Some cities are doing better than others, but, “I am amazed at their overall lack of preparedness to limit the potential for flooding and to not suffer unduly when floods do occur,” says Blair Feltmate, a professor in the Faculty of the Environment at the University of Waterloo, who led the research study funded by The Co-operators Group Ltd. insurance company.

The report, “Preparedness of Fifteen Canadian Cities to Limit Flood Damage,” is part of a project that, according to Feltmate, is intended “to motivate cites to be more proactive and to lower their risk profile from flooding so insurers can continue to offer affordable coverage.”

It’s a first look at the issue in Canada, he says. “Relatively little effort has gone into what are the key areas of vulnerability, and what we need to do to mitigate them. First we need to recognize the challenges; then, we need to address them.”

The researchers interviewed a total of 60 officials from 15 cities, selected because they are large, encompass Canada’s different geographic areas, and are instrumental in supporting regional, provincial or national economic continuity.

Every city was graded – from a low of E to a high of A for each of 16 issues related to their existing or planned preparedness for flooding events. Those 16 grades were then used to determine an overall grade. Ottawa came out on top, with a grade of A-, closely followed by Winnipeg, at B+. Halifax trailed the pack with a D grade.

Almost every Canadian city is prone to flooding: They are, after all, built in river valleys or beside lakes or oceans. But the risk is growing as climate change leads to more frequent intense rainfall events and, in a few places, increased and rapid snow melt. Calgary, Mississauga and Toronto all experienced severe flooding in 2013, and most of the 15 cities in the study have had major floods during this decade.

“What constitutes a one-in-100-year flood now is really only one in 20, due to changes in the intensity of storm events,” Feltmate says. “In close to all cases, cities do not possess flood-plain maps for the kind of storms we get today, let alone those we’ll experience 25 or 30 years from now.”

Much of the destruction these storms cause is from floodwater flowing overland, for which insurance coverage is not offered in Canada.

The Co-operators and the University of Waterloo embarked on the project to determine whether steps could be taken to reduce the impacts of this overland flooding so that the insurance industry might be more inclined to offer coverage for it.

In the first phase, senior executives from Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry identified 14 initiatives that could create such a situation.

In the second phase, an advisory roundtable known as Partners for Action – comprised of people from the insurance industry and government, flood risk experts, professional associations, business and law – set three “winning conditions” that must be established to help reduce flood risk. Using them as guidance, they whittled the 14 conditions from the first phase down to a priority list.

Determining the level of flood preparedness in major Canadian cities was identified as one of the priorities, which, in turn, led Co-operators to engage Feltmate to conduct the study, the first of many on de-risking cities. Ongoing collaboration of Partners For Action stakeholders will include calculating the economist costs and benefits of adaptation, determining the social and environmental co-benefits, and emphasizing the need for improved flood mapping across Canada.

Sewer backups rising

This first report doesn’t relate to insurance protection for overland flooding. But storms do lead to sewer backups into basements, which many policies do cover. And across the country, in nine of the past 11 years, claims for such damage have exceeded the premiums paid, Feltmate says.

Reducing backup damage is essential to keep the cost of this insurance under control, he says. “If cities become increasingly risky, premiums and deductibles will go up and the cap limits will get lower.”

Almost all 15 cities did well on what Feltmate calls a “big ticket” group of issues. This means they had:

• Up-to-date flood plain maps;
• Land-use plans that attempt to control or protect development in flood-prone areas;
• Consistent efforts to improve urban drainage, such as ensuring that culverts, sewer grates and storm sewer systems remain clear and promoting “green” solutions to reduce storm water run-off;
• Policies that support the installation in new construction of backflow valves, which prevent sewage backup into residential basements.

Scores varied for other measures, such as management of the water supply and raw sewage, and identification and funding of emergency responders.

But in what the report terms “areas of outstanding challenge,” most of the cities lag. These include encouraging the retrofit of backflow valves on existing homes, as well as a series of issues that many cities contend are not municipal responsibilities — e.g. measures to ensure that during floods, transportation and communication networks continue to operate, and electricity, petroleum, banking services and retail food remain available.

“Cities would say, ‘that’s important but it’s not our responsibility’,” Feltmate says. “But if something goes wrong, they’ll be blamed for not coordinating and managing the situation.”

Adding to the risk, some municipal politicians, under pressure from developers and the public, continue to approve construction in areas that officials recommend be restricted due to flood risk, Feltmate says. “There still is an element of the citizenry that says, ‘we want to live near water. We’ve been in the city 25 years and have never seen a flood.’ Often, the politicians will acquiesce,” particularly since new construction boosts property tax revenues.

But that attitude is changing, he says. On a scale of zero to 100, five years ago the politicians would have received a mediocre score of 50 for allowing development where it shouldn’t occur. “Today, it’s around 80.”

In addition to urging progress on “big ticket” items, the report advises municipal leaders to act on the areas they now say are outside their responsibility, like the provincially controlled 400-series expressways in Toronto, and Vancouver’s provincially operated electric system.

Mayors, for example, could bring together the service providers to produce flood preparation plans, Feltmate says. That’s especially true for Toronto, the country’s largest city. “The ramifications of it failing would be felt across Canada. Toronto has a heightened responsibility to be ahead of the curve, which they’re not answering.”

Cities must also step up education programs, including making homeowners aware of subsidies for backflow valves, the report states. It found that homeowners haven’t been taking advantage of the subsidies, because they don’t understand the function and importance of backwater valves, or haven’t realized subsidies were available.

“The Co-operators is committed to working with Canadians to ensure they understand the risk associated with flooding and have strategies for protecting themselves and their properties,” says Rob Wesseling, executive vice-president of The Co-operators’ property and casualty insurance products and chief operating officer of The Sovereign General Insurance Company.

“Professor Feltmate’s report and recommendations provide a great benchmark for municipalities as they work to protect their communities and citizens.”

On Monday, The Co-operators launched a new insurance coverage product that can protect homeowners in Alberta against damage caused by overland flooding, such as flooding caused by an overflow from a body of water, sewer/water backup and accumulation of surface water caused by heavy rain.

“Planning is currently underway to make the product available across the country,” the company said.

Click here to go back to the ranking landing page.

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Winnipeg

Calgary

St. John’s (Nfld)

Toronto

Montreal

Mississauga

Edmonton

Fredericton

Whitehorse

The post 2015 Resilient Cities results appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The Daily News, in trying to capture what was growing fear and uncertainty, published a letter on September 7 of that year laying blame at sewer builders for unearthing the corpses of humans who had died 200 years earlier from the plague.

In response to the accusations, the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers dispatched engineer Edmund Cooper to investigate. Cooper mapped the area in excruciating detail: locations of the deceased, water pumps, old and new sewer alignments, and a circle around the “supposed location of the plague pit.”

A quick look at Cooper’s map exonerated the plague pit. The deaths were concentrated several blocks southeast. There were only a handful of deaths near the pit and surely if some killing miasma, or ‘bad air,’ had emanated from the excavation those in the immediate vicinity would have a higher casualty rate.

Later, using data from a more extensive survey, John Snow, a physician with the Board of Health, began work on his own map of the Broad Street cholera outbreak. Snow, accompanied by local Reverend Henry Whitehead, visited homes as they inquired into the habits of the deceased and household sources of water. Snow eventually simplified Cooper’s information, plotting the location of all deaths and the 13 public water pumps.

The visual impact was striking. It immediately highlighted the connection between the cholera outbreak and the Broad Street water pump. John Snow’s ghost map is credited with showing that cholera is a water-borne illness. It also launched the science of epidemiology and the long-standing battle against communicable disease.

John Snow’s ghost map highlighted several critical aspects of urban resilience. More data is not always better: Edmund Cooper’s original map arguably had too much information and simple visualization was difficult.

A multi-disciplinary approach yields the best results, especially when built on strong local linkages, like Reverend Whitehead’s community network. Coming from an employee of the sewer commission, Edmund Cooper’s initial map might have been as much about defending his employer’s innocence as it was about defining the source of contamination. John Snow’s ghost map proved the value of objective scientific inquiry.

Snow’s epidemiological work, along with London’s sewers, solid waste management, public health programs and potable water, provided a key lesson on urban resilience: with proper management cities could be made safe. As city populations burgeoned, making cities safe became the key mandate of municipal governments.

Cities: a powerful paradox

When Cooper, Whitehead and Snow walked the streets and alleys of Soho, London, in 1854, the world was only about 10 per cent urban. Less than 100 million people lived in cities worldwide, and London was the world’s largest city at the time with about 2.5 million people.

For the past 150 years, London has led many of the world’s public health and urban management advances. But the city could use help, as today the world is almost 55 per cent urban and about 3.75 billion people live in cities. By 2050, the world is on track to have at least 120 cities with populations of more than five million people. In Canada, Toronto’s unique location, size, and relative affluence provide the region with an opportunity – perhaps imperative – to lead in the rapidly emerging field of urban resilience.

By the end of this century as many as nine billion people will likely live in cities (more than 80 per cent of the global population). This could be beneficial as cities, through associated efficiency gains in service delivery attributed to greater population density, offer the best hope for global sustainability. But this hope is predicated on ensuring urban safety and security.

Cities are a powerful paradox. On the one hand we want our cities to be teeming with life; the bigger and more connected the better. Connected cities are especially important as they drive local and global economies and cultures.

Michael Mandel, writing in the April 2015 Harvard Business Review, highlights the power of urban connectedness. Using a simple surrogate measure from LinkedIn contacts, Mandel showed that for each 0.1 per cent increase in connectedness a one per cent increase in job growth was observed. The four-year job growth in the most-connected U.S. metro areas was 8.2 per cent, while the least connected cities only had a 3.5 per cent rate of job growth.

Similarly, Geoffrey West and his colleagues at the Santé Fe Institute found that everything else being equal, doubling the size of a city more than doubles growth in the local economy, and it does so at less than a doubling of the infrastructure costs.

The flip side of ‘bigger, better, denser cities’ is that big dense cities are particularly vulnerable, and just as our cities are growing much larger, risks like climate change, social unrest, energy disruption and water and food security, are increasing even faster. Today’s cities face additional, and often more insidious threats than London did in the 19th century.

Between 2000 and 2012 natural disasters resulted in $1.7 trillion in global damages (excluding terrorism and other man-made risks). These costs are likely to increase significantly as storms intensify, sea levels rise, and the world builds more urban infrastructure in harm’s way. Growing inequality within and among cities, as well as a much greater sensitivity to loss of power and communication systems, exacerbate city risks. Just-in-time delivery, for example, provides enormous benefits; except when the deliveries stop.

Humans often suffer from bounded rationality and cognitive limitations. Risk of extreme events can be discounted, while risks of minor events overstated. We see this in individuals who might still minimize the risk of driving drunk or smoking, or overstate risks of vaccines and airplane crashes. Countries can also apply inappropriate proportions to risk; postponing action on climate change while restricting the freedoms of individuals from suspect ethnic groups.

As Henry David Thoreau said, “City life is millions of people alone together.” However, nothing brings these people together faster than a disaster. How people, and therefore cities, respond to risk and build and manage their cities determines a disaster’s impact.

Alone together

In January 2010 a magnitude 7 earthquake caused major damage to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Death toll estimates were around 150,000 people and financial damage was pegged at about $8 billion. Reflecting the local poverty and absence of enforced regulations, most buildings in Port-au-Prince were of poor quality and suffered major damage.

Upon hearing of the disaster the world quickly responded. Without an equivalent 9-1-1 system, emergency workers needed immediate help to locate and rescue survivors. Using Ushahidi, an open source software platform, hundreds of volunteers around the world set up ‘Mission 4636’, the first crowdsource-based text, translate and dispatch system created to help rescue workers visualize and prioritize rescue work.

Fundraising events included telethons and the UN’s largest humanitarian appeal ever, which raised $1.44 billion. A Haiti reconstruction fund was established. However, of the total $6.04 billion in humanitarian and recovery funding less than 10 per cent went directly to the Haitian government. Wary of chronic government corruption, many NGOs and aid donors set their own priorities. Coordination was poor, and to make matters worse, a cholera epidemic broke out in October 2010.

Michaëlle Jean, then Governor General of Canada, became UNESCO Special Envoy for Haiti a month later. She voiced her anger at the slow rate of aid delivery with UNESCO head Irina Bokova. “As time passes, what began as a natural disaster is becoming a disgraceful reflection on the international community,” she wrote. Five years after the quake some 80,000 people still live in makeshift tent camps and half the rubble still needs to be moved.

In September 2010 a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck just outside Christchurch, New Zealand. It damaged buildings but no lives were lost. A second earthquake measuring 6.3 hit directly underneath the city just a few months later. It was even more devastating, killing 185 people. Hundreds of buildings were eventually demolished, including most high-rise office buildings and hotels. Financial losses were estimated at around $40 billion, or roughly 2 to 3 per cent of New Zealand’s GDP – a comparable percentage to Japan’s recovery costs from its 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

The kind of international response seen in Haiti was not needed in New Zealand. Christchurch had a centralized and coordinated response with established relationships between governmental departments. And it had pre-established, robust urban systems. These factors provided a strong foundation on which to rebuild.

Reconstruction in Christchurch is divided into two broad parts. The above ground so-called “vertical rebuild” is proving challenging as people argue with insurance companies and the government on what type of buildings are best, and how to address traffic congestion and affordable housing. However, much of the vertical build can only proceed after the on-the-ground infrastructure is complete. The “horizontal rebuild” – water systems, utilities and roads – is progressing much better. An ad hoc consortium of several government agencies and civil engineering companies established ‘Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team’ (SCRIT). Its 650-project, $2.5-billion (U.S.) effort appears to be on-track for completion by December 2016. By that time most of the debating on vertical rebuild plans will likely have been resolved.

Measuring resilience

From early days, cities under siege by warring factions outside the gates worried about poisoned water supplies, shortages of food, and power disruptions. And as cities continue to grow dramatically and threats increase even faster, urban resilience is emerging as an even more pressing aspect of sustainability. In fact, many agencies and governments are focusing on urban resilience. The Rockefeller Foundation, for example, now supports 100 city-based ‘chief resilience officers’ as part of its Resilient Cities campaign.

But how to measure urban resilience is today’s big challenge. In 2014, the Grosvenor real estate firm published a ranking of resilience for 50 world cities. Toronto was found to be the most resilient city overall based on an assessment of its adaptive capacity and vulnerabilies. People remembering the ice storm of December 2013, the frequent flooding of the Don River, or the policing fiasco of the 2010 G20 Summit might understandably question the ranking’s methodology.

Measuring urban resilience is fraught with problems. Especially as resilience is not absolute: a city can only be more, or less, resilient over time, or compared to another city. And some parts of a city might be resilient, while other areas are highly vulnerable. A city might also be very resilient against climate risk but highly vulnerable to security threats.

City leaders are inherently nervous about being measured and ranked, especially in the area of resilience. Much of today’s urban resilience is protection against willful harm. Letting your potential adversary know your weaknesses is never a good idea. And the risks a city faces are often beyond its control. However, the most critical first-responder to today’s unfolding risk profile remains a resilient city.

Building on several key ingredients Toronto is emerging as a global centre for urban resilience. The University of Toronto based Global City Indicators Facility oversees the city indicator standard ISO 37120 and has initiated a new work program to develop city resilience standard ISO 37121.

In addition to the Grosvenor study rating Toronto as the world’s most resilient city, Toronto has several attributes that enable it to be more resilient than most.

Toronto: a model of resilience?

Compared to the world’s other large global cities – those with regional populations greater than five million – Toronto is blessed by geography and relatively good governance and social behavior.

The city is not coastal, meaning no threat from sea-level rise and modest hurricane risk. It has access to fresh water and local food supply. It is tectonically stable. Most flooding is localized, and strong conservation authorities to protect water courses have remained since Hurricane Hazel in 1954. Toronto also has an energy supply that is stable and diverse, with low-carbon intensity electricity and reasonably-secure access to natural gas and petroleum.

The city gained valuable experience on ways to enhance resilience from the SARS disease outbreak in 2003, Mississauga’s train derailment in 1979, and massive power outages in 2003 and 2013. Its cultural diversity, informal networks, and tightly knit neighbourhood fabric also provide a strong underpinning of community strength.

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is well-placed to lead research on the similarities between urban and financial systems – the value of cooperative network diagnostics. And the region has one of world’s highest concentrations of app development and data management capacities.

Of course, Toronto could be made more resilient. For example, power lines into the city and overhead wires and trees are still a concern. Trust in the police could be enhanced (perhaps through occasional sharing of officers and emergency workers across GTA municipalities to be better prepared for disasters). Communication between and across government agencies can always be improved. Neighbourhood ‘leadership nodes’ could be developed, and high-rise residential buildings could be better prepared for shelter-in-place operations. Partnering with cities like Chicago and Buffalo would be prudent.

To be clear, plotting and preparing for today’s disasters and bolstering city resilience is not as straightforward as John Snow’s ghost map that linked contaminated water sources and cholera. London led much of last century’s public sanitation and city building efforts. However, with Toronto’s fortunate location, contribution to ISO 37121 on the horizon, and the city’s growing global recognition for safety, security and, hopefully, on-the-ground improvements to resilience, the city can help lead this century’s need for more urban security, resilience and sustainability.

The question is whether it has the political will and the grassroots support to build one of the world’s safest and most secure cities – and more importantly, to share this knowledge.

The post What makes a resilient city? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

In B.C., Premier Gordon Campbell’s province-wide carbon tax, introduced earlier that year, was polling poorly going into a Spring 2009 election against an NDP party that had vowed to “axe the tax.” Presented with these developments, the Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason opined that “it may be some time before we again see a political leader in Canada brave enough to build a campaign platform around saving the environment.”

A month later, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was elected on a platform dedicated to doing just that.

The beginning

From rancher to farmer to entrepreneur, Robertson’s life before politics was anything but conventional. Born in North Vancouver, he was accepted into the University of British Columbia but ended up transferring to Colorado College, a private liberal arts school in Colorado Springs. On a pre-med track, Robertson studied English and biology alongside ambulance training. But a change of heart led to him backpacking across Asia with his future wife, Amy.

After several months spent ranching in the interior of B.C., he began painstakingly restoring a 1957 sailboat named Shoeless Joe. Once complete, the newlyweds took off on an 18-month trip across the Pacific.

On returning to Canada – and in order to satisfy a growing passion for farming and sustainability – the couple sold off their sailboat and purchased an old dairy farm in B.C.’s Glen Valley. They began growing organic produce and livestock just as the organic local food movement was finding its legs. In 1994, Robertson teamed up with former schoolmate Randal Ius to form Happy Planet, a fresh juice company. By the end of the decade the company had grown so rapidly that it was sold in Starbucks outlets across the country.

“I’ve always been an entrepreneur,” explained Robertson in an interview with Corporate Knights. “Currently, I consider myself a political entrepreneur, but whatever I’ve done in life I have always approached it grounded in sustainability, trying to make positive change on environmental and economic and community levels simultaneously.”

Over the years he grew more interested in policy and activism, serving as a director at the Tides Canada Foundation from 2002 to 2004. In 2005, he was persuaded to run for a seat with the provincial NDP, which he won in a competitive downtown riding. But frustrated by the slow rate of change and limitations imposed by strict party discipline at the provincial level, he resigned his seat and ran for mayor of Vancouver.

On November 15, 2008, Robertson won 54 per cent of the vote.

What was so surprising about Robertson’s victory wasn’t so much the scale as much as its unabashedly green message. After Robertson won the nomination for the left-of-centre municipal party Vision Vancouver, he managed in 2008 to form a temporary alliance with rival parties the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) and the Green Party. His mission, as head of that alliance, was to take on the incumbent Non-Partisan Association, which had held the mayor’s seat since 2005.

Robertson’s campaign was built around two particularly ambitious goals: to eliminate street homelessness in the city by 2015 and become “the greenest city in the world.” The environment and sustainability commitments occupied nearly a third of the real estate in the party platform. One Green Party candidate for the park board boasted “Gregor Robertson could be a Green Party member.” Voters were impressed, sending Robertson to city hall with a strong majority of councillors.

The Greenest City Initiative

Robertson formed the Greenest City Action Team within months of assuming office, comprised of local sustainability experts across a range of disciplines. This 19-strong group included environmentalist David Suzuki, former mayor and premier Mike Harcourt and Tamara Vrooman, chief executive of Vancouver City Savings Credit Union.

These findings were turned over to city staff, which then undertook a lengthy public consultation with business groups and members of the public. In 2011, The Greenest City 2020 Action Plan (GCAP) was approved by council, establishing a series of goals and benchmarks for turning Vancouver into the most sustainable city in the world by the end of the decade.

While Vancouver had been making strides in some areas, including walking and biking, prior to 2008, the GCAP required a wholesale reinvention of the city itself. The 15 goals for 2020 included a doubling of the number of green jobs, a 33 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, exposure to the healthiest air and water quality of any municipality around the world, and having more than 50 per cent of trips in the city occurring by foot, bicycle, and public transit.

After seven years in office, GCAP’s impact on the city is hard to miss. While Vancouver’s “Ecodensity” plans began under Robertson’s predecessor, recent densification efforts in the downtown core, along transit corridors and major corridors have transformed significant portions of the city into more walkable neighbourhoods. “Another million people are expected to move into Metro Vancouver by 2040 and densification is the only responsible way to address that growth, while maintaining quality of life and mitigating the environmental impact,” explains Robertson.

This has been accompanied by a rapid expansion of separated bike lines and car-sharing programs. Vancouver’s bike lanes experienced record traffic last summer, a point the city punctuated by displaying live data collected by an automatic bike counter on a screen mounted to the Burrard Bridge, which connects downtown Vancouver to Kitsilano.

The city has also adopted the greenest building code in North America, and is aiming for a carbon-neutral standard for all new construction after 2020. A new single-family home in Vancouver already has a 53 per cent smaller carbon footprint than one built in 2007, boasts Robertson.

Progress has also been made on less obvious fronts, including water use. “We’ve been water hogs traditionally because it rains so much in Vancouver and people didn’t think that it (conservation) was necessary,” said Robertson. But robust conservation measures have reduced water consumption 20 per cent, surprising many residents.

Although Robertson will become the longest-serving mayor in Vancouver’s history by the end of his third term in 2018, he’s pushing just as forcefully for change as he did when first elected. This includes constantly looking to other cities around the world for inspiration and best practices. He helped, for example, to found the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance earlier this year. In March, Vancouver’s city council voted unanimously to shift the city towards 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050 – an ambitious goal that will put pressure on other Canadian cities.

Keeping voters engaged

So far, the electorate has been broadly supportive of Robertson’s sustainability transition strategy. “On the one hand, Vision Vancouver has the support of people who want to see Vancouver as a centre for sustainability, for the high-tech industry,” said Maxwell Cameron, director of UBC’s Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. “But at the same time they’re close with developers, and are very interested in promoting the kind of development that allows us to build a denser and thus lower carbon-footprint city.” This potent combination means that Vision Vancouver remains well financed, while still attracting a substantial electorate that prefers them to the alternative.

Another reason for ongoing support of Robertson is the size of the city itself. The municipality of Vancouver has about 600,000 residents. This cuts more suburban voters from the Vancouver metropolitan area, unlike cities such as Toronto or Montreal.

Robertson and Vision Vancouver did face significant pushback during last year’s re-election regarding a perceived lack of public consultation by city hall. This culminated with an apology from the mayor himself in the waning days of the campaign, and a promise to do better going forward. “A substantial portion of the electorate can get behind Robertson’s goals,” Cameron said. “The question is how he does it, and that’s really what city hall needs to work on.”

No doubt, Vancouver’s municipal boundaries have produced a favourable electorate for Robertson, but they’ve also limited his ability to expand public transit throughout the region. Despite the regions’ mayors endorsing a proposal to redirect revenues generated by the B.C. carbon tax toward regional transit projects, Premier Christie Clark insisted instead on a transit referendum that would institute a 0.5 per cent sales tax across Metro Vancouver. Voting on this will end in late May, but results are not expected until sometime in July. The transit plan would, in part, allocate substantial funds toward construction of a subway along the city’s crowded Broadway Corridor.

The prospects don’t look good for the Yes vote. “It’s never popular to increase taxes and that imperils the referendum outcome, as there’s a knee jerk anti-tax movement coming from the suburbs,” said Robertson. “But certainly in Vancouver, the majority recognizes how crucial this investment is for mobility.” While walking, biking or transit currently makes up 49.7 per cent of trips in the city – one of the best records in North America – some form of large-scale transit investment will be needed in order to push Vancouver well past its 2020 goal of 50 per cent.

After seven years at the helm, Robertson has developed an international reputation for his greenest city initiatives. In May, he was invited to address the National Assembly in France about Vancouver’s Action Plan, while the city continues to rank highly on liveability and sustainability rankings.

Even with these achievements, Robertson doesn’t sound like someone who’s ready to slow down anytime soon. “In city politics we’re able to enact change in a more direct and hands-on manner that enables our city and people to craft a brighter future for all,” he explains.

“That’s a lot more fulfilling than past careers.”

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