iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 29/09/2026

Just as I'm about to start writing a blog post about how BC Ferries needs to fix this, I discover that—I think for the first time in its history—BC Ferries has uploaded a GTFS feed that correctly lists all of its routes and sailings for the next six months. Mission accomplished I guess?

Screenshot of GTFS Static feed map that shows all BC Ferries routes in the Salish Sea

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 29/09/2026

I'm in China and there's always a funny contrast between the efficiency of the rail system and the inefficiency of the passenger loading. This is just a queue for every single train at once. Whenever a train pulls into the station, it's mayhem as people push their way up to the front to enter.

Hundreds of people milling around a train station atrium

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 26/09/2026

Weirdly, this isn't actually Ken Sim's fault. Scott Jensen and Brennan Bastyovanszky voted to create paid parking at Hillcrest, which makes it all the more baffling that their party leader Kareem Allam has spent the past month railing against community centre parking fees.

Motion moved by Commissioner Bastyovanszky to enact paid parking at Hillcrest Community Centre

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 26/09/2026

Three weeks ago, Golden became the only place in BC to adopt year-round standard time instead of DST. This went over like a lead balloon: 2,395 people in a town of 3,900 signed a petition, forcing council to reverse itself. Seems like pretty good evidence that people in fact prefer later sunsets.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 23/09/2026

I think the coverage about the number of ministers stepping down should mention that everyone and their second cousin is a cabinet minister in BC for some reason. The 47-member government caucus has 23 ministers, 4 ministers of state and 14 parliamentary secretaries. What's up with that anyways?

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 22/09/2026

can't a premier call a press conference in front of the lieutenant governor's house on three hours' notice without causing an election speculation frenzy

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 19/09/2026

Here's a rare sight: a raised crosswalk on a rural road in BC. That's because the province owns most rural roads and has a rule to ban raised speed control everywhere, whether it's UBC or the Kootenays. This road is owned by the District of North Cowichan, which isn't bound by this arbitrary policy

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 18/09/2026

I'm sure Mike Bernier, leader of CentreBC (at least until 1pm), is a nice guy but you can't be running for office as M. Bernier and be surprised that everyone thinks you're the more infamous M. Bernier

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Peter Waldkirch 華彼德 @pwaldkirch.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The defeat of Vancouver’s Villages Plan is a major setback for addressing our housing crisis and appears to mark the end of the Vancouver Plan, which has been the main focus of our planning department since 2018. Read more in my first piece for Sightline!

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 17/09/2026

I'm really mad about this decision and decided to elaborate on my thoughts in a long-form blog post. If a judge doesn't overrule the chief electoral officer's stance, the next council can and must take matters into its own hands and order the city clerk to cease enforcing this racist policy.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 17/09/2026

This case is really upsetting to me. For the city to claim that complete nonsense monikers like "Rollergirl" and "Evil Genius" qualify to be on the ballot but then deny racialized people the right to use the name they were given AT BIRTH is an act of white supremacy. This can't be allowed to stand.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 16/09/2026

Kind of obsessed with the ridiculous three-way handshake that Carney has to do because the EU can't figure out whether the European Commission president or the European Council president is its ceremonial head of state

Picture of Carney shaking hands with Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 11/09/2026

Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism (2003)

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 11/09/2026

a seattle cement plant's push to do what for what

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Vision Zero Vancouver @visionzerovancouver.ca · 10/09/2026

With road injuries & fatalities on the rise, the next Vancouver council must act to make our streets safer. We created a list of 10 actionable items for Year 1 of the new council and sent it to all the parties. Read the list, who endorsed, and who declined to do so: visionzerovancouver.ca/vote/

visionzerovancouver.ca

Election 2026

We asked each party to commit to implementing key road safety measures if they form government, within their first year in office.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 09/09/2026

Don't worry, we can just put all the bike routes on side streets. No wait, not like that.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 08/09/2026

British Columbia needs an equivalent mandate, if for no reason than to force BC Ferries to publish a GTFS feed that's not inexplicably missing half its routes

Map of the BC Ferries GTFS highlighting the missing Crofton-Vesuvius, Swartz Bay-Fulford and Mill Bay-Brentwood Bay ferries

Map of the BC Ferries GTFS highlighting the missing Quadra Island-Campbell River and Alert Bay-Sointula-Port McNeill ferries

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Vision Zero Vancouver @visionzerovancouver.ca · 07/09/2026

TODAY is the last day to tell the city you want to see Granville stay open for people and closed to traffic! Make sure to fill out the survey, every positive response builds a stronger case for vibrant car-free streets in Vancouver.

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Margie @margiesanderson.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

‼️My bike was stolen last night from 41st and Main in Vancouver ‼️ It's a tan electric Muli, very unique. No battery on it when stolen. Please keep an eye out in your alley, bushes, or Fb Marketplace etc. I rely on this bike and really hope to be reunited! project529.com/garage/bikes...

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 06/09/2026

Very late to this, but the new bike and pedestrian bridge over Highway 1 in North Van is super cool! Glad that there's now an alternative to Lynn Valley Road.

Approach to the Crosscut Bridge in the City of North Vancouver

View of the mountains from the Crosscut Bridge

Wayfinding sign on the approach to the Crosscut Bridge

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 05/09/2026

The answer is that this isn't industrial land. Half our industrial land base is designated by Metro Vancouver as employment lands, which limits industry and protects big-box stores and car dealerships. It's why half of Still Creek is industrial and the other half is a Costco and Jim Pattison Toyota.

Map of the Metro Core showing industrial and employment regional land use designations

INDUSTRIAL
• Light and heavy industrial production
• Distribution
• Repair
• Construction materials and equipment
• Infrastructure
• Outdoor storage
• Wholesale

EMPLOYMENT
• Indoor Storage (e.g. self-storage)
• Stand-alone office (e.g. law and financial offices)
• Stand-alone recreation (e.g. karate studios, theatres, crossfit and climbing gyms, badminton/tennis facilities)
• Retail / wholesale (e.g. big box, car dealerships, furniture, automotive parts)
• High tech software development
• Consulting services (e.g. engineering, architecture, environmental)

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 05/09/2026

So I tried MapQuest out of curiosity and wow, these are the worst cycling instructions I've ever seen. I put in my home to my office in New West, and it thinks the best options to get there are along 1st Ave, Kingsway and Lougheed Highway. Clearly zero thought went into the bike route algorithm.

MapQuest screenshot showing three biking route options between Kitsilano, Vancouver and Sapperton, New Westminster

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JackTatt 🇨🇦 @jacktatttran.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

That’s why we need to buy buses from outside North America because MAN and Alexander Dennis have massive double deck bus markets in Australia, Singapore, Germany, etc. Solaris and Hess make 9-10m buses.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 04/09/2026

This downsizing seems inevitable after Vicinity, the only manufacturer of midibuses in the Canadian market, folded. It illustrates the pitfalls of relying on fragile, uncompetitive supply chains for transit. What happens to BC Transit if AlexanderDennis, the only double-decker bus maker, pulls out?

cheknews.ca

BC Transit to replace all Port Alberni buses with ‘light-duty’ fleet

BC Transit is replacing all medium-duty buses in Port Alberni with newer light-duty buses starting this summer.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 03/09/2026

Potential Via expansion is welcome news, but I hope Ottawa takes a closer look at how to ensure its financial sustainability. Via shouldn't be a for-profit business, but the deep, persistent structural deficits on *every* single route leave it at the mercy of capricious senior government funding.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 03/09/2026

Bad day for Alberta interests in BC: not only did the MLA for Golden leave the Alberta separatist-controlled Conservative Party, but the entire town has apparently left Alberta's time zone

thegoldenstar.net

Council supports permanent Mountain Standard Time for Golden - The Golden Star

Keeping time with BC.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 28/08/2026

This might be the weirdest fundraising email I've ever received

Screenshot of email from the BC NDP entitled "We can't win a by-election"

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 27/08/2026

Been noticing lately that a lot of BC cities' websites claim that scooters are subject to a 25 km/h speed limit. In Burnaby, the RCMP even plans to do speed enforcement. As far as I'm aware, that's not a real rule. There's a *motor output* limit but what law imposes a speed limit?

Screenshot of page named "Know the rules: How to scoot safely in Vancouver" that advises that exceeding 25 km/h may result in a ticket

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 25/08/2026

At long last, we are rebuilding the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from the classic biography Don't Build the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 14/08/2026

I think Charter scrutiny of road allocation decisions was always going to be a double-edged sword, especially as out here in BC there's a growing body of BCHRT case law about common bike lane design elements violating disability rights. The courts seem like a poor venue to litigate road safety.

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Dan Carkner @alte.klezmor.im · 13/08/2026

This side streets thing is the majority of bike routes in Vancouver and it's not that great. Aside from some prioritized crossing across main streets you're basically just biking on residential streets with no destinations on them, parking on both sides and drivers don't give you special treatment😪

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 13/08/2026

I have beef with the name of this random regional district on the North Island

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William Azaroff @wazaroff.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Right now in Vancouver, if you want to open a bike repair shop in your alley? Illegal. Bakery from your back door? Illegal. Haircut in your spare room? You guessed it. Illegal. That's ridiculous. So we're gonna fix it. 🧵1/7 #VanPoli #YVR #VancouverVotes2026 #GoodBusinessStartsAtHome

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 12/08/2026

What a headline Tomorrow it'll be rainy with a 30% chance of Ebys

Castanet headline that reads "Storms, premier in forecast"

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 11/08/2026

The Summerland fire appears to have created one of the longest transit detours ever. The 70 bus between Kelowna and Penticton is on a 250 km, three hour detour through Princeton.

Crude map showing the Route 70 detour via Hwys 3, 3A, 5A and 97C through Princeton

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 08/08/2026

I'm in Merritt right now and the wildfire smoke makes everything look borderline apocalyptic. It's hard to convey how orange everything is. The AQI is apparently 806. I lived in Beijing for four years during the peak smog years and the one time it got that high there was a city-wide lockdown.

Wildfire smoke-induced smog causes the sky to turn a vibrant orange over a gas station

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Peter Waldkirch 華彼德 @pwaldkirch.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

John Coupar led the fight to kill the Stanley Park bike lane. A big tent is one thing, but a party is known by its candidates. The Vancouver Liberals must have known bringing Coupar back would be a profoundly alienating move for Vancouver's urbanism community. dailyhive.com/vancouver/jo...

dailyhive.com

John Coupar to run for Vancouver City Council under Liberals civic party | Daily Hive | Urbanized

Former NPA Park Board commissioner is running with the Vancouver Liberals to seek a City Council seat in the 2026 civic election.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 06/08/2026

Did you know there's a BC Transit route that drives onto a ferry? You can board the 13 bus in Powell River on Tuesdays and Thursdays and get dropped off on most of Texada Island. Not the most useful times for non-locals but great concept! There's definitely more places that would benefit from this

Photo of a BC Transit bus aboard a ferry

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 30/07/2026

I'm glad this was approved. Staff objected to this project in part because students might have "problematic and unintended impacts on the surrounding neighbourhood" if they're not chaperoned by RAs. That seems completely wrong to me. Students are people, not a nuisance to be abated!

While a partnership with Goh Ballet Academy for a small portion of the units is positive, the proposal for student housing lacks sufficient clarity and commitment from a partnership with a BC Public post-secondary institution and offers no clear pathway to such a partnership at this time. Significant issues with the proposed unit sizes, floor-to-floor heights and general livability of the building would in student housing normally be mitigated by programmatic amenities and services offered by a post-secondary institution.

The lack of clear partnership with such a qualified post-secondary institution at this stage combined with the design issues of the building raises significant concerns about the effective management of the building and potential problematic and unintended impacts on the surrounding neighbourhood.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 29/07/2026

Reading the latest issue of Vancouver magazine and this line in an article about hospital food took me aback. Surely we can devise better ways to support local farmers that don't lead hospitals to fail to meet their patients' dietary needs.

Picture of Vancouver magazine article: "Through its FeedBC program, the province directs that some ingredients be sourced from local suppliers, and only those that have pledged to comply with the Supplier Code of Conduct and other requirements."

"'We'll have shortages of things, and my patients or their families will ask why we don't just go to the store and buy some,' Tian says."

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Vision Zero Vancouver @visionzerovancouver.ca · 29/07/2026

VZV volunteers & friends out at the baseball game!

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 29/07/2026

I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said but this is an act of abject cowardice. All the endless hand-wringing about towers and concentrating development on existing rental areas, and when the opportunity comes to do something about it everyone except Lucy votes for the status quo.

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Vision Zero Vancouver @visionzerovancouver.ca · 28/07/2026

Vision Zero Volunteers loving the Granville St pedestrianization! What a great hang out spot after our monthly meeting.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 24/07/2026

Putting aside that this is slopulism that will make parking availability worse, it bears noting that the reason there's paid parking in front of beaches and community centres in the first place is that Vancouver Liberal park commissioners Scott Jensen and Brennan Bastyovanszky made it so.

Screenshot of Park Board meeting minutes from May 6, 2024 where Cmm'rs Jensen and Bastyovanszky vote to enact paid parking at Spanish Banks Beach

Screenshot of Park Board meeting minutes from October 20, 2025 where Cmm'rs Jensen and Bastyovanszky vote to enact paid parking at Langara Golf Course, VanDusen Botanical Garden, and Hillcrest, Kerrisdale and Trout Lake Community Centres

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 24/07/2026

Got to try out the new Solaris trolleybus today. It was a smooth ride and the AC is going to be a godsend in the summer. Very excited for it to enter service!

New Solaris trolleybus at Nanaimo Station

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 23/07/2026

Between Californian randos reading from AI and fake translators arguing with the chair, this should be the nail in the coffin for the idea that a public hearing is a sacred exercise in direct democracy in front of a disinterested panel of judges. There's no baby in the bathwater. Get rid of this.

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 11/05/2026

Shout out to whoever at the CRTC thought using the US president's nuclear attack warning system for Amber alerts 16 hours away was a good idea

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 20/07/2026

The people who make things with ports need to talk to the people who make things that need to be charged. this message brought to you by my crashout at buying a USB-C ring light and only having USB-A ports around my desk

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Peter Waldkirch 華彼德 @pwaldkirch.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

One of my pet peeves is when retired planners--whose failed policies created our housing crisis!!--gripe about attempts to fix the problems they created. I got a chance to say a bit about that when I was on BC Today to talk about the Villages Plan recently--here's a clip, full interview below!

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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 16/07/2026

Interesting case study. I find some of the conclusions odd. - Praises the retail on Broadway but wants to concentrate growth there to keep "incompatible" uses off side streets - Lots of Condonomics about land lift - Critical of "long approval processes" but also wants more public participation

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