Time for Vancouver to Tear Down Its Viaducts?

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by officedweller

People from the suburbs don't come downtown unless necessary (i.e for work).
I think we'll see a drop in discretionary travel from the suburbs to downtown, especially as the suburbs mature and offer comparable services / retail as downtown.
There are a lot of disincentives, including traffic, high parking costs and time wasted.

Reducing traffic from the suburbs is a good thing. The livable region plan envisaged several "city centres" around the lower mainland that could provide employment, services and recreation so as to minimize vehicle miles traveled. It was a good plan then and it's still a sensible goal today.

Perhaps rather than decrying the state of the road infrastructure, more effort should be put into trying to convince governments, companies and developers that these distributed centres are a better idea.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Honestly, I think transit should continue to be improved before we do that. Currently transit access to Coal Harbour and the West End is mediocre at best.

Another East/West Line going through downtown should be investigated. The Expo Line is beginning to hit fairly serious capacity constraints. I'm not sure why you'd want to take out a parallel route of travel without providing a better transit alternative first.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Perhaps rather than decrying the state of the road infrastructure, more effort should be put into trying to convince governments, companies and developers that these distributed centres are a better idea.

Poor road infrastructure has caused north shore town centres to struggle to find workers of any type even at $20+ an hour. The 90 year old Tomahawk restaurant (oldest in Vancouver?) is close to shutting down because no one in their right mind wants to commute there, yet their property taxes have gone through the roof as Marine Drive densifies.

People from the suburbs, especially the north shore, work downtown. You can't build a moat around it.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The question of the truck route was covered in the 2015 Report to Council.

"The proposed new Georgia Ramp connecting from Beatty Street to Pacific Boulevard, and the new Pacific Boulevard from Georgia to Main Street will be designed to accommodate full size goods movement trucks, transit buses and coaches and would replace the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts on the City’s truck route network, preserving route connections present today and providing additional connectivity and access options.

Similarly, it is also anticipated that the Georgia Ramp and the new Pacific Boulevard between Georgia Street and Main Street would become a part of Translink’s Major Road Network (MRN), as a replacement of the existing MRN connection on the Georgia Viaduct from Beatty Street to Main Street." [source]

That will be a nice auditory experience for those living near it.

[madog222]

Render of Concord Pacific's "Creekside Pop-up Park" showing a temporary alignment of Pacific Blvd leaving way for viaduct demolition. Construction this spring for summer opening.



From Daily Hive article on the park.

[Migrant_Coconut]

I still maintain that it's hard to get attached to a temporary park... and if people somehow do, that it's going to be incredibly hard to tear it down and build the permanent one.

[flipper316]

Originally Posted by madog222

Render of Concord Pacific's "Creekside Pop-up Park" showing a temporary alignment of Pacific Blvd leaving way for viaduct demolition. Construction this spring for summer opening.



From Daily Hive article on the park.

Lol half basketball court. Can't even bother to build a full one.

[officedweller]

Based on the drawings, I don't even think the permanent park will have basketball courts or tennis courts
- it's more of an artsy creative park heavy on "design" rather than sports.

Originally Posted by whatnext

That will be a nice auditory experience for those living near it.

I wonder if the Georgia ramp will be heated to melt ice in winter.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by officedweller

I wonder if the Georgia ramp will be heated to melt ice in winter.

Nah, it'll just smell like beets and pickles like the rest of Vancouver's roadspace.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Pinion

You say this like poor road infrastructure isn't already a giant problem in this city. We have LA level traffic jams with one fifth the population. Carmageddon is happening already, that's why people are so upset.

Spoken like someone who has never driven in LA.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I still maintain that it's hard to get attached to a temporary park... and if people somehow do, that it's going to be incredibly hard to tear it down and build the permanent one.

They just renovated the kids park at Science World. They inexplicably took down the old park in the old location before even building the new park. Even then, people survived.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Based on the drawings, I don't even think the permanent park will have basketball courts or tennis courts
- it's more of an artsy creative park heavy on "design" rather than sports.



I wonder if the Georgia ramp will be heated to melt ice in winter.

The court under the Yaletown side of cambie bridge is really popular. Of course it helps that it has mini-walls for soccer/hockey, and is undercover. I think more multi-use spaces like that, even not covered, would be busy.

[Vin]

How much is the temp park and road going to cost tax payers? Another 50mil?

They are really opening new cans of worms so much now by wanting to tear down the viaducts.


Oh WarrenC12, the best locations for those "covered recreationbal/sports facilities" you just mentioned would have been gone with the removal of the viaducts as well.

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Spoken like someone who has never driven in LA.

Do we really need to compare to the worst of the lot? Might as well say our traffic is smooth-sailing compared to rush hour Bangkok.

[WBC]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Reducing traffic from the suburbs is a good thing. The livable region plan envisaged several "city centres" around the lower mainland that could provide employment, services and recreation so as to minimize vehicle miles traveled. It was a good plan then and it's still a sensible goal today.

Perhaps rather than decrying the state of the road infrastructure, more effort should be put into trying to convince governments, companies and developers that these distributed centres are a better idea.

That's a nice idea and it is happening already particularity with services, recreation and shopping. However, you cannot exactly control where employment is happening and you cannot align your job to where you live unless you are lucky.

We need to continue to improve mass transit and in particular access to downtown where the most of employment growth seems to be. Office towers in burbs have much higher vacancy rates then the ones downtown...I see nothing in the current 10 year plan that would improve downtown access from any side and even that plan is not fully approved and funded. On the other hand we have constant chipping away at the road infrastructure downtown. So you are probably looking at 20 years before anything gets built that would help downtown access. In addition, the downtown transit itself needs improvement if current densification continues (and in particular West End and western parts of downtown).

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Spoken like someone who has never driven in LA.

My dad's side of the family is from California, I've driven all over the state. I often stay with my uncle in Santa Barbara and drive to LA and back for the day, that's less painful than the north shore to downtown Van sometimes.

But please continue to try to dismiss reality.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Pinion

Poor road infrastructure has caused north shore town centres to struggle to find workers of any type even at $20+ an hour. The 90 year old Tomahawk restaurant (oldest in Vancouver?) is close to shutting down because no one in their right mind wants to commute there, yet their property taxes have gone through the roof as Marine Drive densifies.

People from the suburbs, especially the north shore, work downtown. You can't build a moat around it.

I wouldn't dispute traffic to the NS is worse in the past few years, but 'd be careful of trying to correct the right issues. traffic in the past few years is from commuters going to the NS for work, not the other way around. Many of those workers are home building contractors, with others going to the seaspan yard.

Interestingly, studies would suggest that a fine tipping point has been reached and a small decrease in traffic may dramatically improve things. I'd also be careful of planning infrastructure for issues that may be transient (NS housing construction slows down? federal contract ends with the shipyard?).

“Quite often, the situation is a lot more complex,” Walton said. “We know a lot more information than we did a year ago and we have to understand that information before we can make meaningful solutions because they can take 10 or 15 years of shifting investment and policy to address.”

According to the last 10 years of data, the North Shore’s population has been growing by about half a per cent per year while the total number of daily trips over the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing grew at a slightly slower rate.

But, along with changing demographics and ballooning land prices, there’s been a shift in commuting patterns.

The percentage of North Shore residents who also work on the North Shore has risen from 46 per cent to 50 per cent, but the number of people commuting from south of the Burrard Inlet has gone up by 14 per cent from 17,260 to 19,660 according to the census data.

Jardine compared that number with the volume of building and demolition permits granted by the North Shore’s three municipalities and found similar growth, suggesting much of the new traffic is building contractors coming to work on North Vancouver and West Vancouver homes.

“I would say there’s a strong pattern that tends to support that observation,” Jardine said.

The census numbers likely don’t capture many of the subcontractors who are only here working on a job site for a couple weeks at a time, Walton said.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Pinion

My dad's side of the family is from California, I've driven all over the state. I often stay with my uncle in Santa Barbara and drive to LA and back for the day, that's less painful than the north shore to downtown Van sometimes.

But please continue to try to dismiss reality.

Then you're just blowing smoke. There's no way you can compare regular commuting in Vancouver to LA. It's ridiculous.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Pinion

My dad's side of the family is from California, I've driven all over the state. I often stay with my uncle in Santa Barbara and drive to LA and back for the day, that's less painful than the north shore to downtown Van sometimes.

But please continue to try to dismiss reality.

If you drive from santa Barbara to vannuys/san Fernando, that would be an easier drive, but anywhere south of the santa monica mountains would be a major headache.

IMO, LA traffic >>>>Vancouver traffic.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Then you're just blowing smoke. There's no way you can compare regular commuting in Vancouver to LA. It's ridiculous.

LA traffic has horrible traffic for sure but it has five times the people. Vancouver has bad traffic because of poor infrastructure and social engineering.

Originally Posted by mezzanine

I wouldn't dispute traffic to the NS is worse in the past few years, but 'd be careful of trying to correct the right issues. traffic in the past few years is from commuters going to the NS for work, not the other way around. Many of those workers are home building contractors, with others going to the seaspan yard.

Right, I've posted that myself about 25 times on this forum. Road infrastructure for me is like malls for Vin. The frustrating thing is how little has to be done to fix it.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Pinion

LA traffic has horrible traffic for sure but it has five times the people. Vancouver has bad traffic because of poor infrastructure and social engineering.

.

If you want to compare LA County (9.8 million people) with Greater Vancouver (2.4 million people), you also have to acknowledge that as well as 4 times the population, they have 4 times the land area. Their population density is 800/sq. km. Metro Vancouver is 854/sq. km. - so actually quite similar.

Los Angeles always seems to have horrible traffic compared to Greater Vancouver. I've always assumed that was because of poor infrastructure and social engineering. They've finally started adding decent transit and dedicated bike lanes Downtown, but they have some way to go to catch Vancouver. Under 6% took transit to work in LA Metro in 2015, and even in LA City it was under 10%, and falling over the previous 10 years. In Greater Vancouver the proportion of commuters using transit in 2016 was over 20%, up from 16% ten years earlier.