For those of you who missed Saturday’s Globe and Mail, here’s the link to the story I wrote about the city’s plan to allow the current small neighbourhood electric cars to be driven on city streets. Although I didn’t put it in the print story, this is an example of the kind of initiative that comes from a motivated bureaucracy.
The city’s engineering department and sustainability office have been working like fiends on this one for a long time, making contacts with the local electric-car network of fans and experts, joining advocacy groups, and pushing other jurisdictions to get involved. This move represents dedicated work and a real willingness to be pioneers on the part of people like assistant city engineer Peter Judd and, in the city’s sustainability office, Brian Beck. (And, of course, it helps to have a council that’s gung-ho on all this stuff.) Amid all the fractiousness out there, as we enter campaign season, it’s nice to see an example of what the city is capable of when everyone’s pulling together.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Rick // Sep 29, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Frances: Any flack about this decision from the CNIB??? I thought I’d read somewhere that the vehicles are considered too quiet (what a great problem to have!) for the visually impaired to deal with…
2 Paul C. Lee, PEng // Sep 29, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hi, I’m the Mgr. for Transportation Services for the City of Coquitlam. Great article. It’s interesting to see Peter Judd and those at the Sustainability Office moving into the right direction. It’d be interesting to hear what risk management analysis the City has done for this initiative.
3 fbula // Oct 1, 2008 at 1:46 am
To Rick and Paul,
Hi and thanks for the comment. I’ll try to remember to check in on the risk-management and CNIB issues. I remember that complaint from Oak Bay, that visually impaired people were concerned that the vehicles would be so quiet that they would be a problem.
Frances
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