Innovative infrastructure ...in Nanaimo!

Grrr, Nanaimo does it again... (kick our asses, I mean -- see the topics on how it uses GIS and digital info)...

Haven't we had conversations on this forum about how great it would be to have some sort of structurally beautiful/ interesting pedestrian and/or bicycle bridge (or bridges) in Victoria? Well, Nanaimo got this one for $500,000:



I'm not saying I'd like one exactly like this, but whenever anyone comes up with some sort of innovative proposal for something similar, the story is that it would cost millions etc etc., and we don't have the money, and so we can't do, and on and on. Well, Nanaimo got this for $500,000 which doesn't sound like such an awful sum, does it? How come we can't do more eye-catching stuff around here?

Via CivicInfoBC:

Thursday, September 20, 2007
Regional District of Nanaimo to Host Official Opening of "Top Bridge Crossing"
By Regional District of Nanaimo

REGIONAL DISTRICT OF NANAIMO - On BC and World Rivers Day, Sunday, September 30th 2007, the Regional District of Nanaimo will host the official opening of the Top Bridge Crossing. This 81-metre pedestrian-cyclist cable suspension bridge near Parksville spans the Englishman River on the old 19th Century highway linking Nanaimo and Port Alberni. The new bridge connects the Regional Trail starting at Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park on the Georgia Strait with Top Bridge Mountain Bike Park, Top Bridge Community Park and Englishman River Regional Park.

Principal financing for the $500,000 Top Bridge Crossing was provided by the Regional District of Nanaimo and the Province of British Columbia. Additional contributors included the City of Parksville and numerous individual donors and area businesses that helped fund raise for the bridge. The Regional District of Nanaimo is working with area landowners and First Nations on site development around the bridge including improved access to the riverside and swimming areas.

"The Regional District of Nanaimo is thrilled to see the completion of the long-planned Trail System bridge over the Englishman River," says Joe Stanhope, Chair of the Regional District of Nanaimo Board. "Top Bridge is a remarkable site for its natural beauty as well as its history. First Nation petroglyphs, remnants of old vehicle bridges and now the new recreational bridge all attest to the continuing importance of the Top Bridge canyon in the life of Vancouver Island peoples. We look forward to working with our partners over the next year on completing improvements around the Top Bridge Crossing. Join us now in celebrating the bridge, the place and the river."

Ron Cantelon, MLA for Parksville-Nanaimo adds, "The Province of British Columbia, through the Community Development Initiative, is most pleased to have supported this significant community infrastructure project. Recreational bridges over major rivers like the Englishman are key to the development of viable long-trail networks that will serve residents and the many visitors to our beautiful Island. BC Rivers Day and World Rivers Day is a great time to celebrate this new river crossing."

The official opening of the Top Bridge Crossing begins with a public ceremony at 11 a.m. at Top Bridge. Top Bridge is accessible from parking lots at the end of Chattell Road (off Kaye Road by the junction of Highways 19 and 19A) and Allsbrook Road (off Bellevue off Highway 4A just inland of Highway 19). Hot dogs and cake will be served following the ceremony. Information displays will be available about the bridge, the Regional Parks and Trails System and the Englishman River conservation corridor and its proponents such as The Nature Trust of BC. This is a rain or shine event and people are advised to wear adequate footwear for a rugged landscape.

The official opening of the Top Bridge Crossing will be followed by a 1 – 4 p.m. Open House at adjacent Englishman River Regional Park, a conservation area along the river corridor. The public is invited to explore the new Regional Park, its trails and hatchery-fish channel system as a prelude to taking part in the first management planning exercise for this 177-hectare conservation and passive recreation property. Guided tours and displays will be made available by the Regional District, its planning consultant Lanarc-LGL and park partners The Nature Trust of BC, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Community Fisheries Development Centre, the BC Conservation Foundation, the Englishman River Watershed Recovery Plan Steering Committee and the Mid-Vancouver Island Habitat Enhancement Society. Watch the salmon spawn and wander along the splendid Englishman River as you enjoy BC and World Rivers Day 2007.

For information on the Top Bridge Crossing, Regional Parks and Trails and the Rivers Day event at Top Bridge, please contact RDN Parks at 250-248-3252, 1-888-828-2060 or visit http://www.rdn.bc.ca.

* View the full text of this press release
http://www.civicinfo...asp?newsid=2346

And the picture (above) is from this article: [url=http://www.rdn.bc.ca/cms.asp?wpID=1515:f0464]Official Opening of the Top Bridge Crossing -- A Regional Trail System Bridge over the Englishman River[/url:f0464]. Check it out.

I found another article about Nanaimo being innovative and leading edge -- while Victoria is nowhere to be seen, incidentally. Since we don't have a Nanaimo thread, I thought I'd just append it here (again, via CivicInfoBC.bc.ca....)

Sunday, September 30, 2007
Nanaimo Wins "Spirit of Innovation" Award at MISA Conference
By City of Nanaimo

NANAIMO - The City of Nanaimo's "Boulevard Maintenance" Application is a Winner! Public Works wanted a better way of monitoring boulevard mowing, and together with IT, they came up with an award winner.

Last year the Director of Public Works, Mac MacKenzie, approached the Information Technology Department (IT) to see if a better way of monitoring work and maintaining records for the City's boulevard mowing program could be achieved using MapGuide, the City's Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping product.

In April of this year, the Boulevard Maintenance application was officially launched by IT's Matthew Dunstan working with Cheri Adams who supervises the mowing program. Cheri provided enthusiastic support, valuable suggestions, and did the testing for the application.

The Boulevard Maintenance Program keeps track of what streets have been mowed, and how long ago. The status of any street is shown in a colour-coded display on MapGuide, so Cheri and other Public Works staff can see at a glance an 'aging report' city-wide.

Cheri Adams has a laptop computer in her truck, and can update the status of any street from the field, and keep track of where mowers are working at any time.

Matthew Dunstan took the application to the fall MISA Conference (Municipal Information Systems Association) in Pentiction, where IT departments from municipalities all over BC meet to stay informed (the conference will be taking place in Nanaimo next year). Matthew did a presentation on the program, and came away with MISA's "Spirit of Innovation" award.

Once again, Nanaimo proves to be on the leading edge of finding ways to benefit its citizens through innovative collaboration and smart use of technology.

* View the full text of this press release[/url:d0aa8]
http://www.civicinfo...asp?newsid=2369

It's really interesting to surf over to the [url=http://www.misa.bc.ca/about/:d0aa8]MISA BC[/url:d0aa8] site. They're up to great stuff, but as I said, Victoria isn't even at the table. Saanich has someone in the executive, and the CRD has one person, but other than that, it's all Vancouver, Kelowna, Nanaimo, etc. Victoria seems not to have anybody involved.

From their "about" page:

MISA BC exists to promote greater co-operation among local government staff in the IT field by sharing information and developing common solutions on a broader and cost-effective scale. Joint efforts with other organizations with a national scope such as the Canadian Association of Municipal Adminstration (CAMA) and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), have also become possible.

It is recognized that municipalities share many, or have the same, IT issues across the province and country and working together on these issues makes for more effective and efficient government. The information highway and electronic services continues to be a prime focus of discussions between municipalities and the senior levels of government. Clearly, members from the provincial chapters and across the nation provide a valuable service for municipalities.

...(snip)...

MISA BC provides the forum to exchange information with your peers who are involved in the evaluation, design, creation, and acquisition, installation, Implementation, maintenance and operation of municipal information systems.
[url="http://www.misa.bc.ca/about"]http://www.misa.bc.ca/about

Is it because Victoria is traditionally such an old person's place? It's run by gray guys in gray suits, there's hardly enough young blood in top positions -- in fact, even actually young people who aspire to succeed within the system of government here seem old before their time (case in point: Ben Isitt -- he might be hovering around 30 chronologically, but he seems to think like someone who's 67 and had their heyday in the sixties...)

Why aren't there more young people running the show here? Male & female? Are places like Nanaimo more willing to embrace innovation because their median age in the leadership sector is younger? More young people busily carving out careers in those places? Is Saanich at least partially on board because it has more tech innovation within its municipality, while Victoria's economy is dominated too much by established senior government levels and probably tourism? Does Victoria stymy its young? And do relatively young leaders in Victoria become complacent too early?

Victoria doesn't embrace young entrepreneurs. When young folks start a business here the community laughs at their ideas and treats them (personally) like rubbish. Been through that myself with City Hall of all places -- but we managed to straighten them out 8) Could be because there aren't enough young people involved in entrepreneurship to support their peers?

It's not until a new Victoria company run by young Victorians receives notoriety in another part of the world will the locals pay any credence to it. So that "old" mentality is bang on, Ms. B., where it's oftentimes the old folks who will put down fresh ideas and new concepts partly out of fear of change and partly out of personal disinterest in anything innovative, that is, until someone's idea receives accolades elsewhere.

I know plenty of old people who downplay every idea and every new "thing" until someone else from somewhere else says it's a good idea or a good "thing." Weird, ain't it?

It's not just age (in chronological terms), though. I'm definitely over the halfway mark (gulp!), but I'm not yet willing to settle. Too often -- it seems to me -- people in Victoria, regardless of age, are willing to settle -- settle as though they already were partway into the grave. It goes like this: settle for second best, settle for not getting the reno done because it's too difficult to find contractors, settle for a comfortable government job vs entrepreneurship, settle for running a small company vs going global, settle for a less-than-perfect dining experience vs complaining about the food, settle for little "mistakes" in construction vs demanding perfection, settle for making do with less vs making sure that the best is available, settle for the hype vs kicking the tires of reality, settle for doing things the way you've always done them vs being agile and trying something really new ("Uh, I always played hockey this way, so I'll develop real estate the same way, ugh, grunt, ugh..."). Settle for settling in and fitting in, regardless of all the big dreams you had when you came here, settle for not rocking the boat because you can't shift the porkbellies in charge, and so on... Every year, every lifetime, several boatloads-worth of people come to Victoria thinking they'll be the ones to shake things up, to change the status quo. And then they end up stirring their own little pot, concocting their own little recipes for "change," and somehow after a while it becomes too wearying, and they ...settle. It fails to come together for a real tsunami of change in thinking. It's as though some huge entropy hole was right under our feet here.

And what "settling" for the status quo does is something very very pernicious. Are we agreed that Victoria has typically suffered under boom-and-bust economies? If you're a historian, you'll agree that's true, right? Well, when people settle, they agree to the boom-and-bust formula. It means that if one person is successful doing something, he or she (usually he) will immediately have six dozen copycats right on his tail, doing exactly the same thing. Result: THE DEATH OF INNOVATION. Everyone is just copying the one successful recipe, and it works for a while, and then it's bust-time.

That's what this damnable mentality of "settling" also implies.

Settling is safe. Just say no to settling. Live on the edge instead.

So true!!! Victoria is all about settling. Whether it is with average buildings, arts, or noteriety.

If we really want to change the way people perceive Victoria and also encourage "young" ideas or entrpreneurs we need to work with the kids when they are in highschool. I hear all the time that Victoria is boring or there are no opportunities here but that is just not true. It is almost as though we have preprogrammed ourselves to think we are pathetic and anytime someone tries to say otherwise someone in the media or local government will confirm it for us.

Anyways not to rant but we have it all here but we don't know it yet.

Indeed, Ms. B. And wrt highschools, G, they truly do downplay Victoria and their students' future potential to find employment here (HOWEVER, now that the old boys clubs need tradesmen, all of a sudden high schools are pushing kids into the "local" trades -- go figure!).

This "old boys club" in Victoria is the product of a slow-growing city. The clubs and networks they create don't fare well when newcomers come along and the recent pressures of a faster growing population make them raise their hands in protest even higher. From the media to local businesses, perhaps those on the inside really are doing everything to keep Victoria the way it was -- to keep the old boy clubs profiting and newcomers struggling (I'm not referring to downtown development, just the entrepreneurial atmosphere).

Case in point: nobody cared about A-Channel (well, no members of the old boys clubs, that is) until Hudson Mac jumped ship with CH and moved to AC. Before that the new local channel was struggling to attract viewers over the age of 30 (which happens to be the primetime news crowd).

Now look at whats happening with that Big Bus tour bus company. They can't even get a parking spot in the downtown area (Laidlaw's -- or one of the other local company's -- turf) and City Hall keeps slapping them with fines and license suspensions.

Ditto for a helicopter company that wanted to compete against Helijet. They were shuffled from one federal, provincial and local department to another to get their license to operate off of a "federal" helipad. Helijet wouldn't budge, so the new chopper company was forced (forced, as in that was their only choice to turn a buck here) to join forces with Helijet and provide them with their machine.

I don't think any of this is unique to Victoria. No, Victoria is not as dynamic as a metropolis. The pace and spirit of Vancouver is quite different. But Victoria seems pretty typical of a small city to me. It has its share of innovation -- PureEdge was so successful at pioneering a new technology and competing with Adobe that Adobe acquired them -- and more than its share of culture.

Boom-and-bust economies? Economies naturally experience a boom-and-bust cycle. In the modern era we call the busts "recessions", and they can transcend national boundaries.

Obstacle for entrepreneurs? Again, I think that's pretty common. Watch the Dragon's Den and see how anxious people who really have the ability to take an idea to the next level are to sign onto something. Hint: extremely reluctant. Investors get rich by betting on the right horse, not on all of them. Most entrepreneurs fail.

Grey hairs on council? Well, Nanaimo has its share too. Remember that council work pays a pittance; certainly most people can't live on it. Young people are often busier trying to survive, develop a career, and start a family. Civic politics are also the most neglected in general. It's not surprising that you see an older generation, well established, monied, and with a high civic ethic on council.

Oh, and as for that bridge, it really has nothing to do with the city whatsoever. The regional district is another thing entirely, and Englishman River is nowhere near the city.

Nanaimo strikes again (good for them!):

Nanaimo links fire calls to Google Maps

Martha Tropea,
Canwest News Service

Published: Sunday, February 17, 2008

NANAIMO -- If you hear the wail of a fire truck and want to know where it's coming from, Nanaimo residents can now go online to track the city's fire fleet.

In what may be a first for Canadians, the techno wizards at City Hall have linked up the daily fire and rescue response report with Google Maps, to show anyone in the city where action is happening.

The new service allows people to see where incidents occur in real time.

"Pretty much anytime something goes out it will be updated," said senior systems analyst Chris McLuckie.

"We've wanted to upgrade the existing system for quite a while now." Using what's called an RSS feed, residents can go to the city's fire response page found on www.nanaimo.ca.

At the Fire Rescue department's incident response page, they can click on an incident and a map will come up showing where that call came from.

"I think we're one of the first," said McLuckie. "I don't know anyone who is doing anything like this." Exact addresses will not be shown, but rather the block where a call stemmed from, he said.

Those who currently subscribe to the calls report will no longer receive a daily e-mail. Residents now need to subscribe to the RSS feed on the city's website.

This isn't the first time Nanaimo's information department has been on the cutting edge of Google technology.

In August 2007, Google Earth's chief technology officer said the Harbour City was one of the most active cities in the world when it comes to uploading information to the site.

With the click of a mouse, Google Earth will provide any Internet user in the world with a three-dimensional image of buildings throughout the entire city.

At the time, Google Earth's Michael Jones said Nanaimo residents have more information about their city than the people of San Francisco, for example.

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008

http://www.canada.co...21-2f436fc6320f

From the current issue of Time magazine:

How Google Earth Ate Our Town [Nanaimo]

The Google fire service allows people to avoid accident sites by tuning electronic devices to automatic updates from the city's RSS news feed, says fire captain Dean Ford. Eventually, Nanaimo plans to equip its grass-cutting machines with GPS devices, so residents piqued by the apparent shabbiness of a particular park or grass verge can use Google to find out when last it was groomed by the city's gardening staff. And the city's cemeteries will soon be mapped to allow internet users to find out who is buried in each plot, says Kristensen. A new multimillion-dollar conference center, opening in June, will have 72 wireless access points to allow out-of-towners to use their laptops to navigate the Google Earth version of the city.

Homeowners can use the facility to find out specific information about their garbage collection schedule, while the city's 150-year-old downtown core is rendered in 3D...

Pretty neat. Now if only Nanaimo's downtown core was actually 150 years old.



For crying out loud, even downtown Victoria is hardly 150 years old as I write this. Most of the roads were still dirt and there were but a handful of brick/iron buildings in Victoria in the late 1850s.

Map-making mania
Amateur cartographers are going high-tech to make the most unexpected online maps - and ticking off old-school mapmakers along the way

Bureaucrats and map enthusiasts in Nanaimo, B.C., have uploaded so much data to earth.nanaimo.ca that the coastal city is widely considered the capital of Google Earth.

Real cartographers already have a term for this profusion of online mapping: the geoweb.

Like Mr. Ajmani, most of the authors of this mapping boom are hobbyists, working nights and weekends to plot arcane knowledge.

I would support increasing Victoria's visibility in this new way of tracking data.