Green Infrastructure

The Municipality of Delta in the Metro Vancouver region has completed numerous examples of rain gardens and infiltration swales on public rights-of-way. Sarah Howie presented a number of these projects at the 2007 Water Balance Model Partners Forum to illustrate the benefits of landscape-based solutions to solve drainage issues and create community amenities.

The “Meeting of the Minds” initiative has a Vancouver Island focus and is designed to facilitate the move from talk to water-centric action. This outcome will be achieved through an island-wide communication information exchange network. To launch the networking process, the first “Meeting of the Minds” workshop was held in Parksville in September 2005. The second in the series was held in May 2006, again in Parksville.

Environmental sustainability matters to British Columbians and all the players need to work together to identify and promote the hidden value of green buildings. Premier of British Columbia delivers keynote address at seminar organized by the Urban Development Institute.

The Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia is pursuing a strategy to persuade local governments on Vancouver Island to adopt “green value” approaches to planning for and accommodating settlement growth. The Foundation uses the term “green value” as a generic reference to use and conservation of land and real estate that achieves social and economic goals while minimizing harmful effects on ecological assets.

Nature's Revenue Streams is a 3-year public-private pilot project, based in Saanich BC, that will link rainwater infrastructure to the restoration of stream and watershed function. The project will show how urban development can be used as an opportunity to improve watershed and stream health, build/restore aquatic habitat and reduce infrastructure costs for developers and the municipality while also addressing rainwater runoff.

The goal in showcasing on-the-ground innovation is to build regional capacity through sharing of green infrastructure approaches, experiences and lessons learned as an outcome of ‘designing with nature'.

The “Green Infrastructure Guide: Issues, Implementation Strategies and Success Stories” provides guidance on how local governments may, using legal and policy strategies, encourage or require more sustainable infrastructure designs.

The Green Infrastructure Partnership and the BCWWA Water Sustainability Committee collaborated to organize a half-day session on Convening for Action in British Columbia at the Annual Conference of the BC Water & Waste Association (BCWWA) in Penticton in April 2007.

The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative and practical solutions to transportation problems. It provides a variety of resources available free at its website to help improve transportation planning and policy analysis.

This paper investigates the value travelers place on qualitative factors such as comfort and convenience, and practical ways to incorporate these values in project evaluation. This information helps identify cost-effective transit service improvements that can increase transit ridership and reduce automobile travel.