Archive for February 22nd, 2012
Steveston Waterfront
Take a look at the web page set up by Onni that looks to raise support for broadening permitted uses on the waterfront at the BC Packers site. The buildings are already under construction. The idea that these will accommodate Richmond’s preferred uses “marine industrial” is fanciful. Onni’s is even worse. Here is what I submitted. What do you think?
The question is disingenuous – and the use of a banner stating “I support” that remains in place when looking at any page (and no banner for any other position) shows just how one-sided this process is. No information is presented on need. Nor is any information presented to assess what other uses might be appropriate. Is the best you can come up with a simple repetition of every other suburban shopping centre? Steveston is a destination full of people wandering around and looking for something to do. Apart from a few pubs and many restaurants – plus the boat yard at one end and the cannery at the other – there is in fact very little for visitors to do in Steveston. Most come to eat fish and chips, or drink coffee. Onni needs to show that it understands what makes for destination attraction, to build Steveston’s appeal and retain visitor interest. Ordinary retail is just not good enough. We need something as interesting as Granville Island – but sufficiently different and preferably tied into to the history of the place. Go and do some research – talk to the Rouse Corporation (Faneuil Hall in Boston) or the people who did Covent Garden in London. I do not support your proposal. Nor do I think that the City’s idea of marine industry is viable. What we need here is some imagination.
UPDATE
Maybe the Rouse Corporation is not such a good place to go. The Architect’s Newspaper Blog looks at what is now proposed for New York’s South Street Seaport now that ownership has changed.
The design is a huge departure from the desolate barn-like mall developed by the Rouse Corporation in the 1980s, where to this day nachos and tropical cocktails remain de rigueur. The new owner, the Howard Hughes Corporation, hopes to bring New Yorkers back to one of the most spectacular sites in town, while welcoming tourists and not quarantining them in a thematic trap.
How London Deals with Fare Evasion
This morning I came across a news story on how Transport for London is to increase its penalty fares. The journal I was reading (Railway Herald) publishes as a locked pdf – which means it cannot be quoted by cut and paste, but I quickly found out that all they had done was copy a TFL Press Release including its headline – so I think I will do the same but at least I have acknowledged where it came from.
Pressure builds on fare dodgers
21 February 2012
Penalty charges have risen to £80 on all parts of the capital’s transport network as Transport for London (TfL) continues its battle against fare evasion.
The increase – from £50 to £80 – covers London Underground, London Overground, buses, Docklands Light Railway and tram services.
Passengers who fail to pay for their tickets will receive a penalty charge which, if left unpaid, could lead to a criminal record and a fine of up to £1,000.
Those who pay within 21 days will see their fine reduced to £40.
Despite a fall in the rate of fare evasion in recent years, the cost to TfL last year was an estimated £63m.
In addition to the penalty deterrent, TfL also employs more than 500 revenue protection inspectors on its network to combat fare dodgers.
London fare gates image from SkyscraperPage Forum
As I am sure you all know, London’s Underground has been gated for many years now with gates not too dissimilar to the ones now going in on our SkyTrain stations.
I did some quick sums using data from the TfL Annual Report. I reckon TfL’s fare revenue at around £3bn (that’s our North American billions not the UK’s) so the rate of evasion is about 2% – even with all those gates, and 500 inspectors and a comprehensive enforcement strategy. (A pound is worth about $1.56 Canadian at the time of writing)
The point of this post is simply to re-iterate that the “investment” now being made on our system will not eliminate fare evasion. If we do as well as London – and that would mean we would need penalty fares, the revenue of which comes back to the system, not the coffers of the government, and continued on train and bus fare inspections – we might halve the current evasion rate. I suspect that this actually requires a considerable increase in enforcement resources, which makes the return on capital even worse than anticipated.
The way things are going for the BC Liberals at present, I doubt that they will still be in government by the time this turkey comes home to roost. And anyway it will be Translink that gets the blame I expect – though it ought to be directed at Kevin Falcon.
Yesterday I was interviewed by the Montreal Gazette. Apparently Montreal is seriously considering using the Translink model to reform its current governance of transit. I told the reporter that I thought they ought to look at a metropolitan region that has actually been reasonably successful at providing a good transportation system. London or Paris seem to me to be far better at it than Vancouver. And we weren’t talking about fare dodgers. But at least we seem a bit better than Toronto right now.
Stephen Rees's blog 