Blogger > Camille Jensen

Vancouver has a genesis story of how it’s been able to achieve one of the lowest carbon footprints of any major North American city.

The story starts with Shirley Chan and other concerned citizens who, in 1967, learned of the eight-lane freeway proposal for the City of Vancouver, and saw it as a threat to her neighbourhood and the city’s livelihood.

The Great Freeway Debate lasted for six years, dividing and uniting different parts of the city according to Chan, but in the end it was citizens who rallied, held protests and signed petitions that won. The mega freeway was never built.

What Vancouver citizens won was “no freeway,” but after their victory the group of protestors were left wondering what they really wanted — what was the future they were fighting for?

This led to developments like the affordable housing co-operatives that line False Creek and Granville Island; a vision of a complete community that includes affordable and central housing options.

The story of citizen-led triumph and future design has implications for Vancouver moving forward, according to Andrea Reimer, a Vancouver city councillor, who spoke to a crowd of 50 people attending Regeneration, an event exploring transportation options in Vancouver for the next 10, 20 and 30 years.

According to Reimer, it’s important we as a city know not only what we’re against but also the future we desire. She implored the crowd to dream big when thinking about Vancouver’s transportation future, tossing out her own examples like closing East Hastings Street to build affordable places to live and turning Victoria Street into a giant urban garden.

She reminded us that Britannia Community Centre on Commercial Drive was built in the middle of a road.

We spend millions building highways, but what if we started to spend our money on projects like these, she asked us.

In small groups, we too were asked to share what our visions for Vancouver’s active transportation system might look like. I can only speak for our group, but we weren’t nearly as bold (although a young guy from New Westminster did suggest bike escalators for one of the city’s major hills).

While we may not have come up with anything too far from the current transportation model, I believe the event’s continues to work on us.

At Axiom News, we’ve learned that for a community to transform and for people to engage their own strengths, a point outside the current system to which people can move and aspire is needed.  Regeneration, which started with success stories of our transportation past and present, primed us for what’s possible.

Visions like Reimer’s, or the example presented by Tanya Paz (she shared how a West End apartment complex created four car co-op parking spaces and turned its other 82 spots into community gardens),  push past our current norms.

An ideal and shared vision was seeded in that room, and I know I’ll think differently about transportation options moving forward. I’m venturing the same goes for other participants.

If you have a vision for what Vancouver's future transportation system could look like, share your thoughts in the comments below. Remember, dream big!