While searching for an image on Vancouver in Google, I came across this:
It was used in the campaign to convince Seattle voters not to support a rebuild of the Alaskan Way Viaduct (pictured above, as though transported to English Bay).
There was actually an option to run a freeway offshore in English Bay to connect with a Third Crossing. I doubt it was taken seriously.
But the proposed right-of-way along the Burrard Inlet waterfront would have been quite sufficient to destroy Gastown and Coal Harbour:
The Great Freeway Fight will be just one of the turning points discussed by Mike Harcourt, Ken Cameron and Sean Rossiter at the launch of the “Paradise Makers,” coinciding with the launch of their book, “City Making in Paradise.”
It’s coming up on Friday, September 9 at 7 pm (Harbour Centre – 515 West Hastings Street). Reservations are required. Email cstudies@sfu.ca or call 778-782.5100.
You can find details on the whole City Program series here.
Thank God this was never built! I have been in so many international cities where roadways have destroyed lake fronts, riverways and ocean fronts. What were people thinking?
The proposals were probably the result of easily consolidated lands guiding development patterns (including the “slums” of Chinatown and Gastown).
That pattern bears some similarity to the City of Vancouver’s strategy of densification on large industrial/light industrial sites.
I think that one of the reasons why the SkyTrain Millenium Line was built in the Grandview Cut was to preclude that route being used for an eventual highway connecting the Georgia Viaduct to the Trans Canada. Of course, that also pre-cluded putting the Millenium Line along Broadway all the way to UBC, but then fixed rail transit systems in Greater Vancouver aren’t intended to operate efficiently and effectively, but to block alternatives.
Reminds me of the 1960s plan to build a U-shaped freeway from Vic West across the Inner Harbour by bridge to James Bay, behind the Legislative Buildings and up Blanshard Street. It would have cut a devastating swath through some of Victoria’s oldest neighbourhoods.
Robert Randall, I lived in Victoria during the 1960s when the Blanshard Street extension was built. There was never any discussion by local or senior governments of any freeway, either the u-shaped route you discuss or any other for that matter. Simply put, you’re imagining things.
Oh, Budd! Over 40 years ago a grand scheme was hatched by the Socreds of which the major highway was only one aspect (it also called for the demolition of the entire block bounded by Johnson/Wharf/Gov’t/Pandora to be replaced by a mall!) I’m looking at a copy of the plan now. The accompanying map shows that the bridge linking Vic West to James Bay would’ve been at the Harbour’s narrowest point–from Songhees to Laurel Point. The rendering alongside it has a frightful futuristic scene labeled “VICTORIA WEST 1990” showing pagoda and cylindrically-shaped towers rising above a nest of multi-line freeway overpasses. Curiously, it also shows the Upper Harbour still full of log booms!
The northern-most freeway bridge in the loop would have crossed the Gorge where the railway bridge was (now the Galloping Goose bicycle trestle), connecting Vic West with Burnside Gorge before before meeting back up with the top of the loop near Blanshard and Tolmie Ave.
The Blanshard Street Extension opened in 1978, fwiw. Although it had been talked about since the ’60s, if Hansard is to be believed.
IT was taken very seriously and there was a political war too in bc because of this.