Friday, September 22, 2017

BC Hydro Study 1976. Dams on the Peace River @ Site C, E (at border) and D for Donvegan (Alberta)

Albertans have been trying to wean themselves off of coal fired generations of electricity for years and they had the chance when Site C first came on the horizon in 1976.  Albertans were offered the Dunvegan Site.  British Columbians were offered C, no D, but there was an E on the BC/Alberta border.

2015 Alaskan Highway News edition has their take on the benefits of the Dunvegan Site

Let's put Fort St. John's Site C on the back burner and shift the workforce downstream to Dawson City which has a much smaller footprint to match our current and future needs without costing 9.99999 Billion (includes modest cost over runs).


BC Legislative Library:

B.C. Hydro Sites C & E Hydroelectric Development Proposals : Lower Peace River Environmental Study / Thurber Consultants Ltd

Volume I  Page 24 of 563



Volume I Development Proposals and Resource Inventories
Volume Ia Appendices to Volume I
Volume II Impact Assessment of Basic Alternatives
Volume III Supplementary Assessments

Thursday, September 7, 2017

With Climate change, rising tide height, why build either a bridge or a tunnel in a flood plain protected by dikes?

Traffic lines coded in green lines mixed with amber lines mixed with red lines is from 2015.  Things have changed since.  There is MORE traffic.

Nothing like commanding the high ground, a bridge over a tunnel option, but when the whole area that the traffic is flowing through is protected by a single line of defense, a dike, all hell can break loose in Richmond and Delta .....  good name that flood plain delta.

Every route leading up to Deas Island Tunnel, and a proposed replacement bridge, will face the same consequence if the BIG ONE hits Metro Vancouver.  The corridors will be awash in water, water everywhere.

Flood Plains can be a pain
 $3 billion debt in the Red for a bridge, to replace an aging tunnel?


 The new Pattullo Bridge takes off from the high ground of New Westminster and touches down on Surrey soil that is protected by a dike.

Port Mann Bridge?  Low ground to the north, high ground to the south.

Second Narrows Ironworkers Memorial Bridge?  High ground to the South, low ground to the north.

Suggestion:  Get out of the cars and use public transit built like Skytrain, and Canada Line, which are raised well above the flood plains.

*************

BC Liberal Laurie Throness demands for his new leader:  Fraser Basin Council Lower Mainland Flood Management Strategy

Suggestion: Environment Item # 5 of 65 total topics
 

Saturday, August 26, 2017

DNV: 'Fish-Ladder-Go-Cyclist' or is it 'Cyclist-Ladder-Go-Fish'?

The District of North Vancouver's 'New Delbrook Recreation Centre' facility is open along with their plaza art waterworks of a salmon riding a bike, without, a certifiable helmet.


From the perspective of this tradesperson, its not unsettling to see the use of two stainless steel, six foot diameter, discarded lumber saw mill blades as a bicycle wheel for an oversize fish. 

What is unsettling is that circular and table saw blades turn counter-clockwise.

Circular saw cuts into wood that is stable.

Wood is fed into a fixed table saw blade.


 
Counter Clockwise rotation
To make the fish cyclist move forward, the saw blade has to move in a clockwise direction which is opposite from table and circular saws.

New Delbrook Community Recreation Centre
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Moving forward - Reading backwards:

A sign of the DNV time$  You are now leaving  ......



A wooden sign for Murdo Frazer Park has been visible from the road for pedestrians and motorists, and CYCLISTS for at least the last twelve years, so why spend a ton of cash building a sign that is not visible to anyone, a hundred feet into the woods and doesn't match any other park sign in the District?  Are there more park sign changes in the work?   The collected property taxes are paying for these sign changes.



Murdo Frazer Park: Black sign: cut-out Lettering on a Forest Green background.  At night its Black on Black even with the lighting
The trail was upgraded so that LED lighting could be installed, and then the cyclist faction on District Council got involved because of the environmentalists were complaining about the destruction of the vegetation on the side of the stairs.  The answer:  loose gravel so cyclists couldn't navigate.

Result: Bike Trough needed for the concrete stairs to accommodate the cyclists.


At that point, DNV should have hired a Rocket scientist to figure out their bike trough logic because of the existing concrete stairs didn't run in a straight line.

The experts have one thing in common, bike troughs only work along straight run.  

Bike Troughs don't Zig, and then Zag, they do in DNV.


Experts:
Wikipedia Bike Trough
WashCycle  Bike Trough
Cycle Works Ltd. Bike Trough
  Seattle Bike Blog  Bike Trough
  Seattle has finally done it. They figured out how to build a functional stairway “runnel” that also includes railings required to meet accessibility guidelines.

Do both wheels of a bicycle follow the same path?




Bike Portland


Do both wheels of a bicycle follow the same path?
DNV Murdo Frazer Park stairs: 'crooked like a Dog's hind leg'
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Moving along: Same topic: Stopping a tank with steel and concrete?

Concrete abutment strong enough to stop a tank.  Same design at the top.
There was  ONLY    ONE    sign stipulated in the specs, and its for the top of the stairs which is 100 feet away from the road.  A sign at the bottom would be ridiculous when the nearest road is four blocks away.  The contractor built the forms complete with underground wiring, had it inspected by DNV, poured the concrete, only to discover later that no sign was contemplated for the bottom one.

Grinder to the rescue.

Galvanized Steel is rusting.

The Sign:

You have now arrived at .... steel plate lettering cut our with a laser?

One minor detail: the Colour scheme: its totally the opposite from street signage.




Saturday, August 12, 2017

British Columbia Low Cost Housing: Take a GPS discovery tour of your local Flood Plain

 
Dikes_BC_Working_Update.kml

Gauges.kmz

L_Dikes_2007.kmz

 Provincial_Dikes.kmz



Gauges Metro Vancouver to Hope


Gauges Metro Vancouver to Pemberton

Kamloops to Monte Creek Dykes

Kelowna to US border Dykes


Upgrade

Before Upgrade


Thursday, July 20, 2017

BC NDP Order-In-Council marching orders for: Brad, Jack, Judy and Barry

Number 30

2017-07-26    UPDATE OIC

 OIC 230
 OIC 231

2017-07-28   UPDATE OIC

OIC 232
OIC 233

2017-07-31  UPDATE OIC

OIC 234
 OIC 235

2017-08-01  UPDATE OIC

Kimberly Henderson
OIC 236

Gordon Wilson
OIC 237

Executive Council Regulation
OIC 238

Environment and Land Use Committee
OIC 239

Treasury Board
OIC 240

Bowin Ma Bio

2017-08-UPDATE

Health   Tobacco and Vapour Product Control Act
MO 255

Vapour Enforcement Officer Interior

Easier to see all of the orders here, en-mass 

Resume of Orders in Council

Volume 44, Number 30

OIC No. 230 – 240
MO No. 251 – 255

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If you want to keep track of the Order-In-Council  (OIC) being written out by the BC NDP ......
http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/content/oic/oic_cur/578163762/1694118722/1179799838/?xsl=/templates/browse.xsl


OIC Rescinded: BC Hydro: Brad Bennett and Jack Weisgerber
OIC 225





OIC 226




OIC 227


OIC 228
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Wednesday, July 12, 2017

1882: British Columbia: Information for Emigrants: Climate and Resources

 "No words can be too strong to express the charm of this delightful land, where the climate, softer and more constant than the south of England, ensures as all times of the year a full enjoyment of the wonderful loveliness of nature around you,"    Speech of Governor-General The Marquis of Lorne, Victoria, 27th October, 1882


Province of British Columbia, Canada : its climate and resources; with information for emigrants.


 Page 8 of 65

 ..... Any smart, active, capable man, with only a little money, but accustomed to work with his hands, is sure to succeed in making a comfortable home.  Wages are very high; land, food, and house materials are still relatively cheap.  If such a settler has a strong heart himself, and is blessed with a common-sense wife used to country work, he may confidently look forward to becoming even rich.  He need not long remain in the condition of a labourer.  This certainty of rising in the social scale must stimulate the emigrant.  Many new avenues to success will be opened when the railways are finished, and men should be here to discover these for themselves.

Pages 11 & 12







Tuesday, July 4, 2017

British Columbia Active Wildfires 2017 Map

UPDATE 2018-07-09   Wildfires
 
UPDATE  2017-07-07  
This map is experiencing technical difficulties associated with high usage volumes. If you were expecting to see the Active Wildfires Map please visit: http://openmaps.gov.bc.ca/kml/wildfire/map.html We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience as we work to resolve the issues.



Update  2017-07-09



2017-07-07




2017-07-09  and Historical wildfires



Active Wildfires in British Columbia



Wildfires of Note


Current KML Wildfire Data for British Columbia

Then go to 'Current Fire Polygons - Outlined'
Williams Lake and 150 Mile House



Saturday, July 1, 2017

Emily Sanregret, 21, died in a marked crosswa lk because Surrey didn't implement "Protecting people who wal k and cycle"

Emily Sanregret Surrey
Pedestrian killed had complained about feeling 'invisible' in crossw alk before



Surrey is not alone.

Most British Columbian municipalities are included.

Their association UBCM, should be involved except that their focus is on speeding motorist, not motorist seeing pedestrians.

District of North Vancouver's action on this front is to put up more signs alerting motorists that there are pedestrians at the curbs.  The problem with their signage is that most motorists are not interested in reading signs, even if they come with a YELLOW background, BLACK printing of NEW.



The problem is that the expectant Green light that the motorist is waiting for, to proceed through, and/or turning left or right, happens at EXACTLY the same time that the Pedestrian light indicates its SAFE to WAL K.

The answer:

 Changing the intervals between the Motorists Green light and the Pedestrian's White light is far less expensive in material and time resources than putting up signs that are ignored.


A BC Liberal government December 8, 2016 document was published to alleviate the pain but they  only went one third of the way on a promise of Three modules.



"Community Road Safety Toolkit Module    Protecting people who wal k and cycle"

Leading Pedestrian Intervals  (Page 7 of 32)

  1. Leading pedestrian intervals, aka advanced green for pedestrians, are re-programmed intersection signal phases that provide pedestrians a head start of 3 to 7 seconds (or longer) over drivers, reducing the potential for driver-pedestrian conflicts and crashes. Given this is a proven and low-cost safety design, it should be strongly considered for widespread implementation.
  2. http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/public/pubdocs/bcdocs2016_2/604183/community_road_safety_toolkit_module1.pdf
Document Properties:
  1. This module is the first of what will ultimately be three modules of the BC Community Road Safety Toolkit. This first module focuses on road designs that work to better protect pedestrians and cyclists from motor vehicle-related injury. This module also contains information on strategies that encourage more people to wal k, cycle and use public transit since shifting to these methods of transport decreases private car use and that, in turn, generates better road safety benefits. 
 Google Search Criteria:  BC Community Road Safety Toolkit