Monday - Nov. 20, 2023 - Skytrains, skyscrapers and bus loops, oh my!

🌤️ High 10C

Good morning!

I went for a swim in the ocean a few weeks ago. And when I say swim, I mean I ran into the water, dunked my head under, and ran back out shivering.

While I was on the beach, though, a few other people filtered down, all in swimsuits. They had towels and thermoses of hot tea. One had a meat thermometer she used to check the water temperature. The other talked about special swimming mittens that were good for water below 10 degrees.

Cold plunging, I’ve since learned, is a pretty talked-about phenomenon. It’s always nice to learn that your particular brand of “I want to jump in the ocean in the winter” crazy is perhaps not all that crazy after all. Or, at least, that it’s a crazy you share with other people.

– Grace

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

NEWS

Skyscrapers and Skytrains

The downtowns of Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Langley, and Mission could all soon see their skylines grow, whether local politicians want them to or not.

New provincial housing legislation is set to make it much easier to build housing towers up to 10 storeys high in the centre of all four Fraser Valley cities. In some areas, that development has already been green-lit. In others, the new development rules could have a profound impact.

• Today, Tyler looks at how and where the new rules will set the stage for taller downtown apartments, and how changes to parking requirements may have an even more profound effect.

Related

Need to Know

🏰 Yarrow’s Imagination Corporation ships magical creatures and castles worldwide; take a look inside the unique business [Vancouver Sun]

➡️ A Romanian man is facing human-smuggling charges in the US after driving across a berry field and over the border in Abbotsford [CTV]

🌲 The province will spend $16.5 million to put six hydrogen-powered transport trucks on BC roads next year [CBC]

🐔 Avian influenza has been found at three more Chilliwack poultry operations [Fraser Valley Today]

💧 Parts of Hope are under a boil water advisory due to E.coil concerns, but follow-up tests have been negative [District of Hope]

🔥 Chilliwack fire crews stopped a blaze from spreading from the attic of a home [Chilliwack Progress]

🏗 A Langley apartment building will receive $64 million of federal funding; two projects in Abbotsford are also getting millions [Langley Advance Times]

🚗 A car crashed into an Abbotsford business early Sunday morning [City News]

🗳 A Langley road has re-opened to traffic in both directions after months of construction [Langley Advance Times]

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The Agenda

Abbotsford/Mission water system did well during drought

Abbotsford and Mission’s water system weathered this year’s drought much better than other recent dry years. New data on the level of Dickson Lake, a key reservoir for the system, shows the lake level remained well above the levels seen in 2006, the lake’s lowest year on record.

Lake levels did approach those seen in 2015, the most-recent drought year. But they did so more than a month later than on that occasion. 

The lake hit its lowest point this year in late September, and never dipped well below the “gravity drawdown level”—the point at which water must be pumped out of the lake and into Norrish Creek (from which it enters the water system) at significant cost.

Through mid-October, residents of Abbotsford had used more water than any of the last five years, while those in Mission have used the least water of any of the last five years.

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SPONSORED BY UNIVERSITY OF THE FRASER VALLEY

Celebrate National Career Month with the University of the Fraser Valley!

Learn the secrets to getting hired with Adam Currie (BBA ’13) – A talent acquisition leader, board advisor, investor, and subject matter expert. 

Join us at the UFV Alumni Association’s “How to Recruit Yourself” event on Thursday, November 30, at 5 pm at the UFV Abbotsford campus (Evered Hall). All are welcome.   

📸 FREE headshots available! Register now.

🗓 Things to do

Writer talk: Writer Michelle Good, whose award-winning first novel Five Little Indians is about survivors of a residential school, will speak at UFV on Wednesday, Nov. 22. Details online.

Comedy play: The Chilliwack Players Guild presents the comedy The Glitter Girls, a play with a big dose of quirky humour starting Thursday, Nov. 23 to Dec. 3 at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre. Details online.

Rally: No Space for Hate Abbotsford is holding a Transgender Remembrance Day rally and vigil at Jubilee Park in Abbotsford today, Nov. 20.

Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.

Catch up

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