Is the city keeping up on water and sewer infrastructure?
Every rainstorm, every leaky main, every stream-restoration project runs through the city's 'One Water' program. Here's how much capital money is set aside for it.
On track
Capital spending on water, sewers, one water has gone up — $195M planned for 2025 versus $130M in 2021.
1The story
What we're trackingAn ABC Majority will commit to daylighting at least one stream by the end of 2026 and restoring it to its natural state.— ABC Vancouver's 2022 campaign platform
In plain terms: This covers drinking-water pipes, sewers, storm drains, and stream restoration. When this number rises, more of the underground system gets renewed before it fails — when it drops, expect more main-break notices.
Green bars are the years after Mayor Sim took office (late 2022).
Sim took office Nov 2022 — compare green years to blue ones.
3The fine print
How we calculated this
We pulled every line item from the City of Vancouver's multi-year capital budget tagged '('water, sewers', 'one water')' and summed the planned expenditures by budget year. This is the city's own forward-looking plan, not actual spend. The dataset covers 2023–2026; big projects land in single years, so the series is lumpy. Source: City of Vancouver open data.
City of Vancouver open data — Capital Budget (('water, sewers', 'one water')) · as of 2026-10-21 · Vancouver Promise Tracker — an independent look at whether local leaders deliver on their word.