Downtown Vancouver Updates

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by officedweller

They'll be toned down like Telus Garden.
Deja vu all over again!

Likely so. It's unfortunate that they toned it down so much that now it fails to register at all when seeing the night time skyline. They should have kept the top part brighter than the bottom.

[Klazu]

https://www.burrardstreetjournal.com/new...st-supermarket-to-be-visible-from-space/

[officedweller]

Yeah, Telus condo lights should be the same intensity as the Telus office building's lights.

Originally Posted by Metro-One

It still boggles my mind that such light displays were not installed where they should have been, on the Nordstrom building at Granville and Robson.

That blank canvas above the London Drugs sign is also screaming for some sort of lighting feature or signage.

So strange, but then they put one here on Davie street...

Agreed - for both of those sites.
Mayeb they need to be "art" to get through.
Look at the process for the Bonnis sign on the Best Buy / Winners building.

[s211]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Richards & Smithe Park

By me today:

I walked past the site on the weekend, and I previously didn't realize they were bottle-necking Richards to just one southbound lane at Smithe. The left-hand lane in this picture no longer exists.

As a single, combined right-turn and through lane southward, it's already buggering up traffic right royally. Traffic was backed up more than a block during a quiet afternoon.

The ideological car-hate in this city is such a disgrace. And I await the civic apologists' empty rebuttal in three, two....

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by s211

I walked past the site on the weekend, and I previously didn't realize they were bottle-necking Richards to just one southbound lane at Smithe. The left-hand lane in this picture no longer exists.

As a single, combined right-turn and through lane southward, it's already buggering up traffic right royally. Traffic was backed up more than a block during a quiet afternoon.

The ideological car-hate in this city is such a disgrace. And I await the civic apologists' empty rebuttal in three, two....

Who cares if it disrupts traffic as long as they get to burnish their greenwashing cred? It's criminal that when the city is so short of money they went ahead with a project to redo something they had just done a few years earlier. Classic bureaucratic waste.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by s211

I walked past the site on the weekend, and I previously didn't realize they were bottle-necking Richards to just one southbound lane at Smithe. The left-hand lane in this picture no longer exists.

As a single, combined right-turn and through lane southward, it's already buggering up traffic right royally. Traffic was backed up more than a block during a quiet afternoon.

The ideological car-hate in this city is such a disgrace. And I await the civic apologists' empty rebuttal in three, two....

There will be two lanes. There's no need for a left turn lane because Smithe is a one way street headed west. Where there are streets headed east, there will be three lanes at the junctions.

[officedweller]

There's technically 2 lanes through the intersection,
but after crossing you *may* have to merge left due to parked cars.
There will be parking restrictions during evening rush hours (see dashed lane lines next to parked cars below)
but that restriction will only be from Dunsmuir to Nelson - not all the way to Pacific.
So in that section there will be a full 2 lanes during those times, but at other times, effectively only one lane due to parked cars.
(and Nelson to Pacific will only be one lane all the time)

Right now, it's messed up more than it will be due to the old bike lane on the west side of the street.


https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/design-boards-2018-december.pdf

[s211]

Originally Posted by officedweller

There's technically 2 lanes through the intersection,
but after crossing you *may* have to merge left due to parked cars.
There will be parking restrictions during evening rush hours (see dashed lane lines next to parked cars below)
but that restriction will only be from Dunsmuir to Nelson - not all the way to Pacific.
So in that section there will be a full 2 lanes during those times, but at other times, effectively only one lane due to parked cars.
(and Nelson to Pacific will only be one lane all the time)

Right now, it's messed up more than it will be due to the old bike lane on the west side of the street.


https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/design-boards-2018-december.pdf

That may be what the plan says, but that is not what I saw on the ground. That plan seems to be missing a corner sidewalk bulb that projects onto Nelson. There is only one lane of southbound traffic in real life.

[GenWhy?]

The idea during peak, if I'm correct as we had a Client go bonkers over this at a meeting, is to retain 2 lanes south so cars can still access Smithe (dog leg south across Granville Bridge) and Nelson (south along Cambie) while everything south of that takes you into a residential area with no False Creek crossings. Otherwise you'd most likely be using another road to commute on that doesn't dead end.

[Aroundtheworld]

Originally Posted by s211

That may be what the plan says, but that is not what I saw on the ground. That plan seems to be missing a corner sidewalk bulb that projects onto Nelson. There is only one lane of southbound traffic in real life.

It's called a construction site. Traffic lanes get reduced temporarily. It's how it works.

[officedweller]

Here are some pics @ Smithe posted by me a couple weeks ago in the bike/ped thread.
In the first pic there is room for 2 lanes on the left (curb lane doubling as right turn/straight through) once the current bike path is removed.

Originally Posted by officedweller

Richards bike lane at Smithe.

Pics by me today.

[Changing City]

Meanwhile, in far less controversial news, the glazing is going up on 601 W Hastings - and I know there are people here who will be really excited that it's not grey like the render, but .... (drumroll please) .... seafoam!

(I thought it was OK seafoam - it looks to me to be tinted rather than natural iron-in-the-glass seafoam, and it's a good contrast to the 1970s black and chrome eccentricity of 333 Seymour).

[officedweller]

That's a dark (canyon-like) area, so the seafoam may brighten it up.
Is it similar to Telus Garden's glass?
An office tower in seaform isn't as bad as a condo since the mullions will likely be nicer (and no stucco!)
I guess the question is what the spandrel panels look like. They look tall on the rendering.
Hopefully it doesn't look like the glass on the reclad of TO's Simpson Tower:
(But that may look better on the cleaner 601 design):

https://urbantoronto.ca/database/projects/401-bay-street-formerly-simpson-tower

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by officedweller

That's a dark (canyon-like) area, so the seafoam may brighten it up.
Is it similar to Telus Garden's glass?
An office tower in seaform isn't as bad as a condo since the mullions will likely be nicer (and no stucco!)
I guess the question is what the spandrel panels look like. They look tall on the rendering.
Hopefully it doesn't look like the glass on the reclad of TO's Simpson Tower:
(But that may look better on the cleaner 601 design)

I'm always cautious about describing blues and greens, as they seem to be seen differently by individuals. I think there's more blue than in the Telus glass, and far less grey than the example you posted. You'll have to check it out and see what your view is. Or we can wait for Mcminsen, who I'm hoping is hunkered down and perfectly fine.

[officedweller]

I'll have to wander past when I get a chance.
Other classic seafoam green towers are Guinness Tower and Oceanic Plaza.
The Westin Grand has a very turquoise blue hue that could be called seafoam.

But it sounds like it'll brighten up the area (which has a lot of stone and concrete facades).

Yeah, I was wondering about McMinsen as we haven't heard from him recently.
(Not even a pic of Deliotte Summit from his condo window).

[s211]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Here are some pics @ Smithe posted by me a couple weeks ago in the bike/ped thread.
In the first pic there is room for 2 lanes on the left (curb lane doubling as right turn/straight through) once the current bike path is removed.

Check it out again. I decided to give it a second look this afternoon to make sure I wasn't hallucinating and I can confirm there's only one vehicle lane at the intersection. Planners and bureaucrats pointing at plans as evidence of reality need to get out more often.

[s211]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Meanwhile, in far less controversial news

Typical urbanist dismissiveness of anything they don't agree with.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Yeah, I was wondering about McMinsen as we haven't heard from him recently. (Not even a pic of Deliotte Summit from his condo window).

mcminsen is live and well and out and about, making daily posting of beautiful photos of Vancouver in the Canadian threads, especially the daily weather thread.

[Galaxy]

The controversial topics list:
Bike Lanes Check
Spandrel Check
Seafoam Glass Check
Changingcity! like poking at a hornet's nest!

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

The controversial topics list:
Bike Lanes Check
Spandrel Check
Seafoam Glass Check
Changingcity! like poking at a hornet's nest!

A lot more to add to that list like height restrictions and other outdated restrictive urban development policies, along with the admittance of failure of the DTES social strategies that are currently in place (or real solutions for the DTES), and decent housing/employment strategies to accommodate this generation and the next one coming up.