An underreported story is often in the eye of the beholder.

People with a beef about the legal system will often think that their tale of woe hasn't received sufficient attention.

Parents with kids in schools that haven't been seismically upgraded will feel the same way.

Then there are those who feel that B.C.'s appalling level of child poverty should be on the front pages on a weekly basis.

They all have valid points. With this in mind, here are some other noteworthy stories that went under the radar screen over the past year.

1. Declining use of motor vehicles

The Seattle-based Sightline Institute has run a series of articles entitled "Dude, where are my cars?" Many are written by Clark Williams-Derry, including one that he called "The Comedy and Tragedy of the Port Mann Bridge".

It noted that despite a 29 percent fall in traffic over the bridge from 2005 to 2014, provincial forecasters were "still predicting an immediate, sustained increase" in the number of vehicles.

"Of course, they could be right: just because they’ve been ridiculously, flat-out wrong about every single forecast they’ve made to date doesn’t mean that they haven’t spotted a new trend," Williams-Derry acknowledged. "Still, you’d think that years of making preposterous traffic forecasts would give them a little humility."

In the past, ICBC has reported a sharp drop in the percentage of B.C. residents between 18 and 24 with drivers' licences. This year, Vancouver met its 2020 target of 50 percent of trips being made by foot, bike, or transit.

Yet Premier Christy Clark still thinks it's a good idea to pave over farmland to make room for a 10-lane $3.5-billion tolled bridge to replace the George Massey Tunnel. It may help the B.C. Liberals win Delta South in the 2017 election, but it won't do a lot for B.C.'s food security at a time when California is facing a monumental drought.

Clark's advancing this new bridge even though the Port Mann tolled bridge is expected to fall short in toll revenue by about $300 million over the next three years.

Somebody needs to introduce the premier to Victoria Transport Policy Institute founder Todd Litman.

2. Discrimination against women

In 1981, Canada ratified the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. In 2008, the CEDAW committee determined that Canada was falling far short of the mark in achieving the treaty's objectives, noting several areas specific to B.C.

This year, West Coast Women's Legal Education and Action Fund prepared a report card on how B.C. is stacking up. This was done in advance of an expected CEDAW committee review of Canada's compliance in 2016.

The marks were grim. Chronic underfunding of legal aid contributed to a D- score in women's access to justice. 

The province registered an F on addressing missing and murdered indigenous women. On women and housing, the mark was D- for offloading responsibility to municipalities and nonprofit groups.

There was an F for women and girls in prison because the B.C. government has failed to address over-representation of indigenous females. B.C. received a D in the poverty and social assistance category.

The only areas with passing grades were women and employment (C), access to childcare (C-), violence against women and girls (B-), and women and health care (B-).

3. Rising importance of the creative economy

Book publishing, the movie industry, digital media, music, performing arts, and high-tech employ a huge number of British Columbians. Yet this is rarely mentioned on nightly TV newscasts.

This year, the falling Canadian dollar prompted a huge comeback for B.C.'s motion-picture sector, helped by the rapidly growing visual-effects industry. But it's not just the movies that are thriving. The B.C. government released a report in June 2015 that detailed the magnitude of the high-tech sector.

On the high-tech manufacturing side, the gross domestic product rose 8.8 percent in 2014 to almost $1.6 billion. On the service side, it grew 1.4 percent to $11.6 billion.

The report noted that there were 86,800 people working in high tech, ranking it far ahead of forestry, fishing, agriculture, mining, and other staples of the B.C. economy.

Meanwhile, the cultural sector employed nearly 88,000 people in 2010 (the last year figures are listed on the B.C. government website). A report by Hill Strategies showed that B.C. has the highest percentage of workers in arts occupations.

The new federal Liberal government recognizes that a knowledge-based creative economy requires substantial investments to grow and prosper. Let's hope that provincial politicians pay attention to this when they're on the campaign trail in 2017.

4. Premier Christy Clark's divide-and-conquer strategy with the unions

This began in earnest in 2014 when 25,000 B.C. Government and Service Workers Union members ratified a five-year contract calling for a 5.5-percent wage increase. In return for the modest salary hike, the BCGEU won other benefits, including job protection for liquor-store employees and higher pay if annual economic growth rates exceeded forecasts. 

The benefit for Clark and Finance Minister Mike de Jong was that this agreement could be used as a battering ram against unions representing teachers and nurses, who weren't at risk of being privatized. Teachers went on strike because the province was driving such a hard bargain; nurses continue to be without a contract.

Since then, the BCGEU has issued positive statements about the B.C. Liberal government's liquor reforms. The union has also led the charge calling for legal marijuana sales to be restricted to liquor stores, which would provide a cash bonanza for the provincial government. It enables Clark to keep a distance from this hot-button issue.

Meanwhile, B.C. building-trades unions are happy that Clark has become such a strong advocate of a liquefied-natural-gas industry. They're so thrilled that the unions' magazine, Tradetalk, just carried a cover story with the headline "Building LNG Capacity".

Clark is less ideological than her predecessor, Gordon Campbell. This is likely giving the NDP conniptions as it tries to balance the wishes of organized labour in the private sector with the desires of its greener members.

5. More police shootings

There were more police shootings in B.C. in 2015 than any year since 2009. The Straight's Travis Lupick reported that there were 11 deaths this year. Lupick also noted that of the 99 police-involved deaths investigated by the B.C. Coroners Service since 2007 or scheduled for investigation, 90 percent were linked to substance abuse, a mental-health issue, or both.