The biggest mistake politicians made was promising the Olympics would not cost taxpayers money. The Olympics should be something taxpayers are proud to pay for, since they showoff our city/country. Unfortunately many don't see it that way, they only saw "if its free, then sure" and are now complaining that it wasn't free.

I'm OK with my tax dollars paying for the Olympics. The infrastructure improvements, the economic improvements, ... are all worth it.

i like your rage, i totally feel you :thumbsup:

But buttom line minimum wage or not aint the point, the point is paying $6 dollars to park one hour is seriously fucking ridiculous. Using minium wage was just an example how the system is fucked in the ass. We get taxed like a motherfucker, paying out 1/3 of my pay cheque each month on taxes aint exactly fun. The living expense is already high enough to live in vancouver, yet the city pulls this bullshit, same thing with realestate market, its fucked i tell you.

I didn't mean to come across as attacking you personally. Sorry... I also know that you run a restaurant downtown, so don't worry -- you're OK in my book. For what that's worth. :p

Carpool downtown. Take transit. Also, park in a lot rather than on the street. There are lots of places with weekend/evening rates.

I don't "blame" people who have had cars bought for them. But I, like you, have little patience for those people who fail to realize how fortunate they are. This includes being out of touch with what costs what and who can afford what... in other words, people who really think that there are people out there that daily drive cars on a minimum wage (and who don't live at home etc).

Effectively making $3/h or $7/h doesn't mean that much if mom and dad are still paying for room and board.

Which studies indicate that only the representative 10%, not bashing or anything, just curious.

I'll see if I can find them later. There was one really interesting study that the majority of homeless are homeless for 1 day. 1 day of living on the streets/shelters is enough motivation for many to find some other way to live.

Now we all know that's NEVER gonna happen haha but the answer would probably be "Yes". I would be slashing the prices to balance it out, since my overhead wouldn't be as high (given that the government does did allow a pay cut). It's the same as if some random stranger started donating money to pay off half my expenses every year for the rest of my life I would in all likelihood pass that down to the consumer and all the food prices would be discounted! :D... but that ain't gonna happen either ... boo!

Now with the new fee's being imposed on all restaurants the expenses are going nowhere but UP!... HST, the $6 per seat charge to pay the people to enforce the 50/50 Law ... all a bunch of crock to suck money from us :(

"Kindly shutup".

Ya,this coming from a person that lives in Kits/Richmond.

Until you actually know someone that is a hardcore drug addict or have dealt with many drug addicts,shit even living in a nieghborhood where junkies live,until then.......you know FUCK ALL about how bad the drug problem is,so you can take you info on the studies and shove it real deep inside until it hurts.

Don't go misleading people by passing on info that you know nothing about.

I'm not the only person that have experienced this,I'm pretty sure alot of the members on RS that live in the east end have to.The only one that is delusional is you,I see shit for what it is,I don't turn to studies for info.

Let me ask you.....have you ever been inside a crackhouse before or have seen someone jam a needle into their arm to get high?

oh wait,you only saw pictures of them from one of the "studies" you read.

You know how I can tell you were smothered all your life and have never seen what the real world is about? do you want to know?

I'll preface this by saying that I'm not in any way affiliated with Translink.

The higher-than-usual salaries of the big shots at Translink should raise a few eyebrows, but really, they constitute a small portion of Translink's overall operating budget.

I commute using transit and it's not like the money isn't going somewhere. Let's list the improvements:
- new buses (electric trolleys, diesels, hybrids)
- new Skytrain cars
- Canada Line
- station upgrades
- bike route upgrades

In my view, the service has improved. Translink has a mandate to make Metro Vancouver a more 'livable' region (whatever that means.) For the most part, this means getting cars off the roads (so that freight can be transported) and getting people to exercise different options. Was spending money on shiny new buses and Skytrains the most cost-effective way of doing this? That's debatable, but I have noticed that over the last several years, Skytrain has become crowded, even in off-peak hours.

If public servants were scrutinized by the public on everything they did, nothing would get done. The provincial government created Translink so that the 'tough' decisions could be made without political interference. Is this right, strictly from a democratic perspective? Probably not. But, sometimes you need to get things done.

The MTR Corporation is obviously something that Translink views as a role model. But getting there takes decades, not just years.

Don't view this as an attack on you personally, but would I be wrong to assume that most of your clients are fairly well-to-do people who wouldn't really fret too much over a few bucks on top of their bills (say an average of 100 bucks per visit?) I assume that you're going to pass your costs down to your clients.

You are absolutely CLUELESS to how the world is.

You need to go down to skidrow and ask a homeless person why they lack motivation in not trying to find a better way to live.

Two things that could happen.
1.you will actually get the truth from the source,not from some study conducted by some people that sit in a office.

2.you will get your teeth knocked out and robbed for insulting them.

i just moved to toronto 2 weeks ago and uh ...
ya 2 weeks ago i would complain
but after seeing toronto parking prices
... no surprise

^ i too would be interested to see how they got that data and where it came from

Keep responding and making yourself look like a tard :thumbsup:

1. Yes all studies are conducted from offices, never by visiting those being studied.

2. Yes all homeless are violent.

3. Yes you are a tard.

Why does it matter where I live? Unless you mean I'm educated and can read, then yes, thank you.

Ah, the last resort of an idiot: "you don't know it unless you've done it".

Perhaps all the people who help the homeless should just stop, cause they don't know what they are doing, they've never been homeless or addicts.

Yes, that's how idiotic your argument is.

You should, you might learn something.

Can you conclude that 100% of homeless people visit crackhouses and inject needles? Based solely on just your personal experience?

I'll give you a hint: No, you cannot.

Of course I want to know, that's why I educate myself on these topics.

I'm not stupid enough to need to stick a needle in my arm while visiting a crackhouse to figure out what its like. I'll let those who work with the homeless do this and report it in a study. Or I'll let idiots like you tell me how 100% of all homeless people inject themselves in crackhouses.

I think I'll stick with the studies. You keep doing your hands on research, I think those injection drugs have fried a few brain cells though, yet don't let that stop you. :thumbsup:

Supply and demand will sort it all out. If people refuse to pay to park, and refuse to use public transit to downtown, business will be affected, and the city will have to do something about it.

If parking was free, you'd never find a place to park. I'd leave my car in a prime spot on Denman all day when visiting my friends.

I only occasionally drove downtown to begin with but this pretty much makes it certain that I'll never drive downtown again.

Actually went to Ebisu for about 2 hours on Friday but a $12 parking fee would be enough to convince me not to head downtown for meals at all.

first of all the proposed $6 /hr parking is for metered parking. Who works in Downtown for 8 hours would park at a metered spot? maximum allowed time at a metered spot is 2hours. So stop talking about work and parking together as one. People who work downtown and drive pay for daily or monthly parking at a parking lot either in their office building or somewhere close by in a lot NOT STREET. The price of that may go up once the city approves the new $6 rate but not to the point where it's going to cost the same as parking on the street.

Bang on.

If you're visiting downtown for a meal, shopping, show, etc., your best bet for parking in the downtown core is the Pacific Centre parking lot. It costs $4 on weeknights, weekends and holidays.

Taylor192,I'm done arguing with you,your just another one of the many clueless that live in this city that has no idea of what it's like to see how it really is.

Just remember,if you have your car broken into or house robbed,just make sure to look at the studies conducted on why it happened.

And yes,where you live does make a whole world of difference if your exposed to crime or not.

Then again,if the city cleans up DTES for the olympics,you WILL experience seeing used condoms,needles and crackpipes laying around,bums digging in your garbage can the night before trash day hookers and junkies roaming the streets looking for their net fix,it's going to be a fucking gone show,it will turn Kits/Richmond upside down.

After all that,you will just be another statistic in a study conducted by the city.

i say burn them all so they dont go anywhere ruining ppl's lifes


:D

Or we can ship them off to the west end and have them experience what most of the lowermainland has been dealing with for years.

Its about time, thank you. :thumbsup:

You couldn't address any of my points without more ranting and raving about "you haven't experienced it". Good on you for experiencing it, please continue to visit crackhouses and shoot up, hopefully you'll become another statistic in a report I'll read. :thumbsup:

Show me I said it didn't. I wouldn't want to live in the DTES either.

I argued that being exposed to crime has nothing to do with knowing the causes. The cause is drug dealers pushing drugs into homeless addicts is very easy when they are all concentrated in one location. Why do you think the DTES exists? There's much nicer places for homeless people to live... and only my next argument: the homeless in Kits.

For the record there are homeless people in Kits. In fact a group of them sleep with their carts in the park across from my building, and sometimes sleep in the alcoves of the building too.

The difference is there's not a plethora of drug dealers where I live, so there's only a few nice homeless people trying to make their living by collecting bottles. I haven't seen a broken car window the entire time I've lived in Kits, despite seeing homeless people daily.

Yet if I were to believe you, all homeless people are violent thieves who shoot up in crackhouses and will stab me for pocket change.

So thanks again for nolonger arguing with me. :thumbsup:

See you in fight club.

I thought you were done. I guess that's just another fabrication on your part that I didn't experience.

No thanks. I can argue intelligently and you cannot refute, I don't need to degenerate to fight club to make my point. Its sad that you do. I guess a life of shooting up and crackhouses does that to someone.

I'll leave some bottles out for you to collect to support your habit. That's the kinda nice guy I am.

Disperse them? why? so they can spread like fucking rabies?

If the city/canada had more strict laws for drug trafficking and drug usage, we wouldn't be in this shit hole.

lulz, i'm feelin the rage. But hey least those ppl that have their cars bought for them are making an effort to work. Its better than those that have their cars bought for them and then not working at all.:thumbsup:

Or we can pull a China on them and just lock them up, abuse one or two of them until they smarten the fuck up.

its like advertising disneyland... EVERYONE already knows it, via word of mouth, via other means. it wasnt exactly like no one knew where vancouver was on the map! we arent buttfuck manitoba.

Im one for infrastructure improvements, so i will agree with you there. but using that excuse as a byproduct of the olympics is just wrong. sure we will now have some post olympic structures that can be used, but how many ppl will actually use it? these structures benefit the few, not the many. i for one do not plan on taking up speed skating any time soon. look at calgary, they still have all those winter games setup's on the side of the mountain, absolutely not in use.

We dont need to show off our city. Everyone already knows about vancouver already.