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How pretty, spongy public gardens make way for more housing The Big Picture: The Big Picture: China's Great Solar Wall Rural communities want the benefits of EVs, so they're making their own charging networks How pretty, spongy public gardens make way for more housing
Flowers bloom in a bioswale at Woodland Drive and 2nd Avenue East in Vancouver. (City of Vancouver)Not long ago, Robb Lukes, who works for the City of Vancouver, heard from a local resident concerned about a $6.2-million streetside garden featuring beautiful flowers such as beardtongue, western columbine, wood sorrel and tiger lilies.
"We have a housing crisis," Lukes said the resident told him, asking, "Why is the city spending money on what appeared to them to be this aesthetic project?"
Lukes is the associate director of the city's Green Infrastructure Implementation Branch. He explained to the resident that the garden, which runs alongside the road on four blocks and may be expanded to nine, would actually facilitate the construction of new housing.
That's because the garden, the St. George Rainway, is designed to capture and filter contaminants from 17,000 cubic metres of rainwater per year – enough to fill 113,000 bathtubs – that could otherwise overload the city's sewers.
The project is expected to preserve sewer capacity for new homes and stop pollutants from roads and even sewage from getting washed directly into waterways, protecting species such as salmon.
After listening to the explanation, Lukes recalled, "the person did a complete 180, and was in love with the project."
An aerial photo shows the St. George Rainway, which will run along four blocks when it's completed later in 2025. (City of Vancouver)The St. George Rainway is a bioswale – a landscaped depression similar to a rain garden, but longer and engineered to allow it to store more rainwater. In addition to native flowers, it contains grasses, shrubs and dozens of trees.
The bioswale itself, which mirrors the path of a long-buried stream, cost about $1.6 million to build (the other $4.6 million went to regular street costs such as repaving, rebuilding the sidewalk, lighting, etc.). But Lukes says it saved the city from having to do $16 million in sewer pipe upgrades in a neighbourhood previously prone to flooding.
The rainway is one of 400 "green infrastructure" features that Vancouver is using to deal with a common problem in North American cities — their sewers weren't designed for the higher-density housing that cities are building to address the shortage of affordable housing, or today's warmer climate, which is leading to heavier rainfalls.
Water runoff in cities has been traditionally handled by "grey infrastructure" – things like pipes and sewers.
But many cities are now turning to "green infrastructure" — vegetation and green technologies — that can do many of the same things, but provides added benefits, such as water filtration, wildlife and pollinator habitat, cooling and shade.
Christine Mettler is the former director of green infrastructure at the non-profit Green Communities Canada.
"Wth green infrastructure, you can do a lot of things at the same time with one parcel of land," she said, adding there's even lots of evidence that access to greenery and nature it provides could improve local residents' mental and physical health.
She said green infrastructure can be hard to integrate when there are separate departments for things like stormwater, transportation and parks and it requires cities to maintain the health of living plants.
"Often, you know, municipalities will get kind of excited about it," said Mettler. "They'll try it, and then they don't maintain it and it doesn't work."
Still, it's being embraced by some Canadian cities, including Montreal, which is pushing rain gardens and sponge parks, and Toronto, which has a green roof policy and a large flood protection project that involves renaturalizing the mouth of the Don River.
And Vancouver, which Mettler says has policies and its Green Infrastructure Implementation Branch to grow its green infrastructure.
This ‘bioretention corner bulge’ at a road intersection does double duty, capturing rainwater and improving pedestrian safety. (City of Vancouver)Vancouver launched its Green Infrastructure Implementation Branch in 2017, and now adds about 30 to 40 new "assets" per year, Lukes said. These range from bioswales to "tree trenches" that direct storm water to the roots of trees to permeable pavement that lets water seep into the soil.
Many features are multi-functional — such as gardens in bulges at the corners of intersections, designed not just for rainwater capture, but also pedestrian safety.
Lukes says the city now looks at the possibility of implementing green infrastructure anytime it does a street reconstruction.
But he notes U.S. cities such as Seattle and Portland have thousands of green infrastructure assets, compared to his own city's hundreds, suggesting Vancouver's green infrastructure still has lots of room to grow.
– Emily Chung
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Check out our podcast and radio show. In our newest episode: The Green Party aims to be the environmental conscience of Parliament. But its popularity has waned as people consider strategic voting in the face of other concerns – and as climate change slips as a priority for voters. We speak to Green Party advisor Daniel Green about how the party is balancing its climate policy with other issues in this election and whether co-leaders Jonathan Pedneault and Elizabeth May can overcome their low poll numbers. We also hear from voters on whether climate is a ballot-box priority.
What On Earth25:34It’s not easy being Green in this election
What On Earth drops new podcast episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. You can find them on your favourite podcast app or on demand at CBC Listen. The radio show airs Sundays at 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador.
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Reader FeedbackA couple of weeks ago, we featured a story about a Quebec community that is making it mandatory for homeowners to have a tree in their front yard to reduce the urban heat island effect in a warming climate, and taxing those who don't plant a tree.
Leslie Robinson of Yarmouth, N.S., writes that people should be careful when choosing what to plant in their yard: "We also need to consider the fire risks involved. This of course depends how close the tree is planted to your home and what species of tree is placed there. Needle trees are especially flammable and burning embers can travel up to two kilometres in a strong wind." Leslie recommends checking the landscaping tips at the Firesmart Canada website.
Write us at whatonearth@cbc.ca. (And feel free to send photos, too!)
The Big Picture: China's Great Solar Wall
(NASA Earth Observatory, CBC Graphics)In 2017, the Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia looked like a sea of sand when seen from space. But by the end of 2024, it was dotted with an archipelago of solar panels. They're just the beginning — the first 5.4 gigawatts of China's "Great Solar Wall." When it's completed in 2030, it's expected to be 400 kilometres long, five kilometres wide, and generate up to 100 gigawatts — enough to power Beijing (population: more than 21 million).
Renewable power generation provided a record 32 per cent of global electricity last year, a report by energy think-tank Ember said last week. Solar energy is doubling every three years globally, says Richard Black, policy head at Ember Energy, a European research group. Nearly half the growth is in China. You can read more here.
— Emily Chung
Hot and bothered: Provocative ideas from around the webRural communities want the benefits of EVs, so they're making their own charging networks
Staff of the Community Energy Association stand beside the Charge North station in Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park in Prince George. They started installing the network of 120 Level 2 chargers and 30 fast chargers in 2022. (Community Energy Association)When people in B.C.'s Kootenay region saw electric vehicles and chargers multiplying in urban communities on the coast, they realized they were missing out on potential visitors and customers.
"We needed to build infrastructure to bring those people this way," recalled Danielle Wiess, director of transportation initiatives for the Community Energy Association, a B.C.-based group focused on local energy, decarbonization and climate adaptation.
So the group worked with local municipalities, as well as other levels of government and utilities, to create the Accelerate Kootenays charging network of dozens of EV chargers across 1,870 kilometres of rural southeastern B.C. in places like Revelstoke, Nelson, Cranbrook and Invermere.
By design, only 15 of the chargers in the Accelerate Kootenays network are Level 3 (fast) chargers that can charge an EV to nearly its full range in 30 minutes.
The vast majority — 40 — are Level 2, able to add up to 50 km range per hour of charging, requiring drivers to stay awhile for a bigger charge. They're purposely located off the highway, in communities themselves.
"People are discovering places they've never been before," Wiess said.
The network was completed in 2019. And it prompted communities east and north of the Kootenays to wonder if they were missing out too.
That led to the launch of the Peaks to Prairies EV charging network in southern Alberta and Charge North across 2,780 kilometres of northern B.C.
This map shows the locations of Level 2 charging stations in the Charge North network, which crosses 2,780 kilometres of northern B.C. (Community Energy Association)Soon the Community Energy Association heard from communities in northern Alberta, central Vancouver Island and Southwestern Ontario who wanted their own networks too.
Adding even one EV charger can have a huge impact on a rural community.
Jessica Tait is the sustainable transportation manager at Indigenous Clean Energy, which runs Charge Up, a program to install EV charging infrastructure in Indigenous communities and businesses with government support. The majority are in rural areas.
She said 95 per cent of applicants to the program didn't have any access to a charger in their communities. But they see the potential benefits.
Tait said many communities see EV infrastructure as enabling them to reach their own emissions goals.
In fact, Wiess says, there's huge potential to save on emissions — and fuel costs — in rural areas, where people need to drive longer distances to work, shop, or go to medical appointments or sports matches, and transportation typically accounts for two-thirds of local greenhouse gas emissions.
Kent Heinrich has been working with the Free Ride EV Education program to help facilitate EV adoption in First Nation Communities in Manitoba and northwestern Ontario. While northern Manitoba residents he talked to were excited about saving on things like fuel, he realized it wasn't really practical for them to buy an EV due to the lack of chargers connecting two major Manitoba communities with services — Thompson in the north and Winnipeg in the south.
So he has been collaborating with Indigenous communities between them to build a charging network called Northern Gateway with the help of the Charge Up program and provincial funding. "It's going to open up the road to Thompson," he said. "Just having that route started opens the door for so many opportunities."
A visitor looks at a map showing amenities close to an EV charger in Burns Lake, B.C. Rural communities see EV chargers as an opportunity to bring tourists to spend time in their communities. (Community Energy Association )The challenge for many rural communities, Wiess said, is that private investment in things like EV charging tends to pass by them, as it's hard to make a strong business case for it with such a low number and density of potential users.
They're also sometimes left out by government funding programs. A $680-million federal EV infrastructure charging program was criticized by Canada's commissioner of the environment in 2023 for providing 87 per cent of nearly 34,000 charging ports installed through the program to urban areas.
Much of rural Canada is farther north than its major cities, with colder winters and a hillier topography. Both factors can reduce the range of electric vehicles, requiring more chargers spaced closer together.
Groups like the Community Energy Association and Indigenous Clean Energy are trying to overcome these challenges.
"We would like to do more of this," Wiess added. "We'd be happy to help fill other gaps across the Prairies and other parts of Canada."
– Emily Chung
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Editors: Emily Chung and Hannah Hoag | Logo design: Sködt McNalty