Author Archives: Sam

These are some of my ideas for the the Vancouver Central Waterfront, the area between Centerm and Canada Place. The railyards on the waterfront are an anachronism that beg for redevelopment proposals, and there have been a few over the years like a casino, stadium, bland office towers and transit hub. I started these ideas […]

On Pricetags I commented that we need to add a little colour to our cities, especially to Vancouver with its grey winters. Other parts of the world offer some ideas and here are two of them. In Bavaria there is a tradition of bright pastels, if that can be said to be a thing, and […]

We need a better bus. A bus that fits better on the road, and a bus that fits passengers better. Vehicles with a long wheel-base will sweep sideways in a turn because the rear wheels do not follow the front wheels: Every urban dweller knows that unpleasant feeling when long vehicles sweep inwards toward your […]

I don’t have a car and don’t drive that often, but recently I’ve had to drive from downtown to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal through Delta twice. I noticed the first time how terrible the highway signage was. I was thinking that maybe it doesn’t matter anymore because everyone has a gps with a demanding woman […]

This is a piece I wrote in 2010 and updated in 2012 in response to the revival of Toronto’s daft LRT plans. Some of it is out of date, but plenty of it is still quite valid. I was surprised by the positive response to the reincarnation of Transit City LRT plan and now Onecity. […]

As crazy as it sounds, one way to make HS2 even remotely affordable might be to put the whole thing in a tunnel. The current Y-shaped HS2 plan to both Manchester and Leeds has 531km of track and a probable cost of £85 billion or £160 million per km. The Groene Hart Tunnel in the […]

That title is ambitious. This blog will be mostly about urbanism, architecture and transportation in Vancouver, but I’m starting it off with a few pieces farther afield.