Posts Tagged ‘Vancouver’
Borrowed Landscape
Last night we watched the second episode of Monty Don’s Japanese Gardens on Knowledge TV. These programs can be streamed free for the next month if you live in BC.
I learned a new expression “borrowed landscape“. The gardens tend to be fairly small – but by artful trimming of the trees around the garden the natural landscape beyond it becomes incorporated into the view of the garden. This makes the garden seem larger and more impressive. Many formal Japanese gardens are designed carefully to be most impressive from particular viewpoints which can be found by stone markers placed along the foot path – in fact these are known as “stroll gardens“. This concept is actually quite well understood here by landscape gardeners and is something that I sometimes feel is a bit overdone. If you want to get somewhere you will try to walk in a straight line to your desired destination, and the cunningly curved paths are actually frustrating. Indeed desire lines off the paved paths are a real issue to the maintenance of perfect lawns.
I am much more likely, however, to be strolling with no particular purpose these days. I like to indulge myself by being a flaneur. So stroll gardens would actually be an improvement in some locations such as Trafalgar park which has no paths at all and just relies on the street sidewalks. It is also very much a playing field rather than a garden.
But living in Arbutus Village Park, my greatest desire is that we ought to be making more of the location, and borrowing the view of the North Shore mountains should be part of the park’s design. Of course, this would be of no value at all to people walking through the park. The beneficiaries would be the residents of the buildings – at least the taller ones, on the north side of the building. Like us.
Apparently in BC topping trees is regarded as a bad practice by arborists. Elsewhere in the world they have a different perspective. And our love for trees doesn’t seem to extend to the real giants in the old growth which are coming down at an increasing rate.
Captain’s Log
Just a normal day in paradise – with times from the friendly systems that now track my movements
car2go from Yew at Nanton to the Aquatic Centre, English Bay (4.9km)
Depart 11:40am Arrive 11:54am
Bus from Stanley Park – after ten minutes wait at the terminus
2:26pm 19 to Ganville Street
2:54pm 16 to Nanton arrive 3:20pm (8.35km)
Despite heavy traffic on Georgia, the #19 made good time as it ran for most of the time as SORRY BUS FULL. The bus was a diesel, not a trolley, and was running a short turn to Main Street.
The wait on Granville Street seemed long as the Transit app kept reporting “real time” expected departure times that got updated intermittently.
I have not been using car2go much recently as there was often no car available when I wanted one. They sent me a rather plaintive email to tempt me back so the trip downtown was actually free.
Not that I was in a hurry or anything but I think I am going to be looking for car2go more often.
ProVancouver party proposes flat fare and other transit discounts across Lower Mainland
The title is that of an article in the Georgia Straight
The ProVancouver Party is one of several new entities that have popped up due to the upcoming city election all of which claim to be non-partisan (just like the flailing NPA) and different from the status quo.
The main difference is simply in the level of understanding of how local government in Vancouver works (or is supposed to) between those who have some experience and those with none at all. Many of the new candidates seriously think that their naivete is a qualification rather than a liability.
I am not going to bother with analysing any of these half baked proposals. I am simply going to point out that getting elected to Vancouver City council does not enable anyone to introduce any of these ideas. As the Straight points out these are regional measures, which means that they have to appeal to most of the other municipalities outside of the City of Vancouver. The only commonality among these municipalities is their utter contempt for Vancouver and all it stands for. For one thing they are all convinced that Vancouver benefits far more from transit than they do. Even when Burnaby has far more SkyTrain service than any other municipality. And if your identifier is ProVancouver, you are already setting yourself up for an argument. West Vancouver still thinks it would be better off if it left Translink altogether – though even they have to concede that it is really difficult to find any acceptable piece of land within West Vancouver that could be used as a bus storage and maintenance facility. Places like Anmore and Belcarra even think that people from other municipalities should not be allowed park or even drive on their roads. Especially in summer.
The key word that ProVancouver has latched onto is “affordable”. Which you might think would translate into some kind of means tested subsidy for transit fares. But as usual in all such woolly thinking, the term itself is not defined – but has something to do with “families” even though most people now live in rather different households than the traditional Mum, Dad and 2.4 kids. What we do know from our experience with the referendum is people in general believe a lot of nonsense about Translink and think they pay quite enough in taxes to provide much better service than they currently get. And that second belief is equally strongly held everywhere – even in the best served parts of the region. If you are not going to collect enough at the farebox, then it has to come from somewhere else, and any proposal is always going to be met with the angry riposte “How are you going to pay for that?” (without waiting for the answer before stamping off).
One of the great weaknesses of the upcoming ballot is that it is going to be filled with a lot of names: most of them will be unfamiliar. And whoever gets elected is going to have spend a lot of time and effort getting up to speed on procedures, rules and regulations. To some extent that does mean the potential for more influence from the professionals who have mostly been doing this stuff as a full time career for many years. But sadly they will be fully occupied trying to persuade the newly elected councillors that they have to both listen and read attentively. There is no evidence at all that ProVancouver has the slightest intention of doing that before insisting that they are now in charge: heaven help us all if that is the case.
Arbutus Greenway
The greenway is really showing how well the plan is working now. The start of sunny weather and car free days in Vancouver is bringing people outside. We walked from King Edward Ave to Granville Island
13th Avenue
10th Avenue
6th between Cypress & Burrard
6th between Cypress & Burrard
5th at Fir
5th at Fir
5th at Fir
5th at Fir
5th at Fir
All these photos were taken on my iPhone 6 and are as shot, no post processing at all.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Place in the World
This is my photo that I took from the Window of a Dash 8 as it returned from Terrace to my Place in the World, Vancouver. The plane was almost directly overhead of where we live – but this is one of the places we go to. False Creek, Granville Island, downtown. This where we go for walks, and great restaurants, theatres and the Orpheum – home of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Exactly where we go “to feel inspired or cheered up”. We can get there on the bus, bikes (using the new Arbutus Greenway to avoid the traffic) or car2go and Evo. Two great car sharing services which means there are no worries about parking. We often walk one way and drive the other because of this flexibility. Of course we have Compass cards for transit and I get a concession fare – and sometimes people even give up their seat for me!
There are lots of pictures of Vancouver on my flickr photostream. And also quite a lot from New York. By the way, Erica V (who set the challenge this week) seems to be a bit mixed up. She talks about New York as though it is “an island”. Wrong. There are five boroughs in the City and what she is talking about is Manhattan. And I would bet, just lower Manhattan at that. There is a lot more to the City than that. Again, on my flickr stream there are pictures of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. I have yet to visit the Bronx – and I want to add Coney and Long Islands too. We have also enjoyed Roosevelt and Ellis Islands.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Favourite Place
Favourite Place (and yes I have anglicised the spelling) ought to be harder to pick. But “you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” and while there are many places in Vancouver that I could pick, the loss of our view cones and corridors is one I feel very strongly about. We are blessed with a place of quite extraordinary beauty – a deep inlet (actually a fjord) at the foot of the North Shore mountains. For a long time Vancouver was mostly concerned about cutting down trees and making stuff from them. The old growth forest is almost gone except for one or two areas of park managed to make it look like we imagine it ought to have looked. Stanley Park is actually just one of several such places.
For as long as I have been here, there was a firm policy to protect the view of the North Shore mountains and the inlet from a number of significant places. Now the pressure to allow ever more taller towers across the city means that these views are vanishing. And one such development is right next to where I live. I took this photo with my phone while walking on the Arbutus Greenway at W 37th Avenue. Overlooking Quilchena Park with a spectacular view – and two tall cranes in the process of blocking that view with condos. The developer has recently gone back to the City to ask for permission to add more floors to the part of the development nearest to our six storey building.
The roof of our building is just below the height of the current tree canopy, so it almost invisible. The new buildings will be up to 72m (263 ft). The developer says that fits the view because it would match the nearest skyline of the North Shore mountains: the snow capped peaks will still peer over the top. The City has yet to rule on this proposal, and I took the photo so I would be able to look back in future at what we will have lost if the developer gets what he wants.
I went back and took a picture with my camera using the zoom lens.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Tour Guide
Share with us an image, or two, or three, (or more!) of where you live. For bonus points, tell us what it is about the photo(s) that you love.
Vancouver BC sits on the Burrard Inlet, one of the finest natural harbours anywhere. I recommend using the SeaBus to get across it – at weekends and in the evening one of the cheapest harbour tours anywhere.
Vancouver has magnificent beaches, clean water and very safe swimming. Tourists tend to go for the “standard sights” like Stanley Park, or the Steam Clock in Gastown. I would recommend you set aside some time just to relax, go sit on the beach and admire the scenery.
If you feel like a bit of exercise go for a walk in the woods. On the North Shore are a couple of reservoirs in closed watersheds, with old growth forests and many trails. This one is Capilano but Seymour is just as good.
What Vancouver Streets will look like
A powerpoint presentation by Dale Bracewell (Manager of Transportation Planning, City of Vancouver) via Twitter
Three sample slides
Vancouver Mural Fest – part four
Looking at the photos posted by others, it dawned on me that the map was if not unreliable perhaps a work in progress. So I set out again to cover the gaps.
In the mosaic click on any image for a larger version
And, once again, a number of murals were incapable of being captured into one shot so I have been doing some stitching again. These images are all on the flickr album and the Mural Festival site is also being updated with much more information, some of which I have copied here and to flickr.
Click on the image to be taken to the flickr page to get a much larger version
DAVID SHILLINGLAW – “We Are Croutons Floating in Cosmic Soup”
Artist Statement: The mural explores aspects if the human experience. Signs and symbols, patterns and forms that attempt to communicate a universal language. Inspired by board games and hieroglyphics, my mural works create a visual space to visually negotiate, a collection of separate parts that connect and can be read in multiple directions. The content is full on bold colour forms, a collision of shapes, some recognisable, some more ambiguous.
This one is not actually part of the festival: it was painted by Kids at Heart and is at the Beaumont Gallery
Two halves of the Community Mural
This mural is an exploration of water, as illustrated by artists and musican Jenny Ritter. Imagery includes, swimming, boats, creatures etc. Using a monochrome palette of blues, members of the community painted the mural using a paint by numbers technique.
TYLER KEETON ROBBINS – “Trees Burn While Flowers Bloom”
“Artist Statement: Look closely at the brush strokes – you will see trees, flames, smoke, yet blossoms. This mural is based off a painting depicting British Columbia’s natural ecology, how it is currently being impacted and in turn how nature and we as a community overcome.”
Carson Ting “Ride Wild”
In this piece, we depict to arms reaching from both ends of the mural. In the middle, we have two stationary vehicles waiting at the light. On the left, we see a large arm and hand holding a wheel entering the scene to help fix a broken black car. The left black car has opened up like a Russian doll to reveal a rabbit character sitting on a bicycle. In a similar fashion, the right side depicts a yellow car held by a giant hand. The yellow car also reveals a rabbit sitting on a bicycle inside. The concept behind this mural is based on a fun portrayal the modern commuter’s psyche in Vancouver. We are often faced with the dilemma of whether we should drive or cycle to our destination, but deep down we are often caught longing to be riding freely on our bicycles. This piece will hopefully help remind us to break out of our reliance on cars and ride our bicycles as free as wild rabbits. This mural is generously supported by Native Shoes.
Vancouver Mural Festival
The festival ran from August 7 to 12 but, of course, the murals themselves will last a lot longer than that. Thinking to avoid the crowds, I went out the day after the festival events were over, but there were still plenty of people out taking pictures. Other blogs are already ahead of me with their postings and so far I have only covered those near Main Street from 14th to 4th. There’s a lot more to come but to get a taste of what else is out there see Ken Ohrn’s series on Price Tags. His pictures show many of the murals being created.
Click on the image in the gallery to see the larger version
Check out the festival’s page for artist details and so on – I have added a copy of their map at the bottom of this post.
Some of the murals were much bigger than I could get into one shot so there are some much larger, stitched panorama images on my flickr stream
Actually from the 2016 Festival but one of my personal favourites
Native Education Centre
And only in that last one was I unable to get a clear shot without people. I do not understand why so many were getting themselves photographed in front of the murals. This last one is on the Hoot Suite building.
Vancouver Mural Festival Map
There are now three further posts that cover the murals not shown in this one. There is also a flickr album of all of these pictures, which are downloadable at their original size and covered by a Creative Commons license.
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