SkyTrain Station Renovations

[officedweller]

An underground path system won't happen unless you have large enough office complexes with significant retail. The cost of one or two connections to a small office building would be cost prohibitive.
A potential connection under Burrard St to Park Place was proposed in the 1980s but was never built because there's not much retail under the tower.

[BaddieB]

I wish someone could map out Vancouver's scattered underground building connections. There's the largest around Pacific Central with The Bay and Norstrom building with Granville and Vancouver City Centre, the underground connections from Burrard Station, and the underground connections from Waterfront Station to Waterfront Centre Mall, the Sinclair Centre, and if I'm not mistaken connections to the convention centre too?

[GMasterAres]

Silver lining underground path system: Could help house the homeless like pretty much every other city in the world that has existing underground path systems... Let's get real though, as other have said, will never likely happen unless the surface of the Earth becomes uninhabitable.

Even worse-case climate change projections have Vancouver shifting toward having a climate similar to San Diego and it's not terrible in San Diego.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by BaddieB

I wish someone could map out Vancouver's scattered underground building connections. There's the largest around Pacific Central with The Bay and Norstrom building with Granville and Vancouver City Centre, the underground connections from Burrard Station, and the underground connections from Waterfront Station to Waterfront Centre Mall, the Sinclair Centre, and if I'm not mistaken connections to the convention centre too?

I think you got them all.

Pacific Centre (incl. Pender Place) & Vancouver Centre (incl. VCII) (Vancouver City Centre Station)
Bentall Centre & Royal Centre (Burrard Station)
Vancouver Convention Centre, Waterfront Centre & Sinclair Centre (Waterfront Station)

Harbour Centre is not connected and the other buildings downtown tend to be standalone buildings with streetfront retail and underground parkades.
Bentall V and Park Place are not connected.

[jollyburger]

I guess there's no pedestrian passageways around any of the Robson Square/Law Courts development?

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by BaddieB

I wish someone could map out Vancouver's scattered underground building connections. There's the largest around Pacific Central with The Bay and Norstrom building with Granville and Vancouver City Centre, the underground connections from Burrard Station, and the underground connections from Waterfront Station to Waterfront Centre Mall, the Sinclair Centre, and if I'm not mistaken connections to the convention centre too?

I think that's a great idea. Sure, Vancouver is nowhere near the PATH system in Toronto or La Ville Souterraine in Montreal, but it has potential to grow. // Alors, anyone capable of making that map?

[Vin]

Beyond the 80's, someone had the bright idea of bringing all foot traffic to the ground surface. This is good to a certain extent, but when a city gets more crowded, it is good to have alternatives.

[LeftCoaster]

Having lived in Toronto for years, the PATH is a miserable place.

Vancouver has no where near the downtown office density to support a similar network either.

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Having lived in Toronto for years, the PATH is a miserable place.

Vancouver has no where near the downtown office density to support a similar network either.

I picture PATH like one of those sci-fi slums underneath a city, full of cobbled together structures, unsanitary conditions, vagrancy, poverty, criminality. A place like that, assuming they're open 24/7 to the public, would probably need a 24/7 foot patrol

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

I picture PATH like one of those sci-fi slums underneath a city, full of cobbled together structures, unsanitary conditions, vagrancy, poverty, criminality. A place like that, assuming they're open 24/7 to the public, would probably need a 24/7 foot patrol

For better or for worse it is closer to the cyberpunk sci-fi future where the entire PATH network is controlled by different corporations.

But that does mean that they have the right to kick out any homeless people they want since it's not a public sidewalk.

[jollyburger]

Doing a bunch of public realm work underneath the station

• Video Link

[BaddieB]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

I think that's a great idea. Sure, Vancouver is nowhere near the PATH system in Toronto or La Ville Souterraine in Montreal, but it has potential to grow. // Alors, anyone capable of making that map?

Not to mention the entire 'underground area' below W Cordova and Canada Place.

[jollyburger]

To prepare for the future Oakridge Park redevelopment, TransLink, QuadReal, Westbank, and the City of Vancouver are upgrading Oakridge–41st Avenue Station on the Canada Line. Construction will begin on Monday, September 16 and is expected to last approximately one year.

The developer, Oakridge Park, is paying for most of these upgrades, with additional funding from 2022 for new escalators coming through TransLink’s Capital Projects program.

Once the project is completed, Oakridge–41st Avenue Station will include:

Two new escalators to improve customer accessibility at the station.
A new street-level station entrance canopy for better weather protection.
Direct underground mall access from the station for more efficient travel.
New public art inside the station.

https://www.translink.ca/news/2024/septe...041st%20avenue%20canada%20line%20station

[officedweller]

Despite the renderpeople, I think it would make sense for the pair of escalators to be both 'up' escalators and one by the stairs to be the 'down' escalator.

[jollyburger]

The entrance into the basement floor of Oakridge Park is underwhelming. It looks like someone went into the Granville Expo line station and saw the basement connections and thought those looked nice and just copied them. The earlier proposals for the transit plaza had a giant staircase in between those sets of escalators. They just need some ugly dark gray tile to finish the look.

Video Link

[Lexus]

2024, Sep 14

Cambie & 41Ave

Untitled by Lexus LX, on Flickr

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by Vin

Beyond the 80's, someone had the bright idea of bringing all foot traffic to the ground surface. This is good to a certain extent, but when a city gets more crowded, it is good to have alternatives.

Worst idea in a wet city.

The ideal is actually to have a bi-level sidewalk, where the ground serves transit/taxi's, bikes and the upper level is foot traffic and restaurant patio's. Then when it rains, you just use the lower level.

I kind of hate how buildings in Metro Vancouver have increased the ground-level sidewalk space, and yet nobody uses that space for the intended purpose because it's a pain to setup and tear down patio furniture on the whim of the weather. Part of this is cities like Vancouver and Burnaby not actually having the zoning define what can go in it. It's such a waste to see like "parking space" sized patio areas, and what's actually in the building is like a dentist office. If the building has 800sq ft of sidewalk/patio space, then that building should have a restaurant, or permit a food truck to use that space.

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Having lived in Toronto for years, the PATH is a miserable place.

Vancouver has no where near the downtown office density to support a similar network either.

Funny, yet buildings like the Bentall centre have underground businesses (though many of them are closed, and there's not a lot of foot traffic) same with the Royal Center on the other side.

These underground spaces exist, just they're not connected in ways that make a lot of sense. Like how do I get from Waterfront to Bentall to Granville? Take the Skytrain, because the only other way is to walk it in the wet weather.

[griswold]

Disappointing but not surprising that they cheaped out on the swoopy design of the station entrance that kept with the aesthetic of the project.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Having lived in Toronto for years, the PATH is a miserable place.

Vancouver has no where near the downtown office density to support a similar network either.

The PATH isn't miserable. In fact, I love it, and it is considered one of the attractions for visitors to Toronto.

The street level in Toronto can be miserable when there is a blizzard on the ground level.

[LeftCoaster]

It can also be miserable on the sidewalk when its 35+ in the summer and you wear a suit to work. There is no doubt the path has it's utility. but don't confuse utility with desirability. Hospitals have incredible utility, but I don't want to spend more time in one than I need to.

When the path is your only option because the weather is foul. the path is miserable place to be. No windows, stale air, workers trudging to and from Union, varying levels of upkeep throughout.

We should be happy we live in a place where the path isn't as required as it is in Toronto. For me it's a point of pride that we don't need a +15 or Path, because our weather isn't hostile to human life.

Also, in all my years in Toronto never heard of tourists checking out the underground connections between office buildings. That's a pretty shit tourist attraction.