Jude stood on the simple wooden train platform, it was just long enough to accommodate a family of four, and just high enough to allow a father to hoist his children into the carriage doorway. Little more was needed, these days there weren’t more than a handful of families living in this remote extension of the community. His late father used to tell the story of his daddy buying the house there, how he told of the salesmen in their open-collar shirts with gold chains, wearing golf shoes had promised the world to families and retired couples. Jude remembered asking his father what “retired” meant.

His father had chuckled and said, “‘Retired’ is what people who thought they’d worked hard enough in their life did when they wanted to holiday for the rest of their lives”.

“So why aren’t you retired dad?” he remembered asking, still blushing at the insensitivity of his teenage inquisition of his father.

“Well son, in those days making money didn’t take work, it took luck, and if you were lucky, you could live off the money you made for twenty years or more. You could tell someone to invest your money in a company in China, and they would just make it happen, all with a few clicks on the computer, you didn’t even need to see the money or go to the bank to withdraw it”. The memory faded as he considered the blessings of his own little family, things were mighty different from when he was a boy – hardship was commonplace these days, life was just tougher and so were the people. His father was long gone, but the memories of watching this strong man work with his hands made Jude proud to be his son.

He turned his head as he heard the train whistle down the line, gathering up his pull cart, ensuring that the bags containing the produce were strapped down in the bed. “Not so bad”, he thought to himself, “only had to wait a couple of hours this time”. Today’s trip into town would be the first for the summer, his wife Ella and the children would stay home this time, there was still much work to be done around the homestead. He waved to the driver as the engine came into view, and heard the squeal of the brakes as the clickity-clack slowed to a walking pace, carriages whipping past in a blur of windows and faces. The conductor appeared at a door that stopped in front of the platform. They negotiated a price for the ride, this was a privately operated train on a railway that no longer received any attention from CPR. Instead a group of train owners employed local labour a couple of times a year to perform rudimentary maintenance to the track and right of way. It was an arrangement that had served the local population well for over a decade, it seemed unlikely that CPR would be back to claim their line any time soon.

The conductor helped him with the cart and he made his way to find a seat in the carriage’s interior as the train started again with a hiss of steam and a loud blow of the whistle. Jude’s senses were assaulted as the compartment door slammed behind him. A few faces turned his was to see who the newcomer was,  but most remained focussed on their goods, or the conversation with their travel partners. First it was the smell, in one corner of the compartment, where the original designers had likely imagined long distance travellers placing their luggage for the duration of the journey, sat four very large pigs.

Some of the bridges between his stop and the town were obviously in bad shape, requiring the train to slow down to a crawl. Jude offered a silent prayer as his carriage made the precarious crossing, was it his imagination or could he hear the groans of the steel and timber members under the load of each wheel? He furtively looked around the carriage and could see some of the occupants engaged in similar upward-looking supplications to an unseen deity, apparently he wasn’t alone in his distrust of the maintenance capabilities of the Kootenay Railway Company. As the last wheels of the train passed from bridge to land, a collective sign of relief shifted the air within the carriage, at least Jude hoped that was the case-  it was that, or the pigs had passed wind.

The whistle blasted out a mournful sound as they slowed, coming round the last corner into town. In his lifetime, the downtown had shrunk to what was manageable on your own two feet, most everything else had fallen to the wayside – not just because of transportation options for residents, but because there wasn’t enough stuff to sell, or money to buy it anymore either. The gas stations were gone, the car yards were cracked and full of noxious weeds, the buildings long abandoned. The railway was the last surviving safe link between the communities of this valley. Jude saw the new church across the way, he couldn’t remember what had been there before, some nondescript strip mall or warehouse-style big box store he guessed. At last the train shuddered to a stop, the momentum of each carriage fighting the couplings in a wave of noise and motion and the release of steam billowing out across the platform,the station master checking the arrival time on his pocket watch as though he was at Grand Central – it was not as though there was any other train expected to require the services of the platform today, however, it was the motions of a man who knew what was expected of him in his appointed position, even if the train was over two hours late.

Jude waited for the rush of people and animals to leave the carriage, collected his cart, made sure the bags of produce were secured. He marveled at the people, it had been almost two months since his first trip for the year, and it felt good to be back in town. He paused in the shade of the platform awning planning out his day, based on the errands he had to run and the meager handful of cash and coins he had in his pocket. First he would head down to the barbershop, a shave and a haircut were a luxury, but it was a necessary part of the journey to find out what’s making the news these days. Then he would swing by the general store for household supplies, the list that Ella had carefully written out was safely in his breast pocket, he’d checked it over as he waited for the train: cloth, needles, teapot, candles, sugar and salt; while he was there he’d pick out some candies for the children and search for a gift for Ella. The market would be the next stop, he needed to sell the carrots, beets, radishes and peas that were the excess from his first harvest, and hopefully pick up some early tomatoes as a surprise. The cobber was on his list – he looked down at the hole in his boot, he knew he had to get it fixed, or he would have to replace it soon enough. The stock yards would have quietened down by the time he got round there, he prayed that there would be some turkey chicks for sale and maybe a pig or two, there were a few birthdays coming up and Jude wanted to raise some fine animals for the celebrations.

He smiled to himself as he thought of the stories his father once told him, how people used to shop for fun, that they replaced games and family time with buying more stuff than they had room for in their houses. Today would be a good day, it was as much work as any of the other days of his life, but he knew the seasons bring new challenges and blessings, selling produce was a blessing. With a small hop, he shouldered the rope used to pull the cart and made his way off the station platform and into the bustle of downtown, he would be back to ride the train home tomorrow morning.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Peak Oil Vignette 6 – A Trip into Town

Technorati Tags: Big-box store, Columbia, fiction, Kootenay, peak oil, Rail transport, Railway platform, Train, Trains and Railroads

Shape Vancouver is a visioning survey project looking at the future of the City in 2050. The video on the front page of ShapeVancouver.com suggests that by increasing the City’s density there would be “significant environmental benefits” The About page has this to say…

Shape Vancouver is an online poll for citizens of Vancouver and beyond to have their say on the future shaping of Vancouver’s downtown peninsula. What will your city look like? Pay attention to the ‘graphic equalizer’ at the bottom of the screen, and see how your manipulation of the City’s skyline affects Carbon Savings, Energy Consumption, Infrastructure Costs and Automobile Usage.

This is exactly the message that has been promoted by Smart Growth enthusiasts across North America, believing that the act of creating more compact Cities will immediately move the population into a quasi-European power-down mode.

However, a recent article on Planetizen from Dr. Tony Recsei suggests that these claimed facts may not have empirical support…

Advocates of high-density policies (often termed “Smart Growth” but also under other descriptions and euphemisms such as “urban consolidation”, “compact development”, “growth management” and “urban renewal”) maintain these policies save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A comprehensive study of per capita emissions in Australia based on household consumption of all products and services appears in the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Consumption Atlas. Unexpectedly, this analysis shows that greenhouse gas emissions of those living in high-density areas are greater than for those living in low-density areas.

Source: Planetizen – Resisting Dickensian Gloom

I think we need to be careful supporting policies that claim to be green, just because they claim to be green. Urban high density patterns have been held high by progressive urban planners as the form of settlement that we should all aspire to living in, and that those who choose the suburbs, or heaven forbid, a rural community(gasp!), might somehow be inferior to those who chose to live downtown in a 40 storey condo building.

The urban/rural divide is always growing, we see it with the spending on the Olympics, on education, on transportation options and on grant funding, the justification for Vancouver to grow should not necessarily be based on environmental or sustainability metrics, but rather the fact that a lot of people do want to vive there and a tighter pattern of settlement permits greater numbers to enjoy the same amenities.

I sense this is a case of good intentions that may possibly backfire, from a revision of the data and understanding of the environmental costs and benefits of higher density forms of settlement.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Shape Vancouver – Is It All Hot Air?

Technorati Tags: BC, Development, Emissions, Energy, GHGs, Patterns of Settlement, Shape Vancouver, town planning, Urban Form, urban planning, vancouver

Well sort of…

If you’ve never seen Street View, click on this link to Google Maps, and notice at the top of the zoom scale on the left a little orange man. Click and drag this man onto the map, as you move the man onto the view, the roads with street view are highlighted in blue. “Drop” the man onto the street you wish to view and the screen will refresh with a view from the street level. Now you can pan, zoom, “drive” down the street, and view linked photos from users.

The Street View is only available on the Highways throughout the West Kootenays, but in larger centres such as Kelowna, Spokane, WA and Cranbrook, (as well as all the big cities), all streets have been photographed and input into the software.

One immediate use for the Street View in this region is giving friends and relatives that are visiting directions for where to turn off the highway, take a screenshot, mark it up, send them a link to Google Maps. Simple.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Google Street View Now in the Kootenays

Technorati Tags: Google, highways, images, Kootenays, roads, Street View, Technology

We speak in very real terms about the state of infrastructure deficit we find ourselves in as a nation and as municipalities, and scratch our heads as we wonder how we are going to possibly find the money to complete all of the upgrades or renewal required. Charles Hughes Smith, the author of Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation, a book currently sitting in my “to read” pile here at home points out that the financial solution to this problem probably isn’t as hard to spot as we choose to believe…

Maintaining or improving the infrastructure of the U.S. requires a mere slice of the GDP. Maintaining or improving sewage, water, rail/transport electrical and Internet systems requires very little money compared to the trillions squandered on Empire, bailing out various Financial/Power Elites and the 70% of the GDP squandered on “consumerist paradise.”Were priorities to be re-ordered, a Third World GDP would be more than adequate to fund a functioning, efficient infrastructure. The money wasted on Empire and sickcare alone could rebuild the entire nation’s critical infrastructure.

Of Two Minds – Why I am Optomistic

This idea is only a small part of the essay Charles writes in the above link, but my questions to the readers are:

How realistic is this vision of a western society dropping all the pretense of utopia, and getting back to focusing on the reality of providing necessities for healthy, functioning communities?

Can we start having discussions about adequate services that can be provided at a sustainable cost, rather than premium services at premium costs?

Would society, in time, find ways to fill in the gaps that have been left by diminished government budgets?

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as The Future of Infrastructure?

Technorati Tags: future, futurism, government, services, survival, taxes, Transition Towns, Transitions, Utilities, vision

I’ve suggested before that returning to rail would be a good thing for many areas, and that air travel is likely to decline, as well as support for roads and longer distance highway travel. So if rail is good, the high speed rail must be better right?

Not that anyone is seriously talking about high speed rail projects here in Canada, but I’d have to question the viability of any new infrastructure project without the population base to support it. I can hear the arguments already… But Florida is getting one, why can’t Canada? Florida has a population of over 18 million, and a country of over 300 million support it, Canada has just over 33 million people total, there is neither the population nor the tax base to support any grandiose schemes such as high speed rail. Lets get tradition rail right first.

Down in Florida, even though the advocates are putting a positive spin on the feasibility of the project, the numbers just don’t add up, both potential ridership and costs. From Tampa to Orlando to Miami, the total cost of construction, (excluding right-of-way acquisition) is around 12 billion US dollars. Interestingly, the federal government gave Florida, a state with a billion dollar deficit, a grant of $1.25 billion dollars, not even enough to build half of the Tampa to Orlando stretch.

Obama waxed lyrically over the prospect:

“Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination,” the President mused while unveiling the plan April 16. It’s a beguiling image that’s compelled and thwarted travelers in this country for decades, especially as highways clog, oil prices climb and airport delays mount.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1892463,00.html#ixzz0eF8oZOw8

Some people see this as a huge step forward for rail transport in the US, as though throwing billions at anything remotely different from six lane highways or airports is just worth the effort at any price. Construction costs of $40-80 million a mile takes a lot of riders to see a payback over any period. The most famous high speed train system in the world, the Japanese Bullet Train saw a previously viable transit utility flouder, with the government absorbing a $200 million debt.

Others believe that this money should be spent on public transit, not the pie in the sky high speed routes…

But right now, there are far better, fairer and faster ways to stimulate the economy than spending $8 billion on the relatively affluent 1 percent of Americans who ride trains. Public transit immediately comes to mind. Missouri got $31 million to upgrade St. Louis-to-Kansas City service that served 150,000 passengers last year. The state alsosubsidizes those twice-daily trains with $5 million a year.

Read More: High-speed wail: A bridge to the 19th century

The most valuable role for rail in the coming century is at the local and regional level, on routes that replace the commute and provide enhanced mobility through urban and surrounding areas. I like big projects as much as the next engineer, but these high speed routes that are being held up as the poster boy for infrastructure projects represent routes that should be eventually developed if, as a country, America ever had enough money to build them.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Is High Speed Rail The Answer?

Technorati Tags: America, engineering, high speed rail, rail, railway, trains, Transportation

He walked through the hazy morning sunshine, the dew seeping into the toes of his well-worn shoes. Some of the others were already lined up waiting for the shutters to open and the auction to begin. Most of them were here last night trying to get a glimpse of the goods as they were transferred from the paddlewheeler to the warehouse. Now, huddled outside the small shopfront, each clutching a purse or a bundle of paper notes – Castlegar Cash, the local currency that was introduced to retain some sense of normalcy as the value of the United North America Dollar plummeted five years ago. Up on the horizon, the residential and office towers built during the community stimulus period seem to crouch against the hillside, boarded up and empty, without electricity or heat, these wasteful attempt at government grandiosity brought bankruptcy rather than the promised economic growth.

That much maligned suggestion – “Stimulus” – rarely mentioned in these days of scarcity, he stifles a laugh at the thought of what was supposed to be, but never happened.

With a screech of metal-on-metal the rusty roll-a-doors rose, displaying an overweight man in a grubby white tee-shirt wiping his hands on sides of his pants as he chewed down the last of his breakfast. Jimmy Malone had once been a highways contractor, plowing and repairing the miles of blacktop that stretched from town to town in this remote part of the province. When funding dried up, he set up shop on the riverfront, amassing a junkyard of collectibles mined from the abandoned dwellings and businesses in the region. Whether by foresight or luck, his business was situated with optimum access to the river, which now formed the major artery for longer distance transportation of goods along the Kootenay and Columbia River network, extending up and down across what was once a well protected international border.

The thought of anyone spending millions of dollars these days seemed ludicrous. Reality had finally overtaken the dream and responsible fiscal behaviours now revolved around making do with what we had, recycling, salvaging and patching things up to make them last another year. Once again, the river was the highway for the Kootenays, portage routes wound their way up the valleys beside the remaining dams or rapids on the river systems, these short sections of pathway were often in better condition than the roadways that were built to an exacting standard all those years ago.

Money and goods moved slower these days, life on the river was tangible, it felt real, sometimes dangerous – but it was a life well lived.

Peak Oil Vignettes are fictional snapshots of a future life without cheap plentiful oil.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Peak Oil Vignette 3 – River Traders

Technorati Tags: commerce, fiction, local currency, peak oil, River, trading

In my opinion and the experience I’ve had as a City Engineer, roads in general are a blessing – but Cul de Sacs are a curse. And I’m not just talking about the planning aspects in terms of traffic circulations and the creation of neighbourhood identities, but on the cost of providing services to these half finished thoroughfares.

It appears that I am not alone in this slightly divisive feeling…

But this fall, Virginia, under the leadership of Gov. Tim Kaine, became the first state to severely limit cul-de-sacs from future developments. New rules require that all new subdivisions attain a certain level of “connectivity,” with ample through streets connecting them to other neighbourhoods and nearby commercial areas.

If subdivisions fail to comply, Virginia won’t provide maintenance and snowplow services, a big disincentive in a state where the government provides 83 percent of road services.

Why are cul-de-sacs plowed last?

Cul-de-sacs are not plowed last. They are just the most time-consuming streets to plow. On average, it takes 35 minutes to clear a cul-de-sac of snow. That is eight times longer than it takes to plow a through street of the same size. Cul-de-sacs are also more difficult to clear because of the limited space in the parkway to dump snow without burying driveways, mailboxes, street lights or fire hydrants.

The increasing number of cul-de-sacs and other dead-end streets has multiplied the amount of time it takes to clear streets in Naperville. Today, Naperville has more than 1,200 Priority Three streets, compared to about 350 such streets just a few years ago.

Source: Snow Removal – Frequently Asked Questions – City of Naperville

The Not So Humble Cul de Sac

The Cul de Sac has been the domain of the real estate agent with the promise of higher property values, safer streets and kids riding their bikes around the peaceful pavement, but the reality is that the kids are disconnected from the rest of the community as the inter-connectedness is gone, and in some instances, property prices have plummeted. Among the many reasons for the angst felt by planner and engineers alike, the Cul de Sac is partly responsible for an increase in trips generated per day as a network dominated by Cul de Sacs fails to provide the necessary intersection nodes necessary to support small scale commercial activities, and forces these activities to the main roads, strip malls and box stores.

But appearances can deceive. All indications are that cul-de-sacs are less safe than pre-war neighborhoods layed out in the traditional grid. An article by Philip Langdon in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of New Urban News shows that, according California accident statistics, cul-de-sac neighborhoods see more car crashes than the denser pre-war neighborhoods. The older grid patterns also have quicker response times for fire trucks and other emergency vehicles. And accidents and crimes in the older neighborhoods are more likely to be reported faster since they have more people on the streets.

Source: Death to Dead Ends – Fast Company

Is there a Future for this Relic of the Age of Happy Motoring?

Any form of street that takes longer to plow, is measurably less safe and may raise the cost of providing services to all residents is likely to go the way of the Dodo as belts are tightened and greater emphasis is placed on efficiency and sustainability. It could be that the age of the Cul de Sac as a planning tool and road network feature is coming to an end. I must say that this brings me no sadness.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as The High Cost of the Cul De Sac

It probably sounded like a good idea back in the middle years of the 2000′s decade.You can imagine the thinking, “If we get some good sized lots suitable for parking, Walmart or CostCo will come and set up shop there, the residents will be happy and we’ll be able to get some tax revenue off that otherwise useless land surrounding the airport.”

Water + Sewer = Development

Unfortunately now, this kind of thinking looks like a bad joke, and the residents of Castlegar are being asked to fund developments such as the airport and the gaming centre, for water and sewer to the tune of over 4 million dollars.

Now, I know that the water supply isn’t great out there and the septic systems can’t be doing anything good for the groundwater, but spending millions of dollars of water and sewer utility funds on this property seems wasteful, particularly considering the $66 million dollars of water capital recently identified in the Urban Systems report presented to council.

Sustainability

The City went to the trouble of engaging some public discussion on the future of Castlegar and what a “Sustainable Castlegar” would look like. There was a clear concensus around a table I participated at, that the Airport Lands should not be developed, as this would just perpetuate the sprawling nature of Castlegar.

There were some smart people sitting around that table, but it appears that Council is not on the same wavelength. In last week’s council package, the City’s water and sewer rates for 2010 were detailed, and capital works are identified, including the servicing of the Airport Lands. The OCP process has been pretty drawn out with the community input thus far being focused only on sustainability and not truly “land use”, yet the community has not been engaged on any of the major decisions surrounding land use over at the airport. Despite this, council insists that utilities will be provided at the City’s cost to the parcels over there.

I just think it is the wrong time to be chasing this pipe-dream. The other levels of government didn’t see it as a project to fund with grant money in 2010, not saying the wouldn’t in the future, but the practicalities of losing 30% of the municipal revenues should inform the type of projects that are on the list of priorities. Focus on those projects that support the majority of residents and businesses in town, or are critical due to the possibility of systems failure.

This is my opinion as a tax payer in Castlegar, I’m not enamored to the gaming center or the possibility of a big box store, and I’d hope that for a lot less money, suitable water conservation techniques and modified septic systems could be installed as an alternative to multi-million dollar pipelines.

Your thoughts?

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Servicing the Airport Lands

Technorati Tags: Castlegar, engineering, Kootenay, Kootenays, municipal, municipality, sewer, Utilities, Water, Water Supply

To heck with the current range of Stimulus Spending programs, this video plans out the future we were promised but never received.

The only part of the whole vision we truly received was this:

the shape of our cities will change as expanded highway transportation decentralizes our population centers into vast urban areas

This Disney cartoon from the 50′s exemplifies the role of oil and transportation in a world that simply cannot exist. It goes for just under 9 minutes, but there are plenty of ideas that our governments could use for the next round of stimulus spending. By the way, Canada, it looks like the US has got the jump on us on that one again.

HT: Discovering Urbanism

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Did I Miss the Future?

Technorati Tags: engineering, future, futurism, government, highway, highways, infrastructure, stimuklus package, stimulus, stimulus spending, Transportation

Infrastructure masterplans are at the backboneof a community’s capital spending plan. While not addressing every possible outcome or required project, the process of considering a masterplan identifies many of the “big-ticket” items that are on the spending horizon for the community. Often these masterplans are written by consultants, for many reasons, political, staff availability, expertise, but in the case of Fredericton, NB, the Director of Engineering and Public Works wrote this document himself. Although Fredericton is much larger than most of the communities around here, the format, headings and methodology are useful for considering how to write a similar document for any community.

It is a shame that this was not available on the web, and as it was presented in a council meeting, it is public information, so, I’m posting it here. Report via Heather McLaughlin from the DailyGleener.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Fredericton Roads and Streets Masterplan – 2009

Technorati Tags: Canada, engineering, infrastructure, masterplan, municipal, municipality, planning, roads, streets