Time for Vancouver to Tear Down Its Viaducts?

[Vin]

Originally Posted by logan5

Manhattan relies solely on transit for its daytime population, why cant Vancouver do the same. Nobodies drives in Manhattan.And nobody drives in Vancouver. Why is manhattan so great?
.

You should see the number of lines coming into Manhattan, as well as London, Hong Kong etc., and the size of the subway trains, compared to Vancouver's. There is simply no comparison between ours and theirs, and that is already considering the population difference among those cities, and Metro Van's.

If we are not ready for large capacity subway trains serving the downtown peninsula, we shouldn't be taking down vital transportation links. The excess roadway lanes can be used for more buses or street cars if we are too poor or lazy to build new skytrain lines (which is often the case in this backwater).

Also, just a reminder that Transportation trucks, emergency vehicles and cabs don't ride skytrains or seabuses. They still need the roadways.

Originally Posted by SpongeG

i thought this would fit to share here, I thought it would take years for this viaduct to come down but wow its gone fast!
I wonder if Vancouver can do it as quickly

• Video Link

I already see a new wide roadway built or improved before they tear the viaducts down in Seattle. Will Vancouver complete the Prior connector, the ramp down Pacific Blvd, and improve on Pacific Boulevard before taking the viaducts down? If they are not even starting right now, when will they eventually take the viaducts down? Maybe with the decades of wait, a large enough earthquake will bring them down, saving the City demolition costs, but at the same time killing hundreds because the City never had enough money to enhance its seismic strength.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

No it doesn't. Downtown has more jobs, and more residents (and the West End has more residents too). The same amount of traffic means the same number of people in cars/vans etc. Then there are also a lot more people taking transit to and from Downtown, more people riding their bikes to, from and within the Downtown, and more people are walking, especially within Downtown.

Edit - to add data. Here's the Downtown Local Area resident population data from the census for how they get to work. Twenty or so years ago (1996) there were just 17,405 residents living Downtown; in 2016 there were 62,030. In 1996 39.1% walked to work - an extraordinarily high proportion in North America. Even so, that went up to 41.1% in 2016. Meanwhile driving to work dropped from 35.5% to only 30.4%, and those biking to work or taking transit increased.

Similarly in the West End there were over 7,000 more residents, but the proportion driving to work went down from 31.7% to 24.8%, and those using transit, walking and biking all went up. (Biking doubled to over 7%, and not just the proportion, but the actual number of people driving to work fell).

Daytime and rushed hour traffic have indeed increased due to more people living and going through downtown, a decrease in road lanes, more working places, etc. Therefore taking away vital road links will make traffic congestions become worse, so much so that it will turn people off about coming here to use its services and for entertainment. After work hours, if people anticipate the rush hour traffic to be a great source of stress, they will simply not come here. Even for skytrains, when those potential riders think that the train cars are going to be packed, they are less likely to come downtown. It's basic human psychology. When people form a habit, many will stick to it, as is evident on many parts of downtown becoming so deserted and quiet after work hours. Sometimes in the evenings when I take the skytrian back from New West, I notice that the trains are quite packed from New West to Broadway/Commercial, and all of a sudden the cars become pretty empty when the trains pull into the downtown area. This phenomenon is atypical of what's happening in vibrant cities, where the city core area should see the most number of riders. Definitely not here in Vancouver.

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by Vin

This is from a Vancouver Sun article in 2015, but I still stand by what the retired City engineer said. This move is called "the suburbanization of downtown", and it's already true as I personally know many who used to hang out downtown back in the days but hardly come here anymore. I also notice that an average evening downtown is really quiet outside Friday or Saturday, and that's in big contrast with many other sizeable cities around the world. This is especially so right after the cruise season is over: downtown is pretty dead! Even though I live and work downtown, I actually spend more time shopping for groceries or hanging out with friends, etc. outside the downtown core. This is so wrong on many levels.





This is an old article: we now know the final cost could be half a billion. What a waste!

Oh, Mr Adam. I guess logic exited City Hall when he retired.

At least at some point, it seems that not everyone was insane and had a one track mind at City Hall. Good Bye Mr Adam, you are (sorely) missed.

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by Vin

There is a difference between people coming into the city for work and getting out fast after, and those who are lingering or coming in to play and use the services during and after work hours. There may be more people coming in to work, but downtown should have a good balance of entertainment, culture, recreation, retail services, etc, in order for the core to stay vibrant. Sadly we are fast losing that. Robson Street, Chinatown and Gastown are good examples.

Suburbanization does not mean that the core is losing population. Therefore your de-population theory is flawed because urban sprawl actually means the suburbs gaining more population, and not the other way round. We are turning downtown into a bedroom community, and although gaining population, is losing its capability to be the vibrant centre that it ought to be.

Exactly. Thats what people don't understand. You don't just use one solitary measurement when accessing the "success" of a downtown.
Residents downtown are a great asset, however if you're solely just focussing on that and in Vancouver's case actively putting up roadblocks to people visiting the core from outlying areas, you lose something in terms of overall vibrancy (as you point out).

The COV is so obsessed with one item, that they are perfectly willing to forego a whole number of other benefits that come with being a true "downtown" for the region. They build an elementary school right in their entertainment district and brag about it at a city planner convention, only to be laughed out of the room when other cities rightly state they don't want that in their entertainment districts.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by EastVanMark

Exactly. Thats what people don't understand. You don't just use one solitary measurement when accessing the "success" of a downtown.
Residents downtown are a great asset, however if you're solely just focussing on that and in Vancouver's case actively putting up roadblocks to people visiting the core from outlying areas, you lose something in terms of overall vibrancy (as you point out).

The COV is so obsessed with one item, that they are perfectly willing to forego a whole number of other benefits that come with being a true "downtown" for the region. They build an elementary school right in their entertainment district and brag about it at a city planner convention, only to be laughed out of the room when other cities rightly state they don't want that in their entertainment districts.

That's right. More often than not many people hold a one dimensional view to what a success downtown means. They fail to realize that we keep making planning mistakes and as a result, this city is getting duller and duller. Just look at Trip-Advisor and see how visitors comment about Chinatown, Gastown, etc.. Maybe Vancouver was successful in the past: West-end was great: it brought many people to come live downtown, but we also need to take note that they erected some of the tallest residential structures in the world at the time, without any qualms that "tall is bad". Granville Island was a huge success! They made it stand out from the rest of Vancouver, but it is also federally-owned. Yaletown was another huge success, but the abandoned land was bought over by a Hong Kong developer to be developed to what it was in the early 2000, thus making Vancouver become noticed around the world for its glass structures and residential towers in a downtown neighbourhood.

However, beyond that, everything has stagnated since those times. Tearing down the viaducts and thinking that will be another Vancouver legacy is as bad as how you described the City bragging about erecting a primary school in the midst of the downtown entertainment district. For the elementary school, its erection actually means that future projects around it would have to be relatively subdued due to noise, safety and other concerns. Same thing for the perfectly functional viaducts: once they come down, any future efforts to improve the traffic system by adding more roadways or overhead structures will become highly laughable. Hence I'm thinking that area would again be trapped and unable to develop further. Small town thinking through and through.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by EastVanMark

Oh, Mr Adam. I guess logic exited City Hall when he retired.

At least at some point, it seems that not everyone was insane and had a one track mind at City Hall. Good Bye Mr Adam, you are (sorely) missed.

Word from people who follow City Hall seems to be that Adam was a fuddy-duddy set in his ways, while Peter Judd's been the one doing all the good work. Make of that what you will.

Originally Posted by EastVanMark

Exactly. Thats what people don't understand. You don't just use one solitary measurement when accessing the "success" of a downtown.
Residents downtown are a great asset, however if you're solely just focussing on that and in Vancouver's case actively putting up roadblocks to people visiting the core from outlying areas, you lose something in terms of overall vibrancy (as you point out).

Isn't that what you're doing now though? The amount of drivers going downtown is going down, yes, but the amount of people going downtown is going up. The core's pretty vibrant even during slow hours... unless you mean Chinatown or the DTES, in which case that's completely unrelated to vehicle traffic.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by EastVanMark

Exactly. Thats what people don't understand. You don't just use one solitary measurement when accessing the "success" of a downtown.
Residents downtown are a great asset, however if you're solely just focussing on that and in Vancouver's case actively putting up roadblocks to people visiting the core from outlying areas, you lose something in terms of overall vibrancy (as you point out).

The COV is so obsessed with one item, that they are perfectly willing to forego a whole number of other benefits that come with being a true "downtown" for the region. They build an elementary school right in their entertainment district and brag about it at a city planner convention, only to be laughed out of the room when other cities rightly state they don't want that in their entertainment districts.

if that was true we wouldn't have people whining that they can't get home cause skytrain shuts down too early LOL

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

if that was true we wouldn't have people whining that they can't get home cause skytrain shuts down too early LOL

Thats another problem all together, but yes that situation doesn't help matters any either. Again, never said it that it applied to absolutely everyone, or that Vancouver's downtown is vacant or anything like that.

Its just that its not anywhere near as vibrant as it could be.

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Word from people who follow City Hall seems to be that Adam was a fuddy-duddy set in his ways, while Peter Judd's been the one doing all the good work. Make of that what you will.



Isn't that what you're doing now though? The amount of drivers going downtown is going down, yes, but the amount of people going downtown is going up. The core's pretty vibrant even during slow hours... unless you mean Chinatown or the DTES, in which case that's completely unrelated to vehicle traffic.

I'll take your word for it regarding Adam as I never even heard of him, except he talks a lot of sense in that article, so I gotta give him credit there.

And regarding the second point, yes, using just the war on the car as a singular measurement of area vibrancy is not great either, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just pointing out I don't like ANY barriers for people coming downtown. Be it day, night, car bike, hoverboard; whatever. It needless and damages the overall vibe of the area.

Careful, when stating that there's more people coming downtown as obviously that will happen when the workforce increases down there. However that still doesn't mean the city is reaching its fullest potential from a vibrancy point of view. As someone already stated, you need to look no further than what visitors from other areas say about the city. Usually something along the lines of "its pretty, but kinda boring etc". We need people coming down there using ALL forms of transportation, in order for the area to really come more alive. Removing ease of access in and out of the city hurts that cause.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by EastVanMark

And regarding the second point, yes, using just the war on the car as a singular measurement of area vibrancy is not great either, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just pointing out I don't like ANY barriers for people coming downtown. Be it day, night, car bike, hoverboard; whatever. It needless and damages the overall vibe of the area.

Careful, when stating that there's more people coming downtown as obviously that will happen when the workforce increases down there. However that still doesn't mean the city is reaching its fullest potential from a vibrancy point of view. As someone already stated, you need to look no further than what visitors from other areas say about the city. Usually something along the lines of "its pretty, but kinda boring etc". We need people coming down there using ALL forms of transportation, in order for the area to really come more alive. Removing ease of access in and out of the city hurts that cause.

Unfortunately, dwindling space means that we have to either add capacity or start picking and choosing. Cars are too damn big for the cities they drive in.

It's a bit of a stretch to say that 100% of the increase is additional workforce... and that said workforce isn't playing downtown too. Yes, the city could be more vibrant, but Trip Advisor/Reddit/the internet in general also says the same about Calgary, Seattle, Portland and basically everywhere west of the Twin Cities and north of San Fran.

IMO the problem isn't about accessibility, it's about not having enough people to be a "fun" city; 2010 was a definite one-off.

[GenWhy?]

What is Downtown "vibrancy" for a city of under 700,000? How does 1970's highway viaducts not connected to a highway enhance that?

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

What is Downtown "vibrancy" for a city of under 700,000? How does 1970's highway viaducts not connected to a highway enhance that?

Asking the real questions.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

What is Downtown "vibrancy" for a city of under 700,000? How does 1970's highway viaducts not connected to a highway enhance that?

TBF we need to compare by metro, not by city.... which places us next to Baltimore and Orlando. General consensus is that their residents are equally bored out of their minds.

[cornholio]

Not being able to get in is equal to not being able to get out. If I were to move somewhere I would want to be able to easily get in and out when leaving the area/city/region). In any case if downtown is being planned for some future type of person it's certainly not me (to live or work in, visit once in a long while maybe if it offers a reason to visit). The more minutes and stress they add to getting in and the out...

This is just history repeating its self. One day these decisions will be regretted.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

What is Downtown "vibrancy" for a city of under 700,000? How does 1970's highway viaducts not connected to a highway enhance that?

It's not 700,000: it's 2.5million. People just don't come downtown because there isn't really much to do on a daily basis, unless there is a special festival, sporting event or parade. People are also turned off because it is harder and a lot more expensive to enter downtown these days. All the additional barriers are not necessary IMO.

Originally Posted by cornholio

Not being able to get in is equal to not being able to get out. If I were to move somewhere I would want to be able to easily get in and out when leaving the area/city/region). In any case if downtown is being planned for some future type of person it's certainly not me (to live or work in, visit once in a long while maybe if it offers a reason to visit). The more minutes and stress they add to getting in and the out...

This is just history repeating its self. One day these decisions will be regretted.

Very much in agreement. I always see how drivers can exit the downtown core so quickly when they drive out of West Georgia, as compared to other bridge links. This proves that the viaducts are doing their jobs really well. So why remove the Golden Goose?

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

TBF we need to compare by metro, not by city.... which places us next to Baltimore and Orlando. General consensus is that their residents are equally bored out of their minds.

Really? I wonder if their residents brand their own cities a "no fun" city like we do, or their "most liveable City" ranking is dropping year-by-year.

[logan5]

Baltimore is very exciting. You get to run for your life.

You would rather hang out in Downtown Baltimore or Orlando than Vancouver?

[GenWhy?]

I understand the subjective reason to easily move by car as one has done in years past, as well as the emotional connection to the viaducts and a natural hesitancy towards change (especially concerning the private auto and driving from the suburbs).

Recent data shows more people coming downtown and not by private car. Whether this is simply for primarily work, we don't know. Barriers like the price of parking are understandable and preferred type of evening entertainment not being met is understandable... not sure if you're referring to suburban folks, primarily - which is understandable considering it can take minimum an hour to commute.... hence the town centre scheme.

There is also, statistically, a steady increase of people living in the Metro Core, with many of them not commuting to work by car.

When I moved here I still wonder the same question... Is there an objective reason to retain them - especially considering recent commuting data does not include the 2016 expansion of the Millennium Line?

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

i thought this would fit to share here, I thought it would take years for this viaduct to come down but wow its gone fast!
I wonder if Vancouver can do it as quickly

• Video Link

Seattle and WSDOT has been planning the demolition of the viaduct for decades. It was already on the table when the Nisqually happened.

Vancouver has been pushing excessively hard to remove their viaducts for what, ten years now with most of that election pandering and drafted proposals? The only reason it's rearing its head at all is because people are unimaginative and want at the valueable land underneath.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

Really? I wonder if their residents brand their own cities a "no fun" city like we do, or their "most liveable City" ranking is dropping year-by-year.

Neither city has ever even made the top fifty, despite having literally twice as many viaducts. They're apparently nice... if you're a tourist. It's almost like quality of life isn't completely dependent on highway access.

Is Vancouver a "No Fun City?" Sure - and many of our contemporaries fit that description too. Gossip, rumour-mongering and nostalgia filters aren't reliable enough to start planning our urban development around them.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by MIPS

Seattle and WSDOT has been planning the demolition of the viaduct for decades. It was already on the table when the Nisqually happened.

Vancouver has been pushing excessively hard to remove their viaducts for what, ten years now with most of that election pandering and drafted proposals? The only reason it's rearing its head at all is because people are unimaginative and want at the valueable land underneath.

I mean i thought it would take a couple years to get demolished not a few months. It came down fast. But apparently businesses in the area are upset cause it was taking too long. The tunnel only opened less than a year ago though right? like February 2019?