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Vancouver deals — or doesn’t deal — with the snow

Plus, a strike could shut down all bus services

Author

Dustin Godfrey
January 19, 2024

Good morning,

In Wednesday’s newsletter, we linked to a story about a vote at the park board about a sensory park for children with disabilities, including autism. One thing that went missing, as noted in this Subtack piece, is that the vote already happened on implementing a sensory park two years ago.

The Substack piece is some good reading, and it’s written by Gabrielle Peters, a policy analyst who generally has really strong writing and research work on disability issues, and I highly recommend it.

In today’s issue, we look at Vancouver’s response to snow and who is left behind, as well as a possible bus strike and a roundup of some upcoming events!

— Dustin Godfrey

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WEATHER

Friday: 5 🌡️ 3 | 🌧️

Saturday: 5 🌡️ 4 | 🌧️

Sunday: 6 🌡️ 5 | 🌧️

Monday: 7 🌡️ 5 | 🌧️

STRIKE

Full service shutdown looms for buses and Seabus

Metro Vancouver could face a full shutdown of all bus services next week, as CUPE Local 4500 threatens a full walk-off strike should the union and Coast Mountain Bus Service not reach an agreement by Monday. The local represents transit supervisors for CMBS, which operates most buses for TransLink.

  • The Vancouver Sun noted Unifor locals representing other TransLink workers have previously said they support the strike and will not cross the picket line.

CUPE’s comments: “CUPE 4500 has been waiting over four weeks for Coast Mountain to respond to our latest proposal. Our patience for Coast Mountain to take bargaining and our issues seriously has been exhausted,” the union said in a news release.

What is TransLink saying? The transit provider hasn’t put out a statement on the matter, as of Thursday evening, but it acknowledged on Twitter that there will be a “significant impact to bus and SeaBus service.”

What’s at stake? The sticking point, according to the Vancouver Sun, is pay differences. The employer is calling a 25 percent increase over three years “unreasonable,” while the union said the 13.5 to 15 percent wage increase offered by CMBC would leave the workers making less for similar work done by others with TransLink.

SNOW

What the fluff?

Jill Tracy/Vancity Lookout reader

The ground is white? And hard to walk through? I almost slipped and fell walking down a hill? My socks are wet? How did we get to this point? The, I believe, scientific consensus is that hordes of moisture, known as clouds, travelling through the sky are the culprits.

  • But as the renowned physicist Wile E. Coyote first discovered while running off a cliff, constituent parts of these “clouds” begin to realize, one-by-one, that they are miles up in the air and recall that gravity is the law of the land — and they must abide by it.

Is this normal? Yes. Other regions experience this with some regularity during the winter months, in fact. You may also be familiar with rain. It’s kind of like that, except frozen into little ice crystals.

Here’s the issue: Because all this snow is just piles and piles of tiny chunks of ice, things get slippery! While gravity is usually associated with some pretty cool things it has a dark side as well, which can rear its ugly head with one slight misstep.

As you slip and slide, trying desperately to stay on your feet, soon abandoning all hope of looking cool while maintaining your balance, limbs flailing in any direction that seems like it may help, twisting and turning to get a handle on this beast called gravity, the ultimate result is often that you’ve landed on your butt while looking like an unhinged collection of limbs in the process.

A wide range of effects: Here’s a non-comprehensive list of things and people that were affected to varying degrees of seriousness due to this phenomenon called snow:

How are people coping? People are bravely pushing forward. Some are even thriving! One person made an orca out of the snow at Jericho Beach, according to a Reddit post, while another post showed a video of a driver having a bit of fun in a Walmart parking lot. Not to mention this dog, also on Reddit.

Some, as shown in some of the images in this CityNews photo gallery, even took advantage of the slickness of the snow with an activity called “sledding,” a kind of managed, anticipated form of slipping.

VANCOUVER NUMBERS

💰 $24,000: A consortium that owns a downtown property owes this much each day in interest for a loan on the property. The loan was originally $95 million, of which $82.7 million is still owing. [Globe and Mail]

👮 $10,000: The signing bonus being offered to lure “experienced officers” from other police forces, with $200,000 freed up to try to scoop up 20 officers. [Vancouver is Awesome]

🦝 $3,500: How much a woman has to pay, including a $1,000 fine and a $2,500 conservation trust donation, for feeding wildlife in Stanley Park in 2021. The court decided there wasn’t enough evidence to link the actions to a spate of coyote attacks in the city. [Global]

HOMELESSNESS

In the snow, without shelter

Sarah Blyth/Twitter

Our snow story is not very serious, and there’s plenty to joke about with Vancouver’s ability to handle snow. But there is a particularly serious aspect of Vancouver’s snow readiness that advocates in the Downtown Eastside have been flagging recently.

What’s happening: Sarah Blyth, operator of the Overdose Prevention Society in the Downtown Eastside, posted on Twitter a picture of an apparently asleep person on a sidewalk in a wheelchair.

  • “When a photo says a thousand words. A thousand things about the failure of this city to help vulnerable people in a crisis. In a snowstorm,” she wrote.

The consequences: Blyth told CTV the failure to accommodate unhoused people during the snowstorm, which dumped upwards of 20 cm of snow on some areas of the region, has potentially fatal consequences for those living outside. “I can tell you right now, with what’s happening outside, there’s no way that this is not going to be reflected in deaths,” she said.

So far, the BC Coroners Service is investigating the deaths of 36 people outdoors, compared to 34 in the same period last year, CTV reported.

Multiple examples: Blyth told CityNews she found multiple people sleeping in the snow, with some sleeping directly on the street and without a blanket. She was able to help at least one find a shelter, but she noted there were many more in that same situation.

She said the city needs to act proactively to get unhoused people into shelter before the storm hits, so they aren’t stuck trying to get to shelters in the snow, particularly if they have mobility issues. What’s more, actually finding space is a challenge, even with emergency shelters opening up.

City’s response: Bligh told CityNews the city was working on getting people in the Downtown Eastside, and unhoused people throughout the city, into shelters.

Prior to the snowstorm, however, advocates for unhoused people were criticizing the city and park board for decampment efforts in the last week, so far the coldest period of the winter season.

Tiny homes denied: Yesterday, CRAB Park residents and volunteers showed up to the park with materials and tools to build tiny homes, but according to tweets by Stop the Sweeps Vancouver, were blocked by park rangers and VPD, and eventually had their materials confiscated.

Advocate arrested: All of this comes after Stop the Sweeps organizer Ryan Sudds, who spoke to the Lookout last week about the issue of decampments, was arrested this week as he reportedly attempted to intervene to save a resident of the camp’s items.

While the city had paused dismantling and confiscating tents and camp items during the worst of the cold snap last week, they had resumed by Monday, when Sudds was arrested, according to CTV.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

This Reddit user says they “tried to capture some frosty moodiness downtown” on Wednesday. They certainly succeeded.

THE AGENDA

🚨 A driver died at a UBC parkade after crashing through a second-storey barricade, the car landing on its nose on the ground floor. It’s not believed the weather caused the crash, as it was a covered floor of the parkade. [Vancouver Sun]

💦 Is it sewage? The Bay downtown says water on its floors was not, in fact, sewage, despite statements by employees that the water “resembled” sewage. Quick follow-up: Is it any better if you have to ask whether the mystery fluid on the floor is sewage? [Daily Hive]

🛞 Given our weather this week, and Vancouver’s general response to this kind of weather, should we be required to switch to winter tires during winter? Then-attorney general David Eby said in 2020 that he was looking into it, but no changes have yet come, and it’s not clear any will. [CTV]

🏢 A tower proposed for Kingsway and Fraser Street would stand 24 storeys tall and count 201 rental units, with retail at street level. [Vancouver is Awesome]

🚨 The driver of a stolen taxi allegedly crashed into a Tesla and hit a pedestrian in two separate hit-and-run incidents on Tuesday. [Vancouver Sun]

🏚️ The Dunsmuir Hotel, once a fancy hotel, then low-income housing, has sat vacant for a decade, as the developer, Holborn Group, also owner of the infamous, also mostly empty, Little Mountain site, plans to develop the property. [The Tyee]

🦸 Despite a petition with 1,100 signatures and threats of boycott over her past transphobic comments, Mandalorian actor Gina Carano will still be part of the Vancouver Fan Expo next month. [Vancouver Sun]

EVENTS GUIDE

Lunar New Year Market | UBC Botanical Garden | Feb. 3-4, 10 am-4 pm | Artisan goods for sale and live music to ring in the Year of the Dragon | Tickets $9

Hot Chocolate Festival | 105 different locations | Until Feb. 14 | If you love hot chocolate and festivals, then what’s not to love about this? | Map of locations found here

Menagerie: Winter Pride Ball | The Vault Vancouver | Tomorrow, 10 pm | An enchanting fusion of frosty charm and vibrant diversity at this winter pride-themed gay dance party | Tickets $29

Puff the Magic Improv Show | China Cloud | Tonight, 8 pm | A weed-themed night of comedy and giggles | Tickets $23

Rewind Party | The Belmont | Saturday, Jan. 27, 9 pm | Two floors of music from the 1990s and early 2000s | Tickets still available start at $26

WrestleCore: Destroy Wrestling | Rickshaw Theatre | Friday, Jan. 26, 8 pm | Sebastian Wolfe, Amira, Tara Zep, Rose, Calamity Kate and more star in this night of wrestling | Tickets $39

FOOD

🪙 If you think tipping is ever-expanding into new territory, you’re not alone. This Georgia Straight writer, originally from the UK, where tipping is much less common and at lower percentages, argues retail and food service employers can and should fix tipping culture by paying workers higher wages. [Straight]

🌯 Tacos and burritos for breakfast? Yes, please! Tacofino is offering a breakfast menu at its Kitsilano, Hastings and Pender locations, as well as in Squamish. [Straight]

🍳 On the topic of breakfast, Ho Yuen Cafe, a Hong Kong-based diner in its 50th year of operations is opening its first Vancouver location on West 75th Avenue. [Daily Hive]

🍕 Commercial Drive has no shortage of pizza, from the cheap by-the-slice shops to higher-end by-the-slice locations, to more fine Italian dining. Here’s where to find some of the best slices in Little Italy. [Vancouver Magazine]

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

  • Either the downtown Victoria’s Secret location is closing permanently, or it’s all a ruse, and it’s really leaning into the “Secret” part of its name. I guess it’s probably the first one. [Vancouver Sun]

  • It’s not just you — some of the lights are turning purple. It’s due to a manufacturer’s defect in the coating of the bulbs sold to the city. The city is replacing the bulbs as the issue comes up. [Straight]

  • The Kingsgate Mall, declared by Vice to be Canada’s strangest mall, turns 50 years old in 2024. [Scout]

  • Want to have your announcement featured? Learn how here.

VANCOUVER GAMES

Congrats to June, Jane, Tammy, Karen, and Chris for correctly tagging Queen Elizabeth Park as the location in Wednesday’s newsletter!

Today’s wordle is about — what else? — the weather! Can you get it?