Quote:
Originally Posted by Moomintroll
I do, however, live within a block of where the Viaduct spits out at Main Street, so yes I do have a vested interest, but it is in creating a more livable and economically successful neighborhood.
1) That said, is the status quo actually working for the City? Not really - it's a stub of a freeway and neither here nor there with regards to their role in traffic flow as they basically dead-end into either residential or commercial neighborhoods (and moving east, it means either going through Strathcona or the Drive). Now if you want to talk about making them real highways with connections out to Hwy 1, that's another thing, but like I said before, those options are not currently on the table.
2) Main Street is an important commercial street and the viaducts currently create a barrier at street level. Continuing the urban fabric up and down Main would help to better integrate CityGate with Strathcona/Chinatown (and in the future SE False Creek as those sites get filled in - one site where DeSerres is already in the works).
3) Between Taylor and Quebec, the current situation means that development is severely compromised as you have less than 100' clear between the structures - less than most single-family residential lots. Opening up the site would allow for maybe 3 towers plus podium.
4) From Main to Gore you'd probably want to step down the density to the east to make it more contextual to the lower-scale Strathcona neighborhood, but some density is possible at Main Street. Alternately, this could easily be a real park, rather than a weird patch of grass next to an on-ramp.
5) Will removing the viaducts create major traffic problems? My gut is that it will not, particularly if some changes are made to surrounding streets, but that's why there is a report currently being done and let's allow the engineers to run the traffic modelling and we'll see. The Georgia Viaduct is just about a km long, so the difference between moving at say 30km average and 60km for that distance is about 1 minute (I think I'm doing the math right). There's a good chance that you'll hit a light anyways Downtown, so the traffic system is only as efficent as its weakest link - so while you are going faster, you're not necessarily moving more people.
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Well I'd have to say Strathcona/Main St. is probably the most politically active neighbourhood in the city right now when it comes to matters like this. You probably live down the street from me.
1) The viaducts work great right now off peak. They used to work really well when Dunsmuir was still functioning properly (but thats a different debate). From Nanaimo to Viaducts there's usually very little traffic, and what backup you see is largely from the Bike Lane making an ineffective mess out of the Beatty intersection. They carry 50000 cars per day much better than the average Vancouver arterial.
There's only 3 real options here as far as changes go.
A) We build the Malkin Connector and accept the Viaducts as an effective way of traffic calming Strathcona and Citygate. Probably also a fair chunk of coin.
B) We knock down the Viaducts and make $100M ramps up to Georgia and Dunsmuir connected to Expo, using up most of the available real estate.
C) We knock down the ramps force all traffic to stick to surface streets. All traffic merges with existing Cambie St. traffic on Nelson/Smithe and on Pender.
2) The Viaducts themselves actually are pretty nice looking structures on Main. They landscaping and upkeep not so much. Sure they're a barrier, but they're also a neighbourhood boundary. There's already a big shift in the urban fabric without the viaducts there.
3) I'd suggest building the podiums up to viaduct level, offices perhaps and then landscape the roof with a cantilevered sidewalk on the viaducts to give access to the ducts. One or two small towers on top. Sure it will create a heck of a light canyon, but I honestly like how it makes that part of the city feel. Especially around Costco. It makes the city feel huge for once, like a glimpse of what you can really do with space. It would also be in line with the shoehorned in developments on GM place.
4) I'd say park. Its a good location for a park, but currently it's horribly neglected. I maintain that if you left the viaduct in could easily camouflage the freeway with any decent earthworks to make a decent park there, even though the block is 50% freeway. Gore and Union has significant green space on 2 sides of the intersection, but no one gives enough of a — to make anything of it. As is this rather upsets me currently.
5) I'd say yes, it will depending on what's done. Any merging of Prior St. traffic into Expo/Pacific traffic will be an extremely high traffic intersection with many phases and large left turn volumes. The worst option would be to not build replacement ramps, placing most traffic on Nelson and Smithe. The Cambie St. Bridge traffic would be sharing space with former viaduct traffic. At 50K and 60K trips for the viaducts and Cambie St. bridge that would place obscene amounts of traffic on those routes. Even Germans can only push 2.4K vehicles through a freeway lane in an hour.
There's your 2 new chokes.
I said this a while ago. I think something like this should happen. Bring Prior down to a 2 lane street, get E-W traffic on Main St. and Expo/Pacific. Red/Blue is main concept. Pink/Cyan is an alternate route.
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Unlike the Bike thread with its narrow viewpoint, some here are properly looking at how the Viaducts could holistically fit into wider road infrastructure.
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