A few additions to the City Hall post below.
The Canada Line station has some cutsey public art: the always-popular cow.
Given that it’s ‘public art,’ there must be something sardonic or ironic about it. Escapes me, though.
Same with this:
While it’s a fine idea to cover the Hydro boxes, typically placed for maximum awkwardness, I don’t get the starfish reference.
Then there’s the wall:
Some at City Hall preferred a totally landscaped berm along the Cambie side of the park, while others argued that this design was more consistent with the heritage of the Hall, right down to the rough-hewn look of the concrete. About such things are many hours spent and memos written.
Finally, the redesigned block of 10th Avenue indicates how our bikeways are evolving: a one-way single lane for cars, with separated lanes for bikes on both sides.
I love the new wall and landscaping at the Hall – such an improvement (and the new stairs at the corner as well, makes a huge difference).
In Saskatoon they have pictures of area history on the hydro boxes, including one of Tommy Douglas, of course. Might not be a bad idea for Vancouver, either.
In Burnaby, the anti-graffiti ‘wraps’ on the electrical boxes have maps of the area…sadly, most leading to the mall.
Also, those bikes lanes excite me.
Those bike lanes need some pictographs –
Incidentally, that retaiining wall and reconstruction of the stairs and pathway cost over half a million dollars ($557,000):
http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20090728/documents/csbu2.pdf
it’s true, pictographs would help a lot. Looking at the picture I don’t think I would have any idea they were bike lanes, unless of course the photo just isn’t capturing something that makes the point.
That said, I cant’ wait to ride bike lanes like that.
I agree that the new bike lanes at Cambie on 10th need better visual explanation for drivers. Even though we should all be familiar with the diagonal stripes (I’m a cyclist and I know what they mean!), I have seen many drivers hesitate and even turn around upon approaching that lane because they couldn’t figure out where they were supposed to go.
By now I guess it’s not news that many Vancouver drivers have no idea what they’re doing.
One set of markings that’s confusing to me (I just don’t know what they mean) is the crosswalk markings at Cambie & 41st (across Cambieon the south side of 41st). I suppose they mark a bike crosswalk but the configuration is a bit odd.
I could be wrong, but if I recall correctly, the bike crosswalk is south of the pedestrian crosswalk, so an eastbound cyclist on 41st would have to weave across the pedestrians to get to it. Maybe it’s further south to make it easier for bikes to then turn northbound on Cambie. I just thought it was a bit wierd because it blurs the “bike as vehicle” reasoning by weaving with pedestrians.
Big roof overhang all the way around the Broadway/Cambie Canada Line station and yet they still put the bike racks inches from the street out in the rain. Big Fail IMO, unless the bike rack is a pithy public art piece with a wry take on weather and active transportation! 🙂