Transportation

Aug. 30, 2023

An important point that some of us have overlooked: Canada will come under increasing pressure to market fossil fuels to other nations to balance our trade accounts!!! 

              - Gene (Vancouver Ecosocialists)

In Canada, which is heavily trade-dependent, free trade has been popular for several decades. For Conservative or Liberal governments, inking a new pact was reflexively hailed as a big achievement.

Aug. 30, 2023

Land wealth is fuelling inequality and rising housing costs. Here’s a solution.

Aug. 24, 2023

Aug. 4, 2023

This week, the UAW presented proposals to automakers in contract negotiations covering some 150,000 workers. Autoworkers want big raises, an end to tiers, and the right to strike over plant closures — and conditions appear favorable for them to win.

In years past, the negotiations between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Big Three auto manufacturers — Ford, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) — began with the union’s president shaking hands with the auto executives across the bargaining table. Not so this year.

Jul 24, 2023

[Editor: interesting and informative video here]

Canada was on track to be a leader in high-speed rail—and then we chose highways. But we don’t have to stay married to cars. Trains hold one key to accessibility, climate safety, and colonial restitution.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MhQI_Mcux4

May 2023

This post originally appeared on Rolling Stone and was published January 21, 2020. 

In 2014, a muscular, middle-aged Ohio man named Peter took a job trucking waste for the oil-and-gas industry. The hours were long — he was out the door by 3 a.m. every morning and not home until well after dark — but the steady $16-an-hour pay was appealing, says Peter, who asked to use a pseudonym. “This is a poverty area,” he says of his home in the state’s rural southeast corner. “Throw a little money at us and by God we’ll jump and take it.”

To: cleantransport@gov.bc.ca - CC: Hon. David Eby, Premier; Hon. George Heyman, Minister of

Environment and Climate Change Strategy; Hon. Rob Fleming, Minister of Transportation and

Infrastructure; Hon. Dan Coulter, Minister of State for Infrastructure and Transit; Hon. Josie Osborne,

Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation; Hon. Bowinn Ma, Minister of Emergency

Management and Climate Readiness; Hon. Adrian Dix, Minister of Health

Re: BC Clean Transportation Action Plan Recommendations

Note: The author of this proposal also produces the very useful WEEKY ALTERNATIVE BUZZER (to subscribe, email nathandavidowicz2@gmail.com). 

Also see the We Ride Public Transit Vancouver Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/vantransitriders/ .

Comments are welcome.

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May 3, 2023

‘The Tenant Class’ makes the case that rents are high for some so profits can be high for others. A Tyee Q&A with author Ricardo Tranjan.