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Originally Posted by racc
Actually there is a huge amount of land lift. In addition to freeing up developable land, removing them would greatly enhance the view from the first 3 or 4 stories of the buildings. That would probably translate into $200,000 to $300,000 per unit.
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You won't generate any money from existing buildings, unless you are considering the amount of tax funds generated through purchases of those apartments. That number wouldn't be significant.
Removing the viaducts means there needs to be an investment of some sorts into Union St. and Prior St. as a result of increasing traffic. The cars have to go somewhere. This will also lead to more traffic going on Expo and Pacific Blvd. Expo Blvd and Union St. at its current state isn't the safest road to ride your bike and an increase in traffic will make this worst.
Also, everyone here has simply stated "remove the viaduct" with no plan or diagram whatsoever. How do you remove it? From where? Spectrum is already fully integrated into the viaduct and the residents there wouldn't be happy if you remove their direct access onto Dunsmir and Georgia viaduct. GM Place is already integrated into the viaduct. That means the portion of the viaducts from Beatty and Abbott cannot be removed. It requires quite a distance to lower the viaduct onto street level. What about the SkyTrain guideway? It goes underneath the viaduct. This means you are going to have to either raise the SkyTrain guideway or tunnel the SkyTrain. There are so many factors involved that no one considers. Removing the traffic without redirecting Georgia St in some way will not work: Georgia is a major artery in downtown.
That brings me to another point about the congestion charge idea: many commuters to West Vancouver over the Lion Gates Bridge don't actually want to go into downtown, but have no choice to go through the city core because of their limited route choices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by racc
As far as the cost of developing new connections, it would cost no more than the costly attempts outlined by deasine to better integrate the viaducts. Covering roads and tracks with concrete to create parks is really expensive. Walkways up to the viaducts aren't cheap either. The city would also save a lot of money on the maintenance of the viaducts. I expect they will reach the end of their design life sooner or later.
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My suggestion was more of an extreme way of integrating the viaducts into the urban fabric. However, I did mention that the CoV could and should be negotiating with developers, such as Concord Pacific, so that much of this can be paid for. I'm not saying all of it should be paid by the developer, but this would be a public/private partnership in another form.