Paul Hillsdon makes a case for removing the Georgia Viaduct. And includes some great shots:
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The old one is much better. Street car tracks down the middle, sidewalks and only one lane of traffic/horses. It is also more attractive than the current one.
Anyway, Paul’s right. Lets just bring the current ones down. They will be closed during the Olympics anyway. Might as well do it now.
With the new street Citadel Parade (?) for the Spectrum condo development and the location of Expo Boulevard on the lower level below the escarpment, the removal of the viaduct would mean that any replacement road system tying to Dunsmuir Street and Georgia Street would have to “touch down” east of Expo Boulevard (so as to allow Expo Boulevard to pass below and maintain access to both the Costco and Spectrum parking and to GM Place loading facilities) – that would be adjacent to GM Place. If you “build up” the land with earthen abuttments, you will close off the plaza areas at the base of GM Place. If you create ramps so as to retain pedestrian access to the GM Place plaza areas, you will in effect be creating the “problem” that people don’t like at Granville Bridge – this would be especially true if the Dunsmuir and Georgia ramps merge into Expo Blvd and Pacific Blvd on the lower level.
Personally, I think that the viaducts are quite elegantly constructed for a freeway viaduct / overpass.
The pedestal design of the supports is far better than the Gardiner Expressway’s bents in Toronto.
Even the Main Street overpass is elegant – the north-south sightlines are incredibly wide as the roadway cantilevers directly from the abuttments without any vertical column supports – that’s far wider than you would see in “modern” overpass construction where there would be cylindrical columns lining the sidewalk (and which could als be due to modern earthquake standards).
As a side note: The original Georgia Viaduct never ran streetcars despite the tracks – it was too shoddily build and there were concerns that it would collapse under the weight.
From Bridges of Greater Vancouver
by Robert Harris
Georgia Viaduct 1915-1972 This was built in 1913-15 for
the City of Vancouver to extend Georgia Street over the CPR’s Beatty Street yard. It was named the “Hart McHarg” bridge for a World War I hero, but the name did not last.
A classic product of low bidding ($494,000) and meagre supervision, it was never a sound bridge. Streetcar tracks were laid but never used. Every second lamppost was removed to save weight. Much blacktop was used to fill mysterious sags and hollows in the deck. People passing below were injured by falling concrete, and concrete spans were propped with timber.
LOL. I was expecting this demand to come, right alongside the demand to remove the final curved exit ramp from the Granville Street Bridge.
People can make all kinds of wild claims about encouraging biking and walking, and it’s really just propaganda. The real reason for these redesigns is to create real estate opportunities for both the private sector and City Hall by turning public land over to private developers. The rest is pure, raw, unadulterated window dressing.
If I had a choice of a gigantic mass of ugly concrete or homes, shops, businesses and more money for the city to develop social housing or a streetcar line, I think it would be crazy to choose the former, even if you feel the walking and biking and streetcar stuff is just window dressing.
BTW – some of the original (?) balustrades from the original Georgia Viaduct form the escarpment balustrade at the parkette currently behind Concord Pacific fencing at the corner of Georgia & Beatty. Not sure if there are lampposts too. It’s the site of their next condo – “Cosmo”.
Tessa, I can assure you it is nothing but window dressing.
The choice you describe, of private market lands versus public lands dedicated to roads, highways or bridges, is one that municipal politicians, dependent on the property tax, have little difficulty making. If they can remove a public road and sell it to a private developer, theres’s an upfront injection of Development Cost Charges, and then a stream of property taxes to come n years into the future.
The problem, of course, is that without some public infrastructure, including roads and highways, the private properties would have no utility, no value to anyone. But that only applies in the case of an extreme conversion of huge amounts of land. At the margin, taking one or two properties in isolation, it’s always tempting to convert from a tax consuming to a tax producing usage.
If municipal officials were so behind this project, it would have been done by now.
Actually, this project is about building the type of city people want. The proposal invests in infrastructure, namely a streetcar service that has proven exceptionally well-used and useful in other cities. Also, the plan would barely reduce car capacity at all, since the roads will be connected at grade rather than an elevated structure. And that shouldn’t be a concern since car trips into the central city have been decreasing for a decade, whereas other modes have been increasing.
There is no need for a viaduct to run through this area, especially if we plan to turn what is now a gigantic stretch of ugly concrete into an actual community, which the city is planning to do.
“Actually, this project is about building the type of city people want.”
Would part of this proposed change involve additional condo towers, similar to the removal of the Granville Bridge traffic loops?
Is it thought to be a final nail in the coffin of any possible highway or freeway linking downtown with the Trans Canada if the Georgia Viaduct is dismantled, similar to the decision to put part of the Millenium line through the Grandview cut?
I’m in favour of the Georgia Viaduct being torn down, it’s unecessary and a waste of space. I see no reason why the bloggers suggestions wouldn’t work. I hope ciy hall is seriously considering this.
Vancouver is crowded enough, there is no need for additional land to develop. The viaducts are there to stay.
I agree with the previous writer. Vancouver is already crowded enough. Any removal of the viaducts would only serve developers who are running out of land. Vision is trying to bribe the gullible with more bike lanes etc. but they are caving in to the developers as much or more than any previous administration.
Would Vancouver be greener if we increase the density in this area with high-rises? This improved density would be a further strain on the infrastructure e.g. sewers, water lines etc.
I like Vancouver the way it is. I don’t want Sao Paolo’s density.
If you want to make Vancouver sustainable, vote out the social engineers Geoff Meggs and Gregor Robertson next time around.
To the two very late commentators: even if we don’t want more density, why the heck do we want a bunch of concrete viaducts dividing our communities? Simply not wanting density is hardly an argument in favour of a bad structure favouring an unsustainable mode of transportation and connecting poorly to the rest of the transportation network.
And the choice is hardly between Vancouver and Sao Paolo. Paris has the entire population of Metro Vancouver in a city the size of the city of Vancouver all with hardly a building more than six stories tall.
How are the viaducts dividing communities, every single street is connected, not a single route is cut off by the viaducts. I also wouldn’t worry about density, the area is planned for 5000jobs and 7200residents, that is the maximum density approved for the area and can easily be accomadated with the viaducts in place. Personally I prefer the cars up and out of the way instead of down at street level where they would have a larger impact on the pedestrian experican. Would we build them today? Most likely no, but to knock down perfectly sound infrustructure at it’s midlife is a blantant abuse of taxpayer money.
To Joe Just Joe, have you walked under the viaducts? Not very pleasant, and there’s not many people who do, for obvious reasons, whereas in other areas the streets are teeming with life. Freeways form psychological barriers even if it is physically possible to cross them – even very short freeways. And while we can certainly build space for 5,000 jobs and 7,200 residents with the viaducts there, it would be a craphole of a community to live in.
As well, the viaducts were never designed to operate only that short distance, but rather connect to some sort of highway. Except they don’t, instead connecting to veneables and residential neighbourhoods, causing problems further down in the city’s traffic grid. The city has long proposed to build another viaduct over the railway at Malkin Avenue to remedy this problem, which I believe would be a real waste of taxpayer money. Leaving it as is, however, perpetuates a poorly designed system for traffic and causes problems where the viaducts are. The most cost-effective and long-term solution to that problem is to dismantle them.
That said, my point in the previous post was simply to remind the above posters that density shouldn’t be the prime consideration of whether or not to dismantle the viaducts. We don’t have to increase density of the neighbourhood if the viaducts were partially or completely removed, and I believe it would still be worth the effort.
I live in the immediate area and I walk under the viaducts regularly. The reason there isn’t much pedestrian traffic there is quite simple, there is nothing there. I walk it when I head to the seawall or over to the new community centre. Other then that they are parking lots and Concords sales centre. Once the new buildings are up and Creekside Park is complete there will be lots of people walking around with or w/o the viaducts. International viallage didn’t have viaducts and it was completely dead as well before the buildings and people that live in them came along.