As a resort community, Revelstoke sees a lot of tourist traffic in the downtown, both pedestrians and vehicles. Additionally, as a community to over 7,500 residents, Revelstoke boasts one of the highest per capita rates of active transportation in Canada, with over 22% in the 2016 census showing walking or cycling as the main mode […]
Category Archives: Community
A Disturbing Trend in Local Government
The resignations of over a dozen mayors and councillors in British Columbia over the past two years is “a disturbing trend,” according to a veteran of municipal politics. Source: CBC – “A Disturbing Trend” “Long hours, low pay and increased complexity cited” as the main reasons. In the decade that I’ve worked for local government, […]
Developing the Capital Planning Process
In my role at the City of Revelstoke, council has been working through the financial plan process, and this year I thought it might be useful to deliver the capital project information in a couple of ways that I hadn’t seen before. These ideas have been in my mind for a couple of years now, […]
Integrating Sustainability into Infrastructure Projects
Earilier this month I had the pleasure of being invited to the FCM Sustainable Communities Conference in London, Ontario. Working with a great team of presenters I helped develop a one-day workshop for about 45 delegates on the topic of Sustainable Asset Management. This is a fairly new area of influence for FCM, and the workshop […]
70cm of Snow in 48 hours – Revelstoke
Last week the City of Revelstoke received about 70cm of snow in 48 hours, causing all sorts of havoc on the Trans Canada Highway… Off the highway, city crews were out cleaning up the snow, (apparently a 25-year high single snowfall event), for days after, and the arterial and collector roads were passable through the […]
Infrastructure, the Economy and Local Governments
Some of the greatest challenges that local governments face in Canada revolve around the concept of the “Infrastructure Deficit”. In Canada, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, (FCM) has a position statement on the infrastructure deficit: All governments – federal, provincial, territorial and municipal – must work together and with the private sector to make immediate infrastructure repairs […]
Are you an infrastructure sustainability professional?
I’ve been blogging about sustainable infrastructure for eight years ((See some of my early articles such as Massive NSW water recycling plant opens and A Brief Argument Against Stormwater Pipes)), have presented on sustainability, was involved in designing award winning sustainable subdivisions ((Murrays Beach, NSW North of Sydney, retained 70% of the trees on site […]
My Totally Unscientific LinkedIn Groups Experiment
Over the past week I conducted an experiment on LinkedIn partially in an attempt to see whether there was value in participating in groups. As a Civil Engineer in Canada, it seemed obvious to attempt to connect through several groups all of while I’ve been a “silent member” of for over a year – (membership statistics below […]