Recent Stories with tag vancouver

Friday night the Columbia City Theater hosted an evening of music curated by our good friends at Sound on the Sound, bringing together Portland's Jared Mees and the Grown Children and local headliners Black Whales, who somehow had to try and follow the middle act, Vancouver singer-songwriter Dan Mangan.

As you can see above, for his final song, Dan made his way through the crowd to do a mid-audience acoustic sing-along version of "Robots." (SotS also captured a charming version of "The Indie Queens are Waiting," featuring "gender-bending backing vocals from the band.") Mangan put on a charismatic show of quick-witted folk pop with sharp observations of the everyday, which included a song where his band eschewed drums in favor of just stomping out the beats on the stage. His whole set had an easy energy that was hard to resist. Do yourself a favor and stream new album, Nice Nice Very Nice, at Dan's website.

The elation over the extension of the second daily Amtrak run between Seattle and Vancouver is shared north and south of the border, despite the contretemps being instigated by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), who wanted someone on the U.S. side to pay some $550,000 per year to defray customs inspection costs.

Washington's Governor Gregoire was "vexed" by the CBSA's original move, and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. ambassador to Canada David Jacobson eventually bent ministerial ears in Canada as well.

Crosscut broke down those costs as $1,500 per train, which the Washington State Department of Transportation, which sponsors the route, was unwilling to pay itself, or try to extract from passengers in the form of higher ticket prices. WSDOT Secretary Paula Hammond estimated the economic benefit to Vancouver at almost $12 million. (The CBSA, in turn, argued that they'd only agreed to waive the staffing costs for a pilot project lasting the duration of the Olympics, and weren't sure the post-Olympics tourism would bring the same economic boost.)

The potential economic benefit played a large part in the announcement Canada's Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews that "the border services agency has reallocated about $800,000 to cover the cost of the second U.S. Amtrak train into Vancouver per day," as CTV News reports. Essentially, the train has a year to prove that it's a net money-maker for the province. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson hailed the decision as a "no-brainer."

Through the rest of October, by the way, train passengers can snap up promotional offers from twelve different Vancouver attractions.

What? I'm just saying. If the Governor is impressed with their getting the tunnel on time and on budget, surely she must be impressed with their foresight in putting light rail in it, too? Otherwise it'd just be...tunnel-vision.

Seattle squirrels even pitch in on recycling.

Despite the obvious "fixie gap," when Sightline added up greenie points for the Northwest's (they call us "Cascadia") three largest cities, Seattle came in ahead of Portland. Vancouver, B.C., was greenest of them all but that is to be expected, as they are Canadians and don't have money to waste.

Sightline's Alan Durning says our northern neighbors have:

...the highest urban density, the most cycling, the most walking, the most transit ridership, the fewest cars—and the least driving—per person, the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita by far (thanks to its car-lite ways and to its carbon-free electricity), the lowest teen birth rate and family size, the highest life expectancy, and the lowest poverty rate.

Overachievers.

Portland, the conventional wisdom runner-up, with those green jobs and sustainable development, may have been resting on their laurels, unwisely focusing on growing facial hair, getting sleeve tattoos, and loading up on terrific places to eat brunch. They took their eye off the ball. And now they are paying the price.

In health (we live three years longer), economy (well, we knew that),  sprawl (on a city-limits basis Seattle is more compact), and energy (hydropower + walking = win!), we lead Portland. We're tied on population replacement.

(Now, to be fair, there are other ways of contrasting the two cities. Portland has an NBA team and an income tax. Seattleites pay sales tax and watch the Sounders.)

But we can't let our second place achievement go to our heads. Durning closes by pointing out that none of the three cities is close to "sustainable." We still have super-size carbon footprints, still pollute like crazy, and still run through natural resources faster than they can replenish.

It's true, I mention this mainly because it gives me a chance to use my picture of the Zaandam. But on the off chance that any of you were looking outside and thinking, "It's cold as Alaska out there," now you can take a boat up and compare, at a significant savings.

The cruise doesn't leave until May, which may not be a fair comparison, but a 7-day Alaskan cruise on the Zaandam starts at $629. That sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn't it? (No, I'm asking.)

You actually don't even have to go that far. Take the train up to Vancouver, and you can take the Zaandam back down to Seattle (a 1-day cruise) for just $79. It looks like the Victoria Clipper is $85, one way. And the Clipper doesn't have a Baroque-style Dutch pipe organ, does it? No, it does not.

The sale ends this Friday, December 11.

Photo courtesy of WSDOT

I just read over at the WSDOT blog that the Amtrak Cascades line is getting a makeover, scheduled for March 2010, once the Winter Olympics are done with.

Besides Wi-Fi and an upgraded video system (the existing video set-up has a charming Soviet-era quality)--hold back the tears, business travelers!--there will be an complete renovation of the bistro and lounge cars. Above is the proposed new look for the bistro car, sort of a Jetsons-meets-the-Rialto-concession-stand vibe.

WSDOT invites you to leave comments and suggestions on their post. Apparently they have some sway with Amtrak. I don't know that I'd put the water fountain at what looks like the entrance to the car. Seems like you turn around with your cup and BLAM! the guy in a hurry smacks you on his way past.

I'm in the market for an Enhanced Driver's License (EDL) because of my lifelong dream to get around to taking Amtrak up to Vancouver. So I have a trip to the DMV in my future. My dealings with the DMV always seem to involve moments where I ask myself, "Are they serious?" It turns out they usually are, so that hard-won knowledge I pass on to you.

Since the approval of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (Slogan: "You can still travel around the Western Hemisphere, it just takes a lot more personal initiative!"), Washington residents need either their passport or EDL to visit Canada (and Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean).

Seattle residents have two EDL choices: the downtown DMV office or what's charmingly known to the DMV as Seattle-West. At the Seattle-West (known to locals as "West Seattle") location, they only take walk-ins for EDL applications, and stop taking applications 30 minutes before closing (closing weekdays is 5 p.m., Saturday, 2:30 p.m.).

Downtown, they only take appointments (call 1-866... (more)

The Seattle Times shocked exactly no one this week by endorsing Susan Hutchison for King County Executive, but they did surprise me by announcing that "The days of big-ticket projects and budgets are finished." (That rules out an endorsement of Mallahan for Mayor doesn't it, given his support for the $4.2 billion deep-bore tunnel project?) KCTS broadcast a Hutchison v. Constantine debate, Publicola called it a draw, and everyone else beseeched the heavens like Job after the boils.

CHS went rumor-mill on us this week, following up on a Slog tip that Elliott Bay Book Company might become the Capitol Hill Book Company (it would be easier to get to book readings...), and dug up five named and six unnamed Capitol Hill businesses for sale. Rosebud...! My go-to Eggs Benedict purveyor.

Given that list, you'd probably feel guilty about not staying home to support local businesses, but just so you know, Amtrak has cut fares to Vancouver by 25 percent. Start camping out for the Olympics early!

At The SunBreak, we were... (more)

John Vanderslice, an experimentally-inclined, intelligent singer and musician with more personable charm than one man should be able to wield on stage, headlined at the Crocodile last night with a set leaning pleasantly towards rock-and-roll. On record, his music does nothing for me, and is in fact quite forgettable (though I’m told I need to give Cellar Door a few more listens); live, his songs still didn’t grab me, but I can’t be mad at Vanderslice’s clear technical mastery, at times happily rowdy instrumentals, or his warm stage presence. A few blissful breakdowns, during which he stepped away from the microphone and rocked out with his talented full band, gave some needed texture to the somewhat boring overall performance.

Though I remained emotionally disconnected from the music, I get the feeling those rapt, shiny-eyed John Vanderslice fans all around me were having a moment last night, one of those moments when you’re reminded of all that is good and beautiful and nice in this world. Kudos to anyone who can give that experience to people. Vanderslice ended the night with an acoustic, sing-a-long miniset on the floor of the Croc. The idea, he said, was to transition from there into a dance party, which sadly did not happen despite the hip-hop playing quietly as the crowd filtered outside.

Opening for Vanderslice was Pink Mountaintops, one of the Jesus-esque Stephen McBean’s more experimental psychedelic rock groups at a rolling boil yet still under the lid of Vancouver B.C.’s music scene. True to the psych rock concept, their music is trippy, drugged out, a mindfuck, and profoundly sexual. It’s the same general bent as the more well-known Black Mountain, but more free-wheeling and with a little more of that country sound thrown in the mix. The band played almost all of the tracks from their eponymous 2004 debut album, including a suitably dirty rendition of "Sweet ’69," and from the excellent 2008 album Outside Love. You gotta hear "While We Were Dreaming."

I expected a more theatrical performance (fog machine!), though that expectation was rooted in a particularly divine Black Mountain/Yeasayer show I attended at Neumos a couple years ago. It’s hard not to conflate the two projects, though after the show as McBean helped break down equipment and was not immediately mobbed by intense, adoring fans, I was reminded that Pink Mountaintops is the man’s chance to break away from BM’s high profile. The crowd was clearly there for Vanderslice, and though John Vanderslice’s music can tend towards the psych, a full dose of stoner rock seemed to stun those present into a zombie trance. Or something. No one was moving, at any rate. Seattle, it is okay to dance, especially to music referencing oral sex.

Side note: What was up with the sound during Pink Mountaintop’s set? I could hear an appreciable difference standing in various spots around the room, and one of my show-going companions texted to tell me that the sound was "horrible" and ruining some of her favorite songs. Strange, since I’ve felt like the sound system was on point the few times I’ve been to the new Croc.