Pete Fry

So what does the City’s viaduct removal plan say about traffic calming on Prior Street? Unfortunately for Strathcona – not a lot. In fact, the map illustration shows a new six-lane Prior Street extension that connects to Main Street, Quebec Street and a new expanded six-lane Pacific Boulevard ends before Gore – with no details about what happens to those six lanes of traffic east of Main. Prior street is identified as the “direct east-west link to the downtown for commuter vehicles and large goods-movement trucks Read More

Like the cobbler’s kids not having shoes – I’ve notoriously neglected to document or promote my own design and illustration work, despite over 25 years of successful and award winning self employment. Poster work was what first got me into design, as a natural extension of drawing comics since my teens. While posters where my first love, I must confess I haven’t done many posters for at least 15 years now. Most of these pre-date cheap color printing and widespread web use, some even pre-date digital output and most are from stacks of undigitized paper archives- posted here as a small snapshot of 1990’s Vancouver indie scene.

I’ll keep adding as I unearth more archives. Here’s a sampler, in no particular order, filed under posters:

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Drinking my morning coffee, I listened to the CBC radio follow up on their recently posted story about the scourge of uncollected dog feces throughout Vancouver. According to the CBC, the problem is so widespread that it is set to break the City’s records for the most amount of complaints received in any single year. Of course, no one likes to step in dog shit, and the rant-line messages re-enforce that reality as a second day’s worth of angry callers launch into tirades about horrible dog owners.
A record breaking number of complaints, I think to myself, that must be a lot of dog doo. I watch the CBC report with interest: that record breaking number of complaints? Forty-five. That’s right, 45 complaints – possibly set to break last year’s record of (wait for it) forty-eight complaints.

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I created this typeface many years ago for a series of gig posters, as tribute to the comic title. I dug it out of the crates and am releasing it into the wild as an Illustrator eps download
Enjoy.

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In September, 2006, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation announced the formation of an all-volunteer task force, made up of citizens with proven expertise in specific areas of stakeholder interest and concern.

Members were charged with the task of developing a strategy that would be a balanced compromise respecting and accommodating all sides of the issue, and all legitimate uses for the public lands.

Through 2006 and 2007, I sat as one of the six members of that task force. I must confess to being something of a Pollyanna going into the process, I genuinely thought we would be crafting policies that would make things better for everyone – I had no idea the extent to which some Vancouverites had an intense dislike for dogs and their owners, to the extent that they wanted a complete moratorium on off leash areas.

The task force ended rather acromoniously and the media branded it a failure, although I am happy to say that many of the recommendations we suggested then, have been adopted into official policy today.

This blog will unpack some of the work we did and explore some options for improving the opportunities for dog owners and non dog owners alike to enjoy and share Vancouver’s Park System.

Our 2007 report – the findings of the Task Force and the recommendations and action plans suggested by a majority of its members (with the help and input from literally hundreds of concerned and caring Vancouverites) – can be dowloaded and read here.

Here’s what I wrote in my application to join the task force, back in 2006:

My name is Pete Fry. I have lived in Vancouver my entire life, I am
actively involved in my community, I’m a home owner, taxpayer, dog owner and park user.

I have enjoyed the company Read More