A hmmm thought on a friday night

[shootingstar]

When I worked out in the suburbs in last job over 40 kms. away from home in the downtown core, some employees asked me if I was going to relocate closer to work.

They knew of my long, daily non-car commute (blend of bike, light rapid train, bus, then walk). But for me, it was a temporary situation because job was contract. We currently live close within a 15-20 min. walk to many stores, services, restaurants, community centre, transportation choices. They didn't understand how I could live downtown. But then they haven't walked around in our area to appreciate how convenient things were.

The suburb is quite sprawly in a way that was mind-numbing every time we piled into someone's car occasionally and had to spend half an hr. to find a restaurant to eat, other than McDonald's. It really felt like the title of one of the referenced books, "Geography to Nowhere" except the mountains nearby and small historic area (Hudson's Bay fur trading station).

A few employees who were long-time residents now complain the quaint rural pace is being stripped out by the faster, denser car traffic ...and convoys of large transport trucks due to light industry on its edges and being close to the U.S.-Canada border. I had mixed feelings being part of a engineering company that building more highways/major roads to add to further urbanization. The agricultural land in my opinion, huge chunks will disappear over next few decades once new roads are "fixed"/situated permanently on land.

Methinks people get freaked out by photo of this aerial view with highrises, etc., not knowing how community services and other amenities are organized in various neighbourhoods.


Then when you get closer, in photo2. The green rail areas are bike lanes on various road bridges downtown. It is normally used alot by cyclists. Summer weekends tend to be abit quieter especially statutory holidays. Photos are part of downtown Vancouver. So bike, car, walking, water transportation and in distance near the geodesic round structure is aboveground light train system. Ringed all around the water body is a 25+ km. bike-pedestrian route that's well-known and well-used. (And probably will be even more heavily used once the Olympic athletes' village is done and converted to condos after the Olympics.)