The Granville Island Water Taxi changes alot for the island. Many of us use it for a quick and delightful way to and from town. Load bikes on and go, etc. I know it changed things a lot for me. I sold my car two weeks after the service started.

Vancouverites are beginning to hear about it. But it’s only a good alternative if there’s transport available to them at the other end, and/or there’s knowledge of what to do when they get here.

What can we do for visitors to support low impact, visitor use of island?

We moved to a house very close to the Cove for one reason: we wanted to be able to buy produce, send a letter, have a coffee, meet someone at the ferry, go to the doctor, and do all the other myriad of activities that keeps a family ticking without having to get in a car.

Living in a village, rather than a rural setting, comes with some disadvantages though. We are very aware of traffic and ferry noise from the Cove, but generally it is a small price to pay. However, our little neighbourhood was recently the subject of a fascinating experiment with cars and traffic. As a result of work on another road, Cates Hill became the main traffic artery for nearly two weeks for all cross island traffic. The difference was astounding.

Read the rest of this entry »

I wanted to draw everyone’s attention to a new project being run off the side of the desk unofficially under the umbrella of the municipality’s Sustainable Framework Working Group. It’s called Bowen2020 and it’s a green-living wiki for islanders. Here’s a bit clipped from the main page:

Welcome to Bowen2020, a compendium of green-living ideas, advice, and resources written and edited by and for the people of Bowen Island, B.C. Canada.

It is our hope that you, the users and creators of this site, will share on these pages a little of what you know, a bit of what you have learned, and perhaps even a list of things you’d like to do when it comes to taking positive steps at the household, neighborhood, and community-wide level. Perhaps you have knowledge to share about conserving electricity, growing food, or getting around more sustainably on this jewel of an island that we are lucky enough to call home.

The greener life is a puzzle best solved together. Each of us holds a piece, and through this site, together we can hopefully compare notes, share experiences, orgnanize projects, and convey lessons learned. Ideally we can collectively transform this resource into a constantly-updated and hihgly localized “better living handbook,” and along the way make our corner of the world a brighter place. None of us individually has all the answers, but all of us have some sense of what the completed picture might look like: A community that is ecologically balanced, vibrant and complete, and resilient for present and future generations.

This thing will only work if people share what they know there. Please take a moment to write an article, or improve something already there. If you need help getting started, just give me a shout, leave a comment here or email me at james at glave dot com. Thanks!

Hi all, I am involved with the first ever GVRD Ride-Share Week taking place this September 17th-21st. It’s partnered between TransLink and the Jack Bell Ride-Share, the website for JBR has been up on this site before and can be found at www.ride-share.com.

There is a searchable ride-matching database on the site, and as part of the Ride-Share Week we will be awarding prizes to lucky online users. To be eligible for prizes all you have to do is register and be actively ridesharing during that week. You can also find out about using a Jack Bell fleet vehicle and getting a branded portal by checking the site.

I think that this is one of the best ways to cut your own CO2 impacts, connect to your neighbours and save money and time. I hope a few of you manage to find great matches and if you are already ridesharing and have space in your vehicle be sure to put it up online also. Happy Ridesharing!

Kirsty

In response to a query about how easy it was to start a van pool, Terry Cotter posted this reply to the Bowen Online Forum:

Anyone can register their own van pool. Get a form from the ferry admin building and get a few friends to sign as members.

The trickiest part is to make up a sign that identifies your vehicle as a van pool. Make up your own logo and laminate for your window!

It is not necessary to have everyone on board to get the assured loading, however, in theory you must arrive 20 min. before sailing (or as is outlined in the latest policy).

The registration should be periodically kept up to date.

Everyone has assumed vanpooling needs an institutional sponsor. Not so!

Get details from BC Ferries and save yourself some ferry wait time.

I had no idea it was that easy. If I was a commuter, assured loading with a bunch of friends would be incentive enough to put some work into this.

For further reference, here are some Ferry Advisory Committee meeting minutes where the Jack Bell Foundation made a presentation, and here is the Jack Bell Foundation website.

Bike to work week (or rather, day) was a success! Five regular commuters added their bikes to the collection usually stashed at the bow of the Queen of Capilano, for a hilly tour meandering along the Translink-recommended route to downtown. The ride home was considerably more direct. Kudos all the more to the regular cycle-commuters out there who make it a daily routine.

Both of these photos were taken on the Lion’s Gate Bridge; in the image at left, you can just make barely make out the peak on Bowen Island in the far-left background.

The Bike to Work challenge is picking up steam. We have at least five people committed to cycling from Horseshoe Bay through downtown (and beyond) on Tuesday May 29.

If you care to join this clueless non-high performance group of riders, we’ll be cycling off the 6:35 am ferry. We’ll also be meeting back up in the afternoon for the ride home: 4:15 pm at the uprooted oak tree on the north side of Georgia just before entering Stanley Park. Leave a comment at the bottom of this thread if you’re interested.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a few hard-core bike commuters on my regular ferry, and hats off to them - it takes a lot of committment. Most commuters go a fair distance and commuting by bike is just not very practical. I’ve done the ride from Horseshoe Bay to downtown Vancouver a couple of times, and it is quite the undertaking but a lot of fun and a superb workout.

May 28 to June 3 is Bike to Work Week, an annual program of the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition (VACC). Its essentially a challenge to commuters to get out of their cars and on their bikes. You can do it on your own or as part of a company challenge. I wonder how many Bowen Islanders we could get on saddles that week, either for on-island or off-island commuting. Would be quite a sight seeing dozens of bikes arriving in the Cove and getting on and off the ferry. Perhaps for some its only possible for the Bowen Island portion of the commute and maybe others it could be the whole way into Vancouver or Burnaby or wherever work is.

We could use this space to organise Bike to Work Week cycling groups and share tips and tricks on how to get ready, the best routes into town and safe cycling practices. I plan to bike to work at least one day during Bike to Work Week. Hope to see others out there.

Just saw Who Killed The Electric Car? Really interesting documentary about a short-lived chapter in North American auto history. In the mid-1990s major car manufacturers responded to a California state mandate to build and market electric vehicles. GM, Toyota, Honda and others released a small number of extremely efficient, zero emission vehicles that were fast, energy efficient, and required no new refueling infrastructure. The cars gained an immediate, albeit small foothold in the California market and saw an unprecedented level of interest from consumers around the world — in spite of an almost disinterested marketing campaign.
Read the rest of this entry »

Hello, we’re the Glave family, we live on Cates Hill, a Bowen Island neighbourhood we chose for both its density and its proximity to the shops of the village and the school, both of which are walkable. Though Cates Hill is only a few years old, it is already a thriving community within the community; a number of young families live on our street. Here are some of the things we’re doing in an effort to “green up” our lives, and some of the projects we hope to get underway in the near future.
Read the rest of this entry »