Bogus alert: This is a pretty unscientific assessment of the signs, but it’s one rigorous step up from just by impressions or guesses. And it gave me something to do besides clean my house on Saturday.
I thought about doing this a couple of weeks ago because I’ve been noticing a lot of NPA signs on the east side, along Broadway and 12th from Main to Boundary, in the northeast corner around Nanaimo (especially for Joe Carangi), and along 49th Main to Fraser. Also, it looked to me as though Cambie, where I drive frequently, was going about 2/3 to 4/5 NPA.
These weren’t itemized counts but just something that was hitting me as I was driving along usual routes through the city.
So, in true poli nerd fashion, I decided to spend an hour of my day today doing an actual count that I thought would be somewhat more representative of the whole city. I was coming back from North Van, so mapped out a giant rectangle of the city.
Political junkies know that voting in Vancouver tends to split, not east-west, as everyone assumes, but more along 16th/Kingsway. North of there is more lefty land (Vision/COPE), except for one pocket in the downtown in Yaletown. South of that line tends to go more NPA, except for some pockets around the Punjabi Village and Marpole.
Epicentres of the Left: Commercial Drive, Mount Pleasant, West End. Epicentres of the Right: Shaughnessy, Kerrisdale, Dunbar.
Signs are a not-bad thing to count, as people who take signs are usually committed voters.
So this is the route I chose: Rupert from First to 63rd, which I thought would be split about evenly, since Kingsway crosses at 38th. Then across the city east-west on 54th, 57th and, after Ontario, 49th and then Southwest Marine. Down Dunbar from Marine to 10th. Across the city west-east on 10th and then 12th, along 16th Burrard to Main, where it’s more residential and had more chance of lawn signs and then back out along 12th from Main to my starting point on Rupert.
There are all kinds of problems with this, obviously. Doesn’t take in VV strongholds in West End, Kits, Marpole, Punjabi Village. (In fact, I chose 54th to avoid Punjabi Village as I thought that would skew the results too much.) May have missed southwest streets that are more sign-happy than 49th, SW Marine and Dunbar. (I thought they would have lots but they didn’t.)
Here’s what I found:
The place where Vision/COPE was the most dominant was along Rupert, especially from 1st to 45th. In fact, it was a veritable sign festival along that street, with a total of 55 signs for Vision, 11 for COPE and 3 yards with both. The NPA’s candidates had only 21 signs and 10 of those were in the 45th-62nd stretch. (By the way, would really love to talk to the homeowner at Rupert and 3rd? or so who has both a Gregor and a Suzanne sign on the lawn.)
The area where the NPA was strongest was, predictably, 49th west of Ontario all the way out to Dunbar and then down Dunbar.
Randy Helten and the Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver had three signs in that same area. Sandy Garossino had one on 16th near Granville. And someone named Michael Darni had a cluster in Fraserview.
The actual counts on the four sides of the rectangle:
Rupert: 55 Vision; 11 COPE; 3 Vision and COPE together; 21 NPA
54/57/49/SW Marine: 39 NPA; 23 Vision; 3 COPE; 2 NSV; 5 Dharni
Dunbar: 12 NPA; 4 Vision; 3; COPE; 1 NSV
10th/12th/16th/12th/Grandview: 32 Vision; 4 COPE; 7 Vision and COPE together; 18 NPA
Other fun facts
– Apparently anyone building a house is pro-NPA. I spotted several signs on houses under construction. Only Vision sign on a building project was the Vancity-financed multi-unit something at Grandview and Nanaimo.
– Community gardens, or at least the one at Oak and 16th, really REALLY love Gregor Robertson. Looked like a sign for every plot there.
– My rules were: Each lot got counted as one sign, even if the person had multiple signs plastered all over the place, unless they had a sign each from an opposing party. (Therefore,the guy at Rupert and 3rd who had one Vision and one NPA sign resulted in a tick mark in each column.)
I didn’t count which candidates’ signs were the most prominent for each party. I was marking this down as I was driving, folks!
Please feel free to post your own results for various streets that you think are representative!!