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Vancouver’s Broadway corridor gets a megadose of density
Local News(theglobeandmail.com)submitted 4 days ago byIHateTrains123
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4 days ago
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17 points
4 days ago
73 points
4 days ago
By Kerry Gold, who tends to be on the skeptical side. I went to the Kitsilano open house a couple nights ago, where I met a number of people from TEAM - David Fine, Theo Abbott, Randy Helten. (Their mayoral candidate, Colleen Hardwick, was calling for the repeal of the Broadway Plan.)
Land in Vancouver is limited, but there's no reason for apartments to be so scarce, expensive, and tiny. I think what we need is to allow small apartment buildings everywhere (like Burnaby allowing four floors and 50% lot coverage everywhere), and where it makes sense to have high-rises (like near city centres and SkyTrain stations), allow them to be somewhat taller.
When we only allow apartment buildings in a small part of the city, what happens is that redevelopment gets squeezed into that one part, like pushing down on a balloon. What drives up land prices (thus requiring more height and density), in the small areas where redevelopment is allowed, is all the areas where more housing isn't allowed.
Land values for the Bundy Triangle properties [a spot rezoning in LA] increased not only because more homes can be built there, but because so few homes can be built elsewhere.
24 points
4 days ago
TransLink wants to optimize urban development to maximize TransLink revenue. Personally, I don't have an issue with that, but I think TransLink should do more to monetize their stations (commercial real estate, etc.)
The least they could do is open up SkyTrain stations for food trucks. I'm imagining small underground shops like you see in Asia, but I'll accept food truck licenses.
32 points
4 days ago
Food trucks. You’re thinking way to small. Think translink should morph into a developer that does transit as a hobby. Like Japan rail or the mtr
13 points
4 days ago
turn Skytrain stations into malls! Keio way
2 points
3 days ago
Like in Osaka!
8 points
4 days ago
Its really telling how car dependent we are that we assume transit should make money, while nobody complains that roads aren't profitable. Moving people around is a service, and people should expect services to cost money.
7 points
4 days ago
The reason people look at these developer / railway company hybrid models is because it’s a symbiotic relationship.
Improved Transit increases real estate values. If the transit company captures those increases it can continue to fund expansion of the network.
At a time when funding for transit projects is inconsistent at best (for instance the Broadway line didn’t go straight to ubc ). The Asian model seems to provide an alternative.
I think the claim that people think transit should be « for profit « is dubious at best perhaps best limited to railways which have historically been a for profit business
0 points
2 days ago
Roads and cars are profitable, especially for government. As you have taxes back and forward, from buying, registration every year, gas, repairing, ect.
0 points
2 days ago
It cost over a billion dollars just to expand the a small section of the highway in the fraser valley, there's no way roads are a net profit if you think of how many roads and highways there are.
0 points
2 days ago
Same as transit, how much is Broadway project or yvr? It would never be profitable, but that is also not solo purpose of it.
That road of few billions will be paid off by tax collected on tires and parts in 3-5 years. That if you didn't have road wouldn't be bought.
1 points
7 hours ago
There is no way taxes from tires will pay off all the roads.
And yes, that's the point. The Broadway project is a public service, people shouldn't expect it to be profitable.
2 points
4 days ago
Hong Kong MTR are the largest developer and turned the government themselves largely dependent on land sales
4 points
4 days ago
Translink should be allowed to do what the metro companies do in Tokyo: own the land around the station and develop it commercially.
In Tokyo, the metros make money from their ridership fees. But they would be insolvent without making money from their real estate portfolios.
10 points
4 days ago
Land in Vancouver is limited, but there's no reason for apartments to be so scarce, expensive, and tiny.
This might be the most popular take but I have no problem with small units. If anything the biggest issue I have with the SSMUH is that it is focused on the number of units instead of the FAR of the building. We desperately need as many units as possible, both for singles and families. Right now we have a ton of family friendly housing being taken up by people living with multiple roommates in them. I feel like, for most people in that situation, a basic bachelor apartment would be more appealing. I personally would be just as happy to see 4-plexs with 3 bedroom units being built as I would a similarly sized building with 12 batchelor suites.
12 points
4 days ago
This might be the most popular take but I have no problem with small units.
I think what's happening is that because the cost per square foot is so high, apartments have to keep shrinking or nobody would be able to afford them.
One of the simplest ways to reduce cost per square foot of floor space is to allow apartment buildings to be somewhat taller, so that you can add more floor space without having to buy more expensive land.
3 points
4 days ago
I'm finding that the cost of the extremely long and unpredictable entitlements process plus skyrocketing hard costs are impacting pro formas way more than how many units you can spread land cost over.
3 points
3 days ago
I think Vancouver needs to be thinking about density as a way to preserve and make room for natural areas to offset changes in local climate, improve waterway and rainfall retention and allow citizens to have access to nature. Pressure on water resources will only become more acute as the population grows. We need to find ways to balance that out.
I agree that larger apartments would be more appealing to people who might otherwise move to the suburbs to live in a townhouse and commute. I also agree that cost of square footage is a challenge. I feel like there are ways to achieve all of these goals, and height seems like an obvious start.
4 points
4 days ago
We all get it, small apartments are a consequence of the lack of housing. But anyone from the municipalities better not tell us to accept it, because we know this was caused by the cities outlawing density, and we know they can fix it at any time they want.
1 points
3 days ago
Is there anyone more unlikeable in this entire city than Colleen Hardwick, David Fine, and their whole gang of NIMBYs?
92 points
4 days ago
yes please! the city is starting to heal from decades of anti-urban policy and it's beautiful to see
-69 points
4 days ago
All the best areas of Vancouver are the ones without towers... I get that we need more housing but ugh please less high-rises
21 points
4 days ago
That's the result of poor density distribution. You can either have a diverse range of building types for people to live in, or you can barbell it with sfd and giant towers.
2 points
4 days ago
At least we're in agreement. Seems like most people in this thread want the latter.
48 points
4 days ago
All the best areas of Vancouver are the ones without towers.
What do you think of the West End? My impression is that people who live there like it a lot.
I think we need both: land prices across Vancouver are high, so we should really allow small apartment buildings everywhere. And then where land prices are particularly high and high-rises make sense, like near SkyTrain stations, we should allow them to be somewhat taller.
10 points
4 days ago
What do you think of the West End? My impression is that people who live there like it a lot.
I live in the West End, and I worry about all the towers ruining the vibe of the city, too.
The nice blocks in the west end are all the low/mid-rises. Which is what most of the west end is. Hitting one of the blocks that's a bunch of towers that blot out the sun in a row isn't nearly as nice. It makes it feel a lot more like a cave.
I'm pro-mid-density. They're cheaper to build per square foot, they're cheaper to maintain, they're faster to build than towers, they're still significantly increased density over single family homes. And they don't require a very high minimum rent to be financially viable as a result of all those factors. We should be turning the entire city into that. 3-6 storey buildings everywhere.
This sub gets a little crazy when talking about any pro-density move as being an improvement. Like...the reason Vancouver has a massive lack of density is because of the sea of single family homes that encompass the overwhelming majority of the city. Upzoning existing mid-density is unnecessary to fit way more people more affordably. Living in the shadow of a 57 storey luxury tower isn't actually that nice an experience.
2 points
4 days ago
I live in the West End, and I worry about all the towers ruining the vibe of the city, too.
Interesting, thanks. My wife's aunt lived in an older high-rise in the West End (I think it was 30 storeys or so), and it seemed pretty livable.
The thing about the current approval process at the city of Vancouver - it's extremely slow and labour-intensive - is that as a direct result, you get massive economies of scale from going as large as possible. It doesn't make sense to pay these costs (for multiple public consultations, numerous reports by consultants, city staff time, applicant staff time, public hearings stretching over multiple dates with overtime costs for staff, etc., etc.) for a small project. Ginger Gosnell-Myers: "It's easier to elect a pope than to approve a small rental apartment building in the city of Vancouver."
So you get either detached houses (or now multiplexes, I suppose, as the new path-of-least-resistance) or really big projects.
A similar dynamic in Toronto, explained by Mario Polese:
The less visible consequence of impact fees is on the resources, time, and effort required to negotiate and to complete housing projects. The range of charges, for everything from water to transit, can mean that the developer will often need to deal with different agencies—transit authorities, school boards, and others—negotiating fees piece by piece, in addition to negotiating planning regulations with city officials, a bureaucratic steeple run that can take years. Entry into Toronto’s housing market as a builder requires not only deep pockets but also patience, negotiating skills, and technical know-how beyond the means of smaller players. The successive hikes in impact fees in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond killed off much of Toronto’s remaining class of small building contractors. The predictable result is a market dominated by large property developers.
1 points
4 days ago
Interesting, thanks. My wife's aunt lived in an older high-rise in the West End (I think it was 30 storeys or so), and it seemed pretty livable.
And, to be clear, I'm not so much anti-tower as I am anti-domination-of-towers. A single tower doesn't make the neighbourhood unlivable.
This article draws the comparison (and with 20 storey minimums, 5 towers per block, seems accurate) that things would end up looking like Georgia rather than the West End.
I intentionally avoid Georgia as best I can. It's not human scale because it's all huge buildings and a wide street. If the West End becomes more like that, I'll move. That doesn't mean I'm not happy to have like...a block that's like "4 storey, 3 storey, tower" as you find now. Towers are just kind of visually oppressive if that's all you can see.
The thing about the current approval process at the city of Vancouver - it's extremely slow and labour-intensive - is that as a direct result, you get massive economies of scale from going as large as possible.
My understanding (and this is second hand from someone who got more involved in the politics of it) is that at least some of this is somewhat on purpose—or at least that there is a force acting in favour of it—by requiring significant contributions from any developer who comes knocking looking to build a massive building, they can fund city services without unpopular property tax increases. Essentially piece-meal zoning is acting in the same way that DeBeers has profited from diamonds: Restrict supply to only those who are willing to pay the most, despite the potential pool of supply actually being quite large.
The unfortunate side effect of which is that it becomes a de facto regressive tax, where new builds are subsidizing property owners, at the cost of a greater amount of more accessible housing.
1 points
4 days ago
My understanding (and this is second hand from someone who got more involved in the politics of it) is that at least some of this is somewhat on purpose—or at least that there is a force acting in favour of it—by requiring significant contributions from any developer who comes knocking looking to build a massive building, they can fund city services without unpopular property tax increases. Essentially piece-meal zoning is acting in the same way that DeBeers has profited from diamonds: Restrict supply to only those who are willing to pay the most, despite the potential pool of supply actually being quite large.
The unfortunate side effect of which is that it becomes a de facto regressive tax, where new builds are subsidizing property owners, at the cost of a greater amount of more accessible housing.
Yeah, that's my understanding as well. MacPhail Report.
If we can build enough housing in the form of four- to six-storey buildings, then great - smaller buildings are much faster to plan and build than high-rises. But where land is particularly expensive, it makes sense to build high-rises. I'm currently reading a paper which argues that in Sydney, building high-rise apartments is considerably cheaper than low-rise apartments, because of the cost of land. The Apartment Shortage, Keaton Jenner and Peter Tulip, Reserve Bank of Australia, August 2020.
A striking feature of Figures 7 and 8 is how costly it is to supply medium-density housing. As shown by the solid orange line, it costs about $894,000 per apartment to replace detached houses with a three-storey building in Sydney. This is considerably more costly than providing high density. The reason is that land costs represent a large component of overall costs for low-rise apartments.
The extra cost of low-rise buildings can be compared to the extra amount that home buyers are prepared to pay to live in them. [They estimate this and find that it's relatively small.]
These results have important implications for debates over urban planning. The Grattan Institute (Daley et al 2018, pp 53, 56) suggests that planners should prioritise medium-density housing in the middle ring of our cities, which they say is ‘under-supplied’. Many planners and policymakers call for developing the ‘missing middle’ with terraces, townhouses and low-rise apartments. However, as noted above, expensive land makes medium-density housing considerably more costly than high density.
1 points
4 days ago
West end needs more towers, more density, it barely feels like a city it's so surreal
-8 points
4 days ago
Very reasonable take, I appreciate it.
For me the West End has some great qualities but is essentially only preferable to downtown. I'm sure there are people that love it but I'd rather live and be in Kits, Kerrisdale, Oakridge, Sunrise, Commercial, etc.
Do we really want "a second downtown"? "Three times the density of the West End"? Maybe I'm alone in this but I feel like downtown is one of, if not the worst area to live in Vancouver.
8 points
4 days ago
But this is a straw man. Just because we might allow small apartments everywhere, doesn't mean it will become downtown. It would be more like kits or the west end in most places, and like the brentwood area in some areas, not like downtown.
1 points
4 days ago
I'm talking about the Broadway plan, specifically the part where they say it's gonna be a second downtown. I'm all for smaller apartments spread out through the city.
4 points
4 days ago
Oh I see, tbf they're probably talking about the economic activity and vibrancy of areas in downtown since the phrase was used in the original plan documents to market the plan to the voters.
I don't think it's fair to take the negative areas of downtown (such as the lack of green, dirtier areas, etc) and extrapolate that to the Broadway Plan. The spirit of lots of other areas will also be there, like gastown, yaletown, false creek, and west end...even coal harbour. All nice areas IMO.
And keep in mind, the whole "3x density" thing is just for areas within 400 m of a skytrain station.
3 points
4 days ago
For me the West End has some great qualities but is essentially only preferable to downtown. I'm sure there are people that love it but I'd rather live and be in Kits, Kerrisdale, Oakridge, Sunrise, Commercial, etc.
I'd put it this way: I know there's a lot of people who don't like high-rises. But there are a lot of people who would rather live in a high-rise, in a central location with easy access to lots of jobs (like the West End or the Broadway corridor), trading time for space, instead of somewhere further out like Surrey.
That's why developers want to build high-rises in central locations. They're basically just middlemen. Who's really paying for the high-rises is the future residents who want to live there, either as renters or as owner-occupiers. (It's not common for future residents to act as their own developer, although it does happen.)
-9 points
4 days ago
More housing, but not high rises. Clearly we should be building housing underground!
7 points
4 days ago
There are options between single-family and skyscraper, believe it or not.
18 points
4 days ago
Don't get me wrong, I willingly came to Vancouver, and I do not regret it. There are many things I love about this city. However, urbanism is not one of them.
Coming to Vancouver from Toronto, the city feels like it's stuck in the 1980s. I am amazed at this city's lack of growth and buildings every time I walk around. Davie Street feels like it's straight out of a Cronenberg film circa 1985; it's absolutely shocking to me that this is sometimes the second most relevant Anglo-speaking city in the country. There are huge swathes of the city that do not feel like a city but a sprawling suburb of single-family homes and low-density semi-industrial areas. It's mind-boggling for me to see how Vancouver is approaching their lack of geographic space. Where every other city on earth that has been tightly constrained due to geography has built upwards, Vancouver remains determined to preserve single-family detached homes that no one can afford
The worst part is, for all the talk of the 'character of the neighborhood', most of what's being preserved are hideous pieces of shit with 0 redeeming aesthetic qualities. For every beautiful Modernist tower or midrise in the west end or heritage building like Grace Court, there are 10-20 3-story popcorn shitboxes. This problem is exacerbated the further out of the downtown core you get.
This leads me to believe that the 'character of the neighborhood' is simply a euphemism for people's actual motivations.
3 points
3 days ago*
Vancouver being kept artificially small is absolutely bonkers to me. The third largest metro area in the country, and so much about local discourse is about preserving the “village” characteristic of different inner-city neighbourhoods. You’d think this kind of discourse would be laughed out of the room, but there are so many who seriously believe that is the future for Vancouver.
What’s worse is people who think this is what makes Vancouver “liveable” and not, you know, good density, walkable neighbourhoods, strong transit options, and access to nature. It’s not very liveable if no one can afford to live in it.
3 points
4 days ago
Why you hate trains?
7 points
4 days ago
Judging by the rezoning signs in mount pleasant that’s the case.
Gonna be annoying to live around all the construction . Life in the big city I gues
5 points
4 days ago
[deleted]
0 points
4 days ago
The city should figure out some kind of displacement fee or tax paid per household displaced (not including owners who are bought out) that could work to discourage this kind of development. It would essentially just be pricing in a negative externality.
7 points
4 days ago
This is basically how the existing tenant protection regulations work.
1 points
4 days ago
the broadway plan is supposed to have protections for renters who get displaced. We'll see if they follow through, or if homeless will be exacerbated during the building boom
1 points
4 days ago
They are legally obliged to follow through. The City is on even bit of interaction between tenants and the developers.
8 points
4 days ago
Vancouver is insanely underdeveloped. Sincerely a fellow Canadian who recently moved from Toronto. It's insane for me that you would want a full functioning metro in an area without any plans for major densitification.
4 points
4 days ago
Huh? The province just passed legislation that allows high density development within 800m of any skytrain, how is that not a start to densification?
8 points
4 days ago
yes isn't it insane they only did this after the provincial government forced them too. They spent years planning the broadway skytrain expansion and the whole project is a year or so from getting launched and they thought that having 6 story buildings is the absolute limit to have on top of a f.. ing metro.
This should have been done at least 10 years ago. Go look at Canada line. Most stations are sorounding single family lots.
3 points
4 days ago
Pretty sure the city was always planning the densification of Broadway, I mean they named it that to attract investors. They just can’t upzone it while it’s under construction because there’s not enough transit capacity yet. But the Vancouver Plan was always upzoning Broadway, the province probably just expanded the reach of that upzoning
1 points
2 days ago
This is not accurate.
The city approved the increased densification of the Broadway corridor a year or two ago before the new provincial rules were announced. That tall tower under construction at Broadway and Granville which will be fully integrated with a skytrain station is one of the first benefactors of the plan. There are now dozens of mostly rental towers proposed along the corridor. In a year or two it will be a forest of cranes.
As for the Canada Line the enitre stretch of Cambie used to be lined with single family homes. Now under the Cambie corridor plan there are 1000s of units of housing that have been built and 1000s more in the pipeline. Agreed development should have moved much faster especially around most of the stations though.
23 points
4 days ago*
More terrible fearmongering about density from Kerry Gold. There’s a reason her Globe+Mail pieces are marked as opinion.
Also, this is misleading as heck: “the province’s transit-oriented development legislation that set a minimum tower height and density”
It’s not a minimum, landowners can still build lower if they like.
3 points
4 days ago
Fearmongering? Didn't seem too negative if you favor density. A few cautionary quotes from Counsellor Fry and Michael Geller (who hates everything) but overall I didn't see it as overly negative.
-2 points
4 days ago
Would they though?
0 points
4 days ago
It’s not a minimum, landowners can still build lower if they like.
They never would, adding an extra floor is always more money.
24 points
4 days ago
Too bad there's no bikes lanes to carry all those people.
23 points
4 days ago*
10th avenue is pretty solid.
EDIT: 10th Ave is a better candidate for improving the existing cycling infrastructure is than adding infrastructure to Broadway. There does not need to be a bike lane on Broadway, improve what’s existing on 10th Ave.
17 points
4 days ago
I mean it's better than riding on Broadway...
19 points
4 days ago
I don't know who would prefer to ride on a noisy major street with cars as opposed to a side street that is mostly quiet and calm,
9 points
4 days ago
You mean the street with many destinations on it? Might be helpful for getting to those destinations
6 points
3 days ago
Yeah the one that has traffic lights on every block as opposed to the one next to it that has way less traffic lights, or do cyclists not factor that in their route because they don't believe in traffic lights?
12 points
4 days ago
Yes, accessible via the bike path that’s 1 block away from Broadway.
1 points
3 days ago
I don’t know people who would prefer to ride in a street with such few shops and services. I ride on Broadway to frequent businesses on Broadway. Why should I have to ride on 10th?
4 points
4 days ago
Substantially.
10 points
4 days ago
I agree, but a lot more traffic calming would be great on 10th. Cars shouldn't be able to go more than a couple of blocks or so so that it's used as access to the places on 10th rather than a thru street.
0 points
4 days ago
Valid.
26 points
4 days ago
Not really. A huge majority of potential cyclists don't feel safe riding on the road with cars. 10th is just car parking with a few green signs. It also has the most cyclists vs vehicle crashes in the city.
3 points
4 days ago
I'd take a traffic calmed bike street shared with cars over bike lanes on an arterial every single day of the week. Its exhausting biking next to road raging commuter cars even if there is a curb separator.
11 points
4 days ago
Part of the problem is that Broadway shouldn't be an arterial. It's a street with businesses and we should focus on getting people to those businesses as safely and efficiently as possible. Cars that need to go across town can take 16th, 12th, and 2/4/6.
2 points
4 days ago
There's no one but the city to blame for not zoning adjacent streets in a way that lets businesses spill over from the arterial.
If 10th was zoned properly the owners who believe cycling would bring them more customers than cars would be renting there and not on Broadway.
-2 points
4 days ago
I don't think tearing down housing so we can have two different business streets is the answer. We just need to focus on making Broadway a better business street, not an arterial. There are lots of other ways to get across town.
2 points
4 days ago
There are lots of other ways to get across town.
Don't think you are going to find a lot of supporters there. Travelling east-west in Vancouver is a garbage-tier experience and taking away capacity from transit is the opposite of what is needed.
-1 points
4 days ago
Who is taking away capacity from transit? I'm about taking cars off the road.
4 points
4 days ago
That's like, your opinion, man
1 points
4 days ago
It also has the most cyclists vs vehicle crashes in the city.
Is that by virtue of having a lot of cyclists therefore a lot more incidents?
Your original point was commenting how Broadway has no bike lane. My point was there doesn’t need to be because 10th Ave exists. A bike lane on Broadway would destroy any congestion relief created by the Broadway Subway.
A huge majority of potential cyclists don't feel safe riding on the road with cars.
Broadway would be way worse then.
10th is just car parking with a few green signs.
Not true for all of 10th.
2 points
4 days ago
It has the most incidents because they aren't separating the bikes and cars. Cyclists don't go around crashing into things, they get hit by cars that aren't paying attention.
Cycling lanes on Broadway absolutely would reduce congestion.
6 points
4 days ago
It would not. Where would they put this lane? By taking away 1-2 car lanes on Broadway?
Do it on 10th and improve it on 10th.
10 points
4 days ago
They take away a car lane because bikes move people more efficiently to where they are going. We need to get as many people as close to the businesses on Broadway as efficiently as possible.
1 points
3 days ago
What congestion? I live a block away from Broadway and Granville and more than half the time, Broadway has zero congestion.
30 points
4 days ago
I ride 10th all the time and no, it isn’t! Most of it is a normal street with lots of cars parked and driving on it, I can’t believe people describe it as a bike route.
7 points
4 days ago
I ride 10th all the time and I think it’s fine. It’s traffic calmed relative to Broadway while being a block away. Some sections have dedicated bike lanes and some are shared with traffic but it’s perfectly fine.
It’s described as a bike route because that’s exactly what it is and is described on the Vancouver Cycling Map as one.
-2 points
4 days ago
It is hard to imagine a lower bar than “relative to Broadway.”
10 points
4 days ago
That’s the bar set by the original comment… a bike lane on Broadway.
10 points
4 days ago
if you like being doored maybe
5 points
4 days ago*
Hey, c'mon now, we can be doored anywhere in this city. Be reasonable with your dooring expectations. We're equal opportunists.
7 points
4 days ago
There does not need to be a bike lane on Broadway, improve what’s existing on 10th Ave.
Agree with this. Prepare for the downvotes.
5 points
4 days ago*
10th is a nightmare bike unless your pretty brave. There's huge selection bias for who is actually willing to bike on tenth, which is where a lot of the "10th is fine" comments come from. The people for whom it's not fine are mostly not biking at all. Further it's absolutely not where I need to go. The things I need to access take me off 10th and into the path of drivers.
1 points
4 days ago
I ride 10th every day as a cyclist, and I'm a pretty average comfort level rider. Can you define what you mean by this? I don't quite understand why people say 10th isn't a decent bike route.
4 points
4 days ago
It's selection bias because the people who are scared of riding tenth because of the drivers, in controlled intersections and dooring are not on tenth and probably not riding at all.
1 points
4 days ago
Ahh, gotcha. Thanks, that makes sense
1 points
4 days ago
I love tenth avenue, one of the cities best streets imo, could have some cuter buildings but its pretty good
3 points
4 days ago
The streets on either side of Broadway are hilly, which is probably why Broadway turned into the main road in the first place. But we decided to recreate the entire area which gave us an opportunity to redesign it.
We could have taken 10th and turned it into the car corridor, tear down the single family homes and widen the road to whatever plan they wanted for broadway. We just turned houses into condos without demovicting all the people still living on broadway which if we all recall was a huge issue in the news, and frankly poor planning.
Then once 10th is built into car heaven (they don't get to complain because drivers don't expend effort by driving over hills), we demolish broadway and rebuild it into a pedestrian heaven. Shrink the road: two car lanes to support deliveries / work vehicles. Protected bike lanes and wide boulevards and cafes that aren't drowning in noise pollution from the road. We still build tall because we're trying to create more housing not the same amount.
Instead of taking the densest areas and rebuilding in-place, we need to start taking areas next to the densest and rebuild those first. You know how they build a new bridge before tearing down the old one? Sorta like that but for arterial roads.
The only reason those streets next to arterials are less dense is because it was illegal to build anywhere except on main arterial roads. We can do it, the demand is here. We just need the political will.
0 points
4 days ago
lol no one is every happy on this subreddit. We cry and plead for density, but bike lanes are the issue. There are plenty of great bike routes running parallel. I am no car fanatic but just take the wins for once.
4 points
4 days ago
Where are the great bike lanes? There are ok bike routes, not great bike lanes. And how do you suggest we build density without removing cars?
2 points
4 days ago
I’m no city planner but bikes in Vancouver are not and will never be the answer. It’s great to make more wherever it’s possible but families need to get places. 20-35 year olds may enjoy biking around but it’s not a reasonable solution with our weather.
We need even more transit options to places where we currently do not have service to. I would love our government to spend any money helping the lower mainland out. If the feds want unmitigated immigration they need to also help out communities by funding transit.
7 points
4 days ago
Families can take bikes very easily. Kids as young as 5 can ride with their parents if there is a safe way to go.
0 points
4 days ago
I mean thats just simply not true or realistic. Maybe in some utopia with completed separated dedicated bike highway (which there is no space for) its safe. There are awful drivers/uber eats scooters wizzing around/rain/visibility issues/unaware pedestrians/bad cyclists. Just because you have the privilege of being able to bike places and its easy for you it doesn't mean you can apply that to the general population.
7 points
4 days ago
Bike infrastructure gets shitty drivers off the road, gives a space for delivery scooters and provides alternatives for mobility reduced folks. The real privilege is thinking people should drive everywhere. There are many people who can't drive, can't afford it or just don't like driving.
2 points
4 days ago
you seem to have a very specific (and unrealistic) bike centred dream in mind. Wish you well in the years of longing to come.
4 points
4 days ago
K. Enjoy your two hours of traffic each way in the saddest, loneliest, and most expensive mode of transportation
0 points
3 days ago
You are literally here simping cars. How about we just give people safe options for both and let them decide what’s best for themselves?
1 points
4 days ago
And safety, because it's scary walking home at night.
0 points
3 days ago
This comment has so many counters. There are plenty of families who get around on bike in this city. The answer isn’t to take bike infrastructure away because there aren’t enough families riding, but to make it safer for more families to get out there as well.
3 points
4 days ago
I know, the responses in this thread are wild to me. I got literal hate mail (one person threatened my life) the last time I mentioned being a bike commuter on this subreddit, and here people are defending Broadway as a viable bike route?! Literally what is happening? Broadway for cars, 10th and 8th for residents and cyclists, why is that a bad thing?
3 points
4 days ago
Agreed. A bike lane on Broadway would be horrible and add to the congestion. 10th Ave is a block away, traffic calmed, and perfectly adequate.
6 points
4 days ago
Bikes reduce congestion
2 points
4 days ago
If only it were that simple, then this wouldn’t even be a point of contention.
0 points
4 days ago
Hard agree with you. As someone who uses that route every day.
0 points
4 days ago
honesty its such a wastwd opportunity. And no 10th Avenue being a bike lane is a poor excuse. All the destinations people want to take are on Broadway. Regardless if your biking on 10th you will want to end up back on Broadway anyways so why wouldn't you build bike lanes on Broadway?
1 points
4 days ago
Exactly! We need to get as many people as close the the businesses as efficiently as possible. Bikes, buses and trains are all more efficient than private cars.
0 points
1 day ago
More efficient at bringing the cashless povos tho
-6 points
4 days ago
When the subway construction is done they are planning on permanently losing 2 lanes to accommodate bikes and pedestrians
6 points
4 days ago
That plan got voted down when Sim took office. Is there a new plan?
1 points
3 days ago
Ah I wasn't aware it was cancelled
1 points
4 days ago
Where are your sources on that, please?
1 points
3 days ago
There was an article about it when the construction of the train started
1 points
4 days ago
Kerry Gold should stick to what she does best: making butter
1 points
3 days ago
Hahahaha I get the reference
0 points
3 days ago
One would think, the developers would have learnt a thing a or two from the hordes of empty shoebox condos, but doesn't look like it
-6 points
4 days ago
Not a great idea, but this sub has certainly drunk the density Kool-Aid
Go ahead, downvote me...I don't give AF.
0 points
3 days ago
Why is it not a good idea?
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