Vancouver City Councillor

With Vancouver city planning staff expecting to bring a report to council before summer on options for the Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts, Seattle is well into the $3 billion project to replace its tottering Alaska Way Viaduct with a bored tunnel.

One mile of the Seattle Viaduct came down in nine days last October, without the chaos drivers always anticipate on such occasions. Latest updates from Seattle show the city is moving ahead with new traffic patterns to clear the way for the tunnel, which will ensure good connections remain to the port and other arterials.

But city after city is putting a freeway on death row.

The Seattle project is just one of a wave of removals right across America, homeland of the car. According to this update in Atlantic Cities, the battle is moving to the neighbourhood level, where more and more communities are debating the shape of their future. If a freeway can come down, why not an overpass? Well, in fact, it can.

Bolstered by the findings of a new study by Sauder School of Business Prof. Garland Chow, Vancouver’s taxi firms are seeking approval for 99 additional cabs to operate in Vancouver on weekends and special event nights. (Here’s an executive summary circulated to Vancouver city councillors last week.)

That’s well above the 65 additional cabs approved last year by Victoria’s Passenger Transportation Board on a trial basis. The Vancouver Taxi Association says Chow’s findings are so conclusive that the firms are seeking an extension of the 65-cab trial program until the full 99 taxis are approved. According to the report, the temporary permits reduced wait times and increased customer satisfaction substantially.

Under the program, the additional capacity is available Friday and Saturday nights, when customers have reported serious problems finding taxis prepared to take them out of the downtown core.

(Mayor Gregor Robertson is also urging Translink to consider expanded night bus and Skytrain service to help with the problem.)

Did the 2010 Winter Games Cultural Olympiad bring long-term benefits to Vancouver’s arts and culture infrastructure?

The answer is no, according to research conducted by Duncan Low, former executive director of the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. His careful assessment, set out in this paper, was submitted in 2010 as part of his Masters of Arts research in the SFU Urban Studies Program.

Low traces the story of Larwill Park from Olympic live site to empty lot to projected location of a new Vancouver Art Gallery as part of the grand “cultural precinct” study launched by Sam Sullivan’s NPA council. (There is much more, but Larwill Park is a key part of the story.)

The site for millions of dollars of “cultural” investment for the live site next to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Larwill Park now sits empty. Sports legacies, in contrast, are obvious at the Richmond Oval, Hillcrest and elsewhere.

Here’s Low’s provocative and thoughtful conclusion at the end of nearly 100 pages of analysis:

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When Vancouver city council voted unanimously yesterday to demand an action plan from the BC Pavilion Corp. to bring its new digital signs into compliance with city policies, the city was simply asking PAVCO to do what it has always said it would do.

Ultimately, the crown corporation can do what it wishes as a creature of the provincial government, but that has never been PAVCO’s approach.

From the very beginning of the rezoning process that led to the construction of the new roof, PAVCO worked through the city’s rezoning processes.

Just how that would happen was laid out in an Upgrade Commitment Agreement attached to council approval of the project. (The highlights, including PAVCO’s agreement “not to fetter council discretion regarding False Creek North Official Development Plan Amendments or otherwise,” are on page 40.)

The city has been a strong partner, agreeing to wave all community amenity charges in consideration of the roof construction and approving a whole range of new policies under the Northeast False Creek High Level Review to facilitate development. PAVCO overlooked the sign issue. It’s not too late to seek a resolution satisfactory to residents.