Millennium Line - Evergreen Extension | Completed

[quobobo]

Originally Posted by TransitJack

Was Gilmore's roof not meant to be temporary, and replaced (or incorporated) into a building design for the site? I thought I read that once.

Perhaps in the post you quoted?

[Rico]

Originally Posted by queetz@home

Let it go finalcoolman. EL Partners participated in the bid and lost. There is a reason for it, clearly aesthetics is not a priority for the Provincial government who is running the show.

The rebuilding of the Main St station is baffling for sure, I grant you that. But it is a Translink initiative, and a controversial one at that since it was pushed by their own board members with little input from anyone else. Ultimately, its just to make the passengers a little bit more comfortable and upgrade its look. But at the end of the day, it wasn't necessary and we all know how Translink loves to waste money on things unnecessary.

That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Evergreen Line / Lougheed station platform the way it is now. It will serve its function well, and that is what needs to happen first and foremost. Aesthetics is not required....and tbh, the mere existence of the Evergreen Line itself more than makes up bringing improved aesthetics in the area.

The Main St station is mainly about passanger flow for increased Expo line capacity.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by TransitJack

Was Gilmore's roof not meant to be temporary, and replaced (or incorporated) into a building design for the site? I thought I read that once.

I read it somewhere - it's also on the station's wikipedia entry:

As the station is expected to be incorporated into a new commercial complex, the wood and metal frames were designed to be easily disassembled and then reconfigured, maintaining the artistic intention of the station and accommodating any future alterations to the SkyTrain line or development around it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilmore_Station

[GeeCee]

Work is now certainly underway on Pinetree.. there are support beams up already. Pinetree is kind of a clusterf**k heading south though - no right turn on red permitted onto Lougheed. I think I waited through three or four cycles before I could turn right yesterday afternoon due to all the pedestrians crossing the street.

[nname]

I was on a bus just after the end of peak hours.. took about 20-25min to go 1 stop from Lincoln to Coquitlam Station

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by GeeCee

Work is now certainly underway on Pinetree.. there are support beams up already. Pinetree is kind of a clusterf**k heading south though - no right turn on red permitted onto Lougheed. I think I waited through three or four cycles before I could turn right yesterday afternoon due to all the pedestrians crossing the street.

Are you talking about Pinetree & Barnet? That has a dedicated right turn lane from southbound Pinetree onto westbound Barnet. And it's not one of the intersections that I've ever seen a lot of pedestrians on. Is the no right turn thing new due to construction?

I think I remember seeing something about a pedestrian scramble intersection at Pinetree and Guildford, though. That's what you need to solve that kind of problem.

[Zassk]

Originally Posted by finalcoolman

Ok, your post makes no sense AT ALL. Do not give me the penny pinching argument for other projects when the fact is stations like Main are getting beautiful expensive Millennium Line grade renos.

Are you sure you're not just overstating the quality of the Main St renovations? The Main St renovations don't look like Millennium/NDP/goldplated stations at all, to me at least. They look very low budget, and I doubt they will compare well to the Lougheed renovation. A few panes of curved glass do not make Main St superior to this new Lougheed roof.

Face it, we will never again see the building materials or design that you see in places like Sapperton Stn. They were superficially nice, but a total waste of money. (I would rather have had a 3rd platform built at Columbia with the money saved by building plainer Millennium stations.) Every time I see one of those ornate stations, I see Glen Clark's grinning face.

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by Meraki

Bombardier's submission would have continued the existing canopy design, but they didn't win the bid.

SNC-Lavalin has refined corruption down to an art, so what can you do.

Actually, it's probably not corruption, but something just as stupid.

With the way the Government used to sign contracts, it would not surprise me one bit if Translink/the Province did not own the rights to the roof design. In a lot of older government contracts the designers/builders retain the rights to any IP.

For example, the designs of the BC Ferry Spirit Class ships are not owned by the government. So if the ferry corp wanted to build a third ship they would have to buy rights to the designs. With the ships they built in Germany, BC Ferry corp owns the designs as part of the contract, so if they wanted a 4th one, they could take the blueprints to anyone.

SO perhaps a company not involved with SNC-Lavalin owns the designs. And that company was a part of the Bombardier bid. So out of spite, they won't sell (or SNC won't buy) the original plans for the new roof, so SNC had to do something for their bid. If SNC put up the original roof design in their bid they probably would have been sued.

[Jebby]

Am I the only one who is completely unimpressed by the roof on Lougheed Station?

[officedweller]

Info on the steel work for the old Lougheed Station here:

http://www.tboake.com/steel/ssef/skytrain/lougheed.html

It's not a light and airy design, but it looks good from afar
- it has "presence" in the community.

Other M-Line station steel info here:

http://www.tboake.com/steel/ssef/project_gallery.html#2

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

its a shame they couldn't go with the original roof really i think. i think the original isn't all that great but is cool and unique in a way. i would rather have a completely matching roof then what looks like a mismatching of styles that don't compliment each other. they just arent even remotely a little similar.

though of course it could look different when done from what the renders/current construction is showing.


on another note, i think the basket weave would have been pretty cool, though the way it is now it doesn't look bad so i have no complaints about it really.

but that roof is just, disappointing, so far at least.

[hollywoodnorth]

Originally Posted by Zassk

Are you sure you're not just overstating the quality of the Main St renovations? The Main St renovations don't look like Millennium/NDP/goldplated stations at all, to me at least. They look very low budget, and I doubt they will compare well to the Lougheed renovation. A few panes of curved glass do not make Main St superior to this new Lougheed roof.

what are you going on about? Main Street will be one of the flagship stations when completed ... if not THE FLAGSHIP station. the reno's so far look amazing with the new East Station House just about to open up.

[DKaz]

It's the station that started it all. The station badly needed these upgrades. There was inadequate weather protection. The passenger flow was terrible. Too many stairs. No elevator or escalators on the east side. So in addition to all these upgrades, we're going to gain a bicycle parkade kinda deal, as well as two additional CRUs, one on the east house and one on the west house (for a total of two in the west house).

Maybe some of the touches are a tad overboard, like granite walls by the elevator. But overall it's going to be a terrific station. Good riddance to 80s design.

[queetz@home]

Originally Posted by DKaz

Maybe some of the touches are a tad overboard, like granite walls by the elevator.

Granite walls??? Oh my, Jordan Bateman is going to have a field day if he hears about this...

[Meraki]

Originally Posted by queetz@home

Granite walls??? Oh my, Jordan Bateman is going to have a field day if he hears about this...

It's a shame we'll never manage to accept metro stations beyond anything except its functionality. All the talk of the "gold plated" Millennium line stations don't even compare to well designed attractive works of art like you see in Stockholm, Copenhagen and elsewhere.

[queetz@home]

Originally Posted by Meraki

It's a shame we'll never manage to accept metro stations beyond anything except its functionality. All the talk of the "gold plated" Millennium line stations don't even compare to well designed attractive works of art like you see in Stockholm, Copenhagen and elsewhere.

Well, we *can* make our stations be like the ones in Stockholm and Copenhagen. I've seen them myself and they are pretty impressive. Personally, Stockholm is the closest thing to heaven for me (just ask the Swedish forumers in SSC how I was like a kid in a candy store).

*BUT* you do realize in order to have the things that Stockholm and Copenhagen has, it will require a societal shift, plus we need to be rid of people like Jordan Bateman. Because the only reason why those stations are as beautiful as they are is the extremely high taxation rate, very socialist governments, low population growth, and a fairly homogeneous society with a strong cultural base (i.e. remnants of the Viking adventurous and survivalist culture still remains there).

[Xerx]

Originally Posted by queetz@home

*BUT* you do realize in order to have the things that Stockholm and Copenhagen has, it will require a societal shift, plus we need to be rid of people like Jordan Bateman. Because the only reason why those stations are as beautiful as they are is the extremely high taxation rate, very socialist governments, low population growth, and a fairly homogeneous society with a strong cultural base (i.e. remnants of the Viking adventurous and survivalist culture still remains there).

There is a Swedish Taxpayer's Association, which from the look of their website advocates for similar things that Jordan Bateman does(wasteful spending, lower taxes etc.). As for very socialist governments, Sweden and Denmark have and had right-wing governments respectively. And there has been more immigration to Sweden in recent decades.

I'm just saying that I have trouble believing that cultural reasons are why Stockholm and Copenhagen have more nice-looking stations. Might the reason be costs? Are construction costs any lower in Stockholm/Copenhagen than they are here?

[queetz@home]

Originally Posted by Xerx

There is a Swedish Taxpayer's Association, which from the look of their website advocates for similar things that Jordan Bateman does(wasteful spending, lower taxes etc.). As for very socialist governments, Sweden and Denmark have and had right-wing governments respectively. And there has been more immigration to Sweden in recent decades.

I'm just saying that I have trouble believing that cultural reasons are why Stockholm and Copenhagen have more nice-looking stations. Might the reason be costs? Are construction costs any lower in Stockholm/Copenhagen than they are here?

Immigration in Sweden is mostly refugees from war ravaged countries or disaster areas (i.e. Thais from the tsunami). Though there are a few economic migrants, there are other places in Europe where its *easier* to find opportunities or setup a business. Part of the barrier on immigration is language, weather, and again, extremely high taxes. And for the entire country, its no where near the immigration here.

And those pretty stations were built because the existing tax rates at that time and even today allow it. It also allows "free university", and on Denmark, young people are easily given grants to buy computers for themselves (per my Danish best friend). We don't have ANYTHING like that in all of Canada, so to expect our transit system to have as much funding as in Sweden and Denmark is futile. Its way too much apples and oranges, not even sure why it was brought up.

Cultural reasons also play a big part. Swedish society (as well as other Nordic countries like Denmark) has this "Law of Jante" that frowns upon individual overdisplay of wealth and achievement and places all efforts on the collective (hence better looking public areas). This is SO not Metro Vancouver, especially where flaunt of wealth while hatred for high taxes (which *supposedly* help provide more programs for the whole society) is so prevelant .

[queetz@home]

Drove at the North Road area again. Weather was crappy so no pics, but my observations...

1) The slanted guideway above Como Lake is not 100% fixed as of today. Its still slightly mis-aligned, but there were lots of workmen at both ends. So presumably they are still working on it. Whether it means more road closure, we don't know...

2) The guideways are in place up to the last of the Burquitlam Station beam. The last segment is still attached to the gantry crane so I guess the epoxy is still drying (though its been wet lately so I dunno how that will work).

3) There is only *ONE* column left to be poured between Foster St and Cameron. The rest are pretty much complete, with only the form on top of a column immediately south of Gatineau Place and a few of those square thingies on top need to be filled for the one south of that (and north of the steel guideways).

4) The stack of rails that I reported at the South Tunnel portal area seemed to have increased in volume. Maybe they will be used for the TBM and may be stored there while they reconfigure the North Tunnel portal area, but still seems so counterintuitive to store them there, only to move them later (plenty of places to put them in North Port Moody). I do feel that perhaps those rails are for the Skytrain, and they will start to instal them once the Como Lake guideway has been fixed.

[jsbertram]

Nighttime Structural Work near the Lafarge Lake-Douglas Station

Nighttime delivery and installation of girders (large concrete beams) is required at the Evergreen Line’s Lafarge Lake-Douglas Station starting the week of April 21. Due to the size of the girders and the high volume of daytime traffic on Pinetree Way, nighttime lane closures are required to safely maneuver the girders into place. The girders will form the platform for the future station.

more info and the PDF:
http://egrtconstruction.ca/media-centre/...k-near-the-lafarge-lake-douglas-station/