PART 5, the conclusion, of the extended essay by a guest writer, Peter Marriott, on the question of transit on Robson Street.
Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here.
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Conclusion: Conceptualizing and Understanding Transit
This isn’t just about Robson Street. It’s actually about how transit is understood, what its purpose is, and how it creates and interacts with vibrant, pedestrian‑oriented urban spaces.
One justification for choosing to close Robson to transit might be found in the Transportation Plan’s “hierarchy of modes.” According to this, Vancouver’s priorities for moving people are:
- Walking
- Cycling
- Transit
- Taxi / Commercial Transport / Shared Vehicles
- Private Automobiles
This is a strong policy statement, but there’s a danger of applying it too glibly. There’s a need to reflect on what transit is and how it relates to other modes. The placement of transit in the middle of the hierarchy is apt. When setting targets, transit is, along with walking and cycling, a desired way to move people. But, when it comes to planning pedestrian‑friendly spaces, transit is something to be pushed away, lumped in with private autos. The statement seems to be that as many people as possible should ride transit, but it should be kept out of sight.
First, this ignores the contribution transit makes to an active and vibrant pedestrian realm. Many urbanists are quick to praise Vancouver’s urban form—a “streetcar city” with walkable linear corridors throughout the city—but dismissive of Vancouver’s current transit network, and unaware of the geometry that sustains it.
The City’s summertime street‑closure program, Viva Vancouver, for instance, claims to be about “reducing cars on city streets,” but its highest profile “activations” take place on transit streets, particularly the Granville transit mall. The fact that our best pedestrian streets are also transit streets isn’t a coincidence, but at the moment it’s treated only as an inconvenience.
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But, even more importantly, understanding modes as discrete choices ignores that a major purpose of transit is—as Jarrett Walker argues in Human Transit—to accelerate the pedestrian. Transit uniquely provides personal mobility that allows travel across the entire transit network as a pedestrian, giving rise to strong pedestrian spaces across the entire city. If we close Robson Square to transit, we’re prioritizing the pedestrian experience on one block over the experience of travelling across the city as an “accelerated pedestrian.”
Vancouver is on the leading edge of an issue that many cities are going to have to confront: in dense cities moving toward sustainable mobility, hard choices have to be made about how road space is allocated. A conversation about the purpose, role and structure of public transit needs to happen very early in the process; without that, we’re pretending that conflicts can be avoided and that “careful planning” will let us achieve everything we want.
If Vancouver can’t contemplate a public square with transit running through it, then it’s limiting the effectiveness and future ridership potential of transit service through some of its densest neighbourhoods. But, more broadly, if cities, urbanists, planners, architects and others don’t understand transit, then we’ll continue to be speaking different languages. The #5 Robson will be forever circling the square, and we’ll still be trying to square the circle of how to meet ambitious targets for increased transit ridership.
This misunderstanding isn’t deliberate or malevolent; rather, it’s structural. Vancouver is a wonderful and frustrating place for transit. We have an extraordinarily integrated transportation system, but it depends on complex relationships between numerous municipalities and regional and provincial governments. Everyone supports more and better transit, but a consensus on how to plan, deliver and pay for it remains elusive.
We have strong and ambitious goals for an expanded frequent transit network but few clear paths of how to get there. Robson Street is a small piece of this bigger picture. Building transit ridership in Vancouver depends on a fast, frequent and legible transit network, and building and maintaining that network is a challenge shared by all the players who have a stake in Vancouver’s transit system.
* Bold emphases mine.
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Update from the Vancouver Public Space Network on today’s Council meeting – here.
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ADD-ON: Over at Urban Studies – the blog of SFU students – Andrew Jones has collected some pics of how transit can be integrated into a pedestrian space, like this one in Nice:
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More here.
Vibrant pedestrian streets have existed for thousands of years without motorized vehicles including. To say that they depend on transit running through them is rediculous.
Before the streetcar, there used to be shops mingled on the streets throughout communities. You can see this in the downtown east side and in Strathcona.
The streetcar creating sprawling development both commercial and residential that us dependent on motorized transportation as the distances are just to far to walk. It also concentrated retail along streetcar streets sucking the stops and cafes out of Neighbourhood streets leaving them residential deserts. Just go to cities that were developed before the streetcar and you will notice dense vibrant neighbourhoods filled with shops and cafes that are off arterials without a bus or a streetcar.
The streetcar was the beginning of prioritizing motorised transportation over walking and other community uses on our streets. Streetcars paved the way for automobiles in both the prioritization of transportation plus creating development that was dependent on motorized transportation.
Now, downtown, after decades of redevelopment of the low density streetcar development, we have created communities that are dense enough where a lot of people are not dependent on motorized transportation for many if not all of their daily trips. This is demonstrated by the huge number of pedestrian trips on Robson. 40,000 per day as opposed to 9,000 bus trips.
Lets let nearby fast frequent transit service on streets like Georgia, Smithe and Denman compliment pedestrian streets like Robson.
There are other options for Robson for people who can’t or don’t wish to walk including pedicabs and small pedestrian friendly buses that hold around 10 people plus a wheelchair.
The routes (pun intended) of motordom go deeper than many people.
As demonstrated by this post, routes (pun intended) travel deep. Time for people to open their minds both to the era before motorized transportation and the future where it is not held on a pedestal at the expense of everything else.
Georgia was dismissed as a viable alternative early in the discussion due to congestion, but why couldn’t we have a dedicated bus lane there?
Exactly
Georgia doesn’t have to be dismissed for Congestion, but for coverage:
People South of Nelson are in the #6 catchement, people Between Nelson/Georgia are in the #5 catchment, and people North of Georgia are in #19 catchement…
That is what aggressive pedestrianism lobbyists don’t want to understand: a bus route doesn’t work in isolation of its context.:
Moving one route, is ruining all the pristine transit coverage WestENd obtain…
If you can do better with the same amount of resource or less: let us know: At this time no-one has been able to provide a better transit coverage of westend than what has been historically provided.
Georgia is a “expressway” well suited for suburban bus (and bus lane is justify and is existing for this reason), but not for local service.
The part of the discussion that is missing here is that Vancouver has tried to build public squares elsewhere and failed (QE Theatre has a lovely plaza, the Library has one used plaza and one windswept one, the convention centre plaza is empty outside of events, the new CBC plaza – empty, etc.). This block on Robson and around the corner on Granville is where people want to be, where they naturally gravitate – this is where the people energy is – you either build on that, or accept that you have a city without a vibrant central civic plaza.
I’ll wager if you look at major civic plazas in europe – they generally bugger up what would otherwise be a more rational transit route. And yet, the plazas exist.
The photo of the train through a (very large) plaza is a bit disingenuous as 1) trains are on tracks and you know with absolute certainty where they’ll go, which is not true for buses – even trolley buses have leeway that naturally makes pedestrians want to stay away, and 2) given the limited space on Robson – if you reserve the street space currently used by vehicles for buses – then you have no space for a plaza, you have exactly the configuration we have now (i.e. where would seating or art or vendors or anything else go?). The roadway IS the missing piece. If it has to stay clear for a bus to blow through every 6 min, then it’s not useable by people – the people are stuck on the sidewalks. If Robson Square were much larger, i don’t think we’d be having this debate at all – the problem is that without the roadspace connecting the two sides and adding some useable street-level space (i.e. not stairs), there’s no plaza.
If we cant’ work out a transit solution to give over the only viable block for a proper civic plaza to people use, then that’s quite the failure on our part. Does the city exist just to transport people, or does it also exist for lingering and enjoyment?
A question for Peter Marriott might be – he states the importance of planners, designers, architects understanding transit – what about transit planners understanding the importance of public space, and how one goes about making a successful public space?
Robson Square, Granville St., and the library plaza are major public spaces because there are people who need to pass through these areas to other nearby destinations. These are the locations where someone can look out onto the plaza from a journey they’re already making and either stop for a while or make up their mind to come back later. Permanently shutting out transit will not only be detrimental to the people taking the bus, but those same people who’d later return to Robson Square and make it the vibrant place we all want it to be.
Nobody has suggested “shutting out transit”.
At worst we are talking about moving the third- or fourth- closest bus line a little further away.
If the #5 can be routed along Georgia (which it can, with a dedicated bus lane), then its stops are no further away from the square than they are now.
Even if you turn Robson Street into a plaza it still has a dead inactive edge from that wasteland known as Robson Square which works against the creation of a people oriented public space. Rip out that worthless mound and use it to fill in the wasteland sunken rink, bring all the activity to street level and program it with active uses that go late into the night. I cant believe people are talking about closing Robson when adjacent is a complete anti-urban waste of land in serious need of fixing anyway.
Robson Square and the old post office are imperfect urban buildings, but they are also some of the better architecture in the city. That ought to be respected. Erickson was trying to weave the public space through the grid by going over one street and under another. Of course we now know that this kind of grade change is fatal to a traditional pedestrian square, but it did create something new. The green mound in particular is a special place in Vancouver and a great vantage point for the art gallery. If a place is going to be ripped apart, there are plenty junky buildings and spaces worthy of the attention. Vancouver still needs a traditional pedestrian square, but that will have to be in an area that is not already dominated by the grid street pattern. Somewhere in the eastern core south of Chinatown or on the Flats would be a good place for it. In time, that area might be the new centre of the city.
There is plenty of open, potential civic space on either side of Robson St in this block that can be activated with programming, without having to ban busses. Why are we even having a debate as to which is preferrable: logical transit or pillow sculptures that get used on the odd sunny day?
Not only that, but the pillow sculptures are actually filled with puppies! How can anyone possibly choose suffocating puppies over logical transit?
I am sure they exist but for the life of me I can’t think of any, can someone give me an example of a successful public space without transit? All the places in Europe I have visited have transit in the squares unless the square is very small.
Currently, the closest stops to the 800 block of Robson street are on Burrard and Granville. Running the #5 along Georgia would not place bus stops further from the proposed square than they already are.
Anyway, here’s a couple of successful public spaces with worse transit access than a Robson Square without the #5:
– Third Beach
– Granville Island
Not a lot of people on Third Beach except in the summer.
I wonder how many people would be on Granville Island if they closed the road access and got rid of the many parking spaces, especially the free ones. The reason transit doesn’t work there is precisely because it is not on a Robson Street. I walk the seawall and take the ferry myself, that is transit-like.
-How many people today at third beach?
-Have you notice how many car space in Granville island.?
(ps Granville as ferries…so it is not that bad).
I don’t know how many people are at Third Beach today. Is your point that Third Beach is not a successful public space?
There are fewer car spaces than people at Granville Island, though I do think there are too many car spaces. Robson Square, on the other hand, has lots more pedestrian access than Granville Island. Granville Island has the water taxis but Robson Square has the #2, 22, 32, 44, 4, 6, 7, 10, 14, 16, 50, 20, 240, 241, 242, 246, 247, 250, the Canada Line, and the Hornby bike lanes all within a couple hundred metres. Furthermore, running the #5 along Georgia would still have it within a 90-second walk of the square.
All this is to say that (a) even if you re-route the #5, Robson Square would not be “without transit”, and (b) it would still have better access (pedestrian, cycling, and transit) than at least two of Vancouver’s successful public spaces.
My point is that third beach is a beach:
and it tends to work like any beaches around the world…
So the #5 bus route is so vital, that is cannot be altered at any cost and it trumps Vancouver having a vibrant, car-free public square? That is pretty weak argument, even when the author tries to make it all important by stating “It’s actually about how transit is understood, what its purpose is, and how it creates and interacts with vibrant, pedestrian‑oriented urban spaces.” Please.
One commentator says it perfectly – The part of the discussion that is missing here is that Vancouver has tried to build public squares elsewhere and failed (QE Theatre has a lovely plaza, the Library has one used plaza and one windswept one, the convention centre plaza is empty outside of events, the new CBC plaza – empty, etc.). This block on Robson and around the corner on Granville is where people want to be, where they naturally gravitate – this is where the people energy is – you either build on that, or accept that you have a city without a vibrant central civic plaza.
Picture it – a market, lunch trucks, tables and chairs, people relaxing….oh…now everybody get out of the way! The bus is coming! It won’t – and can’t – work that way. Maybe in a very large flat square, but that is not what Robson Square is.
Could it be because those place you are mentioning are nowhere near a transit route/hub.
…That is the reason you target Robson square, but you are cutting the branch you are sitting on: recipe for failure…
The 5 has to turn north at some point to meet the Expo line. If it does it at Granville it gets to the Canada line first. If it does it at Burrard it gets to the Expo line first. Either way, assuming Burrard/Pender it meets the first and second connection in about the same time/distance.
The result of the current detour is a “Robson corridor” bus that leaves Robson well before the center of downtown, and that can barely be accessed from downtown in the reverse direction. And thanks to the multiple left-rights, access to the Expo Line is no faster (and access to the Canada Line far slower) than turning on Granville or Seymour.
I’d frankly favor the Stadium station meeting point you mention on Part 4: keep the bus on Robson until it ends, then have it turn up Beatty. Those who need a no-walk transfer for mobility reasons get it there; those who need a faster transfer walk the two blocks from Robson and Burrard. Those who need the east end of Robson get it on an unbroken corridor for the first time in years.
Access to the Expo line is straightforward at Burrard from Burrard Street and at Waterfront on Pender. These connections are shorter and simpler than at Granville or City Centre.
Connecting the ends of these two routes on Pender creates a simple, well-connected through route downtown. It also fixes the confusing 17 and provides a north-south route in Yaletown that is spaced well apart from Granville.
What you keep missing is that while access to the Expo and Canada lines is important, it is not the only mission of an east-west bus through the middle of downtown.
It is not okay to make travel between the West End and the middle of downtown much harder in order to make the subway transfer slightly better. That’s what the detour in question — and most of the other detours proposed by Robson #5 opponents — would do.
That Pender is 500 metres north and down a significant hill from most downtown destinations and activity centers is a fact that cannot be so easily ignored.
It blows my mind that the Robson Square advocates insist the public space must be there at Robson and Hornby: precisely there, entirely there, unbroken in its centrally-located thereness. But the transit to and from the downtown area? That can be anywhere!
Connections to rapid transit are more important than having every route go through the intersection of Granville and Robson. Trips from the West End to the Granville and Robson don’t require a transfer, just a three-block walk. Trips to Yaletown are much easier and faster with a connected 5/6.
Connections to buses heading south over the Granville bridge are the only ones inconvenienced. There are likely much fewer transfers to these than to rapid transit. Still, the connections can be made at Granville/Pender.
It’s not just about adding “a three-block walk” to the corner of Robson and Granville. It’s about adding an extra three-block walk to everywhere else.
Need the east end of Robson? That used to be 4 blocks from the closest stop; now it’s 7. Need to head somewhere a few blocks south on Granville or Seymour? Add 4 minutes to your walk.
Or worse, turn what used to be an easy walk into a transfer!
Meanwhile, you’ve destroyed the legibility of having a Robson bus that actually runs on Robson!!
There was nothing wrong with the Skytrain connection before, so you’re creating a false dichotomy by trying to play rapid transit access against central downtown access. You’re trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist, a problem that a handful a “plaza purists” created of their own accord.
There are a thousand ways to make that block of Robson more appealing while still allowing buses through. Nobody loses.
But detour the buses, and the #5 gets worse for many or most. Why do that?
An interconnected 5/6 on Pender/Cambie improves travel between the West End and Yaletown and between downtown and Yaletown. It gets rid of the loopy ends in the CBD. Very few places downtown are more than 400 m from such a route.
Even without a Robson Square closure, I think that this change should be made. It could be a Robson/Granville/Pender or a Robson/Burrard/Pender routing, the difference from a transit legibility or connectedness or speed standpoint between the two routings is marginal and therefore shouldn’t limit options for the use of 800 Robson.
An interconnected 5/6 on Pender/Cambie improves travel between the West End and Yaletown and between downtown and Yaletown. It gets rid of the loopy ends in the CBD. Very few places downtown are more than 400 m from such a route.
Even without a Robson Square closure, I think that this change should be made. It could be a Robson/Granville/Pender or a Robson/Burrard/Pender routing, the difference from a transit legibility or connectedness or speed standpoint between the two routings is marginal and therefore shouldn’t limit options for the use of 800 Robson..
They want to be there when it is sunny, a relatively limited portion of the year. No food trucks stick it out in the winter. Can that be fixed? Possibly. Can the #5 routing be fixed? Possibly.
I walk that area regularly, I use the bus regularly and I’m going to wait to see what the proposals are before I decide that closing Robson is a great idea.
Well the city has decided to open it up until they can figure out a way to make it work, so that is, finally, a sensible approach.
It seems kind of obvious to me but in the heat of a sunny August day I guess everyone was imagining it would continue on forever like that. And we did get a sunny September and early October so there was more use as a square that we’d normally see.
It occurs to me after reading the comments above, particularly those opinions stringently put forward by Augustin, that we ought to look at effectively using the space we already have at Robson square before we have reason to mess about with bus routing. No one here can honestly say that we’ve even attempted to program the south side of that block, and the north side doesn’t fare much better. Lots of weird landscaping, bushes, skunks, and rats. Let’s actually TRY that first rather than rushing to throw out the bus…
I’m sorry for my stringent tone. I didn’t mean to come across that way.
My main point is that we’re not debating between getting rid of transit (or even getting rid of #5) and having a pedestrian Robson Square. The option on the table is re-routing the #5, and it does not represent “shutting out transit”, or “throwing out the bus”.
Insofar as the Robson bus is meant to be an extension of the pedestrian, I rarely use it because walking is usually faster along this corridor. Others seem to have the same idea, with pedestrian trips down Robson well exceeding transit use. Doesn’t it make more sense to have that pedestrian traffic flow into and through the rare public space that Robson Square offers? And isn’t that rare option of a central public plaza worth a rethink of the #5 route?
I don’t own a car and use transit for just about everything. I actually like taking transit. But I prefer to walk, especially on streetscapes that are amenable to walking. I will often replan crosstown routes specifically to walk on streets that are more comfortable for walking, such as the lovely tree-lined sidewalk facing Hornby from the Law Courts. I want Vancouver to be somewhere enjoyable to walk, because all the great cities I enjoy visiting are first and foremost pedestrian experiences. Very few cities are enjoyed and recognized for the logic of a bus grid. This discussion about Robson square is more emotional than many want to admit, and Vancouver lacks the experience of a central plaza that we connect with a mature urban landscape.
The #5 can be rerouted, and bus networks can be remapped. Robson square can’t. That’s really what this is about.
PS: Been to Nice recently, and the tram works in the Place Masséna for reasons mentioned by other posters: Masséna is big, the tram has fixed tracks, and it moves very slowly in the plaza. None of these things would be the case with trolleys in Robson Square. It wouldn’t work.
Been to Nice recently, and the tram works in the Place Masséna for reasons mentioned by other posters: Masséna is big, the tram has fixed tracks, and it moves very slowly in the plaza. None of these things would be the case with trolleys in Robson Square. It wouldn’t work.
Really?
Curious to know your explanation for that (among other similar examples).
http://voony.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/transit-as-part-of-the-urban-fabric/placepury2/
Yeah I agree its faster to walk when the Robson Street bus now has to loop blocks out of the way thanks to this poorly thought out plaza scheme that screw bus riders. Try putting the plaza with a decent design on that adjacent current waste of land failure known as Robson Square.
Gordon last nite you appeared, very, very briefly, on CBC’s six o’clock Port Mann clip, introduced as a transportation expert. Inexplicably you were cut off almost in mid sentence. Why?
Perhaps the show’s producers decided you had nothing to say: I dunno, I would like to have heard your views, so why not tell us here on PT.
There used to be a dictum, in TX circles, that, “the more road space allocated to the SOV the more it will bulge and proliferate.” That certainly appears to be the history of Metro Vancouver movement (i.e. the now over crowded, hastily designed, Cambie line as the traffic on adjacent streets rumbles exponentially).
I understand your interest in rapid TX, in one form or another, as a replacement of the SOV, but what about the movement of goods?
SOV noise, pollution and aggravation on Vancouver’s streets have grown monumentally since you were on council.
Which reminds me, as a NPA councilor/alderman of some fifteen years, culminating in the early 2000’s, you spent a lot of time away from your seat at TX conferences all over the continent (world?). That was over ten years ago. Why have your efforts not born fruit on the ground? Why doesn’t CBC allow you to share your insights?
My amateur musings on the subject direct me to the conclusion that eventually Metro and the city, conceived in the pockets of rabid sprawl speculators, must be re-booted . . .
http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/1yorkshirelad/vancouver.re-boot/Vancouver.re-boot.html
. . . ultimately into semi self-contained villages . . . continued . . .
. . . then . . .
http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/6urbandesign/vancouver.square/vancouver.square.html
. . .and . . .
http://members.shaw.ca/theyorkshirelad72/working.mount.pleasant.html
. . . with incrementalized shopping, cultural, academic, and health etc within walking sort of obviating the need for us to careen all over the map spewing fumes and noise like there is no tomorrow.
Thanqu . . .
Circling the Square: Peter Marriott’s plan.
Wow, I don’t know what all the fuss is about: pedestrians on block 51: isn’t that their rightful place of domain?
Check out Peter’s plan. For a person with half and ounce of imagination there are umpteen ways to connect The Robson bus to Skytrain!
Gimme a break . . . this is the control freak at work, not good citizenship . . .
Roger, I can’t believe someone who wants to put a tram down Broadway because LRT/RRT has stops too far apart wants the bus to detour off Robson for the benifit of one small pedestrian segment. In general pedestrian and transit realms are compatable. Think bigger, with better transit which car dominated street could you turn into a significant pedestrian area? By the way Voony has a good example from Wellington NZ about transit going back to their ‘Golden Mile’ on his blog. Seems like a good example to me.
Yeah, I have also noticed the incoherence:
That betrays the philosophy of many local advocates of be a tram or a public square:
they too often come with a solution in search of a problem.
Making their case, they end up to contradict themselves: I have even read on a local blog advocating “aggressive pedestriansim” on Robson that a transit detour was not a big deal because, “the matter of fact”, people can drive!
Thanks for the plug on the Wellington Golden Mile
“. . . advocating “aggressive pedestriansim”” NOT!
Advocating for a very desirable civic centre for Vancouver.
This is not about your brazen compulsion to be constantly right, to show off which city in France is which, I am talking a civic focus for Vancouver for god’s sake!
PS @ Voony my stats show you haven’t logged on to any of the links I provided so how do you know what I am talking about.
Pride comes before a fall Voon
Roger, I was not thinking of your blog, but another one (thiscitylife. Tumblr. com).
And to be sure, I haven’t talked of France in this post: you will have noticed that the Nice city picture has not been put by me…but since you bring the topic, you will have certainly noticed that when come urbanism, and urban transport conversation, French examples are never far away : I try to provide some context on it in my blog.
I think trying to learn of others is better than pretend we know better than them… and if we don’t want to follow successful examples, we are better to know why.
@ Voony
Thanqxz for your comments. Essentially I see the future of Vancouver, if we have the wit to respond to inevitable circumstance, as incremental, historically based, urban villages.
Clearly that puts me at odds to conventional thinquing.
A brief history . . .
The city accreted, with no particular plan in mind, other than opportunities for land speculators, because such people dominated most councils since WWll: i.e. Vancouver (to say nothing of Metro) is ticky-tacky sprawl writ large.
TEAM was responsible, in the early 70’s, for decimating the local industrial base. TEAM shoo-ed thousands of jobs out of the city (in so far as it had the limited power to do so) while replacing them with offshore real estate speculation and money laundering: i.e. the Executive City!. I notice there is a movement afoot to erase all memory of their dastardly reign.
My obsession . . .
Incrementally, historically based, semi-autonomous, semi-self contained urban villages with light connecting trams and vehicular connection enough to facilitate movement of goods and emergency: i.e. enjoy a walkable community with most everyday facilities close at hand. If proponents of GREEN CITY have any integrity there are few other options!
Not only are grade separated vehicles an affront to the tranquility of neighbourhoods and budgets, with resource extraction, manufacture, transportation to their specific location and on-site engineering they mock the environmental meaning of the word GREEN: trams are too but to a much, much lesser extent.
To conclude . . .
The Cambie Line is already obsolete. Don’t repeat the mistake by wasting billions on ever-inadequate grade separated shiny trinkets: elevated they ruin established neighbourhoods, tunneled they are a miss-appropriation of money better spent on improved health facilities and affordable accommodation.
Creatively, never in my sixty years living in the city has it ever lived up to its cultural pretensions. Now is the time. Blocks 51 and 61 are my focus of Vancouver’s cultural Renaissance. To pretend, by way of Robson as the only connection of the West End to Sky train, is frantic hyperbole.
Never underestimate the disastrous impact of young, compliant, complacent, pusillanimous, badly educated arrogant corporate yes-men, design and planning professionals of which the city and province abound.
That is my truncated reasoning Voony. In future I will attend your blog more often!
Roger, he knows what you said because you post non stop on all sorts of blogs. In this case you complained Broadway LRT/RRT stops were too far apart and tram type services are needed because people can’t/won’t travel that far on The Tyee blog. Back to the point Voony is advancing the fact that almost all the successful pedestrian spaces are closely tied to transit…Since it works all over the world why do you think it doesn’t/won’t here? By the way I should point out for your self improvement Wellington’s ‘Golden Mile’ is in New Zealand not France.
Sorry Roger apparently I am commenting on too many blogs, your comments re:Broadway were on Francis Bulas blog…but I guess you knew that.