Time for Vancouver to Tear Down Its Viaducts?

[officedweller]

How many parks does that small area of downtown need? It's already park-dense.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by deasine

(Vancouver Sun 2011)

While I'm not sure Port Mann might be the best choice to showcase an aerial park, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea for other bridges that may be replaced in the future (Lions Gate Bridge? Viaducts if they will be decommissioned for road use?)

The High Line Park in NYC is being built on an abandoned elevated railway line that ran down the west side of Manhattan from 34th St (near Penn Station) down to Spring Street. This structure was originally built in the 1930's when the west side of Manhattan was the Meat Packing District and other industrial & warehouse buildings and the nearby docks on the Hudson River were the busiest in the world. The NY Central railway raised their 10th Ave railway tracks above the streets so their train traffic was separated from street traffic.

The rail line was actually designed to run through the warehouses and factories along 10th Ave instead of over the street so that the box cars could be delivered directly into the buildings rather than on an open siding next to the them.

As interstate trucking traffic increased beginning in the 50s, rail shipping traffic decreased and when containerization became the norm starting in the 70s the ship docks and shipping warehouses moved off Manhattan to 'the suburbs' of New Jersey and Staten Island where there was more land. By the 80s, the need for rail shipping in & out of Manhattan had been reduced to zero, so the NY Central abandoned the line.

Over the years there were various plans to re-use the structures for transit or express roads, but nothing happened until about ten years ago when the 'Friends of the High Line' was formed to keep the structures in place & use them for an elevated park, since the area was now being transformed into residential uses.


The major difference between the viaducts in Vancouver and the High Line in New York is the High Line Park is re-using a structure that was abandoned and derelict for decades; The Viaducts on the other hand are in constant daily use and with normal annual maintenance will remain useful for many more decades.


btw:
The picture shows the Standard Hotel that was opened in 2009 around the time the Park was getting started.
If you look closely, you'll notice that half of the hotel was built over the High Line.
(SHHHH! Don't tell Meggs this can be done. His head will explode.)

I've heard the hotel has a note on the room windows to remind guests that while they are admiring New York, New York is looking back at them too. Apparently too many of the hotel's guests were wearing nothing but a smile while taking in the views of New York City.

Here's a high-res picture taken from the same street corner:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...cbcac90545.jpg

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by amor de cosmos

new contest:

the details:
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/plannin...nect/brief.htm

So, budding young planners? Who all is looking at entering this competition?

[officedweller]

Sun article today:

I walked New York's High Line and all I saw was a naked woman
By Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun October 12, 2011

....


At one section, a new hotel, the Standard, straddles the High Line, and park-goers actually walk underneath it. When my wife and I did, we came upon a knot of people on the other side looking back up at the hotel's facade. We stopped and looked up with them. Some kind of photo shoot appeared to be going on, and there, in a floor-to-ceiling window of one of the hotel rooms was a naked woman striking poses for a photographer.

She was striking herself, and possessed the kind of proportions that would cause, say, a scandalized B.C. legislature to go all a-twitter. All around us, cellphones and cameras were being raised to record the moment. The naked woman moved slowly and sensuously, unconcerned about the crowd she undoubtedly knew was watching her, and it was then I thought, I love this city. Since then, I've learned that the Standard has become famous for attracting all manner of exhibitionists who love posing, among other pastimes, for the High Line tourists below. Ah, New York City ...

Where was I?

Oh yes, the possibility of a High Line for Vancouver.

In a New York Times article, Wytold Rybczynski, author, architect, professor of urbanism and, as it happens, Canadian-born, argued that elevated parks like the High Line need a "combination of history and density" to succeed.

Trying to duplicate that in a city like Vancouver, which has neither of those prerequisites, would be a mistake, and would contribute one more example to the "dismal record of failed urban design strategies."

The Granville Mall comes to mind.

Rybczynski, I think, is right, despite the lovely idea of a park arcing over the city.

The High Line, for one thing, cost more than $150 million to build, and more to maintain, and not only does Vancouver not have that kind of money, but retrofitting structures as big and difficult as the viaducts could be even more expensive.

There are other reasons that give pause.

The viaducts still carry a significant amount of traffic in and out of the downtown. Vancouver is already well blessed with parks. There are other, more pressing, priorities.

And at bottom, a High Line for Vancouver is a conceit, a fatal ache to be world-class, a little city dreaming of the Big Apple.

Sometimes, we bite off more than we can chew.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business...#ixzz1aaysrWbJ

[amor de cosmos]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

So, budding young planners? Who all is looking at entering this competition?

update today:

Here’s what the city planner Cory Dobson reported this morning in an e-mail blast to people on the re:connect list serve:

Only two and a half weeks remain until the submission deadline for Re:Connect, an open ideas competition for the Viaducts and Eastern Core. Roll up your sleeves, sharpen your pencils and join the already over 50 individuals from over a dozen countries around that world who are entered to help inspire our city and shape the future of the city’s eastern core.

Registration deadline is Wednesday, November 2nd with submission due by Friday, November 4th. Winners will be selected by an independent jury of renowned local and international architects, urbanists, educators, sustainability and economics experts. There will also be public voting to select a ‘People’s Choice’ winner in each of the categories (online voting will run from November 21-25, 2011). Winners will be celebrated and profiled at a public forum in early December.

Please refer to the website vancouver.ca/reconnect for additional information or to register for the competition.

Submit your ideas today and help shape Vancouver!

http://www.geoffmeggs.ca/2011/10/18/...d-false-creek/

[IanS]

Originally Posted by whatnext

In its current form, the CoV seems capable of making all kinds of worse decisions. However, complicating their wish list is the fact the federal government owns the park and merely leases it to Vancouver. They could always revoke the lease should they feel it to be in the interest of the greater good. Nicely linked to the viaduct issue, in that had Project 200 gone ahead, traffic would have gone under Burrard Inlet by tunnel and been removed from the park. Harcourt & Co. seem to have forgotten that when they were backslapping each other over killing the project.

There's no way the vaiducts would become an aerial park, with Concord chomping at the bit for a return on their "investment".

IMO, the whole park idea is a bait and switch.

They come up with a stupid and impractical idea (remove the viaducts) and then layer on an even less practical idea (turn the viaducts into parks). Then, when it turns out that the park idea won't work, they purport to "compromise" and just remove the viaducts.

[dreambrother808]

Yes, because the COV is pushing hard to turn it into an aerial park, rather than this just being an idea some people have brought up for consideration...

[red-paladin]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Yes, because the COV is pushing hard to turn it into an aerial park, rather than this just being an idea some people have brought up for consideration...

Wooooah....

I thought the entire reason the viaduct needed to go was that there was 'valuable unused real estate below it' and now they want to keep it there and make it a park instead of using it for cars? This makes no sense to me at all. They really are just anti-car....

[IanS]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Yes, because the COV is pushing hard to turn it into an aerial park, rather than this just being an idea some people have brought up for consideration...

Not sure, but I think you understood my point to be the exact opposite of what it was.

[s211]

Originally Posted by red-paladin

Wooooah....

I thought the entire reason the viaduct needed to go was that there was 'valuable unused real estate below it' and now they want to keep it there and make it a park instead of using it for cars? This makes no sense to me at all. They really are just anti-car....

Yes, their ideology is showing, and it's the equivalent of plumber butt-crack.

[Vestry]

Originally Posted by whatnext

I love how the image at the top of the page prove what BS it is when people say the viaducts cut through Strathcona. There is virtually no Stratchona south of Venables (save one row of houses). The park and the railway yards cut it off from the rest of the city.

You've never see maps of Strathcona prior to the viaducts have you?
Or the bigger plans in store for Strathcona which were much more extensive than those viaducts.

[Canadian Mind]

I really hope whomever is in charge of the regional districts major roadways (translink?) and the provincial government just Veto this stupidity.

Even if it is determined that the best alternative for right NOW is to destroy the things, who knows what the transportation climate will be in 25 years? Wouldn't we look dumb if we tear them down in 2015 and the damned things are being rebuilt in 2035 for capacity issues, too many cars on surface streets, etc.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by Vestry

You've never see maps of Strathcona prior to the viaducts have you?
Or the bigger plans in store for Strathcona which were much more extensive than those viaducts.

For most people Gore is the dividing line between Strathcona and Chinatown even though there is a bit of overlap for a few blocks east of Gore.

The Viaducts stop before reaching Gore, so they are actually in Chinatown not Strathcona. It would appear that only two blocks -bounded by Quebec, Union, Gore, and Prior- were cleared for the Viaducts to be built.

South of Pender St, West of Main Street and East of the Beatty Street escarpment used to be the railway yards and industrial areas, which is why the viaducts were so useful when they were built in the 1970s - They provided an easy way to get over the railway yards so traffic could get to and from Downtown using Main Street and Prior St.

When the the current viaducts were built, they were supposed to be the downtown connections to an East-West freeway that would have ripped out every building along Union Street and Prior Street from Main Street (Chinatown) on the west through Strathcona, Grandview-Woodlands, and Hastings-Sunrise in the east, providing an elevated freeway so traffic from Downtown could get to the new (at that time) Trans Canada Highway. Perhaps this E-W freeway would have continued into Burnaby all the way to North Road, but I haven't seen evidence of this.

There was also supposed to be a North-South freeway along Main Street from the Harbour to the Fraser River that would have bulldozed every building long the Main St & Quebec St corridor from Gastown to Marine Drive. I suspect this N-S freeway would have continued over Mitchell Island into Richmond to eventually connect up with the Vancouver - Blaine Highway (as it was called back then), but I've never seen any such plans.

Where these N-S and E-W freeways met would have been a free-flowing interchange that would have put L.A. freeway designers to shame.

The Viaducts are the only elements of these freeways that were actually built before these 'urban renewal' projects were killed by the anti-freeway coalitions that rose up against the elected officials and city staff who were promoting these massive projects. With no freeways to connect the viaducts to, the eastern ends were 'temporarily' connected to Prior St and Main St.

[jsbertram]

Three more years of Meggs taking aim at the Viaducts.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

Three more years of Meggs taking aim at the Viaducts.

He won't just be takign aim, they'll be dismantled now, its a given. A dark day for Vancouver.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Well, the public side of Re:Connect should be open to votes and viewing tomorrow for the peoples choice competition. So, use some direct democracy to tell him off

[dreambrother808]

Nowhere have they discussed taking down the viaducts tomorrow or even within the timeframe before the next election.

20% removal 5 years from now.

50% in 5-10 years.

100% at least 15 years away.

That is if they even decide to go ahead with it.

So no, the sky is not falling.

[Sir Conga]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

South of Pender St, West of Main Street and East of the Beatty Street escarpment used to be the railway yards and industrial areas, which is why the viaducts were so useful when they were built in the 1970s - They provided an easy way to get over the railway yards so traffic could get to and from Downtown using Main Street and Prior St.

I think this is something a lot of people don't appreciate. The Viaducts are no longer the only viable infrastructure, and (to many) aren't altogether ideal. I'm not saying that we should rush to knock them down, but I'm very happy to see the city discuss their future. When they reach the end of their life-span, I personally don't think we should rebuild them.

[IanS]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Nowhere have they discussed taking down the viaducts tomorrow or even within the timeframe before the next election.

20% removal 5 years from now.

50% in 5-10 years.

100% at least 15 years away.

That is if they even decide to go ahead with it.

So no, the sky is not falling.

I very much hope you're right.

[racc]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Nowhere have they discussed taking down the viaducts tomorrow or even within the timeframe before the next election.

20% removal 5 years from now.

50% in 5-10 years.

100% at least 15 years away.

That is if they even decide to go ahead with it.

So no, the sky is not falling.

There will be I expect a robust debate regarding the viaduct options over the next few months both by themselves and as part of the transportation plan. I would think that options to remove all or parts the viaduct would be accompanied by major transit improvements including the Evergreen Line, expanded capacity on the Expo Line and the UBC Line. It would even like to see an eastward extension of the Expo Line from Waterfront along the Hastings/Powell corridor. If this happened, I think removing the viaducts would be a no brainer.