Burnaby Updates

[madog222]

Originally Posted by fredinno

There's technically Highgate Village, but even that's 14 min away from Edmonds- so it's not even really within walking distance.

Also, Highgate's more of a strip mall that anything.

Hwy 1A (and thus, the older commercial strip is also 12 minutes (minimum) from Edmonds.

Edmonds Town Centre's core is at Kingsway & Edmonds and was first designated in 1987, after the skytrain was built.

Highgate is just the name of the development that replaced the Middlegate Shopping Centre.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Timurglund

браво, ваша мысль великолепна

Thanks?

Originally Posted by madog222

Edmonds Town Centre's core is at Kingsway & Edmonds and was first designated in 1987, after the skytrain was built.

Highgate is just the name of the development that replaced the Middlegate Shopping Centre.

No, it was technically a district center- which were removed later on, promoting Edmonds to a town center.
http://urbanshift.ca/projects/burnab...s-town-centre/



The Rumble St. location itself was a cost-cutting measure from actually going through the 'center' of Edmonds, which would mean following the path the interurban actually took (rather than the later freight railway) by turning onto Edmonds as a streetcar and then turning again down to Uptown New Westminster.

That would also make having the town center be adjacent to Uptown New Westminster also viable, but that area is also just SFHs.

[ecbin]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Nah, Broadway will have nothing on Kingsway being the true Great Street. 7 lanes of smoothly flowing traffic, surrounded on both sides with veeeery wide sidewalks with bike lane and restaurant patios, shadowed by a towering canyon of more than a dozen 50-70 storey skyscrapers. There is going to be nothing like it in Metro Vancouver and Broadway of tomorrow will pale in comparison.

We have VERY different definitions of "Great Street". With a few exceptions (Paris with the Champ Elysee blvd) Great Streets do not consist of 7 lanes of smoothy flowing traffic. Prioritising cars far above pedestrians (and cyclists) does not make for a great street and Kingsway does exactly that - Kingsway is about moving cars from point A to B and those cars don't stop along the way so they add nothing but noise to the neighbourhood.

I'm not against arterials - they're a necessary "evil" in city building but let's not pretend that arterials can also serve as the core of a great street if the car is the priority.

If we can traffic clam an arterial like Broadway (and make cars less of a priority) then we can traffic calm Kingsway and make it so that pedestrians can comfortably cross the street and we have MORE pedestrians. We can do the same for Lougheed around Brentwood - it won't kill anyone to add a min or two to their commute.

[NetMapel]

Originally Posted by fredinno

http://urbanshift.ca/projects/burnab...e-model-cont1/

The problem is that the most congestion occurs around the City Centers.
That includes congestion for buses.
Even bus lanes don't work well when the car lanes are completely full and the bus has to do a left turn.

Burnaby designated these areas as Town Centers back in the 60s and were based around having existing services and businesses, and being major hubs regardless of transit.

This meant putting them on the regional highway network, which means there was always going to be wide roads going through them.

Edmonds didn't have a regional highway going through its center- and probably ended up suffering from it, because it never had or has sufficient services or commercial activity without the existing network of businesses from its auto-oriented days.


I guess there's not any loud, dirty cars and trucks going through the center- but it's also kind of a 'condo ghetto' that's not much of a hub for anything.


Being easily accessible by car also often means it's easily accessible by buses.

Let me just start off by saying that I very much appreciate you bringing good insights which are excellent for discussions!

I can’t really speak for the development or underdevelopment of Edmond relative to some other Burnaby town centres. I lack the historical context for it so I can only speak about my present day observations. I am also certainly not advocating for those roads I mentioned earlier to be changed immediately. I understand that unless proper alternatives are provided, it is not an ideal position. So I am only speaking about a trend and pattern that I have observed, aka an area is getting built up and fast cars on wide roads don’t tend to fix well with that. As ecbin said earlier, arterial roads are necessary evils. My argument is more or less that these roads passing through a town centre basically lost their meaning of being an arterial road that can move a lot of cars fast. In the examples I’ve mentioned before, that is because strangely enough, we keep building parking lots and drive way that open directly onto those roads. I absolutely blame city planners and developers for allowing that if they actually want a particular road to be high-capacity and function as it’s originally intended. That is the definition of a stroad and stroads end up being crap for both drivers and people outside. So traffic calming around the town centres seems to be the next logical step like what many other cities are doing it. I don’t think it is unreasonable that an urban centre like to be somebody’s destination and not a pass-through, right? I am just thinking out loud here and looking at other cities as examples to follow.

An interesting observation I have made that I also would like to share with both you and Migrant_Coconut Is that Lougheed Hwy already has two or more lanes (one on each side) blocked off currently due to SkyTrain’s constructions. I drive as well yet I have not found that to be burdensome. I have also yet to hear traffic apocalypse due to that even during rush hours. So I guess it isn’t too crazy to suggest that a scenario which we take away a single lane would cause undo burden? OEB breakfast has a patio that faces Lougheed Hwy directly and it is always full despite the car traffic noise right by it.

[Migrant_Coconut]

I'll take your word for it - I was just at Brentwood yesterday and didn't see any of that. Four lanes is the minimum needed to keep buses flowing, so I wouldn't expect any more lane removal than what's already there.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by NetMapel

Let me just start off by saying that I very much appreciate you bringing good insights which are excellent for discussions!

I can’t really speak for the development or underdevelopment of Edmond relative to some other Burnaby town centres. I lack the historical context for it so I can only speak about my present day observations. I am also certainly not advocating for those roads I mentioned earlier to be changed immediately. I understand that unless proper alternatives are provided, it is not an ideal position. So I am only speaking about a trend and pattern that I have observed, aka an area is getting built up and fast cars on wide roads don’t tend to fix well with that. As ecbin said earlier, arterial roads are necessary evils. My argument is more or less that these roads passing through a town centre basically lost their meaning of being an arterial road that can move a lot of cars fast. In the examples I’ve mentioned before, that is because strangely enough, we keep building parking lots and drive way that open directly onto those roads. I absolutely blame city planners and developers for allowing that if they actually want a particular road to be high-capacity and function as it’s originally intended. That is the definition of a stroad and stroads end up being crap for both drivers and people outside. So traffic calming around the town centres seems to be the next logical step like what many other cities are doing it. I don’t think it is unreasonable that an urban centre like to be somebody’s destination and not a pass-through, right? I am just thinking out loud here and looking at other cities as examples to follow.

An interesting observation I have made that I also would like to share with both you and Migrant_Coconut Is that Lougheed Hwy already has two or more lanes (one on each side) blocked off currently due to SkyTrain’s constructions. I drive as well yet I have not found that to be burdensome. I have also yet to hear traffic apocalypse due to that even during rush hours. So I guess it isn’t too crazy to suggest that a scenario which we take away a single lane would cause undo burden? OEB breakfast has a patio that faces Lougheed Hwy directly and it is always full despite the car traffic noise right by it.

Thanks.

It would be easier to block off lanes if you had a large number of parallel roads- however, only Vancouver and New Westminster really have functional 'grids' outside the arterials.

This doesn't mean you couldn't try creating alternate routes, (like Still Creek Dr. or Broadway for Lougheed and Wayburn for Metrotown), but they usually require controversial things like building through parks or destroying some homes to be possible.


Surrey's learning this the hard way, and the North Shore will too.

There's also the problem of actually trying to get people to use the alternate routes- Surrey put up signs showing how long different routes take to go down to Surrey Central for this reason.

That still should probably be done (on the short run, it allows for better traffic flow and access, and on the long run, would allow enough excess capacity to narrow the arterial streets and have the cars passing through bypass the town centers instead (see: Lougheed Hwy/Haney Bypass through Maple Ridge, Langley Bypass, 12th Ave, etc.).


Eg. for a Broadway Extension to 1st Ave:


Bypassing Amazing Brentwood (this would destroy the Willingdon Heights Dog Park and single-family homes):

Originally Posted by ecbin

We have VERY different definitions of "Great Street". With a few exceptions (Paris with the Champ Elysee blvd) Great Streets do not consist of 7 lanes of smoothy flowing traffic. Prioritising cars far above pedestrians (and cyclists) does not make for a great street and Kingsway does exactly that - Kingsway is about moving cars from point A to B and those cars don't stop along the way so they add nothing but noise to the neighbourhood.

I'm not against arterials - they're a necessary "evil" in city building but let's not pretend that arterials can also serve as the core of a great street if the car is the priority.

If we can traffic clam an arterial like Broadway (and make cars less of a priority) then we can traffic calm Kingsway and make it so that pedestrians can comfortably cross the street and we have MORE pedestrians. We can do the same for Lougheed around Brentwood - it won't kill anyone to add a min or two to their commute.

I think the traffic calming of Broadway was only politically viable due to the pandemic. Otherwise, the traffic load would be too great to consider the option seriously.

However, Broadway does have 1 other advantage that Lougheed and Willingdon do not have- which is that 12th Ave is the primary pathway for cars passing through the area, rather than Broadway itself.

Without that, even the unique circumstances that allowed Broadway to be narrowed wouldn't exist.

[Migrant_Coconut]

I'm sure the light metro with a capacity of 6+ lanes on opening day had nothing to do with it...

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I'm sure the light metro with a capacity of 6+ lanes on opening day had nothing to do with it...

Surrey LRT would have massively increased overall PPHPD, while narrowing 104th to 2 lanes.
Yes, part of it is that LRT sucks, but normally reducing road lanes isn’t viable even if you increase overall PPHPD unless demand is already lower when you’re removing it and thus, congestion doesn’t get much worse.
Hence, the need for bypass routes.
This is also why the R-buses generally do not lower the amount of travel lanes (sometimes turn lanes, though.)

Or it’s COVID and traffic is already lower anyways.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Actually, the problem with the 104th line was that it'd have the same opening-day capacity as the road lane it replaced, and would only be as fast as the 98; the voters killed it because they were paying for a train and getting a glorified bus. To compensate, Surrey First attempted to supplement 104th with a parallel feeder road, as if two 2-lanes was the same as a 4-lane.

With Broadway, it's reducing a 6-lane to a 4-lane - no bypass needed, because those lanes are already parking lanes most of the day, and the subway and 12th combined are more than enough to pick up the slack. It may have been 2/3 lanes if not for how A) the train doesn't go all the way to UBC yet, and B) there's still 24 buses an hour on some stretches, possibly more in the future.

Bringing it back to Lougheed: it's got a SkyTrain, there's not that many buses, and it's already four lanes west and east of Brentwood. Once the Willingdon Line opens, there's not much reason for six when Boundary and Grandview are right there.

[ecbin]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Thanks.

It would be easier to block off lanes if you had a large number of parallel roads- however, only Vancouver and New Westminster really have functional 'grids' outside the arterials.

I think the traffic calming of Broadway was only politically viable due to the pandemic. Otherwise, the traffic load would be too great to consider the option seriously.

However, Broadway does have 1 other advantage that Lougheed and Willingdon do not have- which is that 12th Ave is the primary pathway for cars passing through the area, rather than Broadway itself.

Without that, even the unique circumstances that allowed Broadway to be narrowed wouldn't exist.

I think locally speaking what happened with Broadway almost seems like a set of special circumstances but that very much a culture problem in that we're so addicted to cars we can't see that alternatives do work.

https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2022/0...rue-de-rivoli/

Paris shut down one of their busiest streets end to end to make it just for bikes and pedestrians and it's not like there was an obvious alternative (traffic scattered to numerous alternative routes but nothing as high volume).

I'm not proposing we shut down Lougheed - I just think the section between Holdom and Gilmore (probably Boundary) could stand to be smaller, slower, and more LOCAL. Make it 2 lanes each way, make it leafy, make it pedestrian and bike first, lower the speed limit. There'd be some pain for cars in the short term as people adapt but over time (as has almost always been the case) people adapt and the huge lanes will be forgotten.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by ecbin

I think locally speaking what happened with Broadway almost seems like a set of special circumstances but that very much a culture problem in that we're so addicted to cars we can't see that alternatives do work.

https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2022/0...rue-de-rivoli/

Paris shut down one of their busiest streets end to end to make it just for bikes and pedestrians and it's not like there was an obvious alternative (traffic scattered to numerous alternative routes but nothing as high volume).

I'm not proposing we shut down Lougheed - I just think the section between Holdom and Gilmore (probably Boundary) could stand to be smaller, slower, and more LOCAL. Make it 2 lanes each way, make it leafy, make it pedestrian and bike first, lower the speed limit. There'd be some pain for cars in the short term as people adapt but over time (as has almost always been the case) people adapt and the huge lanes will be forgotten.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Actually, the problem with the 104th line was that it'd have the same opening-day capacity as the road lane it replaced, and would only be as fast as the 98; the voters killed it because they were paying for a train and getting a glorified bus. To compensate, Surrey First attempted to supplement 104th with a parallel feeder road, as if two 2-lanes was the same as a 4-lane.

With Broadway, it's reducing a 6-lane to a 4-lane - no bypass needed, because those lanes are already parking lanes most of the day, and the subway and 12th combined are more than enough to pick up the slack. It may have been 2/3 lanes if not for how A) the train doesn't go all the way to UBC yet, and B) there's still 24 buses an hour on some stretches, possibly more in the future.

Bringing it back to Lougheed: it's got a SkyTrain, there's not that many buses, and it's already four lanes west and east of Brentwood. Once the Willingdon Line opens, there's not much reason for six when Boundary and Grandview are right there.

No, the bigger problem is that 105th doesn't connect to Hwy 1.
If they turned 105th and 104th into a one-way pair from Hwy 1 to Surrey Central, it might have been acceptable.

OK, yeah, I forgot about the outside lanes being parking lanes.
Lougheed/Willingdon doesn't have parking lanes, so that doesn't apply.

Any bus lanes on the north and south parts of the Willingdon corridor will always be useful for getting the buses in and out of Brentwood and Metrotown- the latter especially.
25 would also have to be moved if you narrowed Willingdon north of BCIT- Willingdon is too regularly congested for reliable 25 bus service to Brentwood otherwise- and unlike moving 16 bus off Broadway, the existence of Hwy 1 means you're switching the 25 Eastbound station terminus from Brentwood to Gilmore.

Brentwood also takes buses for 123 and 25 too, which aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Local bus services for 130 will also still exist.

Ditto any further bus lines like the possible 1st Ave bus line, or extending 9 bus across the rest of Lougheed (or so it at least terminates at a SkyTrain stop, and not Boundary Loop.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Okay, so bus lanes on central Willingdon, then scrap the SB parking lane and NB shoulder on Lougheed - still four lanes each, and now walkability at the intersection is 250% better. Again, if the Millennium Line and Willingdon Line are both open, I'm not seeing the need for most people to reach Metrotown by car (TCH drivers can detour to Boundary if need be).

I suspect the Boundary Loop will continue to exist as long as Vancouver and Burnaby remain two separate cities.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Ditto any further bus lines like the possible 1st Ave bus line, or extending 9 bus across the rest of Lougheed (or so it at least terminates at a SkyTrain stop, and not Boundary Loop.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I suspect the Boundary Loop will continue to exist as long as Vancouver and Burnaby remain two separate cities.

The new model of trolley buses being ordered are capable of "in motion charging" the back up battery and have a published range of 35km off wire. Translink has said they will be looking at how/where to utilize this to extend trolley routes. The 9 could easily be extended to Holdom for example (as the eastern end of Brentwood) with only minor infrastructure changes.

[SpongeG]

I pass through that Brentwood area a few times on my commute if I can't use hwy 1 its the only real option. Westbound in the morning isn't too bad, traffic has to squeeze into one lane from three, the far right lane forces you to turn at Willingdon and so people hesitate to use it. Heading east after work is ok, but the whole area from Gimore is usually a slow crawl until Holdom. When it gets back to normal its really not bad at all when heading west, making turns at Willingdon is always going to be an issue.

The busses using the parking lane beside SOLO aren't too bad but it does affect people wanting to get onto Willingdon there. Plus all the work going on at Gilmore and Dawson makes it really not an option as its just a mess to try make a left turn.

The real problem I find is having all the closures because of the pipeline, two routes are basically gone, one is completely closed and the other is greatly reduced, and awful traffic most days, so the Lougheed gets very backed up, some days its just gridlock and bumper to bumper from Lake City Way to Gaglardi.

Am looking very forward to the other two routes being usable again.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by fredinno

I think the traffic calming of Broadway was only politically viable due to the pandemic. Otherwise, the traffic load would be too great to consider the option seriously.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I'm sure the light metro with a capacity of 6+ lanes on opening day had nothing to do with it...

The city studied the traffic volumes from before the pandemic and they hovered around 1.6 lanes for most of the day, with only a couple spikes that exceeded 2 lanes during rush hour. I don't know where these figures can be found, but I remember them from the vote on Broadway bike lanes a few weeks back.

I think there would be similar findings for Lougheed and Kingsway and most of the arterials in greater Vancouver. Yes, Kingsway can be congested at times but for 90% of the day the road carries far less traffic than its theoretical capacity.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Nah, Broadway will have nothing on Kingsway being the true Great Street. 7 lanes of smoothly flowing traffic, surrounded on both sides with veeeery wide sidewalks with bike lane and restaurant patios, shadowed by a towering canyon of more than a dozen 50-70 storey skyscrapers. There is going to be nothing like it in Metro Vancouver and Broadway of tomorrow will pale in comparison.

Just curious, have you ever sat on the bench outside the TD / Coco on Kingsway to sip a bubble tea or read a book? Or have you sat on the patio at Trattoria? Because it's always deserted when I've walked by. Or have you waited for a bus in front of the Save-On? Or have you ever sat at one of Waves' outdoor tables to drink a coffee?

Kingsway, even where the "veeeery wide sidewalks with bike lanes" have been added, is not a pleasant environment for anyone outside of a car. The patios on Silver Drive will always be far more popular than any patio on Kingsway, because you don't have to yell over the sound of someone's "performance SUV" to be heard. And all that traffic noise will only get worse as more towers are added, making it harder for the noise to dissipate without reverberating.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

A quick walk around Coal Harbour is enough to prove that it takes a lot more than massive towers to make a lively community; last time I was at Kingsway and Willingdon, history seemed destined to repeat itself. If there's more occupancy and less empty units there than Vancouver, the sidewalks aren't demonstrating it when I'm around.

Broadway'll have five SkyTrain stations in the centre of the CoV, proximity to downtown (or rather it'll be a part of it), more zoned density overall, and a much more pedestrian-friendly space... whereas all of Central Burnaby's activity is currently getting sucked into Metrotown and Station Square and away from Kingsway, and the two six-lane stroads are killing walkability. It's definitely an unfair comparison, but not in the way you're thinking of it.

Coal Harbour was just terrible planning and that's why it is now dead. There isn't any continuous retail on a single street, in fact, there is hardly any retail the closer one gets to the Waterfront. Also, other than an expensive mid-size grocery market, there is hardly anything convenient for residents to walk to, and most importantly, no anchor retail or a neighbourhood commercial centre planned.

Kingsway in Metrotown is set up quite differently, with many items essential for community vibrancy existing nearby. The side streets with numerous retail also enhance the vibrancy of the main thoroughfare, especially around Metrotown proper.

[Migrant_Coconut]

And yet Farmer is correct: no matter how big the sidewalks or how cohesive the streetfronts are, Metrotown's Kingsway is very unpleasant for pedestrians. Hard to have any vibrancy on a six-lane highway, let alone one that's so far from transit and next to malls & side streets that hog all the foot traffic - that's why Central's the main throughfare, not Kingsway.

[GenWhy?]

Is the collection of towers, parking lots and buildings with the Best Buy South-west of Silver Dr a part of the mall?

Silver Drive is amazing and if a bit bigger and extended will serve thw community well while the mall is still there for a high street. While Kingsway will remain Highway 1A, much like a Georgia St.

[madog222]

That's Station Square, everything west of Station St.