From About Here founder Uytae Lee — part of the team at Halifax-based PLANifax — comes the following video, entitled “Why are we getting rid of a highway in Vancouver?”.
It’s a cogent and thorough backgrounder on Vancouver’s viaduct teardown project.
It runs 5:28. It’s light, heavy, serious and fun at the same time. And it’s worth every second.
The video starts with a project overview, including some penetrating context on the viaducts, and the viaduct-spawning master plans for all-freeways all-the-time everywhere.
It then drops into urban renewal (the sad and crude excuse for neighbourhood destruction-by-viaduct), the effects that such highways have on cities, and finishes with a look at other cities and why they too are getting rid of freeways.
All in 5 minutes.
Stay tuned for the next edition, which promises to cover those opposed to tearing down the viaducts.
I don’t see the video…
Hi Agustin – the embedded video should play on this page, but you can also find it on the About Here Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/abouthere/videos/229224997853023/
Ah, Facebook video. That explains it. I’ve blocked Facebook 🙂
Thanks!
It’s also available on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/ReDPLxaTwjI
I’ve enjoyed watching this reporter on a number of occasions even though it was on Halifax. Not just another mindless boring mouthpiece parrot-talking-head. Well researched; well illustrated; well presented. Here’s hoping he moves to Vancouver.
He has moved to the Lower Mainland. Expect to see more videos
from him over the summer!
FYI, this is Uytae’s second video on a Vancouver topic. His first was about the Millennium Line Broadway Extension:
https://youtu.be/accrf6-vLJU
I had the same problem, for the same reason. Disliking Facebook, I went looking for a YouTube page, and Planifax does have one:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSgBYVpj8oLU854s6yZDW2g/videos?&ab_channel=PLANifax
The video about Vancouver’s viaducts does not seem to have been posted yet, though.
The viaducts YouTube version is here (as I posted earlier in the comments) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDPLxaTwjI
Thanks for the Youtube link!
Propaganda meant to shore up a losing proposal. Viaduct demolition was always a wasteful idea, and a huge and needless spike in carbon emissions were it to get demolished and then rebuilt as a super highway at grade level. Fortunately, times have changed, the attractive glitter of the city has vanished due to high housing costs, congestion, noise and pollution and now mortal health threats, job losses, and an emerging depression era economy.’ People have abandoned the city: students, foreign investors, business travellers, immigrants, remote workers, retirees. The condo market is in free fall. Affordable housing is around the corner for the few that remain as the population of the city shrinks. Who wants to live in a covid tower? Who wants to live in a two-meter world? No one. The city is on the brink of bankruptcy; the feds will not support a project without demonstrated support of zero emissions goals. This project is DOA.
Wishful thinking, Jolson.
It seems impossible to the hillbillies that people like to live in the city where the corona virus has been a mixed blessing. Some events (that hillbillies also enjoy driving long distances to) have been put on hold for a while. But the urban parks and seawall have never been busier, the police have looked the other way about alcohol in public, neighbours are meeting each other outdoors and more people have more time to spend with them. Restaurants are reopening. Patios are expanding into the spaces previously reserved for motordom. Bike lanes and walkways are similarly reclaiming their space – spurred by the virus. Car traffic from all those selfish suburbanites who think nothing of degrading the urban environment for their convenience is way down. The air is cleaner.
And, I’ll wager, almost none of all those people in the “covid towers” even knows somebody who caught the bug let alone caught it themselves.
The hillbillies have no idea. No perception of a world they can’t understand. An exaggerated caricature brought to them by the MSM and city haters in their share silos.
Meanwhile downtown office construction has never boomed more in the history of Vancouver, New proposals are still going through the city permitting processes – two new big towers approved last week. There is no evidence that anybody is fleeing the city, notwithstanding a slight, and likely temporary, exodus from Manhattan – most likely among the more affluent who already had a second home.
I know you can’t believe it Jolson. It makes no sense to you. But it makes total sense to me and many others. I like not owning a car, having bike lanes out my door and excellent transit a block away. I like that the closest bars and restaurants are a block away. I like that I have many favourites within a ten minute bike ride. I like that my commute is ten minutes by bike. I like that I have a car share vehicle a block away.
And I like that the viaducts are coming down and creating more space for others who will like all those things just like me. I like that they’ll be able to live a low carbon lifestyle as most city dwellers do. You’d rather have them living in some exurb and spewing their emissions far and wide. I don’t get that.
Maybe it’s time you started providing a positive perspective about what you like so much about your preferred lifestyle instead of posting anti-urban sentiments on an urban policy blog.
The urbanites who read and post here know that you misunderstand much about urban life so you’re not going to convince them of anything. But you might still have a shot at promoting your ideals if you can tell us why.