Quote:
Originally Posted by fredinno
That's not how that works. TransLink, not West Van, provides bus service (for all practical purposes, I know about the Blue Bus, but they're contracted for TransLink).
Same with development demand- people will live wherever they can buy a decent home they can afford, not just West Van.
Yes, NIMBYs, but the thing is that densification and sprawling out isn't likely an either/or. (One of TransLink's Transit 2050 Scenarios (Automation-Derived Growth, I think it was?) has the population growing by 90% by 2050 (unlikely, but that's pretty much the upper possible boundary- after that I'd be worried about genetic engineering, but I'm getting off track) - and I'd like to point out that Vancouver is already falling vastly short of previously-made dwelling construction projections.
https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/09.../figure-html/projections_vs_actual-1.png
https://doodles.mountainmath.ca/blog/2019/08/01/on-vancouver-population-projections/
My worry is that something WILL break and the current Urban Growth Boundary isn't enough to keep Vancouver's RE situation turning to SF levels of bad.
I may be wrong, (I live next to Willoghby, and have witnessed its transformation first-hand - just off Google Earth Historical View I'd suggest we've eaten through 2/5th of it since 2003, without doing any measurements)
Redevelopment is most likely to be focused on Ambleside due to the "Grand Bargain" problem (and as West Vancouver is planning). For West Vancouver, distrupting the hornet's nest too much could kill the YIMBY goose, so you have to be careful to only step on the ones that provide the most cost-benefit ratio.
If Point Grey accepts Townhomes and Lowrises in the future city-wide plan outside the arterials, I will concede that the NIMBY parts of the North Shore may be worth a 2nd look. |
"West Van bus service" as in "bus service for West Van overall" - doesn't matter if it's TransLink, Blue Bus or CMBC, there's always going to be a finite amount of buses and/or drivers. Headways beyond Dunderave are only every 30 minutes as it is.
A big part of TOD is
being on the way: the main transit corridor is Marine, so build on Marine and gather more and more ridership until there's cause to expand to 7-15 minute service. The new suburb can be as transit-friendly as possible, but it won't matter so long as it requires TransLink to waste resources on brand new Upper Lands lines instead of improving Marine... and then everybody is stuck with crappy 30-minute service.
Well, at least Point Grey has actual growth - it's a certain kind of achievement, being the only municipality in the metro to be
shrinking in the middle of a housing crisis.
I'd argue that the Lower Mainland's sprawled as much as it needs to for the next century, that West Van's hardly going to make or break the supply problem on its own, and that by the time Ambleside's all built out and we have even 145% of 2020's population (let alone 190%) many of the NIMBYs will no longer be with us.
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