There is a major focus on West End lanes in the current local area planning process. What can we do to make them more pleasant – for greenways, infill housing, community gardens – while still functioning as service corridors for utilities, parking, waste and recycling? Mole Hill has shown that it can be done.
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The City planners are encouraging people to take a closer look at the lanes by providing a backgrounder and self-guided tour – available here.
How about we begin by naming them? At the moment, they have no identitities because they are just, well, lanes. But if they had names, each could be distinguished and begin to take on individuality.
Time for a contest: Name the Lane! (Idea credit: Len Sobo. ) Choose one of the lanes below and suggest a moniker. Extra marks if it has a local reference. Extra points if it matches the letter, so it would be easier to tell where one is in relation to the other.
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The lane near me is “A” – a rather dismal prospect, to be sure, but still worthy of a name.
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Some suggestions:
Alberni Lane – because that’s the street it’s closest to.
Abbott Lane – because it’s closest to the Abbott House, the last remaining wooden’ mansion’ of BlueBlood Alley (right) – the home of the upper class in 19th-century
Vancouver, and specifically the home of Henry Abbott who was the first general superintendent of the CPR’s Pacific Division.
Two problems, though: it’s not really on the lane but between Alberni and Georgia. And we already have an Abbott Street in Gastown.
Anderson Lane – Named after the City’s fourth mayor, R.A. Anderson, an early real-estate broker. Served one term during the depression of 1894. One of his first moves, according to the Vancouver Book, “resulted in the reduction of all civic salaries.”
But there’s a street named Anderson too, on Granville Island.
Names don’t have to be either historic references or even after people. Let imagination flourish.
Yes, I agree, let’s do this. There are a few examples in the City. The one that pops up is St. Regis Lane off Dunsmuir Street near the St. Regis Hotel.
Vancouver pro athletes by last name? We’d have to start with a list of Canucks, Lions, Whitecaps &c and go from there … Or Vancouver writers? Enough have lived in the West End …
As a metaphor of the lanes, how about naming them after tributaries of our important local river: the Fraser
Here are a list of tributary names (creeks and small rivers) that eventually flow into the Fraser (I like going with the alphabetic theme):
Anderson Lane
Bowron Lane
Cayoosh Lane
Doré Lane
Endako Lane
Fountain / Frantzen Lane
Goat Lane
Haylmore Lane
Intlpam / Izman Lane
Jacobie Lane
Kiwa Lane
This is a great idea, but if we’re going to look at naming lanes, why not look to correct long-standing injustices in the types of people who have streets named after them in the city? This is a great opportunity to increase the number of women, First Nations, lower class and non-European residents (or words. Or historical events) that can have something named after them.
As for A, I know he had not much to do with the city and that it goes against the above listing (there is probably no shortage of crazy people who have streets named after them), but Vancouver still lacks an Amor De Cosmos Street or Lane in the city.
A Ginger Goodwin Lane on the city’s east side would be wonderful. A Komagata Maru lane would be welcome, as would names that reflect Coast Salish history in the region. An Emily Carr lane?
We also don’t have any streets or lanes named after dates – something common in other parts of the world. What significant events in the history of B.C. might we want to commemorate? The date of the last spike?
Of course we can always just name them all after tributaries or mountain ranges or something like that, but I think that skips out an important debate that’s worth having in this city. We’re not a history-less place. In fact, we never were. It doesn’t make sense to treat us as such when there is such a rich cultural wealth to mine for these names.
To be honest, I don’t know who would be best to have lanes named after them. This sort of work needs the involvement and inclusiveness of every community in the city. I just know the criteria has to be different than before, which has seen active racists to coal barons all named in our city’s streets with scant attention paid to the rest of us.
Speaking of Coast Salish history, maybe it’s a shame there’s no X on the list for X̱wáýx̱way. But I’m sure a member of that community could come up with a better suggestion of what’s important to them than me. I’m just throwing out ideas.
link fail: https://maps.google.de/maps?q=100th+avenue+and+100th+street,+fort+st.+john,+bc&hl=en&ll=56.246986,-120.847464&spn=0.006426,0.020192&sll=51.151786,10.415039&sspn=7.430486,20.67627&t=h&gl=de&hnear=100+St+%26+100+Ave,+Fort+St+John,+Peace+River,+British+Columbia,+Canada&z=16
The most important role for a lane name is for wayfinding, particulary for emergencies and for people unfamiliar to an area. So Alberni Lane is perfect, because then someone using an outdated map or app or asking somebody need only identify Alberni street and the lane will be found adjacent.
Additionally, there needs to be a consistent pattern, as with numbering on differing sides of streets. For example the lane to the north of Broadway would be Broadway Lane, and the lane to the north of 10th Ave would be 10th Ave Lane.
Symbolic names give momentary recognition, but daily episodes of waste and confusion (or worse in emergency situations), over the centuries. Asking someone from elsewhere in the region to meet us in Hornby Lane is far, far better than Nisga’a 13 April Lane
So if we had the ability to rewrite history and our street names, you would have us do this? https://maps.google.de/maps?ie=UTF-8&q=100th+avenue+and+100th+street,+edmonton,+alberta+map&fb=1&gl=de&hq=100th+avenue+and+100th+street,+edmonton,+alberta&ei=QejJUYTEJsztPKa6gIgN&ved=0CJsBELYD
My apologies, again. I wish I could have edited my original post rather than waste people’s time with three posts, but here goes: https://maps.google.de/maps?q=100th+avenue+and+100th+street,+fort+st.+john,+bc&hl=en&ll=56.246986,-120.847464&spn=0.006426,0.020192&sll=51.151786,10.415039&sspn=7.430486,20.67627&t=h&gl=de&hnear=100+St+%26+100+Ave,+Fort+St+John,+Peace+River,+British+Columbia,+Canada&z=16
If we’re going to be that systematic about it (e.g. lane south or north of street is ___ Lane) we may as well just… not do it. Because today you can just name the street and say the lane north or south of it.
The exercise would really be about giving the lane some identity / making best use of street frontage in dense places, not so much about emergency response I would think.