Small Things Can Be Big.

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My favourite on-the-ground Lotuslandian blogger, Stanley Woodvine, wrote a great post last week chronicling his attempts to have the city of Vancouver install a water fountain in front of the Firehall Library on the 10th Avenue bike route just east of Granville:

...The official in charge of the City Vancouver’s Access to Water program has acknowledged my blog post of July 11 calling for a drinking water fountain in front of the Fairview neighbourhood’s Vancouver Public Library Firehall Branch at 1455 West 10th Avenue.

In that blog post of July 11, I pointed out just how few drinking fountains Fairview has compared to the adjacent east Vancouver neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant.

Specifically, I noted how, from Cambie Street on the “10th Avenue local street bikeway“, going east, there were generally fountains ahead, or off to the side, within a kilometre of each other, going all the way to the eastern edge of the city. But, in contrast, traveling west from Cambie along 10th, the next closest fountain was two to three km away.

A drinking fountain at the Firehall Library, I argued, would be well-situated to benefit the greatest number of Fairview residents. It would also benefit cyclists traveling through the neighbourhood on the 10th Avenue bikeway, because it would cut the existing distance between outdoor drinking water fountains along the bikeway in half...

{snip}

...Preet Bal, the program coordinator for Drinking Water Quality and Access to Water with the City of Vancouver—working out of the Water Design Branch of Engineering Services—emailed me today (July 25) to tell me that she was treating my blog post as a request for a drinking water fountain in front of the Fire Hall Library.

Which was very nice of her.

She also acknowledged my alternate suggestion for a fountain location, namely outside the Indigo bookstore on the southwest corner of South Granville Street and West Broadway Avenue.

She receives all requests for water fountain locations made to 3-1-1, or via email to fountain.requests@vancouver.ca and said that such requests help her to gauge the demand for a particular location...


I've already sent my Email to Ms. Bal:

Dear Ms. Bal,

As someone who lives on the Eastside and regularly rides along the 10th Ave bike route to and from work at UBC, I strongly support Stanley Woodvine's request to install a water fountain in front of the Firehall Library at 1455 W10th Ave given the long stretch between fountains along that route. In addition, it would be a great addition to the considerable foot traffic in that area.

Thanks very much,
xxx Ros(s)kxxxx
xxx E. 31st Ave.
Vancouver



It's easy.

It's simple.

And it only takes a minute.

It's also a good use of tax dollars.

Here's Ms. Bal's Email address again...

fountain.requests@vancouver.ca

Do it.


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Image at the top of the post is Stanley's imagined water fountain in front of the library. 


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