The never ending Olympic Village debacle

Ever since the Olympics were over, it seems every week there is another piece of bad news about the Olympic Village. Its sad that such an amazing project has had a hard time selling. What's frustrating is that had the real estate market remained as hot as it was 2 years ago, no one would even be thinking about the place, except to comment on how well the city made out on the deal. Unfortunately, the units are simply too expensive for the average person to even consider buying there.

I think there is one other main factor in why the place isn't selling out, and that's the location. Although the village is close to downtown, it is surrounded by nothing. There is a lot of development already happening and lots more to come, but why was the village stuck dead in the middle of a vast, empty wasteland? It's not beside either of the Skytrain stations close to it (Main Street and Olympic Village) and the only bus line runs on 2nd Ave, at least a block away. Had it been located next to Cambie Street, in addition to the adjacent Skytrain station, it also would have benefit from all the great retail that already exists on Cambie Rise. Instead, Urban Fare and London Drugs keep pushing back their opening dates because there are no customers. It's frustrating that such a great project is located where it is.

Fortunately, even if the city does end up losing money on the project (which I highly doubt, even with the whole mess that's gone on), we have to look at the bigger picture. The city will be reaping significant property taxes from the project over the decades to come. In addition, the city still owns the vacant lands to the east and west of the site, on which they will no doubt make money having learned from the experience to date. The Olympic Village has also been a huge draw for private developers, and there are now several buildings built, under-construction or in the planning phase around the entire site. In the end, with those additional property taxes coming in, the city stands to make a huge gain over the long term. We just need to get the remaining units sold and get past this mess.

Vancouver's Downtown Streetcar

For those of you that haven't heard, the City of Vancouver is planning a downtown streetcar. "Phase 0", aka the Olympic Line, will run from Granville Island to the Olympic Village during the games, and will be free! The full plan for the future streetcar system is right here:

Downtown Streetcar Design and Alignment Report

I think this is a great idea, but I don't think it goes far enough. Why does the Pacific Blvd. line terminate at Drake and Granville? Why does it go along Drake at all? Why doesn't the line serve the West End at all? The Sky Train does a great job of serving downtown overall, but the West End is served only by buses, which are often full - a streetcar line would be a great solution and would have an immediate ridership.

Also, despite being slightly more expensive overall (yes, the capital expense is higher, but operating costs are lower), the streetcar is proving to be a preferred transit choice, as it attracts much more ridership and spurs development in the area - Portland is a great example of this. The lesson they have learned is that streetcar lines, because they are a permanent investment, are much better at generating new development than buses. A bus route could change at any moment - but once tracks for a streetcar are in place, you know it's not going away.

The city also realizes that continuing the line down Arbutus Street (along an existing rail corridor) is also an option for the future, and one that makes a lot of sense. Connections to the Millennium Skytrain Line, both current (at VCC/Clark Dr.) and the future extension along Broadway to UBC make this line even more feasible.

Anyways, here's my proposal for the future streetcar line downtown:


Routing the streetcar like this puts ALL of the downtown peninsula within a 5-10 min. walk of either a streetcar stop or a skytrain station. Streets like Davie, Denman and Robson stand to gain big benefits from having the line along them - new development at higher density (4-6 storey buildings instead of the current 1-2 storey shops), more pedestrian traffic, etc. It might make sense to take a line along Granville street to South Granville as well, because it is still a major shopping and business street, with the B-line to the airport now gone due to the Canada Line.

The line down Robson Street would work great in conjunction with its gradual conversion to a pedestrian street, particularly in the already busy Jervis-to-Seymour section. The car traffic barely moves at busy times right now, and pedestrians are nearly squeezing off the sidewalks, so closing that section to cars makes a lot of sense. This route also takes advantage of streets that are already busy transit routes, so there is guaranteed to be ridership from day one.

And in the very long term, it may make sense to take the line right over the Lion's Gate bridge to West Vancouver - but I know that's really stretching it. Even better would be a tunnel continuing the Canada Line to Lonsdale to eliminate the Seabus, and then a dedicated streetcar along the north shore linking North Vancouver and West Vancouver...but that's a topic for another day.

Improving West Georgia

Since moving a few months ago I've been spending a lot more time walking along West Georgia St here in downtown Vancouver and have noticed that although parts of it are great, in general it needs some work. In fact I think this street has a ton of potential that is being missed, despite the fact that it really is the main street through downtown. It may have the ability to be to Vancouver what Michigan Ave is to Chicago. That is a lofty goal but I think West Georgia could become the "grand boulevard" that this city lacks.

The section of West Georgia from Seymour to Bute is already off to a good start with its very wide sidewalks and great buildings, but heading east, the street quickly degrades. Heading west of Bute the street is great looking, but there is little to attract pedestrians or any life other than cars. In general the street has a mix of countless types of trees but there are sections lacking any trees at all or those that do exist look pretty sad.

More than any other street in the city, West Georgia is blessed with great buildings and attractions along its length to draw people to it. We should take advantage of that fact and make it a great walking street linking those features. From east to west:

• False Creek (the connection between downtown and False Creek needs major improvement and I know the city is looking into options for that)
• GM Place and BC Place
• Queen Elizabeth Theatre
• CBC TV studio
  
• Vancouver Public Library - main branch
• The Hudon's Bay Company store and building
• Pacific Centre
  
• Vancouver Art Gallery (more on this below)
• The Hotel Vancouver
• Christ Church Cathedral
• Shangri-La building
• The Ritz Carlton (if it ever gets built)
• Several high-end residential buildings
• Stanley Park
  

What other street in the city has so many great places along it? Robson Street has great shopping and links some of the above buildings, but it is already a great street and is nearly over capacity (as anyone walking on a sunny weekend day knows). There is talk of moving the Art Gallery to False Creek, which I don't agree with because it moves it away from the lively heart of downtown where it will always do well. The better option (if it must move) is to move it to the other oft-discussed location which is that huge parking lot across Cambie street from the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. At the very least, the gallery, in its current location, really must reopen the grand entry facing West Georgia, which right now is a gathering place for the homeless.

Now to make the street a grand boulevard, here's what I think needs to be done at a minimum:

• Ensure there are trees planted along the entire length of the street and that those trees are healthy and well cared for. (In winter decorate them with lights - just google "michigan ave christmas" to see why).
• Widen and improve all the sidewalks on the east end of the street to the same width as the rest - right now they are just too narrow and in generally poor condition.
• Wherever possible (in terms of traffic volume) build a centre median to allow the planting of more trees. This would also allow for some left-turn lanes.
  
• Actively encourage and stimulate development on the few parking lots that remain: (between Beatty/Cambie; between Homer/Richards; SW corner at Richards; SW corner at Cardero)
  
• Work with Canada Post to improve the area in front of their building (ie: remove the parking).
• Extend the two-way traffic to at least Beatty Street.

So those are my ideas - in general I think they are pretty simple and would elevate West Georgia from a pretty good street to a great one.

Form Shift Vancouver

I attended a lecture last night that presented the winning submissions in Form Shift. After that presentation panelists debated questions on the issues that generated the competition. What is Form Shift? Here's a description taken from clips on the site (http://formshiftvancouver.com/):

Over the past 20 years, the approach to community planning, zoning, density, transportation and housing in Vancouver has yielded substantial improvements. Continued improvement, however, requires ongoing innovation and creativity.

The City of Vancouver has developed Climate Change Action Plans as well as the EcoDensity Charter. Vancouver was the first city in Canada to adopt The 2030 Challenge for green house gas reduction. City Council has taken that commitment a step further with the stated goal of becoming “the greenest city in the world”.

FormShift Vancouver challenges you to give shape to these goals through ideas and design solutions that will help shape the future of the city...this is your chance to build a hypothetical form of the future, one that is in keeping with the vibrant, ecologically-friendly and sustainable city to which we aspire.

The post-presentation debate brought up some very interesting ideas...

• We encourage development along arterial roads (typically 4-6 stories, commercial/retail at ground level and residential above) because they are transit routes, meaning residents don't depend completely on cars. But these routes are very noisy - few people want to live on them. I can attest to this having turned down several condos while house hunting for that very reason. So how do we balance the traffic, noise and density with the desires and needs of residents?
• The suburbs are growing at a much faster rate than inner cities. How do we move more of that growth to our cities? How do we encourage people to relocate into our cities versus the suburbs? How do we work with suburban communities to help them grow smart?
• Does density = affordability?

Anyways, go visit the website and check out all the entries that are posted there.

Cars, Bikes and the Burrard Street Bridge

If you've never ridden a bike (or roller-bladed, or even walked, for that matter) over the Burrard Street Bridge here in Vancouver, let me try to paint a picture for you. There are 6 lanes of traffic squeezed onto the bridge with a sidewalk that is maybe 6' wide on each side. The curb feels like it's 12" above the road. Bikes and pedestrians share the bridge, (never a good combination). I compare it to riding your bike along a balance beam - that curb is a huge drop, and between trying to stay on the sidewalk and not hit pedestrians, well you can see why I avoid using that bridge at all costs - it's just no fun! The same could be said for the Granville Bridge, but for now I'll stick to the matter at hand.

I can't believe that the first (and to date, only) test for converting lanes on the Burrard Bridge to bicycle lanes was 13 years ago. That's right, 1996 - and the issue is up for debate again. That test only lasted one week (due to complaints from drivers), so the results have to be taken with a grain of salt. But even in that one week, car traffic dropped and bike traffic significantly increased. And no where in Canada is the climate better suited for cycling than southwestern BC. At long last the new city council is voting on a plan for a six month trial starting in June, and I predict a huge success.

First, I did some searching on the website of the Alliance for Biking and Walking. They have dozens of reports on all types of travel, and here are a few points that I liked most from one report, Making Cycling Irresistable, by Puncher and Buehler.

• Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands have greatly improved cycling safety since 1970. Although levels of cycling have increased in all three countries over the past 35 years, the total number of cycling fatalities has declined by over 70%. Fatalities fell by 60% in the UK over the same period, but the amount of cycling also decreased. The least improvement in cycling safety has been in the USA, where fatalities fell by only 30%.
• As the cyclist fatality rate per billion km cycled rose by 174% from 1950 to 1978, the average km cycled per inhabitant fell by 65%. Since the mid-1970s, Dutch cities have undertaken massive improvements to cycling infrastructure and restricted car use. The result has been an 81% fall in the cyclist fatality rate...thus encouraging a 36% increase in km cycled per inhabitant.
• The perceived traffic danger of cycling is an important deterrent to more widespread cycling. Women and the elderly appear to be especially sensitive to such traffic danger. Many American parents do not allow their children to cycle for the same reason.
• In the USA, much of the effort to improve cyclist safety has focused on increasing
  helmet use, if necessary by law, especially for children. Thus, it is important to
  emphasize that the much safer cycling in northern Europe is definitely not due to
  widespread use of safety helmets. On the contrary, in the Netherlands, with the safest cycling of any country, less than one percent of adult cyclists wear helmets.
• Rates of cycling are similar among different income classes. For example, the
  2002 national travel survey in Germany revealed that the lowest-income quartile was
  only slightly more likely to travel by bike (10% of trips) than the highest-income quartile
  (8.3%) (German Federal Ministry of Transport, 2003). Similarly, cyclists are distributed
  evenly among income classes in the Netherlands and Denmark (Dutch Ministry of
  Transport, 2006; Dutch Cycling Federation, 2006).
  

It really boils down to common sense, as many studies have shown - make cycling safer, and more people will get out of their cars. Bikes and cars don't mix - drivers are scared of hitting bikes, and cyclists are scared of being hit by a car. Make it safer for one, and you're making the road safer for everyone, improving traffic flow overall. (Not to mention the cars that are no longer on the road because the driver now cycles). Sort of a "build-it-and-they-will-come" situation.

(On a side note, the "build-it-and-they-will-come" phenomenon works for cars as well. It's been shown that when, for example, a highway is widened, the overall increase in traffic ends up being much more than the capacity that was added, and in not too long traffic is actually moving slower than it was before! Clearly, building more roads is not generally the answer to traffic problems.)

Now of course drivers aren't going down without a fight here - they are worried about traffic. Traffic in Vancouver can be hell, but it's no worse than any other city in North America. In fact overall, I find it to generally be no big deal - and I've traveled to numerous major cities across the continent. Drivers here are worried that reducing lanes on the bridge will create traffic havoc. Fact is, although the first week or two may be a pain, in the long term drivers learn and overall traffic actually decreases by more than than the capacity that was taken away. In addition, I have never once been stuck in a traffic jam on Burrard Bridge itself - the problem has been the intersections and traffic lights at either end. Taking away space on the bridge shouldn't even be the issue for drivers.

The funniest thing I heard on the news today was someone from (I believe) the Downtown Business Association. Their concern is that fewer people will come downtown and business will suffer, because fewer people will want to cross a more congested bridge. Well, let's be honest here - there isn't a truly non-congested route to get to downtown as it is - so how will this make it any worse? If anything, business will increase as more cyclists from the rest of the city feel comfortable coming downtown instead of staying on the other side of False Creek. In a study done by the City of Toronto (Feb. 2009) with regards to adding bike lanes on Bloor Street, it was found that "Patrons arriving by foot and bicycle visit the most often and spend the most money per month..."

I could go on forever with facts and figures and reports and studies that show how beneficial the conversion of these lanes will be, but the best data is going to come from the actual test. Let's at least try this for 6 months and get the hard data. I think that even the drivers will be surprised at how much better this solution is. As I've said before, we can't keep growing based on the needs of cars, because that only keeps getting us into more trouble - no one can argue the fact our roads are only at capacity for a few hours out of every day. We have to look at new options - not just for the environment, but for our quality of life as well.

A Grand Public Square for Vancouver

A few weeks ago I talked about what to do with the Sears Building in downtown Vancouver, and one of my ideas was to tear it down and build a public square big enough to host large events such as concerts, parties, rallies, etc. It's something that Vancouver is definitely lacking. Cities of the world are often defined by their squares and plazas. Rome, for example, IS its piazza's. "Meet me at Piazza Navona", actually means something. Vancouver has lots of public space along its perimeter, looking out to the mountains and ocean, but there is no major inward-looking space nor is there really any square that everyone knows. "Meet me at Emily Barnes Park", means something only to the people in the Yaletown area. We all know English Bay, but it's a huge area - how often have you tried to describe to someone on the phone where you are on English Bay? Lawn or sand; north or south; maybe at the Starbucks on the corner (which may lead to "which one?"

Anyways... go figure that there was already a design competition underway to suggest solutions to this problem called Where's the Square? (http://vancouverpublicspace.ca/index.php?page=wts_splash) The contest gave no specific site, but asked teams to suggest a site and reason why that location was best. There were numerous entries with grand squares located on the waterfront in Coal Harbour/Gastown, but to me these only add to the outward-looking public space we already have. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that view is a bad thing - it's beautiful. The other large group of entries centered around Robson Square and the Sears Building, most of them incorporating a new/improved Vancouver Art Gallery suggesting that it is much better in its current location rather than the proposed move to Plaza of Nations. This is really the place I see with the most potential. It already has huge volumes of pedestrians who would love more space, it's located at the heart of downtown, and there is a sky train station soon to be right there.

I also liked the entry that proposed a new square at Granville and Pacific/Drake. It would be a great new square in an area that is soon to be redevelopped and would only improve the attractiveness of this currently "downtrodden" area.

So go check out the short-listed entries and vote for your favourite!
http://vancouverpublicspace.ca/index.php?page=wts_gallery

On a larger scale, it would be great to see large public squares pop up all over the city and region creating a network of great spaces.