Vancouver General Discussion Thread

[FarmerHaight]

Vancouver: World's Greatest Places

@Vin @Klazu @whatnext

Tell me again how Vancouver isn't world class, or is a hell hole, or how it blows.

Vancouver has its share of issues but I think the residents need to be a lot more proud of how the city punches above its weight on a global scale.

[Migrant_Coconut]

World's 20th best airport: Vancouver International Airport soars in the rankings

It is that time of year again. In an industry celebration event held in Amsterdam today, Skytrax announced its 2023 recipients for the World Airports Awards, which are the world’s most prestigious and recognized awards in the aviation industry.

Based on tens of thousands of surveys by travellers around the world, Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is now the world’s 20th-best airport.

This represents a major year-over-year increase of eight spots from YVR’s previous global ranking of 28th in 2022.
In the late 2000s and the first half of the 2010s, YVR was regularly ranked as one of the world’s 10 best airports, but it has become far more competitive over the past decade with the completion of new and improved airports around the world...

We're above London and San Fran, and just under Dubai... not bad.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

World's 20th best airport: Vancouver International Airport soars in the rankings



We're above London and San Fran, and just under Dubai... not bad.

Charles de Gaulle above YVR in #5 worldwide makes me question these rankings and also annoys me an unreasonable amount.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Vancouver: World's Greatest Places

@Vin @Klazu @whatnext

Tell me again how Vancouver isn't world class, or is a hell hole, or how it blows.

Vancouver has its share of issues but I think the residents need to be a lot more proud of how the city punches above its weight on a global scale.

Ooh, right up there with world class Tampa, FL!

[Migrant_Coconut]

Also Barcelona, Kyoto, Budapest, Naples, Vienna, Brisbane and Jerusalem. Your point?

[SpongeG]

the more you travel the more you begin to appreciate Vancouver. Its at a stage where its not quite there in some things but its setting up nicely.

And the transit, skytrain that people often complain about is great compared to so many places, In San Francisco in the evening the Muni train route that we used ran once an hour for instance, in Tokyo many of the trains shut down around midnight, the one I needed shut down just after 11 pm. We are quite lucky in that regard to long service hours and alternatives such as the various night bus routes.

[SpongeG]

Actionkid, a youtuber who posts walking videos of mainly New York and Miami where he moved to was in Seattle and made a quick trip up to Vancouver on sunday and posted a live video of a short walk through downtown.

• Video Link

[whatnext]

Big fire at Victoria and Venabkes this morning apparently. It says new build but I can’t picture anything there. Any ideas?

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/05/05/east-vancouver-fire-victoria-drive/

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Big fire at Victoria and Venabkes this morning apparently. It says new build but I can’t picture anything there. Any ideas?

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/05/05/east-vancouver-fire-victoria-drive/

It says it was framed. Gotta be arson? The gas wouldn't be turned on or anything.

[Doodler]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

It says it was framed. Gotta be arson? The gas wouldn't be turned on or anything.

Did a quick Google street view for Venables and crossed this with the image taken from the Van Fire Twitter account https://twitter.com/IAFF18/status/1654519362496368642/photo/2

Looks like its 1982 Venables St

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Doodler

Did a quick Google street view for Venables and crossed this with the image taken from the Van Fire Twitter account https://twitter.com/IAFF18/status/1654519362496368642/photo/2

Looks like its 1982 Venables St

Excellent sleuthing.

[Klazu]

I was in Salt Lake City this week and visited some of the southern suburbs. It was quite something to drive down I-15 which is 12 lanes for over 50 kilometers. At several places there are 14, even 16 lanes, as most interchanges have extra pick-up / drop-off lanes. I have also never seen a metered onramp with four lanes!

I also found it interesting how I-15 is not sectioned into express / collector lanes, so long sections are 7 painted lanes side-by-side. It is pretty crazy to drive on lane number 4 with three lanes on both sides! Makes our Highway 1 feel pretty minuscule in comparison and the feeling of traffic flow is something else during heavy traffic.

I have to say that I don't quite want freeways of that scale in here, but I would love 3+3 lane streets and highways to be a lot more commonplace for a city out size. Ramp metering can also really improve on-ramp performance.

They also have several diverging diamond interchanges in the southern metro area and those seemed very practical to me. I know Seattle has at least one and I have driven it before, but the ones in SLC were double the lanes.

I didn't know that Salt Lake City Metro is pushing 2.66 million people these days, so they are exactly the same size as us. It was also really cool to see their brand new airport, which is being completely rebuilt. The new A and B terminals must be the most modern terminals in North America and flying through SLC is a breeze.

Utah is an interesting state to visit, the few times I have had the pleasure of doing so.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Salt Lake's CSA (Combined Statistical Area) includes Ogden, Provo and other areas that would otherwise count as separate cities; it'd be like if Abbotsford, Squamish and Mission counted as part of Metro Van.

Their metro population is 1.25 million, so more or less under the carrying capacity of a car-centric transportation network... once that doubles, they might have to start taking a leaf from our book.

[Changing City]

The geography of Salt Lake City gives it some worst air pollution among major US cities. Climate change from burning hydrocarbons is intensifying forest fires (and the smoke ends up locked in the Great Salt Lake basin). Climate change is also helping make the Great Salt Lake dry up fast (the high snowpack this year is only expected to slow the declining water level briefly), and the assessment this year says it needs an additional 326 billion gallons – per year - to not go dry. As it dries, toxic arsenic-laden dust is stirred up by the wind and that can be inhaled and damage the lungs and exacerbate other respiratory illnesses. These pollutants have been linked to health complications such as asthma, heart disease and chronic bronchitis.

Although there's reasonable transit in the city itself, only 6.7% of the population use transit to get to work (compared to 14.8% in Metro Vancouver). Those huge highways (especially I-15) may (generally) keep traffic flowing, they generate huge amounts of air pollution and help increase greenhouse gases, thus doing their little bit to continue to continue to alter the climate. I prefer our approach to put our limited resources within Metro Vancouver into improving transit, walking and bike facilities. That at least moves us towards a more sustainable future, and usually less destructively than wider roads - especially in cities.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Anybody else struggling to differentiate between the General Vancouver Updates and the Vancouver General Discussion?

[NewfBC]

SLC sounds like it should be compared more to Calgary than Vancouver.

Ron.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Canada Place Way's second name of "Komagata Maru Place" approved by Vancouver City Council

Another way of acknowledging the historic discrimination incident of the Komagata Maru at a location near where it occurred has been unanimously approved today by Vancouver City Council.

Canada Place Way will gain the secondary name of “Komagata Maru Place,” recognized by the installation of a sign, the creation of public education materials, and further upgrades to the nearby 2012-built memorial at the eastern end of Harbour Green Park. An unveiling ceremony is scheduled for late 2023.

Canada Place Way is the two-block-long roadway between Howe and Thurlow streets, fronted by properties such as the Canada Place cruise ship terminal, Vancouver Convention Centre, Fairmont Waterfront Hotel, Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel, and Rogers Tower (formerly Shaw Tower). It is one of Vancouver’s most prominent streets and is frequented by tourists...

Question: why not just remove "Canada Place Way" entirely? I almost don't want to know how the new street signs will work.

[SpongeG]

I go to Bellingham once or twice a month and stock up Trader Joes and get some stuff at Target. Bellis Fair Mall is really dead, it still has stores but feels so empty and the stores that are still there other than the anchors have stores here in Canada, like Journeys, Bath & Body Works, Hot Topic, etc. so no real appeal to go to inside the mall.

This article is about the loss of Chinese and Korean Canadian busses that would go down bringing hundreds of shoppers to places like Bellis Fair Mall.

Does anyone here go down regularly again? The lineups are much shorter now than pre-covid, if its longer than 20 minutes its because the US only has two lanes open.


U.S. border towns still wait on buyers from B.C., as Vancouver shopping buses vanish
Cross-border shopping buses filled with Chinese and Korean Canadian consumers were once ubiquitous outside Washington state malls, but they have all-but disappeared from the commercial landscape, dealing a heavy blow to border-town businesses.
Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press

https://www.newwestrecord.ca/national-ne...-vancouver-shopping-buses-vanish-7128163

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

I go to Bellingham once or twice a month and stock up Trader Joes and get some stuff at Target. Bellis Fair Mall is really dead, it still has stores but feels so empty and the stores that are still there other than the anchors have stores here in Canada, like Journeys, Bath & Body Works, Hot Topic, etc. so no real appeal to go to inside the mall.

This article is about the loss of Chinese and Korean Canadian busses that would go down bringing hundreds of shoppers to places like Bellis Fair Mall.

Does anyone here go down regularly again? The lineups are much shorter now than pre-covid, if its longer than 20 minutes its because the US only has two lanes open.


U.S. border towns still wait on buyers from B.C., as Vancouver shopping buses vanish
Cross-border shopping buses filled with Chinese and Korean Canadian consumers were once ubiquitous outside Washington state malls, but they have all-but disappeared from the commercial landscape, dealing a heavy blow to border-town businesses.
Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press

https://www.newwestrecord.ca/national-ne...-vancouver-shopping-buses-vanish-7128163

The Chinese money has stopped flowing for the most part across the world after the Pandemic.

[SpongeG]

Yes, I wonder if they will return.

I went yesterday, crossing was less than 5 minutes both ways. Trader Joes and Target both had at least a dozen or more BC plates.