Correspondence Re: View Royal Draft Climate Action Plan

Re: View Royal Draft Climate Action Plan

Since I did not access a copy of this plan until Sunday, Feb.6 this will be a quick response to a complicated document. Overall I am highly pleased to see a detailed formulation of an Action Plan and look forward to its implementation. This document is obviously the result of a lot of careful work by staff. I am pleased to see so much attention paid to the input from the PREAC recommendations.

In its present form the one drawback I see repeatedly is lack of specifics so that it looks like this plan will be a lot of wishes without the detailed statement of actions that we can trust will lead realizing the wishes. I will describe below the details of what might make the plan look more reliable. None of my suggestions are meant to be a criticism of staff, merely a request for improvement before setting off to implement the plan.

Here are my detailed comments on certain sections:

p.4

I urge the Town to reconsider its Purchasing Policy in terms of purchasing vehicles, to require evaluation based on lifetime costs, since the lifetime costs of electric vehicles typically beat the lifetime costs of internal combustion vehicles.

Although you say, here, that sequestration is beyond the scope of this Strategy, I am glad to see at the end that you are concerned that cutting trees does diminish the already operating sequestration we have here. We should indeed track the effective emissions caused by the removal of each tree.

Pp55-58

1.2 Getting people out of their cars is a huge project on its own. People love their cars. Watch the highways at rush hour and go to any mall on the weekend. This section needs as many details as possible of how the Town plans to get people out of their cars. Just the wish for this to be so will accomplish nothing.
1.4 Need to find out first if there is any interest in commercial or industrial land in VR. Recall the attempt to do this at the entrance to Thetis Lake Park.
1.5 This is an important goal but we need an explicit plan on how we are going to communicate this to the public: brochures to the door, Town website. What exactly do we think will actually work to reach many people?
2.2 Easy neighbourhood connections might help people go by bike or foot. We have made suggestions in the past but few have been adopted. Staff and councilors give up on this too easily knowing most citizens will jump in their cars anyway. This is a great idea that needs determination to achieve anything. Who will be determined here?
2.5A valuable and crucial goal. The more safe bike paths and trails the more residents will actually use this mode rather than cars. Bike lanes help but can lead to “feeling” very unsafe without more thought – e.g. the through into town bike lane on the Island Hwy at Admirals. I suggest very hard work finding more bike trails and making them convenient. This needs a point person on staff.
3.2 High frequency transit might help but who believes we still have any chance of a rail route on the E&N. Such would be wonderful, but I don’t see any details on how to get there. As such, this item looks like just a dream wish.
3.3 Completely free transit might increase ridership a bit. It should be funded entirely with a tax on gasoline and diesel. You might want to get a copy of a study done for the Boston MTA in the early 1960s that tried everything to increase ridership: low or free fares, high frequency, more routes: the conclusion was that none of these worked a bit except letting the streets get so clogged with traffic people finally decided to let the bus driver sit in the traffic and themselves on the bus.
3.4 This is an urgent issue. The mayor and staff should consult deeply and immediately on how to influence BCTransit to stop replacing old diesel buses with CNG buses. These are locking in huge emissions for their lifetime of 20 years plus. We could replace old buses right now with electric, likely with a lifetime cost of less than CNG.

Pp60,61

1.1-1.6 Are all great ideas. They could be ramped up by insisting that all new builds come with a certain percentage of the parking stalls already equipped with level 2 charging stations. Let us remember, as builders moan, that a level2 costs about $1500 installed, mere peanuts in the cost of a new unit.
1.4 Consider funding two DCFastchargers at Admirals Walk and at Eagle Creek, perhaps with some contribution of cash, as well as space, from the mall owners.

Pp63-64

1.1 & 1.2 These proposals are good but much too weak. Use the 2 part idea in 1.2 but make it be Step Code 5 or Step Code 3 with no use of gas or any other combustion fuel for all classes of buildings. Keep in mind that one gas furnace produces 3tons of ghgs per year (CRD figures), so allowing these to continue to be installed is like inviting 3 new gasoline cars on the road for a 20 year lifetime. This is no way to cut emissions at all and we can put a stop to it immediately.

P.66

Please do not refer to “renewable” gas anywhere in this document. Such is just a ruse by the gas companies to allow them to expand the distribution of their fracked, non-natural methane. Sure we need to dispose of the methane from the dump rather than just release it into the atmosphere but not at the expense of increasing the amount of “natural gas” burnt in the world.

p.72

2.3

I am sorry to read about “carbon capture” in this document. This is a phony lure by the oil companies, a totally unproven technology. One project by Shell emits more CO2 in the process than all the CO2 it captures. The only scientific paper I have found on the subject calculates the cost of capture as $1000 per ton. Not realistic at all.

p.74

Beware of including Fortis or relying on them for anything. Their sole goal is to increase the sales of gas, which increases emissions which increases global heating.

P.88

Change all reporting to be annually. We have only 8 years left to 2030 so must keep a close watch on what works and what does not.

There is no mention in this strategy of dealing with sea level rise. What plans will the Town make about low lying areas around Portage Inlet. What will happen to Centennial Park and View Royal Park?

I respectively submit these ideas as additions and improvements to the Draft Community Climate Action Strategy. It contains many fine actions as published and some of them need some strengthening to have potentcy.

Sincerely Ian D.Brown, 328 Stewart Ave.,