Time to clean up Vancouver?

[Metro-One]

Photo by Metro-One, taken December 2011, entering Vancouver via Canada Line bike / pedestrian path.

I am not sure if it is only because I have become more observant, but I truly believe there has been a noticeable rise in the sheer amount of garbage littering our streets, yards, parks, transit stations, etc... throughout metro Vancouver.

It has now become common to see countless McDonald's wrappers, Tim Hortons and Starbucks cups, etc... thrown throughout our streets, in peoples yards, and throughout parking lots.

I live in South Van now and I am disgusted with how much garbage is lying not only along Marine, but throughout residential streets such as Manitoba and Ontario.

Also, it amazes me how dirty Granville street has already become since its makeover.

I am not sure of the problem is due to a lack of garbage collection / street cleaning that should be done by the cities, or if it is because the average citizen now lacks responsibility and therefore has become far more "piggish," but what I do know is that if we really want to be known as a "Green City" we better start cleaning up our act (pun intended).

For example, why is it that in the 6 months I have lived on my street there has not been a single street cleaning day? It is now mid January and not only garbage, but indeed leaves that have fallen off the trees months ago still choke the curbs and sidewalks! This is unacceptable!

My wife is Japanese and when her friends and family come over to visit I am actually embarrassed now to have them walk from Marine skytrain station to our place, or to take them downtown on the weekend with our garbage cans overflowing and trash / gum throughout the street. Special events have become the worst, i was on Granville street 3 days after new years, the party may have been over but the garbage was sure there!

One very nasty area when it comes to garbage that urks me every time I see it is the Commercial / Broadway station area. It really is something to shake your head at.

And what has happened to our plan to remove the dumpsters from downtown? It is always such a lovely site to see trash from a dumpster diver thrown throughout the alley.

I really feel we have become far to complacent in this aspect of our city, maybe it is more than just higher living costs that have knocked us down a few pegs on the city rankings.

I personally feel the cause of this problem is a mixture of a lack of community and community pride (for example, in Japan once every couple weeks every neighbourhood gets together and cleans their streets and neighbourhood areas, never seen that here, in fact It amazes me how unfriendly all of the neighbours have been in my new neighbourhood, despite my efforts to socialize with them), lack of services from the cities (again, 6 months = 0 passes from a street cleaner), lack of education and personal responsibility, among others.

I would like to come up with ways to fix this, but i would like to hear ideas from this forum. Seeing how we are a community here I have played with the idea of starting up a SSP clean up campaign where some of us would meet and maybe do some civic cleaning up (and of course, show the media to get others in gear, including the cities).

But it is not only garbage, but also an increase in vandalism such as graffiti. Now, i know some think Graffiti is art (I personally love commissioned murals) but there is little question that scribble tagging on fences, cube vans, tree trunks, telephone poles, business frontages, etc... is detrimental vandalism to our communities. This too has to be curbed.

The most annoying of all seems to be 2 new graffiti fads that are sweeping Vancouver, one which involves spraying huge messy letters as large as possible over entire back walls of businesses and other retaining walls. This form of Graffiti is no doubt pure ego, and its only purpose is to be as destructive and annoying as possible. The backs of the warehouses from Renfrew skytrain station to Gilmore are a prime example of this, and make our entire area look bad (my wife again finds that stretch amazingly disgusting and it is a horrible view of our city for people riding skytrain). Another example of this is in Richmond, in plain view of those first coming to Vancouver from YVR via skytrain, and here it is:



F*%#ing a$$hole turd. Sorry, but just looking at it gets me so angry. Again, my picture taken this last week in Richmond.

The other form is graffiti tags (again, i define tags different than graffiti art, for tags are pure ego driven vandalism) that are sprayed on the ground for people on the skytrain to see.

Sorry to rant so much, but i love Metro Vancouver, and it has been eating away at me seeing these cancers grow on our lovely cities. We need to start pushing back

Cheers

Photos from my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/3063463...hoto6713032289

[Hed Kandi]

Is it really possible to clean up a city that has been overrun by drugged out, homeless zombies?

[trofirhen]

All the mess in the above photos is disgusting and depressing, yes indeed. I think that one of the reasons is the lack of sense of civicism that could (should?) be part of basic school curricula, but are ignored.

Aside from spending $$$ on cleanup crews, some form of public education is in order. How to implement it is open for discussion.

[jlousa]

I think there is a certain lack of civic pride, look no further than last years riots. There seems to be currently a critical mass of people that don't care at all about the city, this seems to have lead to cause a majority that don't care enough to do anything about it and hence the downward spiral.

History has shown us in other cities that this is reversible though it just takes leadership and commitment. It needs to start with the youth, have elementary school kids under teacher supervision clean up the areas around their schools, and continue it thru high school. This develops a sense of civic ownership, and discouragement towards littering. The city certainly needs to step up as well, the reduction of the graffiti removal program under the current administration was a failure and has only recently been reinstated but a lot of damage was already done.

There are a few items that might require large funds to fix but they would have a large impact. Like Metro-One stated riding the train into the city you get bombarded with graffiti and garbage dumping which by the time you arrive into the core you've lost whatever pride you've had and you're suffering from apathy. Imagine if all the graffiti was gone along the Grandview cut though and the train retaining wall was covered with a living wall. Imagine if once you got downtown there were a few more garbage cans around and that they weren't overflowing but actually picked up repeatedly throughout the day.

[s211]

Originally Posted by Hed Kandi

Is it really possible to clean up a city that has been overrun by drugged out, homeless zombies?

That live in a frontier port, I would add.

Indeed, Vancouver's pretty disgusting at ground level.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by jlousa

I think there is a certain lack of civic pride, look no further than last years riots. There seems to be currently a critical mass of people that don't care at all about the city, this seems to have lead to cause a majority that don't care enough to do anything about it and hence the downward spiral.

History has shown us in other cities that this is reversible though it just takes leadership and commitment. It needs to start with the youth, have elementary school kids under teacher supervision clean up the areas around their schools, and continue it thru high school. This develops a sense of civic ownership, and discouragement towards littering.

Precisely. It has to be learned young, and it has to be a value that is inculcated, and a lifestyle habit should evolve from there.
And adults have to set the example. The kids growing up with a program such as yours are in exactly the sort of remedial program needed.

[s211]

I absolutely love how clean NYC is. There's constantly somebody cleaning or removing refuse. If Gotham can do it, why can't we?

[Alex Mackinnon]

There is one kind of amusing thing about the city that prevents it from supporting this kind of volunteering. It competes directly with the union jobs of the city, and quite often the unions don't appreciate having their job security undermined by free labour.

I'm sure if this wasn't the case you would see a lot more city supported volunteerism than is currently the case.

[Metro-One]

Yes, education is key. Civic pride and stewardship should be taught more in school, especially in elementary school.

That is the problem is people here have become far too apathetic about this problem.

Vancouver could be so amazing if we just ept the ground level more clean.

And this is what I find so ironic about Vancouver's "Greenest City" campaign is it seems to be missing one of the base aspects, no littering and proper waste management!

It is up to the individual and the cities of metro Vancouver to turn the tide. We do need more garbage pickup throughout the day (especially on the weekends) but also more community pick up activities.

Also, where are the authorities? I have never once in my life seen a police officer writing a ticket for littering. Also, how many long is "Mr. 8" or any of these other graffiti taggers going to roam before they are caught? Especially given the large messy spraying you can not tell me they have not been caught on security cameras or by private security. And when caught these people should be actually punished, not by jail or fines, but by having them clean up all of their tags and actually meeting the business owners of the places they deface.

I am thinking of fixing what I have written into a proper article and sending it to the province / Sun next week (along with the welcome to Vancouver picture).

Yeah, the Granview Cut and and the back of the warehouses along the M-Line are deplorable, and make Vancouver look disgusting. Of course this applies to all the cities in our Metro.

Enough is enough, i still can't believe vancouver reduced the graffiti removal budget for a while, terrible idea.

But it is also up to store owners to clean their stores promptly when bombarded with garbage, plant litter or graffiti.

And we all need to do our part too, like i always pick up a paper on the skytrain and when i get off put it in the recycling, or if there is garbage around my house (and i rent!) i pick it up and throw it away.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by s211

I absolutely love how clean NYC is. There's constantly somebody cleaning or removing refuse. If Gotham can do it, why can't we?

I found the garbage situation in Manhattan to be disgusting when I was there a few years ago.

[s211]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I found the garbage situation in Manhattan to be disgusting when I was there a few years ago.

Summer 2010 for me. Seemed like there were few garbage cans to speak of, but lots of people picking up litter. Maybe that's the answer: feet on the street?

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by s211

Summer 2010 for me. Seemed like there were few garbage cans to speak of, but lots of people picking up litter. Maybe that's the answer: feet on the street?

Actually I was referring to the fact that there are no dumpsters there, garbage is simply left on the sidewalk to get picked up.

[Hed Kandi]

Droves of zombies from all over the country are migrating to Vancouver. It's been said that they are are being lured here with the promise of being fed, clothed and sheltered by certain philanthropic housing societies.

So far there have been only a handful of reported cases of hostile encounters between the zombies and the general populace. This has led authorities to believe that the zombies haven't come here to devour our brains. Rather, they have come in search of something else which they have termed 'spaaare chaaange'.

[Echowinds]

It's not like Vancouver is specifically a lot more generous towards this segment of society in comparison to other cities. It's more of the fact that like other modern largish cities there will be a reasonably robust social support structure, so it's also natural that this unfortunate group of people (both through circumstances or by choice) will gravitate here.

The weather is also an incredibly important aspect for people that spends quite a lot of their time out on the streets. There are no large cities in Canada that have as pleasant of weather as Vancouver.

[Metro-One]

I didn't want this thread to be about the homeless, because in all honesty they are only a small piece of this garbage pile, i mean puzzle.

Fore I really doubt it is the homeless that throw their ATM receipts on the ground (despite there being a trash bin often directly beside or on the machine itself), i doubt it is the homeless littering Ontario and Manitoba street near my house with fast food garbage, i doubt it is the homeless tagging nearly every storefront along East Broadway (especially near Fraser, what a mess), i doubt it is the homeless leaving their newspapers on the train non stop, etc...

That being said, I do agree that even with the homeless population their is no excuse for the east side to be as dirty as it is. Again, in Japan the homeless areas are nearly as clean as our regular neighborhoods, part because of superior waste management / more frequent garbage pick up and also because the average homeless person their isn't a complete pig.

But again, it seems the lazy pigs and disrespectful vandals wont be stopping, so it is up to us to make the difference.

For example, a few times every year I go to a park i frequent and personally clean up all of the graffiti I can sprayed overtop of information plaques, directories, etc... Also, every time I ride the skytrain I always pick up a newspaper or two as I exit and put it in the recycling. Also, if their is trash on the street near my house i pick it up and put it in the trash.

I would love for all those reading this to do the same, take a minute or two out of your day, or even a half hour out of a month, and give back to your community by helping clean it up. We are loosing our touch here, for example, beside the Broadway Canada Line station instead of a nasty brown field with garbage between it and the building to the east, there should be community gardens.

Also, i really do hope those spraying the huge messy tags everywhere recently (there are now huge ones on the skytrain retaining wall at Commercial / Broadway, exact same tag as the one I posted here at the start of the thread) are caught and get punished with some community work.

[Canadian Mind]

Honourable effort Metro, I wish you luck.

Maybe make that part of our next SSP get-together? Spend an hour or so just cleaning shit up?

[Metro-One]

Thanks! And that is actually a really good idea! And it would get us nice and thirsty for some good brews after, hehe

[jlousa]

We need to remember that this isn't a new problem (not that it makes it any better). I remember an old segement by Mike McCardell about the issue, tried searching for it and I could only find a bit of it on Facebook. It was done back in 1998 but worth watching.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video....50303159335532

[Canadian Mind]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Thanks! And that is actually a really good idea! And it would get us nice and thirsty for some good brews after, hehe

Just time it for when I can come out. I'd feel bad for suggesting such an idea then completely missing out on it.

[Metro-One]

Haha, we will have to hold you to that

And yeah, it is not a new, or even a unique problem, but it seems to be one that has been getting worse in recent memory, so we have to up the pressure to fight back / reduce the problem.

Again, i am amazed how little attention this issue has received despite the "green" city wave at city hall.

I guess it is just not polarizing enough of an issue for certain city councilors to spearhead (probably because it wont get them enough screen time in the news...)