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

It’s all in the numbers. On reading about the Green Municipal Funding for the Cogeneration System at the Regional District of Nanaimo Wastewater Treatment Facility, you’d imagine that the system was making a huge dent in the electricity required to power Vancouver Island.

Cogeneration at [Wastewater Treatment Facility] will significantly offset electricity demands on Vancouver Island, prolonging the life of the aging submarine transmission cables that bring electricity to the island. This will also allow BC Hydro to provide service to additional users without adding capacity to the electrical grid, giving the utility more time to investigate new sustainable power options.

“Thanks to the help of the FCM, cogeneration at our facility will benefit electricity users throughout the Vancouver Island region, and strenghten our efforts for energy sustainability here in the RDN,” said RDN Board Chair Joe Stanhope. “Once our system is operational it may encourage other wastewater treatment plants in BC to pursue similar projects.”

Source: CivicInfo – Green Municipal Fund Supports Cogeneration System for Regional District of Nanaimo Wastewater Treatment Facility (emphasis mine).

I’ve found that most of this sort of talk is found in grant applications, for it is in these documents that the hyperbole of benefits is most apparent. Elsewhere in the article, it is understated that the power will simply offset some of the power requirements of the plant itself, but for the moment, lets focus on the claim that “Cogeneration at GNPCC will significantly offset electricity demands on Vancouver Island”.

The stated output of the project is 335kW, which represents the peak energy that could be produced by the system, but may not be an indication of a continuous supply situation. As we are talking peaks, and the claim is that the project will “significantly offset electricity demands on Vancouver Island”, let’s see what the peak demand on Vancouver Island is? About 2438MW (see table 2.1 of this pdf document), that’s 2,438,000kW. As such it is easy to conclude that the project impacts current demands by about 0.013%.

Even if we look at the regional district population, (being about 19% of Vancouver Island’s total), and assuming a linear relationship of energy consumption, this project would knock off about 0.07% of the Regional District’s total community energy consumption.

A note of clarification, before I start receiving emails that threaten to fry me in organically produced bio fuels – I don’t doubt the validity of attempting to capture wasted energy from bio-gases, but this is an example of greenwashing, and in the long run it hurts the cause of alternate energy by overstating the possibilities of such projects.

(Unfortunate) Fact: We will not be able to run entire communities and their current energy demands on non-conventional sources of energy – at the best, we can hope to offset very minor energy requirements, usually directly related to the operation the energy is being derived from.

About the Author: Mike Thomas is a Civil Engineer with experience in designing sewer treatment plants and other municipal infrastructure. He currently resides in Castlegar, BC.

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

Originally posted as GreenWashing Nanaimo Style – It’s All in the Numbers

Technorati Tags: alternate energy, biogas, cogeneration, FCM, grants, greenwashing, Nanaimo, Regional District of Nanaimo, small scale energy, waste energy, wastewater

The Organizers of the luge event have been quick to place the blame for the death of 21 year old Georgian, Nodar Kumaritashvili. While it is easy to see that an athlete travelling at over 140km/hr wearing a helmet as the only protection may be taking significant risks, I’d contend that it is the event organizer’s responsibility to make the course as safe as possible, particularly as the speeds increase. But apparently, despite being limited to 14% of the training runs of the Canadian team (40 as opposed to 300), on a course described as the fastest in the world, the officials are satisfied that it is his own fault. I’d be interested to see if there are claims of criminal negligence from this event, particularly aimed at the course designer and architects, as well as the organizers.

But speeds aren’t the only issue. There are serious questions regarding the pole Kumaritashvili hit. Maybe pads would not have saved his life, but it’s a question which still has to be flushed out.

Read More: Calgary Herald – Luge events suspended in Whistler

Having seen the footage, it seems unlikely that pads would have saved his life. 140km/hr to 0 in a fraction of a second. If the poles had not been there at all, now that is a different matter, he may have survived.

In a recent interview with CTVOlympics.ca, the architect, Laurenz Kosichek [of Stantec Architects in Vancouver], admitted he was more a designer of office towers and airports. “I knew as much about bobsled, luge, as probably any average person does, which was next to nothing,” Kosichek said. “Luckily, I think I’m a pretty quick study.”

Read more: NY Daily – Nodar Kumaritashvili dies in vain if IOC doesn’t make changes to ‘deadly’ events

The course design was prepared by the same man who has designed previous Olympic tracks, with the design, detailing and construction oversight brought to reality by Stantec Architects. Professionals are expected to step into specific design roles that they may have little experience in, but there is almost always enough information in the form of existing design and standards to base professional judgement on, and in the case of engineers, it is against the code of ethics to practice a field of engineering that you do not have competency in. Again, I don’t know the particular issues surrounding this design, but it points to the importance of designing with extreme risks, often beyond code requirements, in mind.

There’s a bunch of conflicting information out there, but simple risk management principles would suggest that an audit of safety on the track, incorporating the locations of all accidents on the track, should be undertaken. Considering the track was designed mathematically for a top speed of 137km/hr and speeds of 155 are expected, perhaps there is an error in the design or construction?

The governing body say no fault was found with the track and the competition will take place as scheduled at 1700 local time today (0100GMT tomorrow), with training runs resuming prior to that…

…The Canadians chose to deny training time at the newly built track to foreign sliders to keep an advantage for their own  team. The track had seen a world record speed of 95.68mph set in competition at the one event on it last winter but that speed was being exceeded in training this week.

The final turn was so hard for lugers to navigate that it was reconfigured last year after a spate of bad accidents there.

But crashes were still common this week in training, with a Romanian woman helicoptered to hospital on Thursday.

Adam Rosen, 25, Britain’s only luger here, crashed on his first day of training over the course last October, injuring himself so badly that he could not compete for three months. He said after one training run this week, where he broke 92mph: ‘It’s crazy to go that fast.’…

…The technical officials of the FIL were able to retrace the path of the athlete and concluded there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track.

‘Based on these findings the race director, in consultation with the FIL, made the decision to reopen the track following a raising of the walls at the exit to curve 16 and are changing the ice profile.

Read more: Daily Mail

Whatever the cause, this tragedy represents the first death of an athlete at the winter games, and occurred in training, before competition had even begun. The organizers should be prepared to accept that there may be many factors pointing to this incident occurring, most of them things they would rather not admit. However, full transparency is key to maintaining trust.

The Olympics should be above politics, but is this just the tipping point for an organization that has turned the act of sporting achievement into a carnival of corporate excess, where the spectacle of entertainment is more important than the sport, where the Canadian government goes to any length to Own the Podium. A few weeks ago, when the Torch came through town, I felt the whole event was sullied by the corporate machine and the obvious cost of the show, but with a death comes not just financial responsibility for the games for all of Canada, but moral as well. Is this the sort of games we really wanted?

Mike Thomas is a Civil Engineer living in the Interior of British Columbia. At one stage he was a ski patroller at Canada Olympic Park, the home of the Calgary 1988 Olympics and responded to several accidents on the sliding track. He now lives far from the excitement of Vancouver and the Olympics, and writes about Engineering Design, Urban Planning, Sustainability and events of interest in British Columbia. Thanks for visiting! You can subscribe to this site in a feed reader or by email.

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

Originally posted as The Luge – Designing for and Owning the Risks

Technorati Tags: 2010 olympics, architecture, engineering, Laurenz Kosichek, luge, Nodar Kumaritashvili, stantec, vancouver, Vancouver 2010, vancouver olympics, whistler, winter olympics

As of February 1, 2010, the BC Building Code has been amended to require the consideration of potential for slope instability and it’s consequences at a building site becomes an explicit requirement in the design of structures and their foundations, additionally, the seismic design criteria has been increased to a probablility level of 2%-in-50 year. This will impact many developments across the provide, with geotechnical investigations to be required at almost all levels of development.

Below is the Information Bulletin from the Province on the matter.

APEGBC has issued a set of guidelines detailing the assessment, it is a 74 page PDF that may be useful for local authorities as well as geotechnical engineers, see below.

So what does this mean for the average house in BC? Well if you are in an earthquake prone area, the design requirements for slopes have been increased significantly. For other places in the province, with lower risk of earthquake, the requirements will most obviously have an impact on those areas with poor soils and steep slopes. At the moment there is not a lot of guidance out there on local tolerances and when building officials or approving officers should have concerns about meeting these requirements.

For my part as the City Engineer, I am aware of the requirements and have notified others in my organization as well, but the main point is that it is not possible to rely on common sense – just because someone wants to develop a lot and put a house there, doesn’t mean it is a good thing. If there is any potential for risk,  get a professional opinion in accordance with this Act.

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

Originally posted as Seismic Slope Stability Requirements in BC

Technorati Tags: BC building code, building code, building design, Canada, Civil Engineering, earthquake, earthquake design, engineering, geotechnical engineering, Housing, professional engineer, seismic, seismic design, slope stability, steep slopes

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

The Rossland Arena may be set to receive a new roof. Details of the tender can be found at BCBid. There is a Pre-bid meeting at the arena on the 2nd of February 2010, and bids to be received by 2pm February 9th, 2010. The decision to fund the project is happening under the Alternate Aproval Process, where people opposed to the method of borrowing can petition council. Details of the project and the AAP process can be found here

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

Originally posted as Tender to Replace the Rossland Arena Roof

Sometimes the best solutions to urban problems are the simplest. Portland, Oregon is allowing unused parking space to be used for food vendors, increasing economic activity in otherwise dead spaces.

“Outside of downtown, carts are forming neighborhood-oriented clusters” on vacant parking lots, McInelly points out. “At SERA we have promoted food carts as a low-cost urban design solution” — an interim idea for locations where there is no market for buildings.

via Food carts take the curse off Portland’s parking lots.

This is a similar phenomenon as the weekend farmers market taking over a church parking lot. Potentially, the City could authorize through zoning bylaws, sections of parking areas to be managed under a lease arrangement . The manager could then rent space to vendors, and be responsible for maintaining the cleanliness of the site. Unfortunately, many established businesses see this as a threat to their economic wellbeing, rather than potentially increasing the overall activity in an area. Remember, competition is only a threat if you fail to(a)  innovate or (b) offer a quality product at a reasonable price.

Here’s some other links about Portland’s Food Cart scene.

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

Originally posted as Food Carts take on Abandoned Asphalt

Technorati Tags: carparks, Cities, faood carts, food, parking, parking lagoons, town planning, urban food, urban planning, Zoning, zoning bylaws

Haiti is a disaster zone requiring assistance at every imaginable level. Currently, the bulk of the assistance is related to rescue, food, health, shelter, security and recovery of the dead; but soon, the task of rebuilding will begin, perhaps even before the recovery is over.

As a younger man, I trained to lead sappers, Combat Engineering soldiers, in situations like this – I never experienced a recovery mission, but the same drive to help still courses through my bones when the stream of information penetrates my conscious: video, photos, blogs, twitter, facebook, television, radio each has it’s own way of reinforcing the massive need for assistance that the nation needs. While our country concerns itself with Christmas trading figures, unemployment numbers, the effectiveness of the Stimulus spending, and what it means for the federal government to prorogue for the Olympics – Haiti wonders where to start.

In many areas the basic infrastructure has been devastated. Services that are required to maintain civil society cannot be run without buildings to house them in, or a transportation system that permits their easy access around the cities and countryside. Relief efforts need to be evenly distributed to ensure that the structure of society can be built up as new dwellings are constructed – schools, orphanages, police stations, hospitals, municipal buildings, potable water infrastructure, sanitary facilities, office space, processing facilities, port facilities, airports, and communications infrastructure is all required to ensure that the recovering community has a backbone of civil support and positions are filled as the facilities are reconstructed. The tension between what is affordable and what is safe was obvious before the earthquake, international help must be provided to ensure newly built facilities meet a standard of construction for life safety, while maximizing the value of the works constructed.

It seems impossible to imagine whole cities losing everything and hundreds of thousands of people dying so quickly from one event, but it has happened, and as some of the wealthiest people in the world, we need to act, first with our wallets, sending aid through registered channels, maximizing those dollars given through matching programs such as that offered by the Canadian government. Our governments also have a role to play in providing charity support as well, as this Tyee article from 2005 shows, some countries are just more generous than others, (I’ll note here that it is possible that Australia ranks so highly in the table on the linked page because the effects of the tsunami were felt so close to home). The support that the Canadian government gives to Haiti needs to be as long as it is varied. Right now we should be sending our best Urban Search and Rescue teams, military and policing support as well as food and supplies for the millions of people without basic necessities. Over the next decade we should consider as national policy to fund the redevelopment of the areas devastated and supply personnel to assist in every aspect of the rebuild from medicine through engineering all the way to administering the social services that will be necessary in the process. Canada has a lot to gain from assisting Haiti, more one could imagine, than our efforts in Afghanistan. Although many miles away, globally the Haitians are Canada’s neighbours, lets find a way to treat them with respect. Corruption has been rife for decades, and Haiti has had a bad reputation for tourists and investment, poverty and crime have been issues for the international community for years. The question of what meaningful  improvements can be made to the country’s infrastructure and security has not really been asked, but finding a way to improve things is necessary if we plan to spend any money beyond the immediate events – and let’s not allow American “free trade” to be the determining factor in what occurs over the next decade in this country of need.

From my perspective, in addition to donations to aid agencies, I will be filling out the RedR application form. Through my varied career, I have been trained in many aspects necessary to emergency engineering and providing recovery support in situations such as these. There are other things that we are considering as a family that we may make public in the future, but for the moment, I encourage you to consider supporting the Red Cross in their efforts in Haiti.

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

Originally posted as Engineering Haiti

Technorati Tags: Emergency Engineering, engineering, Haiti, recovery, Red Cross, RedR