As a (mostly) carfree dad, I use a bike and trailer to cart my four year old from daycare to swimming lessons... and also around the neighbourhood for errands and around the city wherever possible. A trip from East Van to Spanish Banks in summer is typically about 45 min to an hour (to provide a typical example). We sometimes use transit and rarely use a car.

An 8km trip is less than half an hour by bike for the avg cyclist.

Just like walking, one of the solutions (bike transport) to car usage is easy, simple, makes you fitter, and gets you there faster than a car for those short trips.

Ignoring the real estate hype, renting close to work, and riding a bike wherever possible has done wonders for my bank account AND waistline.

It's easier than you think and the rewards are greater than you might suppose.

Cue the irrational arguments from car-lovers.

As a parent with two young children and a wife with her own career, I have to agree with Grumpy. There is now way I am going to bike or bus 57 blocks up main street with two weeks of groceries from the Superstore, especially since it kind of rains a lot here. You are not going to get families out if cars unless you can present a real and more convenient alternative.

There is much we can do to control it. For example, cars should be taxed based either on their CO2 output (as in Europe) or engine displacement (as in most of the rest of the world). Why does one see so few big cars in those places? Well, they are taxed to high heaven. Most of the cars in Japan, for example, are 1500cc or less. With modern engines, you simply do not need any more to haul a family of four.

Yet, I commonly see people schleping along in their behemoth SUVs and trucks stuck on the #1 highway to suburban blis. It simply should not be allowed or made severely expensive.

Translink is so bad, it should be dismantled and completely rebuilt based on what the community needs. A decent schedule and routes that make sense would be a good start. I'm tired of seeing four to five empty buses at the end of the loop in our area. They are empty coming in and most are empty leaving. The biggest waste of money and resources I have ever seen. I was told Translink was aware of the issue and it would be addressed with the feeder bus system. A neighbourhood style handi-bus. For the last year we have these small buses driving around and I thought finally some action! Problem is they forgot to cancel the other buses. The result? They added one more bus to the route. Real smart people.

Quote:As a parent with two

I've been riding on the West Coast for over thirty years and I've yet to suffer anything other than some minor discomfort from the rain.

I wouldn't have tagged you for such a wimp with such a manly name Working Man!

Conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory....(or does that give them too much credit for intelligence )?

On the News last night, they talked about the diminishing parking spot problems in Vancouver. Thousands of spots are being lost and in one case a person has seen their monthly parking fees jump almost 100% . It appears new construction and higher density is eating up these spaces.

So "logically", this will force people to "choose" Public Transit ? That's also assuming their workplace doesn't move or is forced out.

Now, is this an agenda to force people to use transit, or simply two separate agendas on parallel paths. In my view, it's not a conspiracy, just (non)planning with fingers crossed. With daily transit costs approaching $10 ...People will re-think the use of the car.

Too many eggs in one basket with the current sytem....it may be the dreaded failure because of its success.

PS Grumpy, what are the stats ( if you have them)re: the SkyTrain / RAV etc lines and how far people are willing to walk after disembarking from a SkyTrain station. There must be a bell -curve based distance limit before they revert back to a car.

"Now, is this an agenda to force people to use transit, or simply two separate agendas on parallel paths. In my view, it's not a conspiracy, just (non)planning with fingers crossed. With daily transit costs approaching $10 ...People will re-think the use of the car."

I think it is simple default all of it! But it comes out of attitudes which pervade our society. My experience has been, that in the morning, I can get to work by bus in 12 min, even if I need one change of bus, but in the evening. it can take up to an hour, exact same route in reverse. I interpret that to mean, that if I can't show up at work in a timely fashion, my employer will crab about it, and transit is catering to the wheels of the economy, but after work, I'm on my own time, and nobody gives a blessed damn, other than me and the family who didn't understand it until they themselves entered the rat race. Yes, I drive to work every day, for it doesn't appeal to me to take a daily dose of subhuman status, if I have a choice. It's about R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Until 'they' figure out there is a minimum they can deal us, 'we' are not going to give up the autonomy four wheels offer, as long as we can buy it. Please don't classify me as an 'apologist'; I don't offer any apology, just a standpoint and its reason.

Having said that, I would also regale the readers with this reference to make clear, how old the exchange idea is in our culture. The following verses are from the Havamal, thought to be composed around 800 in Iceland and/or Norway:

41

With presents friends should please each other,
With a shield or a costly coat:
Mutual giving makes for friendship
So long as life goes well,

42

A man should be loyal through life to friends,
And return gift for gift,
Laugh when they laugh,
but with lies repay
A false foe who lies.

Also, My family and I, dui=ring our carless years, used to shop in the Superstore by way of backpacking and the skytrain, but we sometimes had trouble getting on the bus for the rest of the way due to the volume of baggage.

Dorothy;

Well Public Transit inherently is a very personal "almost selfish" thing...but that's the key...will it work for the given individual ?

My spouse once had a supremo situation...where we once lived the bus stop was right outside our front door...she took the bus to work, the transfer were awesome... was dropped off right at the front door of work. WAAAY faster and cheaper than by car.

Unfortunately, the building she worked at got sold, her boss moved the company....transit by car takes about 1/2 hour, by bus it takes 1 hour via transfers IF lucky .

Skytrain is right outside her office, and with the new construction " may " be an option in the future, though we are still a good distance from the SkyTrain line at our end.

I don't see much flexibility in the SkyTrain system...when all other things in life need to be...again, too many eggs in one basket.

With active children etc. , we simply can't rely on the Public Transit in any form. It would detract from our own defined quality of life , all other things being equal.

To write:

seems a little discordant when you introduce your post with this:

Most people of poor or modest means - the ones dorothy says are treated by public systems as 'subhuman' - I daresay don't see using public transit as "selfish" in any way. The poor don't have such niceties as 'defining their own quality of life'. They don’t have the ‘choices’ you seem so high on promoting, do they?

You need to figure out what, if anything, you actually believe maestro - the orchestra is still carrying you.

For the poor - things aren't equal - and that's the point dorothy ultimately makes with her quotation from the Havamal.

The occasional instance where public transit happens to work for the masters of the universe are few and far between...your jolly little anecdote to the contrary.

As you said, "YOU SIMPLY CAN'T RELY ON PUBLIC TRANSIT....."

Pity!

No seat, no fare. It's too bad the BRU doesn't push that harder.

(Hmmm...he found the phone booth and jumped on the soapbox quicker than I predicted).

G West: Public Transit is for the ENTIRE public...I think you are confusing this NEW TYEE topic with the other NEW one .

It is a Public Service...but not mandatory. It's not a Vote based issue, except with one's feet. Choice is walk, or walk..or ride a bike...or take a cab, take, the bus/skytrain or "foot on the gas pedal".

Why you continually takes things out of context is beyond me. The " selfish " comment is with reference to people who will access a service if it fits with their lifestyle...are you saying people will go out of their way to inconvenience themselves on the basis of principle ? BTW : driving a vehicle is NOT illegal, George Jonas wrote a great article years ago about the more subtle reasons people chose the autonomy a vehicle affords which Dorothy also alluded to.

How do you connect a " subhuman " reference with the poor and those of modest means into this...you are taking Dorothy's comments totally out of context.

I didn't denigrate the poor etc. ...didn't even come close. The PUBLIC Transit system would benefit all , and moreso the less fortunate, if it attracted greater overall ridership, and that would occur if it was better designed.

I'd actually like to see Public Transit FREE ( not an original idea) for a limited time period, it may be a worthy experiment to analyze with perhaps future long term benefits. The poor and those of modest means types would most certainly benefit.

Like Dorothy, I am not apologizing, not obligated to , and moreso there is no need to. "Hey I'm on Public Transit cause G West told me to" ...Hmm. Maybe that personal statement would result in my displacing a party who is totally reliant on Public Transit. That's selfish G West... but personal choice to not use Public Transit for good valid reasons relevant to our particulars is not remotely selfish.

Many parents choose to keep their children involved in a variety of activities...our oldest babysits for a single mother...also volunteered an a wheelchair basketball tournament....all accessed aka made possible via vehicular (non Public Transit ) transport.

Otherwise Really G West, you are continually losing it in your TYEE buzzard approach...time to exhale and let some O2 moleclules in.

Your ad - infinitum propensity for turning and twisting every issue into a quasi- bleeding -heart issue is not going to assist those you " think " you think you are helping or advocating for.

You should perhaps offer assistance to some one who could use the actual help( give a ride to a poor person) versus the time you waste with your pontificating ...you almost seem to strike me as a wealthy dude with a guilty conscience who feels talk balms the guilty soul... "Cadillac Socialist"

You seem to wander around the TYEE like some disembodied spirit without ANY solutions specific to the topic.

How about impressing me(and others) with one ???????

This is what dorothy said:

Along with all your other shortcomings you apparently can't read.

I you think that the poor and the folks who can't afford to make the kinds of choices that even having a car affords them, let alone keeping it on the road, are treated with any kind of respect then, as I've said before, I'd like to start to sell one of the major bridges in the lower mainland.

I can't help it if you are so challenged that you don't understand the normal meaning of words.

If you don't see this statement as elitist:

Then I can't help you. Go back to playing silly games.

I propose all kinds of solutions. Most of them involve getting nominally intelligent people to think about what they say and believe about others and their relationship to the world at large. I only have one vote. But if I can manage to get 10 people a month to think about how they use theirs I’ll have more influence on the future than all the programs which never see a problem without thinking about how its solution will affect THEM.

You appear to be much more interested in something else entirely.

If I were impressing you, I'd consider myself an abject failure.

One para above needs improvement, it should read as follows:

If you think that the poor and the folks who can't afford to make the kinds of choices that even having a car affords them, let alone keeping it on the road, are treated with any kind of respect; then, as I've said before, I'd like to sell you one of the major bridges in the lower mainland.

I hope that's clearer.

OK, my observation was, that what is available for those without a car adds up to not according them (us) human status. I have been dirt-poor, shabby-genteel, and scraping by in this city and know the score. Right now, I am actaually able to run my car every day and eat cake once in a while. Therefore, I know whereof I speak.
My policy is, that there are now somebodies and nobodies, and I want to see that change. If transit and other public services have everybody opt out who can, maybe those that are left will be treated with more R.E.S....I hope so!

Here's an interesting article about a concept called "Slugging" which is a relatively safe form of hitch-hiking combined with carpooling that helps single occupancy vehicles qualify to use HOV lanes. About 6,500 people per day use this system in Washington, DC. The system has been in use for over 30 years with an excellent safety record. Both riders and passengers arrive at their destinations much faster than by using either public transit or single occupancy vehicles in non-HOV lanes.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0815/p20s01-lign.html

At one point I spent 2-3 hours per day commuting between Port Coquitlam and North Vancouver, then Port Coquitlam to South Richmond. It was nice to finally buy a house a few minutes away from my job. I carpooled with neighbors and co-workers at times. That usually worked out ok for morning trips, but not so well when overtime was offered or when there were planned or unplanned opportunities for after-work social activities.

The flexibility of Slugging solves the after-work problems, but I would prefer to improve on the safety and convenience aspects by allowing all drivers with perfect driving records to obtain part-time cab licenses, tying them into an integrated taxicab dispatch system with cellular text messaging, and permitting voluntary use of phonecams by both parties.

Despite the excellent safety record for Slugging in DC, I'm pretty leery of anything that resembles hitch-hiking. One of my brothers and a friend were hitch-hiking years ago when they were held-up at gunpoint for a case of beer they were carrying! Public transit can be hazardous too. Someone else I know was on a bus in downtown Vancouver when a nasty drunk sitting next to him pulled-open his jacket to show-off the butt of a handgun in a shoulder holster. I've picked up hitch-hikers only a couple of times when driving over long distances. In one case while driving between Richmond and PoCo on the way home from a hard day's work and overtime, a saw a scrawny teenage kid looking like a pathetic drowned rat hitch-hiking while waiting for a bus in a torrential downpour in New Westminster. I felt sorry for the kid, so I gave him a ride to his destination in Coquitlam - a welfare housing slum (public housing project). The hitch-hiker repaid my kindness by stealing my wallet with a couple of hundred bucks in it.

Despite these sour hitch-hiking experiences, should I ever again find myself driving over long distances, I'd be willing to pick up strangers as passengers provided I could get a part-time cab license and charge each passenger a small fee (probably less than busfare). Some of the money would be used to make payments on a plug-in hybrid vehicle (there are kits available to convert existing Prius hybrids into the plug-in variety) and photovoltaic panels to recharge the batteries. The remainder of the fares would be used to install a secure, bulletproof shield around the driver area and install a wireless security webcam. As a driver, I would have no problem with passengers who wanted to boost their safety by using their phonecams to take a picture of me and my vehicle then transmit that picture along with time/date/GPS info to a secure server before getting inside. A properly designed cellular text messaging dispatch system can easily match passengers who dislike security cameras with drivers who feel the same way.

Years ago, I worked for a local company that produced wireless digital taxi dispatch systems. A spinoff of that company is still in the taxi dispatch products business. If local government bureaucrats get their act together to license part time cabs and cellular text messaging dispatch systems, that would substantially reduce congestion and pollution while enhancing passenger convenience. It would save us billions of dollars in road/bridge/transit upgrade costs. And it would create a lot of high quality tech jobs for whichever local wireless systems developers (perhaps DDS, MDSI, or Sierra Wireless) pioneers and perfects the system before exporting it worldwide.

That should have said:

"improve on the safety and convenience aspects by allowing all drivers with perfect driving records AND NO CRIMINAL RECORDS to obtain part-time cab licenses"

Maestro: The last international study (Haas-Klau 2002)on light rail and buses (also good for SkyTrain/metro) showed that the majority of ridership comes from about 300 metres from every station or stop. This why many european bus and tram routes have stops every 500 to 700 metres.

RAV's planners said that people will will walk 1 1/2 km. to catch the metro; I think not!

I used to have a store in downtown Vancouver for 22 years and when the city restricted parking, business dropped. Today, with RAV construction, etc., all my former neighbours have vacated, citing lack of business. I have been busy writing letters to certain businesses I frequent, stating I can no longer do buisness with them because of the parking issue. Taking the bus is an expensive waste of time.

Now a note on free bus service. Several US cities (including houston) tried free buses and guess what? New ridership did not improve! It is common myth that free transit will increase ridership, what happens is current customers just ride more.

God help me for saying this and I know it is not really the current thread, but modern LRT is the only transit mode with a proven record in attracting new ridership!

Cycling commuter, you maybe happy, I just might buy a bike. But, I just returned from our local parade of shops, doing some shopping and I enjoy the walk!

I have often wondered whether the cost of providing free busing would be offset by the reduced requirement for transportation upgrading and maintenance. The proposal for new bridges in the Lower Mainland springs to mind. Certainly users would have greater disposable income if they could reduce their reliance on their cars.

It does appear to be well-established that we cannot build ourselves out of traffic congestion, so what is the point in continuing in this direction?

Public transit seems a relatively easy way of addressing our pollution issues, particularly if combined with more expensive and reduced downtown parking.

Certainly TransLink has some issues it needs to work out. The biggest problem is, however, the provincial government.

Regardless of whether or not you think RAV and SkyTrain are the best options, these projects were forced on the region by the provincial government.

By 2006, we were supposed to have 1800 buses. There are only 1400. All 3 rapid transit lines were supposed to be complete. Today, 1.5 are complete.

Free buses would be great, except there would be less money available and service would get worse. Until there is excess capacity all around the system, there is not much point in having free buses.

TransLink simply needs more funding for buses and rapid transit. Road pricing would be best, but more gas tax would do just fine.

The provincial government should also stop spending billions on highway expansion and instead, put these funds into transit.

I suggest e-mailing Premier Campbell at:

and demand more funding for transit throughout the province.

Might as well send it to your MLA as well. They can be found at:http://www.leg.bc.ca/mla/3-1-1.htm

It is always best to contact someone who can make a difference!!!!!

rac

Making a difference is as simple as making a few small changes in lifestyle. No letters required. Just leave the car at home or combine some trips. Buy a bike and use it. Use your feet and walk, not your car keys.

So simple. A small amount of altruism and sacrifice is necessary however.

Sure it is. That's OK, but the decision is at the very least self-serving, so let's NOT pretend it's something else driven by necessity rather than choice.

Grumpy:

Thanks very much for the info:

RE: Riderships tolerance level ; So, walking 1.5 kms to access metro is RAV's magic number eh ?

That's almost a mile...and it takes me personally between 20 minutes to 1/2 hour to do this one -way. One generally multiplies that X's (2) ..ie the trip arriving and the trip returning. What RAV is saying is people will be prepared to walk a total of 40-60 minutes AFTER they have used the transit sytem ? Verrrry idealistic.

That also doesn't jibe with the current densification process...aren't people supposed to literally walk out the front door and access the Public Transit ?

My prediction is that the Republic of Vancouver will build increasingly expensive Hi-Density residential, bylaws to my understanding have a ratio of parking spot requirements(which is part of the social housing dilemma re costs). People will not purchase these expensive units if these parking spot allotments are reduced, more development pressure will be placed at the periphery of the Public Transit system where housing is more affordable, ....back to the Catch- 22.

The GVRD mafia will have much egg on face ,maybe more after a taxpayer revolt.

Here's my personal observation on the use of public transit: it's easier if you live within the confines of Vancouver than if you live in the 'burbs; it's relatively easy if you live in the 'burbs and work downtown. Anything else is extremely difficult. If you live in one suburb of Vancouver and work in another, it is extremely difficult - if not impossible - to get from one to another in a timely manner. Why? Because the route system is still based on the archaic notion that most people work in the downtown area and that is where the greatest demand for transit would be. My husband & I both work full time, and we have 3 kids that are active in sports. Their games are not within walking distance of the house. I cannot see us easily giving up one of our vehicles as long as we live & work where we do andas long as TransLink keeps its blinders on about the need for different routes.

Dear friends

This fine article put me back in mind of our drive away from Tswassen, BC last October twelve-month - to re-join the rest of Canada - the line of early-morning traffic struggling north to squeeze into Van, as we, in van, slid, south - out through the Surrey Hills.

It's fascinating, as well as significant.

The last time the collective struggle moved forward was when the middle classes voted, overwhelmingly, with the poor in the UK election of 1945, and the Welfare State (so-called) was born in the the UK as a major, English-speaking world, event.

The structural symbol that this move gave rise to, was the extensive growth of suburban living for the mass of working people (see Dolores Hayden's excellent 'Rediscovering the American Dream' - for details of Levittown, and all that) - a 'System of Survival' (to use Jane Jacob's book title) that was built upon the single income (often derived from the Welfare State's middle-incomers jobs, servicing Welfare State society), the one-auto-per-house-hold, and the repatriated-to-the-kitchen 'stay-at-home-mom'.

. . . . the fear, by global capitalism, of globalised Communism, just adding enough push to the retail bankers to release the 'funds' (interest-bearing debt) to achieve it all.

- 'No man with a house and lot has time enough to be a Communist' (half-remembered quote about Levittown in 'Redesigning the American Dream'

(Another book lent-away? Hmm.. . . Along with Gary Allen's 'None Dare Call It Conspiracy'!?)

And, so, the significance is this 'turning on the cusp' moment - how typical of the west-coast North Americans! - as the sub-urban dwellers realize that, far from being the beneficiaries of that 'Welfare' State, pseudo-revolution, they are among its victims: divorce, stress, pollution, kids on drugs, ennui (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennui), the whole nineteen yards.

So, what glimmers?

The blog at the referenced article (http://thetyee.ca/Life/2007/01/02/CarlessParenting/) shows the struggle to find social solutions to the problems that capitalism insists - ignore the lesser capitalism of the bike solution - C B Macpherson's 'Theory of Possessive Individualism' on wheels- with bells on (and, yes, I was run over by a man-on-a-bike as a ten-year old - on a Zebra crossing! How our lives teach!?):

- the significant discussion, there, is over the effectiveness (or not) of Public Transit.

That significance is in the 'they/it' (the Welfare State residue) is not/are not/will not provide 'us' (the public) with a realistic alternative: 'they' are not doing it for 'us' - the ennui of social 'democracy' ('managed capitalism'), writ large - the culture of dependency that the Welfare State needs for its survival.

So - that cusp moment - when the middle-incomers (or rather, the New Working Classes - two insecure incomes per household, plus a couple of extra jobs on the side for groceries, education, health, well-fare, booze, fags, systems of survival, and the like) start to stop voting for capitalism (managed or not) - then, a voting coalition against capitalism becomes possible.

And a nonviolent replacement of capitalism becomes viable.

But that will only occur when those same New and old working (or 'worked') classes discern a political offering that is both eco-logical, socially sustaining, and individually nourishing.

Love

john

*****************

We have found other families very eager to support us is being a car free family. In fact we always say "it takes a whole daycare to keep a family car free" when we thank our friends for help. And yes we reciprocate, but I don't think it has to be quite so calculated with friends as this article describes. We have so many eager offers of rides when it rains, and we also have people decide to join us in walking home to get some exercise. I often walk friends kids home--gets the kids exercise, gives the parents a break!

Car seats are definately a problem--we end up with a less safe model as it fits in any car--we use the car co-op.

In any case I think being car free as possible is great for families who want toget exercise in there... but I don't think people should judge families who have a car. It is way harder to live without a car if you have young kids or two kids (we only have one).

Not to mention if one of your kids has a disability, you are single parenting, working 2-3 shift jobs in different parts of town, have to leave work to move kid from school to after school care every day, etc.

We are lucky to rent a place near school, work and a rec centre--all within walking distance. That makes all the difference. Wihtout that we could not manage to get to work on time as well as do daycare or school drop off, it just would be physically impossible.

Dear friends

Re the free bus thing - St Mary's U in Halifax (squeezed in at the southern and expensive housing end of the peninsular) introduced a compulsory student transit fee in the tuition fee - ie every student had to pay and every student got a transit pass.

The key point is that of universality - if everybody has a 'buy-in', then what is deemed to be socially good (in the broad sense here of 'community'-with-the-whole-of-the-planet'), then there is community use of the social good (it's on that basis that the 1945 UK Welfare State was based, and on which the Borrie Commission, recently spoke).

So, here's how to accelerate the social buy-in:

a) Remeber that the skweeeeky door gets the most grease . . . so . . .

b) Do away with all parking spaces at City Hall, all Government buildings, all downtown work-places (not 'price out' - do away with- its fairer and faster);

b) Add in a Transit pass cost into each property tax assessment, and provide each household with appropriate unlimited-use Transit Passes

c) Organise interest-free financing (through the Bank of Canada - see Early Day Motion 408 inthe UK House of Commons for a take on this: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=32037&SESSION=885),

. . . So that electrically-powered (solar eventually) rail-based (guided) transit sytems (heavy- and light-rail, plus tramways/street-cars) have no finacial hindrance (just look at how quickly rail was installed in the 19th Century - heavy trains and light street systems - when finance was readily available).

Hope that helps!

Best

john

********

a) Remeber that the skweeeeky door gets the most grease . . . so . . .

b) Do away with all parking spaces at City Hall, all Government buildings, all downtown work-places (not 'price out' - do away with- its fairer and faster);

b) Add in a Transit pass cost into each property tax assessment, and provide each household with appropriate unlimited-use Transit Passes

It does not help. Coercion is not the same as 'acceleration'. My workplace had a deal with Transit a few years ago, where you could tie in purchase of monthly transit passes for a year, and you would get a modest discount. Only if you took the bus every single work-day would you break even, so, the only real compensation for foregoing choice for the whole year was that you could lend the pass to other family members in the evening and on weekends. Two years into the program, photo-passes were introduced, no more lending to others. Drastic fall in interest. The program is now dead, because 'they' had to get greedy. Inmagine what the treatment of involuntary buyers would be, people with no choice at all. Forget it, man, you would have rioting in the streets! Every time people come up with these ideas of 'making them do it', I suspect some sort of vidictiveness in the mix, maybe you were not allowed to borrow the family car or something...?

You've described the U-Pass system in place at UBC and SFU. Despite initial misgivings it's generally deemed very successful, so much so that they now need more buses.

No rioting to date.

Works for UVIC and Camosun College on the Island too. Funny that young folks seem less concerned with appearances eh?

Maybe they could teach the rest of us a lesson.

I like john courtneidge's idea. Maybe one day we'll have some politicians with balls enough to try it here. Get rid of parking spaces altogether or the masters of the universe will just thumb their nose at the system. Then institute something like Ken Livingston's (London, England) 'pay as you pass' automated system to charge every vehicle when it enters downtown Vancouver.

There will be no rioting.

No rioting to date.

No comparison! Property tax is where you live, a whole other story. Youth in the business of learning are, of course, appreciative of practical provisions for them, while adults with a house may have far more complexity in their lives, in which a forced-down-their-throat transit pass may easily figure as a lump of coal, sans benefits. Why do I have to explain this? I wasn't going to express this sentiment, but I alwasy feel that people on the track of 'making them do it' have some issues of vidictiveness mixed in, something about never having gotten over not being allowed to drive the family car or some such thing.

dorothy:
It's a question of people working together and sharing some sacrifies for the greater good of society overall.

Not something many folks seem to care about these days but a vital part of leadership none the same. Since leadership is something you seem to think is important - it comes in all kinds of packages.

The program in London has been hugely successful - and it's a local initiative with the London Council - not something imposed from Westminister.

There are also such things as 'collective benefits' by the way.

Oh, please. I'll be damned if I'll see my daughter living in a region destroyed because people are too stupid, fat, and lazy to get off their ass and get somewhere under their own power.

Since when is foresight vindictive?

don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with doing things better, it's just this persnickety notion of always knowing what other people should do, that gets to me. If there are better ways, then model them promote them, convince people. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Austerity doesn't sell, and selling is what you want to do.

That sounds as if you look at people like enemies rather than potential allies, it won't work in a free society, but maybe in a taliban style community.

No Dorothy, what we have to do to save the environment is the moral equivalent of war.

London County Council took the initiative and it has proved both successful and popular.

If it hadn't, Livingston wouldn't be re-elected. We don't need any more training and modeling - we need action. This is no time for more phony ads about 'balance' of the type Harper is now paying for on Television.

If you think this is a free society now I pity you - because it's not. It's a plutocracy not a democracy and it's time people like you and I started doing what ever it takes to turn it back into a democracy before it's too late.

You may think happiness is the most important thing and what folks are all after - I totally disagree. People want a challenge, people want to be challenged and they want a chance, above all, to make a difference.

How is that not something we already have? The proof is in the pudding. If people wanted challenging, they would find ways to challenge themselves, and some do. But they mostly want peace to build a home, bring up a couple of kids, and make ends meet comfortably. They should be able to focus on that; that is why we elect people to whom we can delegate the nitty-gritty.

And, you are wrong. We do have democracy, as per our law books. It is up to us to make it stick. Under our law system as it stands, for plutocracy to be the order of the day, would entail that most or all of our politicians are corrupt and should be impeached. Is that what you are saying, then?

The extent to which people living in it condemn the government, general practices and beliefs of this country, puts the words in my mouth: why are you choosing to live here? Where do you believe people have it better together, and why? In other words, what are the standards you are measuring against?

No. I’m sorry but I think it is you that are mistaken. We do not have any kind of real democracy, not at all

Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. And no, we do not have effective democratic institutions - or a decent independent press. In addition, not just impeached, by the way, but jailed for breach of trust, fraud and outright lies.

This is my home. I was born here and I’ll die here and I am, in my opinion, as much of a Patriote as it is possible to be. I want to fix this country, not flee it.

I live here because it's my country and I would like to see it changed to better reflect the will and the needs and aspirations of its people and turn it back from the plutocratic autocracy it is today into the fair and fairly-equitable place it was from the end of the Second War until approximately the middle of the 70s. I want to stop the absurd slide of a fine place to live and work into the kind of compromised and unequal nightmare I see just across the 49th parallel and I think –given a chance to express their opinions effectively through decent political institutions that the vast majority of Canadians agree with me.
Most of them have thrown up their arms in disgust and tried somehow – through personal aggrandizement and selfishness – to accommodate themselves to a systemic failure they hate but can’t seem to find an effective way to address.

The societies I admire most are the Scandinavian countries who have done far more - starting from a lower base - than we have (in a more equitable fashion) than we have in the same period.

When I was a boy there was a widespread program to send young Swedish, Danish and Norwegian men to Canada - to prairie farms - to learn from the way modern agriculture was practiced here. I got to know a lot of those guys and have kept up the connections...so I know what I'm talking about and not just relying on UN statitistics.

I'm busy trying to work to change things for the better in the here and now - not just complaining about how the only thing you can do is find a way to bend the system to your own advantage. This seems to be the attitude of most of the politicians and businessmen I deal with on a regular basis.

As to why? I can only think that geographic location and proximity to a country where there are no uncompromised institutions or real openness has a lot to do with it.

My apologies. I'll take back the 'stupid' part of stupid, fat, and lazy and replace it with 'brainwashed'. As for fat and lazy... as the artist said, "I paint what I see."

After ten years on the periphery of the sustainable transportation activism community, I'm frustrated by the roadblocks put up by institutions with a very profitable interest in maintaining the status quo. I'm astounded that people would mortgage their childrens' future to avoid a little inconvenience. I'm gob-smacked they can't see past the "Zoom, zoom" lies perpetuated by the auto industry.

Austerity isn't being sold. Responsibility is. Responsibility to our children, our home, and everything towards which we should be acting as stewards. Perhaps there's very little difference.

Anyway life's too short and the day is too sunny to go on at length. Gonna go model and promote the better way with a four year old, a bike trailer, and a trip to the skating rink.

Peace out.

This is exactly it. You gotta respect the critters in the landscape in which you try to operate. If you don't, you'll not make progress. Calling them names for not following you doesn't reflect on them, but on you for showing poor leadership. Paradigm shifts require very hard work, as well as shrewdness, as well as you have to genuinely like poeple, not just see them as objectionable barriers preventing your version of Shambhala from happening.

G West:

First, I wish to thank you for your comprehensive and to-the-point answer. It is likely better than I deserve, damn my bend towards facetiousness. At least I can take credit for provoking such a manifesto.

So, I agree with where you are coming from. I know that politicians are dumbfounded by people’s lack of yen to even use their vote, and I have been in the business of pointing out to some of them, that given the top operators and their modus operandi, people simply do not see the apparatus of democracy here and now as a path by which they can improve their life. I believe most people largely rely on various forms of networking and horse-trading to look after themselves.

I think the key words are ‘given a chance to express their opinions effectively through decent political institutions that the vast majority of Canadians agree with me.’ We are governed by polling. I am convinced you are right, but I think we could wait to be ‘given the chance’ till the other side of Ragnarok without result. The Tyee is a place where the chance has been given, and it is certainly not a cross-section of the general population who appear in the debates. Rather, it is a case of ‘Tordenskiold’s soldiers’, as Danes would say (the bottom 1/3 is relevant)
http://shoebox.heindorffhus.dk/frame-Tordenskiold.htm

What will it take? I don’t know. It is a fact that many people come here with a baggage of fear of speaking up. And there certainly is, in current Canadian culture, a fear of getting ‘too serious’ or ‘un-cool’ about things, rather the Teflon-man is the ideal many hold. I think a determined group of people would have to rise up, make an inroad into politics and make their voice heard, people that other people could believe in. The problem is, that before they get halfway there, they, too, would be up to their neck in grubby ‘strategies’ and so lose a good deal of their trustworthiness. Besides, many do not know democratic tradition from their own experience.

Then there is the idea of grassroots movements. Voting with your consumer dollar, or with your feet, or whatever. The problem is, that Canadians now are such a mottled crew, that inspiring them to pull in one direction will be very hard, like setting a huge, heavy flywheel in motion, and not knowing if it was actually in one piece and could stand up to the strain.

As for reasons for the increased immorality, I believe the collapse of the Soviet Union has a bit to do with it. The big ugly, which people might point to as another model, has gone, and we are consequently less careful of how we treat each other. The same goes, in spades, for our neighbor south of the border. I also think the simple pressures of crowding means a good deal. I believe the current immigration rates are nothing less than insane, and can only serve a small minority through increasing disunity and disorientation among people on the factory floor, plus it is a cheap shot at lowering pay rates. Globalization, don’t even get me started!

The Scandinavian countries, of which I have intimate personal knowledge, having been born and grown up in Denmark, and still reading the newspapers on line, probably do, or at least did, deserve to be admired. Now, however, as members of the EU and up to their neck in globalization as well as having almost totally gutted that excellent education system, which sustained them for so many years, I don’t know about their future.

to be cont'd next post

If, however, we would take Scandinavian culture, if not as a gold standard, then at least as something worth emulating in certain aspects, I can tell you this is a minority report. I have spent thirty years learning the hard way, that not every modern Western industrialized country is more or less the same. Everything that made me more Danish than Canadian was something absolutely no one had any use for here, except the parts that made it easier to walk all over people like myself and my family. It may be OK to admire the Scandinavian countries from a distance, but plant bearers of that culture right in the middle of mainstream Canada, and they will get branded as ‘different’ in a not-so-friendly way. I am not alone in this, have referenced many of my fellow Danes, who have also ‘become Canadians’.

If you have studied the great Danish historian and cultural reformer, Grundtvig, you will know most of the essentials of old Scandinavian culture translated for modern times. Many of the principles modern Scandinavia is built on go back to the Viking age and beyond. One great difference between Scandinavia and Canada is that Scandinavia hardly had a dent made in its culture by Victorian dogmatism, while it put a stamp on Canadian thinking, which we carry till this day. In Canada, if there is not a how-to book written about it, it’s gotta be illegal to begin with! ‘Who said you could do that?’, invariably answered by this facetious Dane with ‘show me where it says I can’t’.

I remember an article in National geographic about Denmark, which I read years ago. It said something about Denmark being ‘the place where a lowly clerk in a bakery will send you a level gaze across the counter’. It would be shocking to Danes, then and now, that anyone would put ‘lowly’ in front of any position. In fact, this has been a problem now with the massive immigration, for immigrants feel ‘discriminated against’ on the background that Danes are willing to do all the ‘dirt jobs’ which immigrants easily get the dibs on in most other countries!

Before we left Denmark some member of our family was a party to a property sale. When the old and new survey reports were compared, it turned out, that there was a strip of 40 cm going the entire width of the property, which had erroneously been included ‘on the wrong side’ in a previous subdivision. Can you imagine the rancor and the legal wrangle this would have caused in Shaughnessy, which would be a comparable setting?
In this case, both of the competing owners of the strip had a chuckle, shared a twelve-pack over the hedge, and left things as they were. Denmark has one-tenth the number of litigation lawyers per capita of Canada. Think for a moment what that says about the mindsets and how they compare.
If you want to know the blood and guts of Scandinavian thinking, you must go beyond the imported desert religion, which was only plastered on the front of the billboard to keep the Kaiser out anyway. The Havamal, that beautiful old poetic lesson in decency and practicality, tells who we are. Read it and see how much you can relate to, and think how its principles might survive the cauldron of Canadian social engineering. My children, who are struggling, could tell you stories…

A Danish king who wrote the Jutish Law in 1241, started the preamble with ‘With law shall the land be built up; but if every man would make do with what is his, and grant others the same right, then law was not needed in this land. No law is as good to follow as that of truth, but where there is doubt of what is truth, there the law must guide us to find the truth.’

to be cont'd again

I believe that all our troubles go back to the difficulty of sorting out, what truly belongs to us. The notion of having it made by getting something for nothing pervades our society. People seriously believe in 18% interest and buy themselves into poverty on lottery tickets and gambling. On the other hand, people swallow incredible rip-offs and outright theft, even feeling shame because they didn’t understand ‘the game’. The ground under our feet is gone with respect to understanding, what we truly own, and that, maybe, is a starting point. Ed Deak’s evangelium regarding the true laws of economics have real potential, if we can get it known by enough people. It is simple enough, that most people can understand it, and there is a sense of ‘rightness’ about it that most will immediately pick up on.

Thank you Dorothy.

I thought you'd come back with something worthwhile and cogent. We look so often to the wrong models in this place.

Some of those young fellows I knew as a boy became very good friends.

The problem is finding somehow to get people, in a general way, to start once again to appreciate the truth and to expect real directness and honesty from others.

Again, thank you. There are more of us around than it sometimes seems.

I'd like to see busses running 24 hours, in their own lanes, with enough on at any one time that everyone gets a seat. Cleaned regularly, with a yearly bus pass for each household member included with your municipal property taxes. (and yes, I'm okay with paying more to cover it). Kind of like a 'u-pass' for residential homeowners. I think the cost could be covered by property taxes more efficiently, as it'd be cheaper to collect than using fareboxes, tickets and counting coins. Also way more convenient for everyone.

In order for higher income car-owning folks to migrate to the busses, the service has to be clean, fast and convenient, with no need to stand, 5 minute waits for busses not 30 min waits, particularly if you live in a rough part of town.

I live near a bus route and like taking the bus to work, as long as it's rush hour when the buses come quickly. As a woman, short wait times are a safety issue as well, and with all the rain we get, it's no fun to wait in the rain.

Global warming is a big deal. We should just settle down and do transit right, along with supporting road-speed plug-in electric cars.

Excellent point skelly - even Calgary, of all places, is making a better stab at successful light-rail than we are with our dog's breakfast of failed and poorly designed megaprojects.

There's a huge new report coming out of the UN in the next week or so that is going to start to wake up a lot more more people.

Global warming is a very HOT item.