8 East Broadway | 62m | 21fl | U/C - Page 4

WarrenC12 · #61 Posted **Sep 3, 2026, 5:09 PM**

One thing all of these European cities have, and places like Tokyo that have pedestrianized streets, is they are literally covered in multiple rapid transit lines.

People aren't driving or riding bikes for the most part. They are doing some walking and able to get anywhere and everywhere on a spaghetti layout of rail lines. We are far from that.

AlessioSBT · #62 Posted **Sep 3, 2026, 5:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

One thing all of these European cities have, and places like Tokyo that have pedestrianized streets, is they are literally covered in multiple rapid transit lines.

People aren't driving or riding bikes for the most part. They are doing some walking and able to get anywhere and everywhere on a spaghetti layout of rail lines. We are far from that.

We are but that's the classic chicken and egg problem.

Public transit infrastructures require a lot of money, and a lot of money from the government requires numbers to justify it.
If we don't change the city at all people keep using cars, because people keep using cars there are no numbers to justify building extra infrastructures for...non-cars.
You need to build the "streets/plazas" first but then you have to assume there will be years of traffic problems.

This is why usually you include that in something like the broadway plan. But again, seems like we are not capable to think in that way.

mcj · #63 Posted **Sep 3, 2026, 5:48 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlessioSBT

We are but that's the classic chicken and egg problem.

Public transit infrastructures require a lot of money, and a lot of money from the government requires numbers to justify it.
If we don't change the city at all people keep using cars, because people keep using cars there are no numbers to justify building extra infrastructures for...non-cars.
You need to build the "streets/plazas" first but then you have to assume there will be years of traffic problems.

This is why usually you include that in something like the broadway plan. But again, seems like we are not capable to think in that way.

It's actually not a chicken and egg problem at all, we have sufficient transit being built underneath Broadway. The example of Stroget doesn't have anywhere near the level of transit Broadway will have once the Skytrain is complete. Even Copenhagen's entire metro system is currently half the size of ours.

We can do this, it's a cultural problem, not a "lack" of transit. Most European cities with streets like this have less transit infrastructure than we do, just a different culture when it comes to car use in the city centre.

Alex Mackinnon · #64 Posted **Sep 3, 2026, 6:19 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

I wish Canadian cities had the courage to do something like what Copenhagen did with the Strøget: a highly car-focused urban retail street in the centre of the city that was fully pedestrianized and turned into the crown jewel of the city (and its most valuable retail area).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Str%C3%B8get

Source

Strøget presented as a case study:

https://globaldesigningcities.org/public...n-streets-case-study-stroget-copenhagen/

The Stroget is pretty cool, but it's use as a transportation throughfare regardless would have been very limited. It's barely wider than a typical laneway in Vancouver. A couple measurements on google confirmed it's under 10 metres from building to building in numerous places.

If the city wants to pedestrianize something similar, it would likely be an alleyway, not Broadway which is triple the width.

If you wanted a example of a similarly big street being a pedestrian way, it would be something like Las Ramblas in Barcelona.