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: Urban Living
National Public Works Week
Public works is always there. Rain, hail, snow or shine, public works crews are dedicated to the job. They keep our cities and towns running so we can enjoy the essential services of the places we live and work. Since 1960, APWA has sponsored National Public Works Week. Across North America, our more than 29,000 …
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 …
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Engineers Driving us Crazy
The urban experience is helped or hindered by elements that are ulitmately the responsibility of Civil Engineers. Despite this obvious statement, many of the urban form frustrations we experience day to day in our travels about our neighbourhoods or cities were decisions made by engineers or those in municipal or utility organizations that act under the authority of engineers
Tall Timber Buildings
With the failure of the suburban experiment, rising house prices and a greater desire to be in the downtown, designers are looking to stretch the limits of materials, to satisfy changing needs. Added to this, Canadian designers are looking to find ways to use pine beetle infested timber from our forests. But now, designers are …
Sidewalks
The planners out there might get upset to know that an engineer has crashed their party, then again, who knows, maybe they’ll be happy to have me along. Fifty years ago, Jane Jacobs, an activist, critic, author and urbanist, wrote the seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. This is the first book to be read …
Shape Vancouver – Is It All Hot Air?
The video on the front page of ShapeVancouver.com suggests that by increasing the City’s density there would be significant environmental benefits. However, a recent article on Planetizen from Dr. Tony Recsei suggests that these claimed facts may not have empirical support…
Home Ownership
The big push from the government, builders, banks and just about everyone else who has been part of the consumer driven craze for more stuff has built their pitch to the citizenry based on a desire for home ownership, particularly ownership in the suburbs.