As is seen with Calgary's river system, it's not too difficult to strike a good balance between naturalized areas and river access areas. Ample amounts of both.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SFUVancouver
In fairness to the Vancouver Seawall, and with the greatest of respect for the phenomenal new section of Calgary's Riverwalk(?), Vancouver's Seawall it is literally a seawall and first and foremost must protect the shoreline from tides, king tides, and storm surges.
With that said, limited access to the water is a valid and widely acknowledged complaint about the legacy sections of the seawall. The original Seawall around Stanley park is more than a century old and still includes several beaches and points of access to the water. The beginning of the modern Seawall was built out during the Concord Pacific- (False Creek North) and Marathon/ASPAC- (Coal Harbour) urban redevelopment megaprojects and creating the amenity was honestly the priority, not making it the very best it could be, especially since those were built as community amenity contributions by the developers at no capital cost to the City.
There is still some direct waterfront access in David Lam Park [ example) but those darn King Tides and their extra meter of tide are a real thing [ example1, example 2]. They don't just affect False Creek, either: King Tide at Jerico Beach.
The new Seawall in the Olympic Village is totally different with respect to water access. It's a far more naturalized shoreline and direct water access in the more hard-scaped areas. It also includes a new 1 acre man-made island to compensate 2:1 for the loss of red-listed shoreline in the village core area. The City spent about $100M on Seawall landscaping in the Olympic Village, FWIW. |
Just as a response to the "section" terminology, there's about 4 kilometers worth of new Riverwalk built in the last 8 years that is all basically of the quality in the pic posted above, or even higher in the case of the Delta Garden. There's also about 500 meters about to begin construction, and a further 3ish kilometers proposed. It's pretty much just an entire revamp of the inner city waterfront, not just a new section. I know you didn't mean anything by it, I just thought I'd mention it
But you are right I totally forgot about the Olympic Village additions, that little man made island was one of my favourite places to chill back when I lived there. When I was critiquing the sea wall I was really only thinking about the area between English Bay and Coal Harbour. You are right that it's of course a protective barrier against the tides, but I still think more could be fairly easily achieved to encourage water interaction, and even just general "sit and enjoy" types of spaces rather than it just being a through-way for the vast majority of its length.
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