Owen
@oweninvan.bsky.social
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men gang aft agley, an' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, for promis'd joy!
Vancouver, BC
Vancouver, BC
Reposted by Owen
Congestion pricing is working. The cameras are staying on.
January 5, 2026 at 3:28 PM
Congestion pricing is working. The cameras are staying on.
Reposted by Owen
One of my biggest takeaways from living in Tokyo was that the city is incredible in spite of the fact that 95% of the architecture is unremarkable.
It makes the years-long design review process for a single apartment building in the U.S. seem all the more frivolous.
It makes the years-long design review process for a single apartment building in the U.S. seem all the more frivolous.
Tokyo is a city that makes the argument that architecture is irrelevant.
What matters more is urbanism:
The street network
The density
The freedom of uses
The clustering around rail
What matters more is urbanism:
The street network
The density
The freedom of uses
The clustering around rail
January 5, 2026 at 9:46 PM
One of my biggest takeaways from living in Tokyo was that the city is incredible in spite of the fact that 95% of the architecture is unremarkable.
It makes the years-long design review process for a single apartment building in the U.S. seem all the more frivolous.
It makes the years-long design review process for a single apartment building in the U.S. seem all the more frivolous.
PSA: If you want to vote in OneCity's mayoral nomination race, you need to become a member by Sunday, Jan. 11th at the latest. AFAIK, it is the only open, contested mayoral nomination in Vancouver.
January 5, 2026 at 6:35 PM
PSA: If you want to vote in OneCity's mayoral nomination race, you need to become a member by Sunday, Jan. 11th at the latest. AFAIK, it is the only open, contested mayoral nomination in Vancouver.
Bella's favourite movie of 2025 is definitely Flow.
January 2, 2026 at 5:46 AM
Bella's favourite movie of 2025 is definitely Flow.
Playing since bluegrass for the foamers at the Brighton tonight.
January 1, 2026 at 8:36 AM
Playing since bluegrass for the foamers at the Brighton tonight.
Good news for a change.
West Vancouver luxury mansion's $22.2-million assessment upheld after appeal
The owner, a large development company, argued it should be assessed at $14.7 million
www.richmond-news.com
January 1, 2026 at 2:13 AM
Good news for a change.
Not one but two cars stopped in the bus lane at rush hour. And there were two more on the next block.
Buses need to be able to issue photo tickets or the lanes are just going to keep becoming more meaningless.
Buses need to be able to issue photo tickets or the lanes are just going to keep becoming more meaningless.
January 1, 2026 at 12:35 AM
Not one but two cars stopped in the bus lane at rush hour. And there were two more on the next block.
Buses need to be able to issue photo tickets or the lanes are just going to keep becoming more meaningless.
Buses need to be able to issue photo tickets or the lanes are just going to keep becoming more meaningless.
Reposted by Owen
The Americas see about 3% of global elevator installations as of 2020. The U.S. & Canada: even less.
But we've stuck with our own unique set of elevator codes, as if elevator companies still have no choice but to beat a path to our door.
Nope! "Everywhere else" is a bigger common market now.
But we've stuck with our own unique set of elevator codes, as if elevator companies still have no choice but to beat a path to our door.
Nope! "Everywhere else" is a bigger common market now.
December 31, 2025 at 2:57 AM
The Americas see about 3% of global elevator installations as of 2020. The U.S. & Canada: even less.
But we've stuck with our own unique set of elevator codes, as if elevator companies still have no choice but to beat a path to our door.
Nope! "Everywhere else" is a bigger common market now.
But we've stuck with our own unique set of elevator codes, as if elevator companies still have no choice but to beat a path to our door.
Nope! "Everywhere else" is a bigger common market now.
Reposted by Owen
A lot of Blueskiers are going to dismiss this observation because of the source, but it is correct. I'll just add that I don't think there's anything special about single-family homes that means they should never be rentals, any more than there's a rule that multifamily units should never be condos.
"America’s Housing Crunch Has the Wrong Villain" www.aei.org/economics/am...
"Institutional investors aren’t the cause of housing distortions but a response to them."
"Institutional investors aren’t the cause of housing distortions but a response to them."
December 31, 2025 at 4:38 PM
A lot of Blueskiers are going to dismiss this observation because of the source, but it is correct. I'll just add that I don't think there's anything special about single-family homes that means they should never be rentals, any more than there's a rule that multifamily units should never be condos.
Reposted by Owen
I think a six-storey building like this should be allowed by default virtually everywhere in every major city.
Even if they’re somewhat taller than nearby buildings.
Even if they’re somewhat taller than nearby buildings.
December 30, 2025 at 6:30 PM
I think a six-storey building like this should be allowed by default virtually everywhere in every major city.
Even if they’re somewhat taller than nearby buildings.
Even if they’re somewhat taller than nearby buildings.
Worse, there's enough room around the table for 8 dining chairs, but only massive recliners are allowed, so 2 people just have to stand & everyone else needs to wheel around a tray because they can't reach the table from their chairs.
I generally don't like to post screenshots of text, but someone posted this in our local Strong Towns group and it was too good not to share here.
December 30, 2025 at 4:30 AM
Worse, there's enough room around the table for 8 dining chairs, but only massive recliners are allowed, so 2 people just have to stand & everyone else needs to wheel around a tray because they can't reach the table from their chairs.
Reposted by Owen
It's sad how Burnaby legalized spacious family-friendly multiplexes and then freaked out and banned them again. Here's a brand new one: 5BR, 2600 sqft, only $540 psf www.zealty.ca/property/bc/...
December 30, 2025 at 1:58 AM
It's sad how Burnaby legalized spacious family-friendly multiplexes and then freaked out and banned them again. Here's a brand new one: 5BR, 2600 sqft, only $540 psf www.zealty.ca/property/bc/...
Reposted by Owen
Extracting value on the front end of development (community benefits) instead of the back end (taxes) is eating the seed corn. It'll never produce as much community benefits as planting a good harvest and sowing it when it ripens.
December 28, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Extracting value on the front end of development (community benefits) instead of the back end (taxes) is eating the seed corn. It'll never produce as much community benefits as planting a good harvest and sowing it when it ripens.
The Frankenstein movie should be a tight 90 minutes.
December 29, 2025 at 6:42 AM
The Frankenstein movie should be a tight 90 minutes.
Never mentioned in these annual articles is that the recreational tax rate being criticized as a tax break/"scam" is HIGHER than the residential tax rate (but lower than the business use tax rate), $4.26 vs. $3.12 / $1000.
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December 28, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Never mentioned in these annual articles is that the recreational tax rate being criticized as a tax break/"scam" is HIGHER than the residential tax rate (but lower than the business use tax rate), $4.26 vs. $3.12 / $1000.
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Reposted by Owen
I don’t think this can be fixed directly, given the cost structure of transit and car use.
The main cost of using transit is time. A bus pass you already own thus may make a half-mile trip costly. The car you own makes it ~free.
The opportunity is in enabling car-lite and -free lifestyles.
The main cost of using transit is time. A bus pass you already own thus may make a half-mile trip costly. The car you own makes it ~free.
The opportunity is in enabling car-lite and -free lifestyles.
This is transit's biggest structural challenge: all of its costs for users are marginal, whereas with a car most of the costs are fixed (acquisition, registration, etc.).
One strategy is to increase marginal costs for cars (tolls, parking, gas) and shift some transit costs to fixed (monthly pass).
One strategy is to increase marginal costs for cars (tolls, parking, gas) and shift some transit costs to fixed (monthly pass).
December 27, 2025 at 4:08 PM
I don’t think this can be fixed directly, given the cost structure of transit and car use.
The main cost of using transit is time. A bus pass you already own thus may make a half-mile trip costly. The car you own makes it ~free.
The opportunity is in enabling car-lite and -free lifestyles.
The main cost of using transit is time. A bus pass you already own thus may make a half-mile trip costly. The car you own makes it ~free.
The opportunity is in enabling car-lite and -free lifestyles.
Climbing down part of the Colca Canyon & staying where the camp was on generator power that went off at night was a sight I'll never forget. I swear the canyon was lined right up with the Milky Way.
If you ever have the experience of seeing a night sky out in the deep countryside you can understand this; it really is a fundamentally different experience, and I can't imagine it not being formative to people.
December 27, 2025 at 6:57 AM
Climbing down part of the Colca Canyon & staying where the camp was on generator power that went off at night was a sight I'll never forget. I swear the canyon was lined right up with the Milky Way.
Reposted by Owen
Honored that @IslandPress has named my book "Human Transit" as one of their top 10 Built Environment books from their 40 years of publishing.
It's a friendly, readable guide to help you think about public transportation issues.
www.planetizen.com/features/136...
It's a friendly, readable guide to help you think about public transportation issues.
www.planetizen.com/features/136...
Top 10 Island Press Built Environment Books
From “Life Between Buildings” to “Human Transit,” Island Press has played a critical role in building the catalogue of literature that is foundational to urban planning.
www.planetizen.com
December 26, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Honored that @IslandPress has named my book "Human Transit" as one of their top 10 Built Environment books from their 40 years of publishing.
It's a friendly, readable guide to help you think about public transportation issues.
www.planetizen.com/features/136...
It's a friendly, readable guide to help you think about public transportation issues.
www.planetizen.com/features/136...
Via @sustainabletall.bsky.social : The Swiss are building a 27 storey timber skyscraper in Zurich, with 10-stacked vertical neighbourhoods, each housing 22 apartments. Each neighbourhood is 3-storeys, and has a triple-height shared community space.
December 24, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Via @sustainabletall.bsky.social : The Swiss are building a 27 storey timber skyscraper in Zurich, with 10-stacked vertical neighbourhoods, each housing 22 apartments. Each neighbourhood is 3-storeys, and has a triple-height shared community space.
Reposted by Owen
A 1400sf 3Br + Den Flat.
1 Br can work as a lock-off suite.
Windows on 4 sides.
This is a townhouse, but without all the stairs.
1 Br can work as a lock-off suite.
Windows on 4 sides.
This is a townhouse, but without all the stairs.
December 17, 2025 at 1:12 AM
A 1400sf 3Br + Den Flat.
1 Br can work as a lock-off suite.
Windows on 4 sides.
This is a townhouse, but without all the stairs.
1 Br can work as a lock-off suite.
Windows on 4 sides.
This is a townhouse, but without all the stairs.
I've been calling for doing a metro Vienna within Vancouver, Burnaby, New West and Richmond, but we should do this too!
Ok so hear me out: we get 9 million people in this region but we also build the railway network to go with it
December 22, 2025 at 5:26 AM
I've been calling for doing a metro Vienna within Vancouver, Burnaby, New West and Richmond, but we should do this too!
Why does Canada build so many condos and California so few? It's not surprising that California is too litigious, but @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social explains the nuances of why construction defect law affects condos the most. [Podcast link in thread]
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December 22, 2025 at 4:44 AM
Why does Canada build so many condos and California so few? It's not surprising that California is too litigious, but @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social explains the nuances of why construction defect law affects condos the most. [Podcast link in thread]
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I used Co-Pilot in Excel for the 1st time. It did a pretty good job of writing VBA to "de-duplicate" my list of parts structured into assemblies, which it was clearly prepared for, considering I described the task procedurally and it intuited that it was de-duplicating...
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December 20, 2025 at 1:32 AM
I used Co-Pilot in Excel for the 1st time. It did a pretty good job of writing VBA to "de-duplicate" my list of parts structured into assemblies, which it was clearly prepared for, considering I described the task procedurally and it intuited that it was de-duplicating...
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Reposted by Owen
Comparison of project financing:
In Canada the Federal Government provided no funding to that point, and local sources were providing the biggest share of funding
In Canada the Federal Government provided no funding to that point, and local sources were providing the biggest share of funding
December 19, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Comparison of project financing:
In Canada the Federal Government provided no funding to that point, and local sources were providing the biggest share of funding
In Canada the Federal Government provided no funding to that point, and local sources were providing the biggest share of funding
I thought "with the largest (and final) baby boomer about to reach official retirement age," was a typo, but I checked and actually...
ca.rbcwealthmanageme...
ca.rbcwealthmanageme...
December 16, 2025 at 10:45 PM
I thought "with the largest (and final) baby boomer about to reach official retirement age," was a typo, but I checked and actually...
ca.rbcwealthmanageme...
ca.rbcwealthmanageme...