Time for Vancouver to Tear Down Its Viaducts?

[Stingray2004]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

Slight correction: The viaducts can't be torn down by the city of Vancouver. Metro Vancouver (Translink), however, can.

Further slight correction. Only the CoV can tear down or contract out the demolition of the 'ducts (because they own same) - NOT Translink! Nevertheless, when the CoV included the 'ducts as part of the MRN in 1999, they warned Vancouver citizens about the consequences!

In any event, Translink, as part of Metro Vancouver, will NEVER allow the 'ducts to be removed. Other Metro Vancouver municipalities have also requested parts of the MRN to be removed within their jurisdictions to no avail.

One such MRN removal was granted after many years of requests by Delta council - however with a HUGE caveat:

The section of former Hwy 10 (now Ladner Trunk Road) between Hwy 17 and 72nd (?) Ave. - ONLY when the SFPR is completed and ONLY because it will provide a "superior" alternative. That's the litmus test folks!!!

That leads to one final point... current Vancouver city council MUST have received the same advice on this matter.... nevertheless over $$1/2 million dollars of CoV taxpayer's funds have been wasted on same. What's the point??? I still don't "get it" unless this exercise is to score strange political points, which will likely backfire. Makes no reasonable/logical sense.

[logan5]

Getting rid of the viaducts might actually improve the flow of traffic by having a calming influence. The viaducts are like a fire escape during a fire (rush hour) only to create a knot of traffic where people are going nowhere fast.

[Stingray2004]

Originally Posted by logan5

Getting rid of the viaducts might actually improve the flow of traffic by having a calming influence. The viaducts are like a fire escape during a fire (rush hour) only to create a knot of traffic where people are going nowhere fast.

Sorry, but ya gotta be kidding!

The 'ducts flow thru ~41,000 vehicles/day from West Georgia St. in the downtown core, which is also part of the MRN!!!

NW False Creek will eventually be a massive dense neighbourhood and THAT'S where the future traffic will flow if the 'ducts are theoretically removed. That's building a vibrant, pedestrian/bicycle-oriented community???? Ya gotta be kidding me, right???

And West Gerogia St., part of the MRN, is also connected to the Lions Gate Bridge, which the VPB has announced will be gone circa 2030 - ~18 years from now.

And this will remove vehicles from the road and provide a traffic calming influence along the "Georgia corridor" for the Metro Vancouver downtown core when another 1 million people are expected to reside in Metro Vancouver over the next two decades???

And I suspect that you likely will expect that everyone should walk, ride a bike, or take transit??? And that the vehicle is a dinosaur???

Sorry bud, and I don't mean to be offensive, but your reasoning skills need some further "honing"!

Edited to add: Our company got fed up with the time delays travelling thru the downtown Vancouver core, parking, etc. about 8 years ago. Moved to an office park in Richmond, which is extremely convenient and provides definate daily travel time-savings as vehicles are needed during the day. And folk here wonder about the snail pace of office building construction within the downtown Vancouver peninsula. (the office building boom was during the '70s and into the '80's) Go figure.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

And West Gerogia St., part of the MRN, is also connected to the Lions Gate Bridge, which the VPB has announced will be gone circa 2030 - ~18 years from now.

Sorry bud, and I don't mean to be offensive, but your reasoning skills need some further "honing"!

My reasoning skills are fine. Tell me more about the demise of the Lions Gate Bridge.

[Stingray2004]

Originally Posted by logan5

My reasoning skills are fine. Tell me more about the demise of the Lions Gate Bridge.

Yuppers. Vancouver Parks Board has expressly stated that traffic (current ADDT ~70,000 vpd) will no longer transit along the Stanley Park Causeway, leased to BC MoT, circa 2029.

Been discussed on this site many times before. Come on, are ya REALLY from Vancouver or from somewhere else? haha

[dreambrother808]

I've never heard that discussed on here before.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by amor de cosmos

new contest:

the details:
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/reconnect/brief.htm

I love how the image at the top of the page prove what BS it is when people say the viaducts cut through Strathcona. There is virtually no Stratchona south of Venables (save one row of houses). The park and the railway yards cut it off from the rest of the city.

[geoff's two cents]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

the snail pace of office building construction within the downtown Vancouver peninsula.

?

Plenty of new office has entered the market in recent years as part of mixed-use developments - Jameson, Hotel Georgia, etc.

And, last I read, there are at least three significant office-only projects currently in the making.

Perhaps you meant "snail pace of office building construction" relative to condo construction?

[IanS]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Just heard on News1130 that Suzanne Anton has confirmed Meggs viaduct study is DOA if the NPA are elected.

That single promise is enough to get me to vote NPA.

[amor de cosmos]

cbc coverage
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-co...-vancouver-viaduct-georgia-dunsmuir.html

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by amor de cosmos

cbc coverage
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-co...-vancouver-viaduct-georgia-dunsmuir.html

Love how the piece focuses on the High Line when the reality would be a new surface street and more bland Concord Pacific towers.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

I will wager that the BSB and the GSB will be around for ~ another 100 years with proper maintenance and refurbishment.

Interesting factoid about the Granville Street Bridge - the City has three full-time positions for people whose sole function is to paint the girders beneath the bridge. It takes about 10 years to work their way from one end of the bridge to the other, and then they start over again.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Interesting factoid about the Granville Street Bridge - the City has three full-time positions for people whose sole function is to paint the girders beneath the bridge. It takes about 10 years to work their way from one end of the bridge to the other, and then they start over again.

I've heard a similar factoid about the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

http://www.goldengatebridge.org/research/facts.php#PaintEndtoEnd

Like the Golden Gate Bridge, I would think the local bridges get constant spot maintenance and painting, rather than a comprehensive end-to-end paint job.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by IanS

That single promise is enough to get me to vote NPA.

Haha, me too, and since i know live in Vancouver I can finally vote against Meggs!

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

Like the Golden Gate Bridge, I would think the local bridges get constant spot maintenance and painting, rather than a comprehensive end-to-end paint job.

It was Peter Judd, Vancouver's Chief Engineer, who described the Granville Bridge's maintenance, so the source seems trustworthy.

I managed to find the video where I heard this - you can see it here: http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/transport/videos.htm. Search within the page for "Granville" to find the relevant video. His comments on maintenance start at 3 minutes, 11 seconds into the video. It's an interesting view, and there are a lot of other interesting videos on that page as well. Unfortunately it seems like they've stopped producing them, a shame.

Of course the Granville Bridge has a lot of exposed steel - I have no doubt that the viaducts and newer bridges such as the Cambie Street bridge would require a lot less maintenance.

I appreciate the work that goes into maintaining our transportation infrastructure. As a taxpayer I recognize that the kind of maintenance that's done on the Granville Street bridge is expensive, but it's well worth it, IMHO. I'm very glad to see that they're replacing most of the highway 1 overpasses as part of the PMH1 project whether they need it or not. The last thing we want in Vancouver is a bunch of Montreal-style collapsing infrastructure.

[wrenegade]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

Yuppers. Vancouver Parks Board has expressly stated that traffic (current ADDT ~70,000 vpd) will no longer transit along the Stanley Park Causeway, leased to BC MoT, circa 2029.

Been discussed on this site many times before. Come on, are ya REALLY from Vancouver or from somewhere else? haha

I know it has been discussed a bit but I've never seen proof. Show me proof.

Also, just because they can doesn't mean they will. Beyond the massive blow to property values on the North Shore and the office market downtown, it would have a huge affect on tourism. I don't think there is possibly a worse decision that the CoV could make.

[Smooth]

Haven't seen this link posted here yet:
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/reconnect/index.htm

Looks like a design competition for the area. I assume it leans towards having the viaducts demolished.

[deasine]

Aerial parks suggested for downtown viaducts, old Port Mann Bridge


An example of what we could see here in Vancouver. Pictured here: High Line Park in New York, which converted a rail line into pedestrian park.

VANCOUVER -- The idea of turning the Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts — or even the old Port Mann Bridge — into elevated parks was been raised with two Vancouver authorities this week.

Elevated parks are already in use in places like New York and Paris, but it’s an idea which is just being introduced in the Lower Mainland.

The idea of turning the old Port Mann Bridge into an aerial park was floated at a Metro Vancouver parks committee session on Wednesday and also suggested to the City of Vancouver committee examining the future of the downtown viaducts.

While there’s little chance the old Port Mann Bridge will be turned into an aerial park — in part because it’s too late to change plans for its demolition, say provincial Crown officials — turning some portion of the Vancouver viaducts into an elevated park may be more feasible.

Gordon Price, director of The City Program at Simon Fraser University, said because the city is still deciding what to do with the viaducts, one of them might be appropriate for an elevated park.

“It’s not like it’s the only thing down there that people might want to recreate on, but it does have some value,” said Price Thursday, who is also a part-time professor in community planning at the University of B.C. and a former Vancouver city councillor.

Price said the High Line Park in New York and the Promenade Plantee in Paris have “revolutionized” the way people think about parks in cities.

In New York, a former elevated freight rail line was turned into a 1.6-kilometre walkway in 2009, while a 4.7-kilometre elevated parkway was created in 1993 in Paris out of an old railway line.

The City of Vancouver began extensive public consultations on the future of the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts this summer. The city will consider several options to partly or completely remove the viaducts, which serve as an important passageway into downtown for about 40,000 drivers daily.

The viaducts were built nearly half a century ago as part of a downtown freeway plan that was later abandoned.

Vancouver city councillor Geoff Meggs said the idea of an elevated park is always the second or third idea that surfaces in discussions on the future of the viaducts.

It was Meggs who urged the city to examine whether the viaducts could come down.

He said there is some merit in considering the elevated park idea, but cautioned that it could be costly. “It’s been successful in New York because of the enormous densities [of people] and a lot of philanthropic contributions,” Meggs said Thursday.

Gaetan Royer, Metro Vancouver’s new manager of metropolitan planning for regional parks and environment, pointed to the High Line Park in New York as an example when he raised the idea of turning the old Port Mann Bridge into an aerial park at the parks committee meeting.

He said Thursday turning the old Port Mann Bridge into an aerial park was not an official proposal, but said it is important to start asking “big questions” about whether old infrastructure can be turned into parks. It’s important to consider these ideas because it could provide options to create parks in areas of the highest population density and save money, said Royer.

The elevated-park idea could apply to the Dunsmuir and George viaducts, he said.

Max Logan, a spokesman for the provincial Transportation and Investment Corp. overseeing the $2.4-billion construction of the new Port Mann Bridge, said it wouldn’t be feasible to turn the old bridge into an aerial park because the entrances to the old bridge are needed to complete the entrances to the new 10-lane bridge.

He said he could not provide a cost estimate for the demolition of the old Port Mann Bridge, which is included in the $2.4-billion construction project cost.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Additional Images:

Could the old Port Mann Bridge become an aerial green space?


The old Port Mann Bridge twinned during the Gateway project.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Aerial+...+Bridge/5515296/story.html#ixzz1a7uS5wT5

(Vancouver Sun 2011)

While I'm not sure Port Mann might be the best choice to showcase an aerial park, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea for other bridges that may be replaced in the future (Lions Gate Bridge? Viaducts if they will be decommissioned for road use?)

[IanS]

Originally Posted by deasine

(Vancouver Sun 2011)

Isn't the purported reason for the proposed removal of the viaducts to free up land for development? That assertion has been pretty convincingly debunked in this thread, I think, but doesn't Meggs at least need to pretend that there's a benefit to be gained by the viaducts removal?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by wrenegade

I know it has been discussed a bit but I've never seen proof. Show me proof.

Also, just because they can doesn't mean they will. Beyond the massive blow to property values on the North Shore and the office market downtown, it would have a huge affect on tourism. I don't think there is possibly a worse decision that the CoV could make.

In its current form, the CoV seems capable of making all kinds of worse decisions. However, complicating their wish list is the fact the federal government owns the park and merely leases it to Vancouver. They could always revoke the lease should they feel it to be in the interest of the greater good. Nicely linked to the viaduct issue, in that had Project 200 gone ahead, traffic would have gone under Burrard Inlet by tunnel and been removed from the park. Harcourt & Co. seem to have forgotten that when they were backslapping each other over killing the project.

There's no way the vaiducts would become an aerial park, with Concord chomping at the bit for a return on their "investment".