Citizen VancouverCitizen VancouverA spotlight on the cracks that fragment Vancouver as a city.
Articles:
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Articles
Two wheelers rule Vancouver.
2007-09-06 08:35:00 Back to school traffic is snarling and transit is busting at the seams. Slow, crowded and irritating - fair assessment of Vancouver ’s work commute? Why not opt for the alternative, a nice breezy bike ride to work or school. Jeff at BR wrote a comical article scolding bikers who press the cross ... More About: Rule , Heel
Thanks for the fruit flies CUPE.
2007-09-05 10:19:00 As trash piles up in our parks, in downtown and residential alleyways, people are fed up with Vancouver’s Civic strike as it spans into it’s eighth week. Public support for CUPE is waning while the city is getting a more favourable nod from the public according to Innovative Research Group who ran a poll from ... More About: Fruit , Flies , Hank
Good morning Vancouver!
2007-09-03 08:10:00 In the past 5 months, I intentionally took a break from CV and enjoyed a wet but beautiful summer in Vancouver with my family and friends. In that time I realized that I needed to adjust the format of Citizen Vancouver and focus on my original goal: to shine a spotlight on all that is ... More About: Morning , Good , Good Morning
Brothers of the Jehovah sisterhood.
2007-06-04 08:50:00 Cult or religion, there’s one word to describe the door to door solicitation of a religion, invasive. How many slices of “not interested, fuck off” can I put it to those people? It’s one thing to be taught a lesson in politics by immature activists, but to be called sinners for not ... More About: Brothers , Jehovah , Brother , Sister , Roth
A walk through Vancouver?s DTES marketplace.
2007-06-03 17:35:00 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agMwUU7_HV 8 More About: Vancouver , Marketplace , Mark , Walk , Lace
Phlegmy exchange on Bus
2007-06-03 17:22:00 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoXsgF_Pll k I totally sympathize with Translink when they say that bus drivers are being abused by passengers. I just hope they can prove it one day because really, all I’m seeing is evidence that it’s the passengers that need protection. More About: Exchange , Chang , Chan
Citizen Vancouver flickr group
2007-05-06 08:50:00 Share your citizen photography of street scenes, Transit backups, political protests, on the citizen vancouver flickr group and we’ll post the best captures on this site once a week. Anyone is welcome to join and share their pictures and special kudos goes to those that are accompanied with some background. More About: Vancouver , Flickr , Group , Citizen , Flick
Dead Air
2007-05-04 20:17:00 For both personal and professional reasons, I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus. Nothing serious. However I have been working on a story, one that will hopefully provide an inside glimpse to the mechanics of the drug rings in Vancouver: how the Downtown East side is physically degrading the rest of vancouver using ... More About: Dead
Vancouver Graffiti
2007-04-17 08:30:00 There’s always two sides to every fight: graffiti is art, graffiti is vandalism. I have to admit, coming from an arts background myself, I have to agree that graffiti is indeed a form of art. Tagging is a reflection of our urban culture - the cool, the bad, the ugly. Here’s some styles we ... More About: Vancouver , Graffiti
The noble profession of binning in Vancouver
2007-04-16 09:22:00 Why would the city want to lock up downtown’s dumpsters? Don’t they realize that dumpster divers are saving tonnes of recyclable materials from ending up at the landfills? Don’t they realize that binners put our garbage to use in the community? By locking up dumpsters we’ll be removing the livelihood that ... More About: Vancouver , Profession , The N , Prof , Sion
Transit operators on verge of strike
2007-04-05 10:21:00 Warning: this is another lame rant. The union says drivers and passengers are frustrated by a lack of buses, broken down buses and overcrowding - I’d like to add aggressive, abusive and poorly trained transit operators to that list. Trans link probably says they don’t have enough money so us taxpayers will most likely foot the ... More About: Opera , Operators , Operator , Strike
Translink is driving in reverse.
2007-03-28 09:27:00 Translink customers are STILL cranky and Translink thinks it’s only due to price hikes. Nevermind the crappy customer service, the road raged drivers and the silly rules they apply to the general public: Bus drivers have become noticeably worse in the last few years. We have drivers haranguing passengers via the intercom system, ... More About: Driving , Link , Ever , Translink , Trans
Citizen journalism: the good, the bad, the ugly.
2007-03-22 07:46:00 I’m a big fan of citizen journalism - DUH! How romantic is it that the common man (person really) now has a platform for his first perspective take on his/her world, thanks to the power of the internets. But is Citi zen Journal ism responsible and accountable enough? With personal biases and political ... More About: Good , Ugly
Citizen reporting done online
2007-03-22 07:12:00 Victimized by vandals. Burglarized by one of Vancouver’s east enders. Repo rt it online! Vancouver’s crime stopping goes web 2.0 - well it’s not NEW news cause it came out in 2004. But I never knew about till today: Please use this system if one of the following has happened to you and you do not know ... More About: Port , Citi , Online
Meth labs in Vancouver
2007-03-19 09:44:00 Saturday’s sun had an interesting section on organized crime. An especially interesting article talked about the global pressures on our drug trade, the technological hikes and the sophisticate business side of crime that is putting ‘beavis and butthead’ meth labs, who make their products out of common household materials, out of business… Most ... More About: Vancouver , Labs
Anti-what? That?s so last year, dude.
2007-03-18 09:32:00 When I use the word ante - it’s usually in the context of poker where everyone posts a bet to the pot before the pocket cards are dealt. Pretty harmless unless you’ve got a small stack of chips. But in the context of Vancouver, Anti has become a buzzword that pollutes our technologies, ... More About: Dude , What , Hat , Last , That
Knight street traffic.
2007-03-15 05:01:00 Knight is an interesting street in the history of Vancouver. Where most cities built large freeways that circumvented growing communities, Vancouver created a 6 lane corridor right through the city. Today this main artery is Vancouver’s loudest, busiest, most dangerous corridor with speeders, red-light runners, commercial cargo vehicles, construction vehicles, and of course ... More About: Traffic , Night , Knight , Street , Tree
Vancouver Barbie Dolls
2007-03-14 04:15:00 Commercial Drive Barbie : This doll is made of actual tofu. She has long straight brown hair, arch-less feet, hairy armpits, no makeup and Birkenstocks with white socks. She prefers that you call her Willow . She does not want or need a Ken ... More About: Vancouver , Dolls , Doll , Barbie doll
Shopping cart rage
2007-03-01 22:59:02 With all the shopping I’ve been doing lately, I’ve been experiencing a familiar sense of anxiousness, anger and impatience: getting cut off, bumped into, caught waiting behind a slow driver… Not road rage - but supermarket rage. In the last ten years we have seen stores adopt a supersize approach to shopping — large volume packaging to minimize per unit costs passing savings to the consumers. The savings come with it’s drawbacks, however, as you are essentially buying in bulk… Bulk eggs, bulk milk, bulk toilet paper. Whatever though, cause it all fits in the back of our Suburbans and Expeditions, right? But what about the shopping carts - those are bigger right? You betcha, especially at stores like Costco and Superstore. What about the aisles, are they bigger too? Sure, some aisles can fit two SUV sized carts side by side. So what’s the problem? Well, volume is one problem - more people, more carts, more congestion. Another problem ... More About: Shopping , Shop , Rage , Ping , Cart
Gung Hei Fat Choi Vancouver
2007-02-23 10:55:01 This past Sunday was one of those days you’re proud to be a Vancouver ite. Chinatown, a normally bustling town with exotic foods, chatter, and rich culture, even with East Hastings’ drugs and crime slowly deforming the community into a rough neighbourhood, came alive again with young and old filling pender and keefer streets with celebration. The lunar year is 4704 or 4705 which is considered the extra-lucky Year of the Golden Boar, which only occurs every 60 years. Many Lunar New Year’s celebrations transform shopping malls into grand stages for cultural performances, while the New Year’s parade takes over the streets of Vancouver’s Chinatown. The Chinatown Parade attracted tens of thousands who witnessed colourful fan dancers, lion dances and multicultural clan support for the chinese community. The parade continued on with the blessing of chinatown shops and businesses where cabbage heads hung. The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden was pack... More About: Choi
Crime Stats In Vancouver
2007-02-23 10:55:01 Remember seeing the video of this strung out crack head on the evening news? He was apparantly driving this stolen bait car at speeds of 130km/hr while screaming “oncoming!!!”. This kinda thing scares me - this guy is out of control and us innocent people are in the way. It’s really sobering when you see videos like this, even moreso when you realize that Vancouver ’s crime statistics aren’t isolated to any one criminal type or area but that it’s widespread issue across the GVRD. A couple of hotspots to note are Central Business District (encompassing area of Downtown Eastside) and Strathcona. The CBD alone has seen almost a doubling of assaults (1120 to 1820) as well as offensive weapons (240 to 560). These two numbers make up a third of the GVRD stats numbers. Below is a map of Vancouver’s regions which segment the crime numbers for 2002 to 2006 found in this PDF. Hotspots for Auto Theft on Feb 14th to Feb 20th focused around the Do... More About: Crime , Stats , Stat , Rime
Vancouver, in the eyes of Ahmad Kavousian
2007-02-16 22:50:04 I’ve been noticing some beautiful local photography on flickr and wanted to showcase one photographer in particular, Ahmad Kavousian. His photostreams are mostly of Vancouver scenes which first peaked my interest but it was his “street people” photoset that arrested my senses. His is a sincere perspective of the faces that we ignore. Such as Philip the philosopher: “Philip left Toronto and the business of truck driving to come to Vancouver for a better life. He is now homeless on the streets of Vancouver. His new business is collecting. Philip wanders the back alleys, searching through garbage bins for cans, bottles and anything else he can return or sell for money. “ Check out more of his work here. More About: Eyes , The Eye
Overheard in Vancouver
2007-02-16 22:50:04 While surfing through Vancouver Blogs, I came across overheard in Vancouver, a unique voyeuristic approach to the city’s oneliners: “Have you ever been walking down the street or in line at the grocery store and couldn?t help but overhear the person next to you?” Here’s an overheard submission that is so relevant to Citizen Vancouver, December 29th, 2006. Over heard on East Hastings, Homeless Guy: I got what you want, weed, rock, helly hansen pants! Vancouverite to two tourists: Yeah. So that?s pretty much East Hastings. More About: Hear
Is all this yelling really about homelessness?
2007-02-16 22:50:04 Having posted to Citizen Vancouver for 2 months now, I’ve noticed a consistent trend when I rant about crime, drugs and prostitution in Vancouver - I hear from a small but boisterous group of misguided, off-topic and malicious bloggers. For example: my article describing how crack houses in our neighbourhoods bring uninvited crime to families’ front doors has elicited a long string of emails stating that homelessness in Vancouver is an issue brought on by the likes of my liberal leftist pragmatic thinking…….. Huh? I have a pretty good grapple on the problem of homelessness in Vancouver, I’ve lived here for 30 years, watch and read the news incessantly, work near and walk through East Hastings occasionally and talk with some of those down on their luck on the street. Is there something I’m missing to merit those abrasive emails? In comes Google. Besides the city of Vancouver reporting some numbers and citizen reports and rants, I came across th... More About: Home , About , This , Real , Homeless
Garbage
2007-02-06 10:48:01 I remember living in an apartment building before trash chutes were outlawed. Those were the glorious days when taking out the trash could be done in your slippers… DONE! Now that I live in a house, and use those spiffy new garbage bins and blue recycling boxes, I’ve been dealt a glancing blow to my cushy lifestyle naively thinking that I put the trash on the curb, and the city does the rest. Instead I have lost 3 blue boxes to ‘accidents’ and my trash can may not last too much longer past the brutality of the city garbage trucks. More About: Garbage
God forbid you get hit by a bus?
2007-02-01 10:43:02 How ironic that not even a week ago I posted “yield, it’s the law” and today I nearly get hit by a bus. In fact, it’s safe to say that had I not banged against the side of the bus as it turned onto me, I would have been on the six o’clock news as the latest Translink speedbump. Here’s what happened… It was 5:15pm, there were loads of people on the sidewalks and traffic was crawling in the evening rush hour. I was walking south on the west side of Seymour when the light was about to turn yellow, I made up the tail end of a group crossing Dunsmuir. When I was halfway through the intersection the light turned yellow, and this is where the bus enters. Trying to beat the light, a bus travelling north on Seymour turns west onto Dunsmuir, and turned into me with no sign of slowing down. I tried to run out of the way, but had to bang my hand on the side of the bus to alert someone in the bus before I was run over. He stopped and I ran over ... More About: God
Vancouver construction - another ingredient for road rage.
2007-01-30 22:42:01 Is it just me or are we, as communters, under attack? Detours, roads closed, 3 lanes merging to one, pylons, flashing lights and orange vests. Thanks to 2010, road work is everywhere and it’s paralyzing Vancouver traffic. And while public transit is failing us as an alternatic, we’re stuck stewing in this crockpot of traffic. I’m always a proponent of improvement, there’s nothing wrong with bigger, better, faster — right? Umm sure, but at what cost? Well for one, road rage, if it were measurable on a barometer would be contributing to global warming at a dangerous level. It’s not enough to piss us off on busses, the city planners have to jab us in our cars at the same time. I can’t pretend that this is on purpose, but how could the city be so poor at planning this whole process? Here’s a map of all the main construction throughout the GVRD, courtesty of the city’s The Road Ahead website. More About: Other , Construction , Rage , Another
Picket fences and crack dens
2007-01-25 22:38:02 A crack house in the neighbourhood is an easy thing to spot. Look for the worst kept house with overgrown weeds, bed sheets for window treatments, grafitti all over the garage, and the most telling sign: continous foot and vehicle traffic in and out. Forgiveably, any new home owner could gloss over those signs since it could all look harmless, after all a crack den could be mistaken for the residence of students renting and hosting numerous study groups? But with a bit more observation, the occasional raid by the Vancouver Police K-9 unit, and awakening to a shouting match between a pimp and his crack head employee, and you’ll quickly sober up to the fact that yout neighbour’s house is actually owned by a slum lord and used to house prostitutes and traffic drugs. Peachy, no? What do you do, call 9-1-1 and report a crack house in your neighbourhood? Well that’s not a bad start except it’s not considered an emergency. And trust me, insisting it IS an eme... More About: Crack , Rack , Pick , Fence
Stanley Park loss.
2007-01-25 22:38:02 Over the past few weeks, Vancouver’s weather has been extreme, to say the least. Apparantly we’ve weathered 14 storms of tremendous downpours of rain, 100+ Kilometer winds and large dumpings of snow. Is this El Nino, La Nina, or the Day after Tomorrow? Whatever you want to attribute these strange weather patterns to, it’s causing large amounts of damage to our city including Vancouver’s darling Stanley Park . When I did my own assesment of the damage I didn’t expect to actually feel any bit of remorse, after all, what’s a few fallen trees? But the experience was much more emotional than the news tried to convey. What I saw was a war zone, a crash site, victims sprawled out everywhere, pushed aside to keep traffic moving. The traffic, however, was barely crawling. Onlookers slowed, stopped and stared out to a new face of stanley park. The west side bluffs, hit the hardest, look like a clear cut logging zone. Previously, driving along that r... More About: Loss
DirectBuy phone tag.
More articles from this author:2007-01-25 22:38:02 Everyone knows how fun it is to receive a telemarketer phone call just as you sit down to dinner with your family. After all, you just spent an entire 8 hours working at your job, maybe an hour stuck in traffic, and this 1 minute call shouldn’t take ‘too much of your time’, right? Now, imagine a persistent phone call from a specific number every evening at the same time, except there’s no one at the other end when you answer. The number belongs to Dire ct Buy Vancouver: 604 215 4582. According to their website, “DirectBuy, a buying organization established in 1971, is the #1 way to buy most everything for your home direct from brand-name manufacturers at wholesale prices, plus shipping and handling.” Apparantly, membership to this service costs $4300.00 - wow, quite a price to save. Fishy? You bet. But what about those dead air phone calls? After several months of those calls. I called the number on the call display and of course I got an a... More About: Phone , Rect 1, 2 |
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