m going to put myself out there more than I did yesterday.  That’s how you make good community.

Simcoe or Bust: Transportation in Rural Canada

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Steve Sloot, as a youngster, getting around Simcoe and other parts of rural Ontario

Early 20th century American novelist Thomas Wolfe famously wrote, “you can never go home again.”  He was talking about the change in yourself and your birthplace through the passage of time and never being able to recapture what you’d romanticized in your mind as you age.

Today I intended to write about going back to the place I grew up as an adult and how it’s changed and seems smaller.  I was going to write how I judge it and feel wisps of nostalgia, how I see younger versions of myself everywhere.  I wanted to write about the people I used to know in personalized historical scenarios, scenarios that formed me and challenged me.

But I’m not going to write about that at all.

This blog posting is about the bus.

I am sixth or seventh generation Simcoe, Ontario (it could be earlier, but my mother hasn’t gotten around to tracing further back into our genealogical heritage on this bit of soil).  Simcoe is a farming town between deep in southwestern Ontario not too far from Lake Erie.  As kids we would listen to more news from Erie, Pennsylvania than we did from Toronto.  The town hasn’t changed in size much in my three decades.  It’s a hub for the surrounding smaller towns of Delhi, Waterford, Port Dover, and all the hamlets dotted in between.  Simcoe is home to NHL defenseman Rob Clark and The Band’s famed rocker Rick Danko.  It’s a steady place full of tobacco farmers who have weathered the decline of smokers (either through death or smartening up).  There are some 15,000 Simconians who call this place home.

And not one goddamn bus that comes here.

That’s right.  None.  Not a train either.  Greyhound boasts 3,100 locations across North America, but has somehow skipped over Simcoe, Ontario.  I know this because I have been victim to the lack of public transportation more than once in my life.  I’ve rented cars and taken expensive airport shuttles; I’ve begged rides and coordinated carpools.  Getting to Simcoe, Ontario, requires driving yourself or driving yourself nuts finding affordable transportation.  So hire a van or set of mules, procure a chopper or you stick out your thumb and hope that small town Canada doesn’t let you down on lonely highway #24.  But no bus or train will bring you here.

When I tell this to Europeans they don’t believe me.  My friends from Asian countries scoff at the possibility.

As Canadians know, this is how most of us get around the rural parts of the country. Unless it's winter (September to July), then we just stay inside and watch hockey.

South Americans I’ve met don’t trust my account either: “there must be a bus or van or something that takes people…maybe you just don’t know about it?”  Oh, I know.  I know very well.  I’ve never owned a car of my own and have relied on friends and family to cart me around every time I come to visit.  My mother, never having a licence in her life (my Dad always did the driving before he died fifteen years ago), relies on my mid-80s grandfather or a lift to get groceries from her home in the even more rural hamlet of Port Ryerse.  What is wrong with rural Canada?  Is it the same everywhere?

You’re damn right.

Simcoe is not alone.  It’s not even Simcoe’s fault.  In my university days there was a 15-passenger van that drove from Brantford to Simcoe twice a day for about $15 one-way.  Not bad.  But it was almost always empty.  Just before it shut down I remember the driver, a very chatty man in his fifties, telling me, “there just aren’t enough people who use the service.”  There you had it.  Not economically viable.  Not really environmental either, having a half-empty van driving up and down highway #24.  The train had folded decades before, even the tracks removed and a bike-path put in its place.  But a bike path won’t get you from A to B in the dead of an Ontario winter.  And I’m a (self-described) hardcore cyclist!

I was told a story once about Henry Ford.  I’m not sure it’s true.  Supposedly once he got enough capital from his car company he bought the Detroit trolley and shut it down.  Thus, more people had to buy cars.  A great business move, but also a dick move.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of Canadian communities that are not reachable by public transit.  Newfoundland outports, wee communities nestled along the southern coast, are dying because it’s too expensive to keep those ferries running for the villages of 80 people, like Grey River, a small community I visited a decade ago that had no roads and was only accessible by boat.  People were waiting for the government buy-out to leave.  It was cheaper to give them money to leave than it was to keep that diesel boat cruising up and down all year round.

In Saskatchewan there used to be a grain elevator every mile.  Now you’ll be lucky to have one every hundred along the highway.  Towns there are dying.  My time in Eastend would have been nearly impossible if I didn’t have that big white van supplied to me by the organization I worked for, Katimavik.  We would go and visit the ghost towns around Eastend – creepy places with abandoned schools and restaurants.  Simcoe is probably not in any great peril of dying any time soon like Grey River, Newfoundland or a Dollard, Saskatchewan.  Public transportation once flooded rural Canada, but now it’s dried up in the worst public transit drought we’ve ever had.

Wolfe wrote about the changing of a place and never being able to revisit that which is gone.  In Simcoe “you can never go home again” because you simply can’t get there.

A Vancouver Transportation Story

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For my post this week I was originally going to write about the concept of reputation, with a particular focus on Lebron James and his classless, drunk-on-ego Superfriends performance (filtered nicely through the thoughtful lens of two heroes, Alexandra Samuel and Steve Nash). And then I was going to argue that rural living is superior to urban living in every way. And then I was going to discuss the ridiculousness of how 90% or more of medical, financial, delivery, and professional services operate on a 9-5 time line, which is exactly when most of their clients are working.

But that all changed after an epic 99 B-Line bus ride from Commercial Drive to UBC.

Here is the Cast of Characters who made up our commuter community today:

The Bus Driver of Bus Number R8061: a fortysomething man clad in a hipster hat and in possession of a pocketful of righteousness.

Broadway Bike Rider: a woman dressed all in black, wearing a helmet, fearless, full of conviction.

Jack Sparrow with a Bicycle: nice guy, we chatted logistics as we put our bikes on together at Commercial Drive (mine went on first because I was getting off at UBC)…and he looked like a pirate.

Thoughtful Young Commuter: glasses, short haircut, clever looking backpack: everything about the kid looked smart.

Engaging Senior Citizen: a very “big picture” thinker who tried to find common ground amongst our Wednesday morning commuter community.

The Chorus: the background opinions and verbosity that echoed the primary dialogue and also piped up to fill the heavy silences.

It happened exactly like this, more or less:

Suddenly, there was a fierce braking by the driver followed by a long, loud, incessant honk of the horn (not me, the bus’s horn).

“You’re in the middle of the lane!” said the Driver.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Jack Sparrow. “What are you doing?! That was not right. You’re only a foot and a half away from her! Jesus. You could’ve killed her.”

“She’s gotta share the road,” replied The Driver.

The Chorus: “What happened? What happened?”

“She is sharing the road,” spat Jack Sparrow.

“She’s in the middle of the lane. It’s a bus lane,” spat back The Driver.

“You might not agree with what she’s doing,” piped up Thoughtful Young Commuter (TYC). “But that’s no way to deal with it. What if your brakes failed? Hell, what if one brake failed? You would’ve run her over.”

“Look. Right there. It says ‘BUS AND BIKE LANE’!” pointed Jack Sparrow.

The Chorus: “Did you see it? Did you see it? Should we just call Translink or the police, too?”

The bus pulls up to the stop sign.

“Hey! You can’t take up a whole lane. It’s for buses,” The Driver shouted out the window to the Broadway Bike Rider (BBR), who was on his left. “Share the road.”

The light turns green and the BBR sped out in front of the bus. As she rode, the BBR pointed to the “Bus and Bike Lane” signs that dotted the street every 15-20 meters. Interesting.

Honking continued.

“They shouldn’t have a shared bike and bus lane. It causes problems like this one right here,” the Engaging Senior Citizen (ESC) contributed to the discussion, which was very lively at this point.

“Fine, honk at her when she’s 100 meters away, that’s fine,” Jack Sparrow was coaching The Driver on proper techniques. “Keep your distance. Fine. Let her know you’re coming and use the other lane to swing out and go around her.”

“She’s not sharing the road,” repeated The Driver.

“Look, she’s allowed to ride three feet from the curb. It’s her right,” said TYC.

“Okay, here, look to your left. Just pull out into the next lane – even just a little bit – and pass her. See, it’s just that easy. No need to act the way you’re acting, man.” The Driver was steering, but Jack Sparrow was pretty much driving the bus.

Red light. The doors fly open and the BBR finds herself – yet again – to be the target of The Driver’s verbal barrage.

“This is a lane for buses. You can’t ride in the middle of it. Get out of the road before something bad happens,” yelled The Driver.

“The sign clearly says it’s a bike and bus lane. We share it. You can go around me easily,” yelled back the BBR.

“So share it,” retorted The Driver.

The Chorus: “Why isn’t she riding on tenth? It’s a bike street. This guy is an asshole! I’d be riding in front of the bus too if he tried to hit me. What? Do you want to get run over by a bus?”

Dramatic re-creation of the Character "Jack Sparrow...on a bike"!

“There shouldn’t be a shared lane for bicycles and buses,” offered the Engaging Senior Citizen. “It doesn’t make any sense. Especially on Broadway.”

“[INSERT SEVERAL EXPLETIVES HERE],” expressed Jack Sparrow. “You’re encroaching on her! You’re pushing her against the curb!”

Sure enough, the 99 B-Line was inching ever so slightly on an angle towards the curb. Out of the corner of my eye I notice a cyclist on the sidewalk – on the wrong side of the road – weaving through pedestrians. A wry, ironic smile creeps across my lips.

“Do you understand what you’re doing?” asked TYC. “What do you think this is doing to the rider? She’s getting scared. You’re making her an enemy of buses. Stop it now. You’re already in enough trouble. Just stop it.”

Exiting Chorus Members on their phones: “Yeah, the bus number is R8061…”

“You need to get out of the bus lane!” chided the unrelenting Driver, mostly to himself, as the doors were now closed.

“[INSERT MORE EXPLETIVES]!” Captain Jack Sparrow was getting close to vigilante justice. “You’re a terrible person and I hope you lose your job for this.”

Away went the BBR, ahead of the bus, continuing to point at the bus/bike lane signs. The Driver, as he held down his horn, moved out around the cyclist, back into the bus/bike lane, and continued along Broadway (later he would produce another long, angry horning, but it was because of a confusedly-parked driver and, folks, that’s another story for another time). The Driver – clearly – was having a very  bad day.

THE END

Vancouver is an interesting place to cycle (and, apparently, take the bus!). In the past year the city’s built landscape has changed a fair bit because of the bike-friendly creations on the Burrard Street Bridge and the Dunsmuir Viaduct. These things are supposed to make cycling safer. And we’re supposed to be future-living in the world’s greenest, most bicycle-oriented city. Or at least that’s the idea.

In the past few weeks one of my pedaling friends was hit by a car and another was hit by pavement after avoiding a car. This year I’ve seen half-a-dozen sprawled-out, injured cyclists at the horrible Clark-and-Tenth intersection, too. And then there’s Kurt Heinrich, whose casual cycling through stop signs and traffic lights has earned him over $300 in tickets. I confront annoying sidewalk-bike-riders on Commercial Drive nearly every time I go outside. And then there’s this – the above tale of a very overzealous bus driver. No matter how you spin or slice it, cycling is a messy business here in Vancouver.

So there it is. This story is just part of the larger fabric. And I bet ten more just like it pop up in your lives by the end of the week.

-  JCH

Cars and Community Planning … in a roundabout sort of way

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A recent run-in with the pavement got me thinking about bike commuting in Vancouver, indeed anywhere in which the car is king on the roads.

I went end-over handlebars and broke my elbow, an accident that would have been considerably worse if I hit the car I was trying to avoid.

Two things struck me (ok three if you count the ground!)

  1. People in this town don’t understand roundabouts
  2. Significant change is needed to make our roads safer and more accessible for non-car transit. And this is some thing we should aspire to (… that’s 4. I feel like I’m in a Monty Python sketch)

When it comes to roundabouts, unless there are traffic control signs, these are uncontrolled intersections … so you’ve gotta remember three things – yield to traffic on the right if the other vehicle has arrived first or at the same time, yield to traffic already in the roundabout to your left and NEVER come to a full stop in a roundabout (unless traffic conditions require it). Come on peeps … it’s that easy! Making our roads safer for riders however will take a little more work.

It’s about choice – easy alternatives

Creating real and workable alternatives is our first priority. With more bike paths, public transit, walking routes, pedestrian and bike only streets we create real alternatives and these also need to be CHEAPER. Policy and legal changes would help with bike focused road rules. What about GPS-enabled information about transit times … make it real-time and real-easy!

If it made more impact on our wallets we would think twice about taking the car everywhere. Increase the cost of the car, gas, insurance and parking. But an interesting thought strikes me. How does making cars and car ownership more expensive impact our community? By making cars and car ownership more expensive, driving becomes accessible to a privileged few whose wallets are large enough. Unless a working family or single mum are within walking distance of schools, child-care, stores and community centers they are penalized because they cant afford to 1. live in a service appropriate area or 2. afford a car.

Following in the footsteps of friends to the south the creation of 20-minute neighbourhoods is such a thoughtful and simple way to challenge how we plan our urban environment. Take the car out of the picture by making it so much easier, nicer and cheaper to ride, walk or take transit to your local neighbourhood – which has everything you need. Support those who work outside their neighbourhood with integrated transit systems.

I wonder when we’ll finally turn that corner and the car will no longer be king of the roads. What a day that will be!

Vancouver drivers – honk if you want to build community!

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Vancouver’s drivers are an agreeable and, on the whole, competent lot. After years dodging cars on Toronto’s streets, jay walking in Vancouver is a treat, free from peril and ill will. Where else can you gingerly venture out onto a big downtown street like Robson or Denman and discover that not just cars, but even cabs immeditately slow to a halt and wave you merrily across? If I tried a stunt like that in Munich, Paris let alone Montreal or Ottawa, I’d have been road kill long ago. Experiences such as these are unique to a big city like Vancouver and to me they are a positive indicator that a convivial, community oriented spirit is alive and well in this fair city.

Nonetheless, just like any metropolis, our motorists are plagued by high levels of incompetence, recklessness and needlessly uncouth behaviour. Most of this is rooted in road rage. However sorely tempted, I will avoid raging about the incompetent, erratic and downright scary drivers at the wheels of luxury vehicles all over Vancouver and the threat they pose to the safety of our urban community. As Gumboot contributor, John Horn, aptly points out, when these nifty cars become stranded in two inches of snow, an opportunity for creating community emerges and fellow citizens can throw their weight behind fancy bumpers, building community in the process. But, I digress –

After travelling in Peru for the past three weeks, I have come upon a simple solution, to chipping away at road rage and resurrecting community on the road. Let’s use the car horn differently.

Aside from weddings, North Americans only resort to the horn in moments of emotionally-driven need – honking to express anger, impatience or fear. Peruvian drivers use their horns liberally and cheerfully and so they become the harmonious language of the street. Traffic rules, traffic lights and traffic headaches are strangely absent while honking creates a healthy atmosphere of give and take to each intersection.

Vancouver’s eight lane intersections are replete with complicated traffic light systems where motorists “get the rage”. A similar intersection in Lima has a simple turning circle and that’s it. Peruvian drivers enter at will, give a merry honk, receive a merry honk in response from those in the circle and potential fender benders are avoided. Cab drivers even individualize their horns so that some taxis emit a jolly, three-note hooting while others give a little whistle. Annoying? Not really. The sound just becomes part of the music of the street and the aural evidence of a community of drivers which knows how to get along.

Should Vancouver scrap its traffic lights and institute a honking free for all in the name of reducing road rage and building community? No. This would backfire. But still, can’t we at least take a leaf out of Peru’s book? In doing so, I believe we could build better on-road communties. How about giving a little “beep, beep” when someone is a slow poke, or a cyclist doesn’t see you, rather than resorting to a sketchy, right lane passing manoeuvre, or to a full-on horn lean? I for one am in the market for a car horn that gets my message across via the tune of a merry jig – that Lima taxi man has one, why shouldn’t I?