From the Vancouver Public Space Network:
Over the next two weeks, the Vancouver Public Space Network will be hosting a pair of facilitated workshops that will be looking to explore the question of “What would make Broadway Avenue a Great Street?”
Broadway in 1994
We are particularly looking to connect with people who have an interest in urban design, architecture, transportation and land-use planning and public space… and, of course, anyone else who has ideas on how to improve the social and cultural life of Broadway Corridor.
The events take place at the following dates and times:
:: Monday, June 28 – 7pm – Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House (800 East Broadway)
:: Tuesday July 6 – 7pm – Kitsilano Neighbourhood House (2325 West 7th)
Both workshops will feature a presentation by the City of Vancouver, some context on the idea of Great Streets and, most importantly, a chance to have some good discussion on the types of things needed transform Broadway Avenue from a thoroughfare into a destination.
Both events are free and food and drinks will be served but you need to register: broadway@vancouverpublicspace.ca; or info@vancouverpublicspace.ca.
For more information visit www.vpsn.ca.
Apart from West Broadway between about Larch and Alma, Broadway is an alienating street for a pedestrian. Too few trees, too fast traffic, too narrow sidewalks, too much bare concrete and lumpy design for the flanking buildings. It functions like a traffic conduit much in keeping with its autorow history exemplified by the BowMac sign. Not much to attract the budding boulevardier here.
I totally agree with Mark.
The length of Broadway between Larch and Alma, especially between Bayswater and about Waterloo, is one of my favorite spaces in the city as a pedestrian. It has that feeling of a city square but its a road. Nice trees, street friendly store fronts, slow(ish) traffic. Nothing like the concrete city center of granville and broadway.
I think that it is very difficult (perhaps unrealistic) for streets to perfrom multiple functions and be all things to all people (and uses).
Typically, I would prefer that pedestrian retail streetfronts develop on side streets or streets that are unlikely to or will not have a very high demand for through traffic.
In Vancouver, Georgia Street and Burrard Street are not “shopping streets” – they are major arterials having a primary function of being transportation corridors. The shopping is a couple of blocks over on Robson Street and Alberni Street.
Other arterials because of historical settlement, have to contend with try to make a retail strip work on a major arterial – such as South Granville, Kerridale, Mt. Pleasant, Collingwood, Cambie Village and the less busy western end of Broadway (Greektown).
I wouldn’t necessarily try to create a retail environment on a very heavily used arterial street after it has adopted its role as major transportation corridor.
Burnaby has adopted the separation approach by placing retail near Brentwood Town Centre on Dawson Street, rather than trying to “tame” Lougheed Highway (really just an arterial road.
Richmond, on the other hand, is trying to tame No. 3 Rd. rather than creating pedestrian retail districts on side streets such as Hazelbridge Way or Lansdowne Road (i.e. a condo project on Lansdowne at No.3 Rd (Prado) has no streetfront retail, even though Lansdowne is the walking route to the Olympic Oval).
Further to Ron, you are right, there is only so much retail to go around. However, the truly horrid central section of Broadway has a lot of retail already, and if not retail than grade accessed commercial services and offices. All of this adds up to a perforated streetwall with a reasonably generous sidewalk out front. So the bones are there, but that’s about it. Harsh bare contcrete, ill conceived parking garage accesses, hardly a tree to be seen, nothing to give any kind of visual relief to the unrelenting high volumes of traffic. The single biggest improvement would be to introduce landscaping in a modulated pattern to break up the grey, and create some sense of separation from the roadway. Trees, lots of them of some real stature, down both sides of the street would probably be the single most effective way to both green and humanize this street. The trees along classic avenues in Europe, like the Champes Elysee, do much to mitigate the impression that one is walking next to 10 fully congested lanes of high speed traffic.
While Ron has a point, I think it’s also highly unreliastic to think the city could force the retail end of things away from Broadway. That’s where it naturally developed, it’s where the streetcar lines went and it’s where transit continues to go, and it’s somewhere pedestrians are going to use. It may not be the nicest street but I find when I’m walking in that area, even Central Broadway, I tend to follow broadway, especially since I’m usually using transit. So I’d say it makes total sense to improve the pedestrian realm on the street.
Really, the western part of Broadway is wonderful, it’s Central Broadway that really needs work, as well as mount pleasant. More trees is a definite plan.
I also think that when (and if) the skytrain is extended along Broadway, that should be used as an opportunity to remove a lane or two of traffic and add to the sidewalks, and dramatically improve the pedestrian realm. It only makes sense since the overall transportation capacity is being so greatly improved and buses are being removed that some of that space would be used to make Broadway better for those walking to the skytrain or just through their neighbourhood.
Generally, wider sidewalks would be wonderful.
There’s at least one spot in Central Broadway with a median, too, and I think that helps slow the traffic down a little bit. That stuff helps.
Maybe a scramble intersection at Granville and Broadway could also be looked at. It can get pretty clogged on the sidewalks there. Anyone know where the city is at with examining scramble intersections?
“I think that it is very difficult (perhaps unrealistic) for streets to perfrom multiple functions and be all things to all people (and uses).”
Not only Parisian boulevards show it is feasible to perform multiple function (major thoroughfare, with retail, and still a nice stroll) for a street but they also allow us to infer that “great street” are the one allowing multiple function.
Also, I believe Richmond number 3 is following the right path (like North York has did with success with main arterial Yonge street in Toronto): Lougheed hwy receiving no treatment of any sort (neither an urban boulevard, neither a parkway a la Cambie street) is eventually an example of what to not to do.
To be fair voony, Burnaby has made some improvements to Lougheed Highway. There is a sidewalk now on the north side in front of Brentwood Town Centre, replacing an old dirt pathway. West of Willingdon, as redevlopment occurs, the new buildings are setback allowing for a very wide
sidewalk.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=burnaby+bc&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Burnaby,+Greater+Vancouver+Regional+District,+British+Columbia,+Canada&ei=xMMiTOe-PIKTnQfLu43BDw&ved=0CB8Q8gEwAA&ll=49.266593,-123.005859&spn=0.003942,0.009645&z=17&layer=c&cbll=49.266596,-123.005993&panoid=FfFoacOiWvsGlv3bXpn0mA&cbp=12,314.68,,0,-0.21
Yes, still not a pedestrian paradise by any means, but better than it was when these properties were occupied by a Saturn Dealer and the Lougheed Motor Inn.
Broadway is busiest at its nodes, where it intersects each arterial.
Much of Broadway has generous sidewalks already, but they narrow within a block of each arterial. This is to make room for a left-turn bay onto the intersecting arterials.
An improved Broadway must incorporate wider sidewalks in the blocks adjacent to arterials where the street is busiest and space is most needed. The Crossroads development at Cambie has done this by expanding the pedestrian realm onto its property, leaving the left-turn bay in place.
An improved Broadway should also be narrower so that it is easier and takes less time to cross, especially where it is busiest at intersecting arterials. This suggests a boulevard treatment, curb extensions across the outside/parking lanes, or the removal of left-turn bays from Broadway altogether.