OTHER CITIES: 
Beyond Gateway: Public Forum Today
I had a charming conversation with a young South-Korean named Jean on a 6:30am bus ride to Whistler last weekend. The irony starts here. I suspect our conversation was partly the result of my dipshit friends missing the bus, his horrible English (practice), and the large cup of bad coffee I had just sucked back.
This chap went to university in Seoul, a city that somehow manages to house twenty-three million people into a space one quarter the size of ours. "The pollution," he explained, "is so bad that you can't see the sky. Only after rain." We went on to have the standardized "let's compare cultures" conversation including, among other things, nasty stereotypes surrounding Japanese women, Confucianism, and that chick from Spiderman. While I can't imagine walking shoulder-to-shoulder around my general metropolitan area, I hardly blinked at the sunrise over our coastal giants.
"Holy shit!" Jean exclaimed pointing feverishly out the window.
"What?"
"The mountains. They are so beautiful"
"Oh right...those..."
Sigh. I am a young Vancouverite after all. And as we drudged along in the Greyhound, past all the sea-to-sky construction that has caused me so much anxiety in the past months; toward a hedonistic ski and snowboard festival sponsored by (who else!) a behemoth telecommunications corp., I couldn't help but think of possible consequences to this manic urbanization the City of Vancouver and Mr. Kevin Falcon have been pushing. Is there going to be a day when I'll long to see the mountains at dawn?
Fast forward to 4:30am, after 20 or so ounces of Canadian Club, to me sitting in a hotel room with kids in Whistler, doing what kids in Whistler do. And the superspeed conversations that followed were disturbing ones. Pro-Olympics. Post-everything else.
But before I got to feeling too apathetic, I remember that there are some people in Vancouver who actually do care- the dying breed that they may be. A population that believes the Gateway Project (which proposes twinning the Port Mann bridge and swapping Vancouver's jammed-tight highways with jammed-tight superhighways that will inevitably dump pollution and chaos into the city's culturally blossoming east end) is not a "done deal." They are ready to talk to you about it.
The Grandview-Woodlands Area Council is providing a forum entitled "Beyond Gateway: Climate Change and Real Alternatives to Highway Expansion" today from 1-3pm in East Van. Discussion is sure to debate the project's alleged benefits to the city's transportation and traffic problems, issues surrounding international trade, why new transit is going to the airport, and what we as citizens need to know before we allow anymore dicking around with our streets and avenues.
For many, the question is not whether to drive, but what to drive. My generation loves status and money and growth. But we are not Los Angeles. Nor Houston. Nor Calgary. Vancouver is not designed for this expansion: there are mountains in the way. We should relish in the fact that we can still clearly see them.
East Van Forum: Beyond Gateway
Saturday, April 28
1-3pm
The Wise Hall, 1882 Adanac
Free!
Photo by flickr user teosylvania
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Thanks for this Brynna.