Quote:
Originally Posted by Metro-One
This is what I hat about these threads, finally it was going in a good direction with creative ideas in how to incorporate them in the landscape and good points on why we still need them, then some one has to come along and poke the anti-car, quick buck simple condo bee hive by saying they need to build more downtown. Sigh...
I have honestly never been in a bad traffic jam after disembarking from the ducts, sure there is volume, but how is Prior street any different then 1st Ave? In fact a good portion of prior is comercial.
|
Why not build more downtown? Vancouver goes quite abruptly from giant towers to single family as you move east. I think more mid-density (3-6 storey) multi-purpose neighborhoods along NE False creek is the way to go to better link Chinatown and Main St with downtown. And is there really a need to move vehicles at high speeds from downtown to points East? As you said yourself, there is no current problem embarking the viaducts to the East, which would lead to the assumption that these roads were designed for capacities which have not, and may never be reached.
It's funny how even many of us here at SSP take the view that crowded public transit is necessary to allow for the economics of operation, but shy away from the view that roads should ever be backed up. I think this reeks of the have-our-cake-and-eat-it point of view most people at large seem to have. People want Metro Vancouver to have a wicked awesome public transit system, but aren't willing to give up their detached single family home to get it. It's pretty much the-best-thing-ever to be able to move around freely in our cars, but to be able to do so at the expense of quality public transit and walkable areas is pretty lame, and in essence, I think this thinking this way is extremely anti-urban, and detrimental to the growth of Vancouver as a quality urban place.
I am of the strong opinion that present day Vancouver is in the unfortunate position of lacking either a citywide grade separated transit system or a city wide freeway system. It's kind of like a no mans land, in between one and the other. Not New York and Not L.A., but with the advantages transportation-wise of neither. If we're ever going to build a grade separated transit network across the entire city, then yes, more things will have to be built near the central core to allow for the high ridership such a system would require to be operational without being over-subsidized to the point of cash strains on the city. If we are going to go down the build more freeways route, well, then we'd start razing entire nieghborhoods and putting up viaducts anywhere....but wait, this was already decided over 40 years ago.
I support the decisions of people to block freeway construction in the 50s and 60s, but isn't it time the city got down to building out more Skytrain on a solid schedule? Surely, Skytrain to UBC is justifiable on the current bus ridership along Broadway alone. Let's build the Millenium line West, and then get working on further connecting the downtown core with Skytrain along Hastings, look into a connection to the North Shore, etc. Vancouver is an extremely suburban metro area and there are many places that can densify greatly to support further rapid transit expansion, and infill to areas withing the current orbit of the system.
And by no means is the Georgia Viaduct exclusive to these ideas. Whether it is destroyed, or enhanced, will be a major symbolic statement towards which direction the city wants to take into the future. It's not the simple question of cars vs. transit users, it's: "What does the city you want to live in look like?"