Downtown Vancouver Alleys
 

I'm pretty sure the state of downtown's alleyways have been discussed elsewhere, just couldn't find it.

I found this following article quite interesting and rekindled some of the enthusiasm I had over what we can do with downtown's alleys.

Would be such a great move to get rid of the alleyway bins, and replace it with another layer of urban density. There's a recent restoration done in Gastown I think that is sort of neat. I'm not talking about Blood Alley, but that's another one for sure.

Anyway, here's the article. About letting cafes set up shop. If SF can do it, if Seattle can do it, we should be able to do it too, in some areas.

http://www.news1130.com/news/local/a...come-a-reality

On a similar note, I can't help but imagine places like Pidgeon Park and some areas along Carrall St. as nice sites for streetside bistros/cafes.

What other interesting and innovating things should we be looking at wrt our downtown alleys? Laneway condos? lol

the potential of alleyways
 

In many European cities, what were once alleys, replete with open sewage, have become chic little streets with cafés, boutiques, and, quite often, prestigious, discreet addresses.

While not all alleys in Vancouver lend themselves to this type of transformation, some do. The removal of telephone poles, the cobbling of the street surfaces, and the use of back doors, combined with no-traffic zones on some alleyways could add a charming, European touch to the city.

Some wider spots might even be suitable for transformation into terraces.
What was done years ago in small parts of Gastown could be done elsewhere.

Hey, if Seattle is doing it, let's not get left behind! ! Cappucino, anybody?
:)

interesting idea. Blood alley is already staring this trend. the redo of galoers mews backs directly onto the alley and store fronts look out on to it as well. Salt lick and Judas Goat are trend setters in putting restaurants in the alley. Lots more potential but still a little too edgy for my liking.

The smell of urine and the sight of cracker jacks shooting up puts me off going down there. I'd rather see a focus on fixing the main streets first before we look at beautifying the alleys.

Sublime decrepitude. There's a ton of character in a lot of alleys. Clean them up a bit (not too much) and I think you've got an antidote to the too clean, too new and perfect and over designed streets. I think we really need to salvage the last bits of genuine character that might be left, wherever it might be.

For example, I think it would be neat if the Penthouse Cabaret could get something like "Character Heritage" status. If and when it gets torn down will be a sad day.

This is a pic of what you see when you go out the alley door of Army & Navy, just a little to the east. :)

http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/4299/dsc00281c.jpg
Dec.24 '09 my pic

there's definitely potential to do something with our alleys especially in Gastown. no need to look to Europe on this one. i was blown away by what Melbourne has done with their alleys. it's just so cool!

here's a website that describes each alley with pictures. Melbourne actually uses its alleys as part of their tourism.
http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/melb...ls.php?id=9408

http://travellingworm.files.wordpres...pg?w=450&h=600
http://travellingworm.wordpress.com/...-of-melbourne/
http://travellingworm.files.wordpres...pg?w=450&h=555
http://travellingworm.wordpress.com/...-of-melbourne/

unfortunately, Vancouver hasn't reached a level of sophistication (or maturity) that it could do this all night but during the day there's no reason we couldn't. isn't it time we take back our city from the urinating, shooting up folk?

Excellent points. Melbourne is twice the size of Vancouver, and a city needs to reach that size and critical mass before something like this can be done on a larger scale. But yes!! It's time we reclaimed our urban heritage from the addicts. This has already started in Gastown, but it needs to be done on a wider scale. I've never been to Melbourne. I hear it's one cool town.
;)

There's that large alley way off Smithe between Beatty and Cambie (behind Dix) that was supposed to get this kind of treatment years ago. I wonder why that never happened.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?oe=utf-8&...ed=0CAcQnwIwAA

could be interesting and no crackerjacks to worry about! I've still yet to try that place.

I don't think there enough impetus to transform the alleys yet, there is many other areas of the city that need focus first. As one of the previous posters noted, the city just hasn't reached critical mass to necessitate the alleys being transformed, blood alley may, but a couple of issues are the underground parkade entry off the alley (next to Judas goat) and the fountain hotel. Could be neat though.

more shots of melbourne's laneways

http://forum.melbournephotos.net.au/...49615f1548b1c6

Takes a lot of guts to be a patron of any establishment that looks like *that*.

Hepatitis in your coffee? More likely than you think!

this is a great idea. sf has a good number of these sorts of alleys, just off the top of my head, in the financial district:
- trinity street (a couple cafes)
- claude lane (a few restaurants)
- halfleck street (nice promenade with cafes, etc)
- maiden lane (famous for clubs and upscale shopping)
- harlan place (irish bank has basically colonised this baby)
- belden lane (very famous little restaurant row)

and then in chinatown there are at least a dozen more, including one housing the "home" of the fortune cookie, for whatever dubious distinction that earns the place. the thing in sf though is that they've always been used, so it's not like they're being re-purposed. that said, melbourne's arcades ought definitely to be what vancouver shoots for.

... is Vancouver big enough ...?
 

It seems that a city has to reach a certain size and critical mass to do a wide-scale "gentrification" project on their alleys.

Both Melbourne and San Francisco are much larger, and busier, than Vancouver, with more money and more culture.

But we got off to a start with that little corner of Gastown, and I am sure there are several other alleys in the city, in other parts of downtown (away from Needle Park) which would lend thmselves to this kind of treatment.

At least the idea has entered mainstream thinking, and that is the first major step.

you are right. the city isn't in dire need of space to create more stores, bars etc and personally I'd rather see areas like the dtes get focused on first. It doesn't seem to make sense to foucus on the lanes when many of the main streets are in a terrible state.

One or two laneways, however, such as blood alley and a couple of others around the area could be done to create some urban depth.

I thought there was supposed to be a push to remove dumpsters from laneways as part of a crime reduction initiative ?? As this been shelved?

Not really, this has been done in Victoria in a couple of alleys.

Hey, good point! But weren't those alleys right in the heart of the city; in the "touristy" area? I remember several charming old brick buildings there that had been converted to "period" shopping malls with central courtyards.

Anyway, if Victoria can do it, then it stands to reason that Vancouver can, too, although we don't have as many historic brick buildings (except in Gastown and DTES) which lend themselves to this type of conversion.
Maybe we should scout them out. You never know; they may be a neighbourhood ripe for gentrification, probably down East Cordova, East Hastings way.

But in addition, there are probably several downtown laneways that could be converted too.

I don't think we need to be looking at gentrifying all the alleys in the downtown core to get this initiative going.

What needs to be done is just change the zoning/bylaws to allow for such things to come to fruition in the first place.

This doesn't necessarily require big developers to get it going. This can be smaller scale enterprise, initiatives that can grow organically instead of being meticulously planned like so many other things are here. This doesn't have to be a resource hog that would take away from development in the DTES. I think this would work synergistically with the DTES gentrification initiatives very well, for example.

Putting in the groundwork can also mean that this concept that can be incorporated into future developments (i.e. density credits).

I'm also curious about where the alley bins issue is right now with the CoV. It's probably been a few years since this idea was part of any discussion. Did it just die? I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

I agree with the organic notion of allowing things to find their own way, something that is seriously lacking in this city.

the one alley i can think of is the one off cordova near cambie - where salgamundi west (the store) is - its already used by pedestrians a lot and its got some stores that you can walk into it from at the west entrance anyway...

also maybe teh alley beside chapters on robson - there is that park halfway down that backs onto the alley... also a good candidate

If Seattle can do it...
Think of the amount of people who live downtown Vancouver compared to the amount of people that live downtown Seattle

Population has less to do with it than political will. IIRC, Seattle got rid of the monstro garbage bins, which went a long way to get the ball rolling.

Vancouver, on the other hand, thought about the bin issue and eventually it got shot down by poverty advocates.

Can't these advocates see that they are always perpetuating the issues? Where is there any dignity in allowing the poor to crawl through dumpsters, not to mention the numerous health issues associated with it. As far as looking for bottles, I'm sure many businesses could be encouraged to put them aside or in recyling containers.

I believe that dumpsters are not the way of the future and I'm sure their days will be numbered.

Here's a email response I got from Dave Jones at DVBIA about the laneway dumpster issue:

The DVBIA and other BIA's were not able to move past a lengthy set of obstacles from the private sector. However, as often happens several businesses got together and have a trial program going in their lane where they share a tote service provided by one hauler who appears to be willing to step out of the dumpster mode and try new things. They have managed to reduce waste, cost and keep dumsters out of lanes. We are hoping to see more nearby businesses build on this success during this year. The social enterprise issue was not an impediment, nor was it the reason this did not move forward as quickly as the BIAs would have liked.

Was there ever a reason stated for why the city won't enact a bylaw?

I can't speak on behalf of the DVBIA, my understanding is the process was supposedly sabotaged by the trash haulers. They placed the trial out to tender and interesting no one was interested. I'm sure the DVBIA would be much more diplomatic in the assessment though. It was a shame as there was almost no down side to a trial.

delboy thanks for looking into this and posting your experience.

And yes, it does seem like the dumpster haulers want to maintain the status quo. Why would they want to change anyway? There is no incentive.

What needs to happen is either have a new entrant that starts up servicing these isolated dumpster-less laneways and have them grow their business lane by lane... or,

the city has to enact a framework that provides incentive for waste management companies to see dumpster-less waste removal as at least as good for business.

That's where I'm hoping things like the alleyway cafes might actually help move this forward. Perhaps if there's commercial benefit to clean alleys, you just might start seeing this happen.

This is sounding more like garbage haulers that are averse to change.

Want to know how to exert change? Do like what was done during the Olympics: tell them that they can only do their runs at certain hours. This is what happened at our condo and the haulers had zero choice.

a follow up to my comment on the sf alleys, with a bit of insight into how vancouver might get these babies up and running in various parts of town:
http://www.examiner.com/x-434-SF-Arc...-Up-your-alley

Although not the most pressing social or infrastructure issue in the city, I admit; whatever happened to the discussion of future use of alleyways? I say this because I notce that Paris has almost no alleyways used only for dumpsters and utility vehicles. The alleyways here - albeit designed in a different epoch and with a different schematology - are often charming, vine-covered passageways, with restaurants and cafés.

The infrastructure of Vancouver rather prevents this, simply due to size, shape, and function, but there surely ARE alleyways in the central city that could be converted into retail passageways and such, all of which is not only nice for the city, but good for tourist revenue.$$ :cheers:

from SSC

Melbourne - seems people don't mind eating close to dumpsters...

flickr piero.damiani

:previous: :previous: :previous: :previous: :previous: :previous:
Good entry! Shows the pertinence and feasability of bringing alleys to life. Thanks SpongeG!

That's Melbourne? That alleyway (except for the graffiti and the, well, white people) looks incredibly like Asia.

It would be cool if the owners of Judas Goat or another Blood Alley facing restaurant just set up lots and lots of tables and chairs. Throw a jazz band into the mix on Friday and Saturday nights and BAM! It would be a cool spot to hang out in.

I can see the liquor licensing being a bigger problem. It would be great if the whole of Blood Alley could be licensed without the need for the railings (like the ones around patios).

the lane's called Centre Place and leads into the Centre Arcade which fronts Collins Street:

http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3p6lurv...5-33-12-pm.jpg

google images: http://www.google.com.au/images?q=Ce...ed=0CDkQsAQwBA

Ugh, Im dieing to visit Melbourne! or maybe live there. Looks like such an amazing place.

the dumpsters in Yaletown are just as close. i guess we don't mind either.

Interesting concept/idea, although I’m not sure how the logistics would work with the current Vancouver alley set up.
And is it even worth the $$$ upgrades for a dozen extra tables of seating. Me thinks not.

Being an avid street photographer, here’s a sample…
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1253/...9f494404_o.jpg

Trounce Alley - Victoria BC
 

Love that alley. Went into the Tapa Bar one time - it was quite good.

was down in blood alley today - it stunk so gross - like urine really strong smell

That's the problem with Gastown being located cheek-by-jowl with the DTES.

and with it being surrounded by bars. Kids come out and piss in alleys at night. It's gonna be an issue anywhere there are drunks and dark spots. Blood Alley is a great little space but it always smells bad.

The City of Vancouver does collect trash. If the private sector is not interested, there is no reason why the City could not do this. Or the DVBIA could just hire people to run the trash to dumpsters on other alleys. They could get the Downtown Ambassadors to do this :)

Piazze
 

What we need are more piazze. Alleys are functional - many buildings rely on vehicle access that would otherwise be at streetside. Also, in our northern clime, many alleys are dark and damp.

Instead of another grassy open space which is a litterbox for dogs, create a piazza devoid of vehicle traffic (and vehicle noise), and surrounded by small shops and food/drink establishments and with enough aspect to get sunlight.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...g?t=1278299355

Blood Alley could (should) look like that