October 7, 2017

Gastown Streets — More Than Repairs?

With visions of a car-light area in Gastown, City of Vancouver is consulting residents on a transportation area plan. Tour and workshop, Saturday October 21, 1:30 to 4:30. Project, event details and signup HERE.   An online survey is available for members of Talk Vancouver.
Starting, as with Burrard Bridge, from the need to do major repair, CoV seeks input on moving Gastown towards a complete street design model.

“We have an opportunity to build on the strengths of Gastown and design the streets in a way that better serves the area. We want to work with the community to achieve the best outcome,” says Lon LaClaire, Director of Transportation for the City of Vancouver. “As part of our community engagement, we will be exploring whether Water Street could become car-light, but it is important to us to work closely with businesses in the area to see how the streets can continue to support loading and movement needs.”

gastown-complete-streets-study-area

Potential car-light street

Water Street was identified in the Downtown Eastside Plan and Transportation 2040 as a potential car-light street and as a missing link within the east-west bike network.
Car-light refers to a street design that reduces the number of vehicles travelling through an area in order to create more inviting spaces for people to walk, cycle, and enjoy.
Any car-light area will need to balance mobility and access needs for local businesses, residents and visitors with the desire to create an interesting and welcoming place for people to be.

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Leave a Reply to MichaelCancel Reply

  1. Surprising to see the phrase ‘car light’ – at all, but especially in this context. Water Street is the heart of a tourist area that is heavy on foot traffic, and already quite light on road capacity – barely two lanes in places, with dangerous pinch points and pedestrian clustering at Carrall and Cambie streets.
    It is understandable that commercial vehicle and transit access would be required, but how about applying a variation of the Granville mall by-law, which enables vehicle access only via permit (http://former.vancouver.ca/bylaws/9978c.PDF)?
    ‘Car light’ sounds like either bad policy – incremental change where more drastic measures are called for to ensure public safety – or weasel words used for political expediency.
    Clear, honest language should be used, at least to reveal the city’s true intentions or ideas for the neighbourhood.

    1. The term “car-light” is the City wisely hedging its bets. They want this area to be car-free but are shielding themselves against the inevitable Chicken Little chorus of residents and business owners others who are convinced they’ll all die screaming in penury if people can’t drive right up to their front door – because it is forever 1954 and Water Street is actually Surrey’s very first indoor shopping mall. And don’t forget there are others for whom the very notion of “car-free” streets is an attack on their entire sense of self as well as a slander against the purest virtues of Western Civilization.
      There are some sensitive souls out there defending Motordom who feel they are under siege. The City is right to cage its language.

  2. Would it not also be a good idea to build the long planned streetcar line to Water Street and the Waterfront Station from Telus Science World, and connect with Granville Island on the already existing rail line (and make sense of the $18 million spent line there) so that the ten million visitors to Granville Island could access the Olympic Station, Telus Science World, Gastown and provide tourists and locals a transit line? The city has preserved the right of way to Stanley Park. Water Street has to be torn up to fix it up; add the tracks and infrastructure now. Business, tourists and locals would benefit and it could be car free and yet provide sustainable transit. Or is Vancouver Council only concerned about bike lanes and pedestrians?

    1. How about a real RAPID transit, i.e. a subway station on the way to crowed north shore via Second Narrows Bridge ?
      The UBC Broadway line has as options a connection to Telus world via the Granville Island track https://www.translink.ca/-/media/Documents/plans_and_projects/rapid_transit_projects/Millennium-Line-Broadway-Extension/alternatives_evaluation/UBC_Line_Rapid_Transit_Study_Phase_2_Alternatives_Evaluation_Executive_Summary.pdf .. see combo 2 alternative
      A connection somehow from Gastown to downtown, Skytrain, CanadaLine, Stanley Park, E Van and N Van makes sense.
      The 2040 plan is very weak here indeed !

    2. Rapid transit to the North Shore via the 2nd Narrows Bridge wouldn’t be any faster than the Seabus. It would be far, far cheaper to simply increase Seabus frequencies to rapid transit levels by building more of them.

      1. Sean, I am opposed to the incredibly expensive subway offered on Broadway. The Condon option of rail transit all over Vancouver is more flexible,cheaper and offers more to more. But the SeaBus is limited to those who live near it. It takes two buses on half hour schedules, to get to it for me-even on a 1938 bridge with its traffic woes, a car is unfortunately faster and more convenient. LRT to the North Shore-not the obsolete and only 7 in the world, SkyTrain, would service more and faster to all the North Shore to even Horseshoe Bay (BC Ferries) on a seldom used former BC Rail line-one return train a day. By the way, I was surprised to see Mayor Heppner actually say what critics have been saying about why LRT is superior to SkyTrain-she said it is cheaper to build, more flexible, and operating costs are 40 percent less-first time a politician has said that I know of. (Van Sun page A3 Oct.5th)

        1. “But the SeaBus is limited to those who live near it.”
          No, this is a matter of creating a network that allows easy transition between different modes. Seabus is fine as it is, what sucks is the lack of connectivity on the North Shore side. If you could switch from the Seabus to an LRT running along Esplanate / north the access would greatly increase.
          Likewise, things like the B-Line and even some areas downtown / Westend would greatly benefit from LRT with it’s own ROW.
          But alas, if in doubt: “don’t intrude on car space” still seems to be the mantra, by Translink as much as the Metro cities.
          Maybe the NDP can finally unburden Translink from maintaining car infrastructure, but I am not holding my breath.

        2. Apparently NDP voters drive cars too, as we saw with the vote buying using PM bridge toll removal which got the extra seat or two in the B.C. Legislature.

        3. I’m with you Myron on the Arbutus-Granville Island- Water Street tram, but you lost me with your reasoning on Broadway, which is another kind of animal. The “Condon option” fails in its monocultural vision of urbanism. LRT works well where it is most suited, but denser and more intensive urbanism requires frequency above all. Lots and lots of frequency. That is why grade separation is needed in the densest corridors.
          There are many gradations of rail transit, and quality of service should always be the first consideration. To fight climate change, accept more immigrants and build our urban domestic economy, we need all the transit tools in the toolbox.

  3. Honestly, it should be car free. For deliveries to local businesses you can either use the back alley or set early morning / late night hours.
    Weirdly enough, it’s been done that way in Europe for decades and Water Street is the prime example where this makes total sense in Vancouver.

    1. I should add, in order to still allow east-west traffic they should make Cordova two way and remove the on street parking.
      Likewise, Alexander should become a cul-de-sac where it “joins” with Water. This would still allow cars / access to the area.

    2. Yes indeed it could or should be car free. But we need access. A subway station or two would be best to revitalize E-Van, plus a mental hospital and a few more homeless shelters / group home facilities.

        1. Why would anyone be frightened of homeless people? I am sure that these people cause no more harm than the average person. Do you have any evidence? I would be more concerned with the car traffic on Water street.
          On another note, I am glad that your have positive views on Denmark. Perhaps we should copy their model and have higher taxation and a bigger civil service (with proper pay levels) so that we can properly address our homelessness crisis.

        2. It is unsightly and unbecoming of a wealthy society such as Canada, Arno. City council, and province, regardless of party in power, always pressed for $s, usually sides with CUPE and wage increases for city employees rather than fund the homeless issue in earnest. Perhaps wage moderation by civil servants will solve the homeless issue ?

  4. Indeed, “car-light” street (what is the typical suburban cul de sac) seems a serious step back from the “pedestrian priority” objective stated in Transport 2040, so it is an unfortunate terminology showing a lack of ambition from the city council.
    The picture provided by Arno Schortinghuis is a good example of what one should be aiming for Water street.
    Regarding transit,
    Water street is not on a transit straight path (a big difference with Robson, and may be the reason why the city is not eager to disrupt that!) however the whole East hasting corridor transit need to be revisited:
    Hasting could then adopt the Montparnasse bd design from Paris
    http://p4.storage.canalblog.com/48/64/363481/86942769_o.jpg
    mix of local and B line transit could be sorted out along the lines exposed in this post where basically only one local route subiste on Hasting
    and no bus service is on Cordova, save for bus looping West of Cambie.
    So Cordova can be rethinked with the “mandatory” bike lane….
    Regarding the homelessness and social issue
    The whole “car light” exercise if successful, will lead to gentrification of the neighborhood. That has been verified time and time – I recently stumped on a 1981 paper (“the velo lenteur des riches, vitesse des pauvres”) where sociologist Philippe Gaboriau was already theorizing this (The “creative class” appropriate the space, to keep at bay the “lumpenproletariat”, and he already foreseen the bike as an instrument of this space appropriation by the “creative class”, well ahead of a Richard Florida). In anycase, here it is probably a good new considering the surrounding slum.

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