Nothing much new here. My projects at work are progressing at a steady pace. Ultimate every Monday is always a blast and my team is always fun to play with. I went for a 18km run on Sunday – I felt good and think I’ll be ok for the Half Marathon in a few weeks.
Supposedly we’re getting a Roof-top garden at Business Objects. That’s news to me and everyone else I work with. Funny there were no announcements at work about this and I had to read about it in the Globe and Mail. This pretty cool.
Vancouver is planning a Streetcar line from Granville Island to Science World – with a potential extension all the way to Stanley Park eventually. I think this is a great idea. Granville Island is tough to get to using transit and this would connect most of the city’s tourist attractions on one rapid transit line. No word on where funding would come from yet.
The other exciting news coming out of Vancouver is the recently announced Ecodensity initiative.
EcoDensity is a bold new City direction that gives priority to creating sustainable development that reduces Vancouver’s ecological footprint through high quality density accompanied by services and amenities. It respects features that make a neighbourhood livable while creating more affordable housing choices. The right kind of quality density can be one of the best tools to help lower our ecological footprint.
Some of the better ideas include:
- Promote more density along transit routes and near Skytrain stations
- Adjust building bylaws to enable easier to incorporate energy-saving technologies
- Alter building bylaws to allow more use of grey water/rain water harvesting at home
- Require at least one parking space for car sharing vehicles in all new developments
- Create car free neighbourhoods
Some of the better ideas are pretty radical, so I doubt the big heads that run the city will implement them, but this is still a great initiative. Hopefully it isn’t watered down too much.
Canadian Veggie 