It’s only Thursday afternoon but for the fifth or sixth or seventh time this week I’m sitting in the little urban patio that the city of Vancouver recently set out at the junction of Kitchener and Commercial. Two men sauntering by disagree about who this seating area belongs to. One of them stops altogether and spins around to point at the signage. The concrete barricade reads in rich red paint LITTLE italy, with the “little” capitalized but shrunk several sizes and arched over the “t” in “italy”.

Now a man dressed like a grunge-y scarecrow hops onto his skateboard – behind me a dog barks in apparent indignation – and tries to ollie onto the downsloping edge of the barricade. Having succeeded only in smearing faint black grime across the “i” in “italy”, he swoops down to collect his board and rises with his other arm outstretched, pointing in accusation at a baseballsized hole a few inches left of the “i”. There’s a hole! he explains to the two guys he was crossing the barricaded street with. One of them extends his arm towards the skateboarder and touches his back with an open hand, bringing him back into the fold. They exit stage right.

I have this first week of June off from work and the weather has been marvelous. I live only a few blocks away and find myself coming here more and more to enjoy the sun, the fresh air, and the flourishing urban life in this node of East Vancouver. From my left, a fine italian cafe named after the owner’s wife supplies a diegetic soundtrack alongside the pleasant chatter of diners sitting at tables on the sidewalk. Closest to me are two middleaged men sitting on stools and one of them talks animatedly about Woody Allen, bobbing his head forward and tracing a circular figure in front of him. The other nods firmly in understanding.

People of all ages and of various ethnic backgrounds stream past me on this side of the street as well as the other. Most are on foot but some are on bikes, fewer on skateboards. Some push strollers, some lead dogs, some do both. On this block there is no crosswalk but every few minutes pedestrians flit across The Drive, sometimes in cooperation with drivers who slow down to let them cross safely. Elsewhere, pedestrians return the favor by yielding to cars that rely on pedestrian crosswalks to cross or turn into The Drive.

Despite this friendly coexistence, it’s hard not to rue the overpresence of motor vehicles on Commercial Drive and other lively streets in the city. Even at these relatively low speeds there is the incessant gush of wheels over asphalt and the occasional obscenity of a growling motorcycle engine or a muffler deleted car. Every few minutes there is a moment of stillness on the road, a brief sample of what it would be like without the constant flow of traffic. In these moments, my feeling strengthens that this is a place for people to be, a place for the idle mingling of neighbors. It’s a great shame we allow it to be plundered mechanically by noisy, fume-spewing machines. This has been a good place for me to write but I’m going home now because sitting so close to the road during commuting hours the air is not so fresh after all.