Paul Pinsker, now retired from the Engineering Department at Vancouver City Hall (his special focus was on parking standards), sent in some thoughts on the current situation we find ourselves in with respect to transportation planning.
What particularly came to my mind was all the years of planning we at the City of Vancouver did for the East Fraser Lands development with the aim of making it a transit-oriented community.
Recall the import of noted New Urbanist Andres Duany to mastermind the planning of this ground-breaking community. Before I retired from CoV in January of this year, I worked on the planning team for EFL, including ensuring certain streets were designed for future bus routings and locating where a bus service could terminate or lay over.
TransLink reps were always cautious about committing to provide service from opening day, which was a commitment achieved in the 70’s when South False Creek’s progressive housing was conceived (with an average of one parking space per dwelling unit, though that later proved inadequate given the shortage of on-street parking such that 3 parkades were added).
Transit was in growth mode and Duany, along with staff, sought to limit the prevalence of autos for EFL through provision of a high level of transit access. Given the lack of even a modest commitment by TransLink, EFL had to be planned (with ParkLane Development’s desire) for a greater level of private automobiles; the developer did share in the City’s aims in support of carsharing.
Now it appears that the flexibility in allowing greater parking was justified given the ebbing of the transit tide. As the new residents move in they would have been hung out to dry if they were counting on the originally anticipated level of transit options, given their relatively isolated location within the city and the paucity of existing service.
What hope is there for subsequent community planning in absence of firm transit commitments? Developers will be reluctant to gamble on this, as we already witness how sales are focused around rapid transit nodes (where the service is assured).
“What hope is there for subsequent community planning in absence of firm transit commitments? ”
Welcome to the problem facing the entire south of fraser area.
Not true, as Jarett Walker would say, be on the way. There are plenty of routes/destinations in S. of Fraser that justify good transit service (think Scott road, King George, 104th, Fraser Highway as starters). If you are a developer develop along these routes….not in (to use an example from this article) a place like the East Fraser Lands.
Be on the way
Exactly Rico, East Fraser Lands is the rough equivalent of Tynehead or Campbell Height in Surrey…It is totally unreasonable to expect transit commitment to serve development created in place as remote as possible of existing service.
And what we see here is not the cost of deferring transit -One can quickly grasp, how expensive it could be to serve the East Fraser Lands-, but the cost to allow such a development in the middle of nowhere.
That is the first flaw of this project:
Add to that some additional flaws of the East Fraser Land popping up of its “master plan”:
it is called a TOD because they apparently expect a bus running on Marine way and have designed a route to allow this bus to wander into the development to “kiss” a potential train station.
It looks good on the surface, transit facilities as in the heart of the development, but what happen if every developer thinks like it?
second flaw
You end up, with an overly circuitous bus route (and eventually slow train if any)… and fast straight highway: clearly it is not the right recipe.
Anyway currently there is no bus on Marine Way, there is one on Marine drive (#100), it could be tempted to serve the nearby railway station: what a detour! if only this railway station was located 1km more West…
But this train is probably thought as a regional connector (not a streetcar, otherwise the highstreet could have been East-West, not North-South)., and what are the regional connection here? not much, so why a station here?
In fact. 1km east of the site is the alignment of Willingdon/(Patterson or Nelson), Connecting to Metrotown…and beyond Brentwood, it is a clear North-South backbone transit corridor: a natural location for a train station (minimizing bus route between the train and the above regional center) is 1km east of the site,…roughly at Glenlyon parkway (which offer a greater catchment area too, because there is more “at level” land north and south of the railtrack.)…
It looks the suggested location for a train station is rather oddly chosen, more to self-serve the interest of the developer than to contribute to a cohesive transit network.
…But we are year light to see a train there anyway.
What are the reasonable bus options in the short term:
Connection to a bus route on Kerr/Rupert (that is partially route #26)
Connection to a bus route on North Fraser way (that is route #116).
Ideally the both routes could be connected…that could have been straightforward by extending North Fraser way to Kerr street, but in the current plan, it is not, and indeed it seems very complicate to extend a bus service on North Fraser way into the community…
Third flaw
The master plan doesn’t seem to take in consideration the existing transit context …and that rejoin the first major flaw:
“it is not on the way”
The Transportation and Circulation section of the EFL Policy Statement under Objectives and Principles states the following as an objective:
“To create a circulation network that encourages the introduction of an effective transit service.”
It then states under New Policies – Transit that every conceivable transit mode should be accommodated, that transit service should increase along with development, and that density should be distributed to minimize walking distance to transit. There is no transit policy that transit go to the centre of the development – the design of the road network practically precludes it.
However, in the Residential Density section the policy is different. The location of transit is assumed to be in the centre of the development and the distribution of density follows:
“Ensure that the distribution of density reinforces a walkable
community by decreasing density away from the neighbourhood
centre (high street) so that:
“• the highest residential density occurs within easy walking distance (400 metres or 1⁄4 mile) of the centre where shopping, schools, transit and other services are located, and densities diminish with the lowest density areas furthest out, so that the more auto-dependent locations have fewer housing units and generate fewer car trips.”
The residential density policy follows from an assumption about transit that does not exist in the transit policy. In fact, the road network is designed so that any bus that actually transits East Fraserlands will require at least a 0.4 km detour off of Marine Way. This detour makes serving the centre of EFL with buses impractical and expensive. The residential density policy is to maximize density around a transit stop that does not exist and is not planned.
Luckily, there is another policy on residential density that the highest densities should be away from the water or, in other words, next to Marine Way. This policy exists to further some aesthetic goals and not for any reason to do with transit, but it is probably the only practical transit-supportive policy in the entire EFL Policy Framework – it concentrates density close to a street that could support transit.
Document here: former.vancouver.ca/commsvcs/guidelines/E003.pdf
East Clayton, designed for transit is stuck with an infrequent, full bus along Fraser Highway. The densities in East Clayton are comparable to, if not greater than most areas of Vancouver.
There are other examples of ‘being on the way’.
How exactly was East Clayton ‘designed for transit’? Yes, it’s a grid, but beyond that what does it do to be transit supportive?
Many of its densest parts are over 2km walk from Fraser Hwy, which actually has pretty decent (though full) transit with service every 5 min during morning rush.
See http://www.transitdb.ca/stop/57141/timetable/502/
Have a look at the planned West Clayton neighbourhood near 184th/Fraser. All apartment/townhouses. A big chunk of E. Clayton next to Fraser is still waiting for development–to be apartment/townhouse.
I used the walking google tool and from 188th and Fraser to the outer most region of E. Clayton that is still not even built it is 1.9km. http://goo.gl/maps/ZQsyt
I’m not saying it’s ideal or anything, but my point is there are large chunks of Metro Van that are ‘on the way’ and still under served.
Or South Surrey/White Rock. We not only have townhouses all over there’s full on midrise condo buildings and even towers going up.
Bline service on King George and Fraser HIghway needs to start like yesterday. Build it, and they will come. Trust me, I will be the first one on it.
It may not be “on the way”, but it is a natural terminus for the #26 bus to act like an “anchor,” something else Mr. Walker has talked about on his blog. It could be more transit friendly if it anchored frequent bus service.
As for Voony’s concerns, I think the train was intended to connect to the Arbutus corridor and downtown that way in the long run. It would make a decent “circle route” light rail line if it connected up via metrotown and Willingdon to Brentwood too.
Route wise? Looks good.
I seriously doubt you would get any sort of train up and down that hill though – waaaaay too steep.
How about into the hill? There are solutions.
But that said, streetcars used to go up Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver, which, having lived near both hills, I think is steeper.