by Sean Orr | Premier and mayors debate TransLink funding crisis. Hey, here are some ideas! Try not to pick the most expensive LRT system; try not to have an appointed board of directors who know shit all about transit; try not to build another four bridges across the Fraser River; and maybe go back in time to install turn-styles at every Skytrain station.
G8/G20 spending an ‘orgy of excess’: Liberals. Somehow I just can’t picture Harper in an orgy, but that’s probably just my brain’s self-defense mechanism working. Apparently, they spent $85,000 on snacks, $14,000 for glow sticks, and a shocking $250,000 on little bibles bound in seal pup fur.
Hey, why spend our tax dollars on incarcerating Betty Krawczyk for life when we could just kill her?
Cactus Club voted Canada’s best restaurant bathroom. Because that’s where you’ll spend most of your time after you eat there? I don’t get it…
Olio Festival’s gallery crawls offer art that’s music to the eye. This is one of the best things I have ever read.
Twitter is fun: How to feed koi at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden.
Oh, hey look! Someone other than Andrew Morrison writes about Sean Heather: Prodigious Vancouver restaurateur feasts on Gastown revitalization.
“maybe go back in time to install turn-styles at every Skytrain station.”
They’ve done studies that show the amount of money gained with turnstiles (by making it harder to ride free) would not make up for the cost of installing and maintaining the machines and keeping a staff member at every station to monitor them and help people out if they don’t work.
That said, last time I checked the turnstile project is still in Translink’s long-term plan because the federal government has offered up funding for it under an anti-crime program. Politics beats sound economics any day.