10 Things I Hate About Metro Vancouver

Vancouver Sea to Sky City is a gem of a place to live…Metro Vancouver is nestled in a gorgeous natural setting; it has some fine accomplishments and has tremendous potential…yet like all places there are things that are…less than pleasant…thus my 10 Things I Hate About Metro Vancouver List…

10. Vancouver Canucks: To be frank no other team or sport seems to matter to this city and the Canucks have never won it all…for the amount of fan support the team gets it is just plain silly…hopefully the Whitecaps can change things…

9. The Art Scene: Sure we have some nice native art, and certainly we get some good concerts and other seasonal shows but the Vancouver Art Gallery has no good permanent exhibits…I applaud the attempts in recent years in having some temporary exhibits of European masters presented…well done…but the permanent exhibits are very poor…

8. Perpetual Rain: Sure there are times when it is not raining…such as in the middle of the night…yes it is a sunny summer day as I write this, and yes the rain is a nice supply of water and yes it is nice we don’t get the snow the rest of the country gets…but the rain goes on for months and months…and the sky is overcast so much I may build an ark this winter…

7. Big Local Media: With the sole exception of CKNW which is good the rest of the local media is not worth the cost even if they are a free newspaper…

6. Main and Hastings: An eye sore, a travesty of community and to be blunt a scary place to be…it is getting better but is still an unnatural disaster…

5. Vancouver School Board: Absolutely pathetic leadership, they would go bankrupt running a national lottery…More interested in scoring political points than good education merged with economic feasibility…

4. Vancouver City Hall: Politics in the city of Vancouver is a circus…high taxation, ridiculous decisions….polarized perspectives….poor leadership…and it matters not which party is running the freak show…this is a city government that has spent so much time on legalizing backyard chickens that they have dropped all the other eggs they are juggling…certainly they have entertainment value…but it comes at a steep price…

3. Marijuana smoke: In a region where smoking cigarettes is becoming increasingly unpopular and illegal… Marijuana smoke wafts about every neighborhood…It is disgusting and repugnant…and nothing is done about it…The other day I was inundated by the stench polluting my lungs in no less than 4 different municipalities!

2. TransLink: The Metro Vancouver transit super power…A body that although having an elected “mayor’s council” (composed of the 21 mayors of Metro Vancouver) does not have direct elections but has the power of taxation…Transit in the City of Vancouver may be very good but it is horrid in places such as Coquitlam, Surrey and Langley…

1. Toll Bridges: Metro Vancouver already has one toll bridge with the Golden Ears Bridge and soon the Port Mann Bridge replacement will force those on the South side of the Fraser River to pay more…again…and if that is not enough when the Pattullo Bridge is replaced it will also be a toll bridge! Yet when millions were spent on upgrading the Lions Gate Bridge, Ironworkers Bridge and the Sea to Sky Highway no tolls were instigated…

I should add that this list can fluctuate…but for now this will do…