The next GVRD rapid transit line?

[Metro-One]

That would definitely be an issue that would need to be addressed / worked around.

This line would (will...) be very expensive so it will likely need to be elevated for much of its run along Hastings, nearly the entirety of Willingdon (only maybe short tunneled sections into downtown Metrotown and maybe downtown Brentwood to help reduce the grade) and for good sections of North Vancouver (maybe tunneled near Lonsdale).

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

That would definitely be an issue that would need to be addressed / worked around.

This line would (will...) be very expensive so it will likely need to be elevated for much of its run along Hastings, nearly the entirety of Willingdon (only maybe short tunneled sections into downtown Metrotown and maybe downtown Brentwood to help reduce the grade) and for good sections of North Vancouver (maybe tunneled near Lonsdale).

Elevating the line along Hastings to avoid horrific cost is understandable in theory, yet IMHO doing so woild create a monstrous scar on the face of the city. Hastings (even in the DTES) is a major heritage street in the city, and the idea (again, IMHO) of putting an elevated guideway along it is a sacriledge, an amputation, a mutilation of the city's face.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

Elevating the line along Hastings to avoid horrific cost is understandable in theory, yet IMHO doing so woild create a monstrous scar on the face of the city. Hastings (even in the DTES) is a major heritage street in the city, and the idea (again, IMHO) of putting an elevated guideway along it is a sacriledge, an amputation, a mutilation of the city's face.

In the DTES it would be tunneled, around Clark Drive is where it would become elevated.

[Bdawe]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

In the DTES it would be tunneled, around Clark Drive is where it would become elevated.

It's really a shame in retrospect that the city has made hastings permanently more expensive by locating all the condos and apartment blocks built in the last 20 years immediately fronting it. If urban planning was worth its salt it would be obvious that housing shouldn't have been put right up against the most polluted streets in the city rather than interior blocks

[scottN]

Originally Posted by Bdawe

It's really a shame in retrospect that the city has made hastings permanently more expensive by locating all the condos and apartment blocks built in the last 20 years immediately fronting it. If urban planning was worth its salt it would be obvious that housing shouldn't have been put right up against the most polluted streets in the city rather than interior blocks

I thought the whole point of our urban planning / zoning tradition was to make sure the rich/white people controlled all the good land and the poor/black/indigenous people were segregated into noisy, polluted and generally less desirable areas. By this measure it has been quite successful.

I think that framing the housing debate around "affordability" and "neighbourhood character" is a real disservice to our society. The debate should really be about how to correct past injustices perpetrated by the government itself.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by scottN

I thought the whole point of our urban planning / zoning tradition was to make sure the rich/white people controlled all the good land and the poor/black/indigenous people were segregated into noisy, polluted and generally less desirable areas. By this measure it has been quite successful.

I think that framing the housing debate around "affordability" and "neighbourhood character" is a real disservice to our society. The debate should really be about how to correct past injustices perpetrated by the government itself.

This is getting weird now... perhaps this response was meant for a different thread?

Back on topic:

I honestly don't see a Hastings line being anything other than a tunneled metro tbh . My reasoning behind that is (completely speculative, mind you) that it looks like you would have to take away traffic lanes in order to support an elevated line unless you wanted it to be Chicago-style elevated over the street. This not only reduces lanes on a major vehicle thoroughfare in Vancouver but it would also disrupt the neighbourhood/street in a way that would anger a lot of people that weren't necessarily against Skytrain extensions. I don't necessarily fight to preserve neighbourhood character (and I hate typing out the words myself) but an elevated line over Hastings would completely change the neighbourhood in a way that people weren't expecting.

IF it were designed so that it crosses at Second Narrows then I could see the Hastings line emerge around PNE. But I feel that Hastings is quite developed as it is right now. Although I will keep an open mind to an elevated line over Hastings, I think that an elevated line over Hastings wouldn't benefit the neighbourhood as a whole.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

This line would (will...) be very expensive so it will likely need to be elevated for much of its run along Hastings, nearly the entirety of Willingdon (only maybe short tunneled sections into downtown Metrotown and maybe downtown Brentwood to help reduce the grade) and for good sections of North Vancouver (maybe tunneled near Lonsdale).

Willingdon is a bowl between Brentwood and Metrotown so it would be underground there and elevated between them. It's handy that between Brentwood and BCIT there really isn't any housing along Willingdon.

To be fair, for the ground based routes (aka non Skytrain) they're saying "The vehicles would run in dedicated lanes at street level" and they've left the technology TBD - that makes some aspects of Network B make sense. Just adding more RapidBuses mixed in with traffic isn't enough.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Meh, most of Network B's extra lines are for coverage - the important part is frequency and stop spacing rather than efficiency. Or are there a lot of people clogging up Austin or Canada Way or 200th that I'm not aware of?

Originally Posted by scryer

IF it were designed so that it crosses at Second Narrows then I could see the Hastings line emerge around PNE. But I feel that Hastings is quite developed as it is right now. Although I will keep an open mind to an elevated line over Hastings, I think that an elevated line over Hastings wouldn't benefit the neighbourhood as a whole.

Yeah, if Broadway's too narrow for a viaduct, so is Hastings.

[Tvisforme]

If SkyTrain does cross at the Second Narrows, is it likely to be tunneled or elevated? If the latter, it might make sense in the long run to replace the IWM bridge at the same time. Whatever is built for SkyTrain, it is going to have to be fairly substantial anyway since an elevated crossing has to be high enough for ships to pass underneath. There might well be cost and design advantages to combining the two crossings into one with (for example) eight lanes of traffic plus SkyTrain tracks.

[scottN]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Meh, most of Network B's extra lines are for coverage - the important part is frequency and stop spacing rather than efficiency. Or are there a lot of people clogging up Austin or Canada Way or 200th that I'm not aware of?



Yeah, if Broadway's too narrow for a viaduct, so is Hastings.

If you look at the property lines in vanmap, Broadway is consistently 100 feet wide, Hastings is narrower coming in around 86 feet wide with some variation. However Hastings has a lot more undeveloped land (parking lots, etc) that could be used for elevated stations and a tunnel portal. I don't think it's really workable, except maybe between Renfrew Street and Highway 1 going past Hastings Park.

The Expo Line right of way through East Vancouver is generally 100 feet wide and it fits at grade, open trench or elevated skytrain plus a bike path and a local street Vanness avenue. Nanaimo station also fits within this right of way, but without an adjacent local street. Joyce has an adjacent street but there is more space. You could do a similar design along Pender Street, one block south of Hastings, which is 100 feet wide from Victoria Drive to Boundary Road. This stretch of Pender Street is presently all single family homes.

[xd_1771]

I only have this to say (err, post) about how the plan really screws over the South of Fraser region by calling for almost none of the SkyTrain-based investment to go to it:



Welcome to the status quo??? Basically letting the SoF get nothing of real value is the way we've been planning things for the past... 3 decades, and I guess nothing will be changing in the next 3. YAWN.

Wasn't it recently said that Surrey and Langley would grow to 1.2 million people by 2050? So 1.2 million people will settle for an inferior surface-level network, while North of Fraser gets a whopping 50 to 94 kilometres of additional SkyTrain on top of the 80 it will already have???

I guess it's good that this is still a very early concept. Nothing is final, and the actual course of the plan could be changed rather significantly... if there is significant public backlash.

[dleung]

Can we stop talking about elevated guideways in the middle of established inner-city streets lol

Let's demand better, like Toronto, which deemed this expanse of mostly industrial park and former airport lands along the expressway corridor as worthy of a 3 billion underground subway extension (bored no less!)


with it's Battlestar Galactica inspired subway stations in the middle of nowhere!

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

If SkyTrain does cross at the Second Narrows, is it likely to be tunneled or elevated? If the latter, it might make sense in the long run to replace the IWM bridge at the same time. Whatever is built for SkyTrain, it is going to have to be fairly substantial anyway since an elevated crossing has to be high enough for ships to pass underneath. There might well be cost and design advantages to combining the two crossings into one with (for example) eight lanes of traffic plus SkyTrain tracks.

It'll be elevated (as stated when they showed the 5 possible options).

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by GeeCee

Given the soil quality (and likely underground utility locations) in the area, I think a Gastown station would prove to be quite difficult anywhere north of Hastings.

Back in Feb 2019 in the Trasnit Fantasy thread, Fredinno said the underlying ground was sandstone.

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146531&highlight=hastings&page=82

On page 81 of that thread had posted this in reference to an extension of the Expo Line.

Originally Posted by officedweller

I think Maple Tree Square is the best location for a Gastown Station (the line could remain on the waterfront RoW with a walkway from the square).
Hastings would be a problem area for a station.

Stadium Station serves the west side of Chinatown, Main Street Station is close to the other side of Chinatown,
and the future streetcar will provide fine grain connections.

Here's where I'd place the tunnel and stations as an extension of the Expo Line:
(yellow = alternate)

https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2823403,-123.0929634,1451m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en-CA&authuser=0

See also:

Originally Posted by officedweller

Relevant to the Hastings - North Shore discussion:

The Hastings SkyTrain alternate reality.
https://orangeraisin.wordpress.com/2019/12/25/hastings-skytrain-alternate-reality/


Source: North Shore Transit Options, BC Transit, 1994.
https://orangeraisin.wordpress.com/2019/12/25/hastings-skytrain-alternate-reality/

[jollyburger]

The Hastings stretch is probably going to be controversial in terms of station selection. They'll be damned for building along the DTES or for avoiding it. It'll be interesting to see how many NIMBYs there are along Hastings against rapid transit.

[officedweller]

I guess the question is whether there are still any opportunities for gentrification on Hastings itself, anyways?

[Bdawe]

Originally Posted by officedweller

I guess the question is whether there are still any opportunities for gentrification on Hastings itself, anyways?

The rental apartment districts in the north end of Commercial drive and the area northwest of Hastings and Nanaimo still have some relatively low-market apartments

[nname]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

I only have this to say (err, post) about how the plan really screws over the South of Fraser region by calling for almost none of the SkyTrain-based investment to go to it:



Welcome to the status quo??? Basically letting the SoF get nothing of real value is the way we've been planning things for the past... 3 decades, and I guess nothing will be changing in the next 3. YAWN.

Wasn't it recently said that Surrey and Langley would grow to 1.2 million people by 2050? So 1.2 million people will settle for an inferior surface-level network, while North of Fraser gets a whopping 50 to 94 kilometres of additional SkyTrain on top of the 80 it will already have???

I guess it's good that this is still a very early concept. Nothing is final, and the actual course of the plan could be changed rather significantly... if there is significant public backlash.

Here are the approx length for each line:

Broadway: 6km
UBC extension: 7km

41st Ave: 16km
Hastings: 8km (6km to Cassier)
North Shore: 7km
Wellingdon: 6km
PoCo Branch: 2km

Langley: 16km
King George: 6km

So that's how I read the thing.. (I don't consider the gondola as "SkyTrain", and yes, they definitely count anything that's not in operation right now as "new")

Network B:
NoF: 6+7+8+6 = 27km
NS: 7km
SoF: 16km
Total: 50km

Network A:
NoF: 27+16+2 = 45km
NS: 7km
SoF: 16+6 = 22km
Total: 74km

Did I miss anything there? So how they get to 100km? I don't know, maybe they round every line up to the nearest 5km?

So in short, NoF maybe gets about 8km extra in term of population, and NS probably get a bit more for their share but consider they started with 0. So no one really get screwed over.

[casper]

Originally Posted by scottN

If you look at the property lines in vanmap, Broadway is consistently 100 feet wide, Hastings is narrower coming in around 86 feet wide with some variation. However Hastings has a lot more undeveloped land (parking lots, etc) that could be used for elevated stations and a tunnel portal. I don't think it's really workable, except maybe between Renfrew Street and Highway 1 going past Hastings Park.

The Expo Line right of way through East Vancouver is generally 100 feet wide and it fits at grade, open trench or elevated skytrain plus a bike path and a local street Vanness avenue. Nanaimo station also fits within this right of way, but without an adjacent local street. Joyce has an adjacent street but there is more space. You could do a similar design along Pender Street, one block south of Hastings, which is 100 feet wide from Victoria Drive to Boundary Road. This stretch of Pender Street is presently all single family homes.

The difference with the Expo line is it was built over the old inter-urban railway. Basically there was a series of old disused tracked all the way from Nanaimo to Metrotown. That is not the case with Hasting.

[nname]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

The Hastings stretch is probably going to be controversial in terms of station selection. They'll be damned for building along the DTES or for avoiding it. It'll be interesting to see how many NIMBYs there are along Hastings against rapid transit.

They could avoid this issue if they choose to go cheap and build it at-grade along the CPR track then transition to elevated/underground under that new underpass at Powell.

As far as I know, TL's prefer option for Hasting Line is to continue the expo track, so it'll have to run along the CPR track for at least some distance...