March 27, 2018

Adrian Crook On Those Viaducts

NPA council hopeful Adrian Crook bravely tweets strong opinions on viaducts and car culture. Does this look to you like a preview of the evident internal struggle within the NPA? Hello, Glen Chernen, are you in this discussion?
AC.Viaducts
 

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    1. From a purely (and perhaps cynical) tactical view, running under the NPA banner is probably worth an extra 10k votes from name recognition/political tribalism alone. Given the conventional wisdom holds this is a change election it’s probably the easiest path to getting elected.

  1. Didn’t all the current NPA councillors vote for viaduct removal? Like Vision, the NPA knows the bigger winner is the developer, not car-free idealists.

      1. Of course it is, why waste time claiming otherwise? You don’t flush hundreds of millions of dollars tearing down good infrastructure without a) an ideaological point to make b) a set of wealthy donors to reward.
        The irony is this is will end up being as much anti-pedestrian and anti-cyclist as it is anti-car. Pedestrians will now face vastly more potential interaction points with cars that were previously separate, while cyclists will lose a totally protected straight-shot route downtown.
        This is the last gasp of the anti-freeway Boomers who think they gave Vancouver such a “win” in the late Sixties. The irony that by doing so they reward developers is priceless.

        1. Agreed wrt the cyclist changes.
          The cyclist route changes from a straight shot on a bike-only lane from Prior Street to Dunsmuir Street(via the viaduct), to an at-grade crossing of Main Street, an at-grade crossing of Quebec Street (with increased volumes of traffic) to an at grade bikeway intersection at near the current kids playground at Creekside Park to a new pathway and [shared?] bike/pedestrian viaduct that parallels the SkyTrain guideway up to Dunsmuir Street.
          Note that none of the current reports seem to portray the route with any clarity.

        2. EDIT – just realized that the existing route already has an at-grade crossing of Main Street since it goes up the on-ramp.

        3. There is one additional intersection, the new protected intersection at Quebec, but this only considers people on bikes who arrived at the current viaduct from Union St. Those were the only people who benefitted from the viaduct bike lane.
          Now consider people arriving on the new arterial around Prior (on the new protected bike lanes), the people arriving from the Ontario Bikeway, and the people arriving from the Central Valley Greenway to the Flats. None of those people would use the viaduct before. Now they will all have a protected path straight to Dunsmuir. That is a major enhancement for people biking.
          Beyond the Dunsmuir active ramp, consider the new protected lanes (and intersections) on Pacific, Expo Blvd, Carrall, and Quebec. All of this is a significant step forward towards more complete streets, for people using all modes.
          The street changes and new ramp are fairly clear IMO.

        4. It might more accurately be described as “anti-freeway in a city”. There will be a ground level boulevard that will more than serve all the motor traffic but it will be a style more like Expo Boulevard.
          I personally don’t care too much either way but the more they work on it the more I lean towards the being in favour of a replacement. They’re going to have to spend a bunch of money fixing it anyway as it deteriorates, they might as well put that money to better use.

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