Thanks for writing and speaking, Brian. I hope to retire in ten years or so and will be moving far, far away from Vancouver. In the meantime, I'll try not to be too sad about witnessing its devolution into an empty shell of itself.
Good post, Brian. I would say expecting the CoV to voluntarily value competence is wishful thinking given the normalization of institutional narcissism over the last 2 decades. Anyone building tall, narrow towers in this earthquake zone is delusional. One decent shake and land values will plummet & never recover. I’d love to see some modelling on that. Mother Nature & physics can be pretty persuasive, even to ideologues.
The CoV had TransLink fire its two top planners (both the top in their trade) for voicing the opinion that there wasn't the ridership to support a subway.
Broadway was never the busiest transit route in Canada or North America, which was a Goebblesque fiction by the then City Engineer who now earns a cool $700K per year as CEO of metro Vancouver.
When confronted with a call for a judicial inquiry into TransLink and the two SkyTrain light-metro extensions, Translink claimed that they never said Broadway was the busiest transit route........yada yada yada, rather it was our most congested bus route.
Also Thales 2022 news release about winning the $1.47 billion resignalling contract clearly states that the Millennium Line (Broadway subway) capacity will be only 7,500 pphpd after resignalling. Put another way, the maximum capacity of the Broadway subway will only be about 3,500 higher than all the buses using Broadway in the peak hour!
Added to this misery, Alstom is not so politely telegraphing to Translink that they will be abandoning production of the proprietary Innovia 300/MALM cars that now operate on the Millennium line because no one wants the obsolete light metro system, as there has not been a sale in over 20 years and Vancouver remains the only city still planning to expand the system. No one else produces the cars.
According to the CoV, TransLink, Metro Vancouver, MOT and Premier Eby, Skytrain is a world class transit system. Yet, it is the only world class transit system I know of that no body wants and is unsalable, with only 6 of the 7 such systems sold in operation.
So here is the deal for the Broadway plan, very poor transit, requiring all those new tenants in those towers needing a car to commute, thus making Broadway and environs continually in gridlock.
The public needs now is not a judicial inquiry with the Broadway subway, rather we need a criminal inquiry over the entire process.
This massive developer/speculator plan reminds me of post Second War city "urban development" schemes, including the planned clearances of low income residents in Strathcona and other Eastside neighbourhoods if the citizens of Vancouver wouldn't have fought the introduction of a freeway through the middle of the city. It also brings to mind the clearances of centuries ago when peasants were driven off common land by powerful money interests of those times. It seems that Vancouver City Council, its Planning Department and the powerful interests that have pushed through the Broadway Plan still see residents who live in the neighbourhoods that will be highly effected as peopled by urban peasants with who have no rights.
I was away so couldn’t attend, but have written and written and gone to council.
The only way out of this is to vote out council and redraft a plan. Eby winning is a disaster to this city and province. That alone has caused a lot of problems. People think this plan will provide a home, how stupid can you be.
The focus is to go back to the old neighborhood city planning process and deal with the health/opiod issues. Lowere taxes! Robertson created a disaster, saying I will build you a home. Insanity.
The horse is out of the gate and we need to get it back on the corral!
Tired of hearing about only the rich can live here. What kind of city will we up with? Manhattan.
I so believe in every word you say, saw the the train coming down the track - 40 years are as city staffer. There is no planning here, no functioning process for schools, parks and health. I have moved out of Vancouver. Can bear to see it destroyed.
Thanks for writing and speaking, Brian. I hope to retire in ten years or so and will be moving far, far away from Vancouver. In the meantime, I'll try not to be too sad about witnessing its devolution into an empty shell of itself.
Good post, Brian. I would say expecting the CoV to voluntarily value competence is wishful thinking given the normalization of institutional narcissism over the last 2 decades. Anyone building tall, narrow towers in this earthquake zone is delusional. One decent shake and land values will plummet & never recover. I’d love to see some modelling on that. Mother Nature & physics can be pretty persuasive, even to ideologues.
There was never a case for the Broadway subway.
The CoV had TransLink fire its two top planners (both the top in their trade) for voicing the opinion that there wasn't the ridership to support a subway.
Broadway was never the busiest transit route in Canada or North America, which was a Goebblesque fiction by the then City Engineer who now earns a cool $700K per year as CEO of metro Vancouver.
When confronted with a call for a judicial inquiry into TransLink and the two SkyTrain light-metro extensions, Translink claimed that they never said Broadway was the busiest transit route........yada yada yada, rather it was our most congested bus route.
Also Thales 2022 news release about winning the $1.47 billion resignalling contract clearly states that the Millennium Line (Broadway subway) capacity will be only 7,500 pphpd after resignalling. Put another way, the maximum capacity of the Broadway subway will only be about 3,500 higher than all the buses using Broadway in the peak hour!
Added to this misery, Alstom is not so politely telegraphing to Translink that they will be abandoning production of the proprietary Innovia 300/MALM cars that now operate on the Millennium line because no one wants the obsolete light metro system, as there has not been a sale in over 20 years and Vancouver remains the only city still planning to expand the system. No one else produces the cars.
According to the CoV, TransLink, Metro Vancouver, MOT and Premier Eby, Skytrain is a world class transit system. Yet, it is the only world class transit system I know of that no body wants and is unsalable, with only 6 of the 7 such systems sold in operation.
So here is the deal for the Broadway plan, very poor transit, requiring all those new tenants in those towers needing a car to commute, thus making Broadway and environs continually in gridlock.
The public needs now is not a judicial inquiry with the Broadway subway, rather we need a criminal inquiry over the entire process.
This massive developer/speculator plan reminds me of post Second War city "urban development" schemes, including the planned clearances of low income residents in Strathcona and other Eastside neighbourhoods if the citizens of Vancouver wouldn't have fought the introduction of a freeway through the middle of the city. It also brings to mind the clearances of centuries ago when peasants were driven off common land by powerful money interests of those times. It seems that Vancouver City Council, its Planning Department and the powerful interests that have pushed through the Broadway Plan still see residents who live in the neighbourhoods that will be highly effected as peopled by urban peasants with who have no rights.
I was away so couldn’t attend, but have written and written and gone to council.
The only way out of this is to vote out council and redraft a plan. Eby winning is a disaster to this city and province. That alone has caused a lot of problems. People think this plan will provide a home, how stupid can you be.
The focus is to go back to the old neighborhood city planning process and deal with the health/opiod issues. Lowere taxes! Robertson created a disaster, saying I will build you a home. Insanity.
The horse is out of the gate and we need to get it back on the corral!
Tired of hearing about only the rich can live here. What kind of city will we up with? Manhattan.
I so believe in every word you say, saw the the train coming down the track - 40 years are as city staffer. There is no planning here, no functioning process for schools, parks and health. I have moved out of Vancouver. Can bear to see it destroyed.