From The Daily Scot:
A stroll around the North Vancouver District portion of Marine Drive last month reveals a rapid transformation from arterial to mid-rise mixed use corridor with a flurry of infill construction.
.
It’s rumored that District of North Vancouver’s goal is to turn Marine Drive into West 4th in Kits. The scale and proportion of the buildings and the variety of materials used – brick, wood, metal – go a long way to adding interest and creating a human scale environment that trumps the massive block sizes of concrete and glass of some tower projects.
I have to disagree. It’s pretty sterile and awful really. Some of the architecture is almost “medieval”. Strange ramparts, oversized timbers… one feels as if someone is going to dump boiling oil on one’s head when walking beneath the looming massifs. Similarly, the newer additions to 4th Ave create the same sterile, imposing atmosphere. I’m thinking particularly of the north side between Vine and Yew.
Part of Marine Drive is in the City of North Van with similar developments (except a new car-focused mall). The idea is that many new residents take transit as quite a few buses run on Marine. The road is badly congested though and buses are unreliable. Biking is a poor option. Despite completely rebuilding the street and curbs the District of North Van only painted sharrows, which make for quite awful cycling in heavy traffic and juggling with buses. Many people ride on the sidewalks. Cross the border to the City of North Van and you’ll find bike lanes on Marine Drive. The retail vacancy is apparently fairly high on Marine. I avoid the area since it’s difficult to get to, whether by car or by bike. Retailers blame insufficient on-street parking for poor business. I wonder if there is too much retail space coupled with poor transport.
You beat me too it, in the next post I was going to focus on the problems with Marine Drive itself and how DNV hasn’t addressed the complete street. It will be interesting to get your opinion next week.
Look forward to your post next week! Because of complaints from retailers I believe the District is looking at introducing more on-street parking on Marine with the next developments. Sounds like biking will get even more nightmarish. There is no pay parking on District streets, and more parking may not even do much for retail.
The existing width of Marine Drive in the city between Hanes and Bewicke is at least as wide as Commercial south of 1st, Fraser south of King Ed, and 4th in Vancouver. The CNV has chosen left turn bays, 11-foot vehicle lanes, and bike lanes instead of parking. The planned width of Marine Drive is the same as Kingsway, Broadway between Cambie and Arbutus, Hastings through the DTES, and Main through Mount Pleasant. There are a lot of design possibilities for a street of this width.
It is difficult to cross Marine Drive on foot. Pedestrians are not permitted to cross Marine on one side of the intersection at Hanes, Fell, and Bewicke. The city recognized long ago that Marine Drive is unappealing for pedestrians for this reason and others (See http://cnvapps.cnv.org/minutearchive/Attachments/2006%200%2012%20item%2021R.pdf ) but the design problems remain.
Marine Drive in the district is slightly wider than Davie, Denman, and Commercial north of 1st. The range of options for such a narrow street is much more constrained, especially if four through lanes are seen to be necessary.
Excellent Contribution, thanks
I am pretty sure that Marine Drive between Bewicke and Hanes is wider than 4th in Kits. At least the vehicle lanes that pedestrians need to cross. Marine has left turn lanes and a median, which increases the crossing distance for pedestrians. On Google Maps Marine Dr in the City (and District) looks quite a bit wider than 4th. Not counting the parked cars on 4th since they are hardly a hazard when crossing the street.
Several Marine Dr blocks in the District are longer than in Kits, which also makes it more difficult to cross the street. The City added a mid block crosswalk at the new mall, which is an extra long block.
It is also quite an adventure to turn left on Marine when on a bike. Either cross two lanes of heavy traffic into the left turn lane (not always possible unless pedalling at close to 50km/h), or do an indirect left turn from a side street. This requires triggering the signal sensor for cars, if visible on the asphalt, or hopping on the sidewalk, pushing the pedestrian push button and using the pedestrian crosswalk. Hardly 21st century cycling infrastructure for a designated bike route.
While I certainly wouldn’t call the “new” Marine Drive perfect in any way, and the architecture does come close to sterile, I think you have to give it time. You also have to remember what used to be there: empty car lots, strip malls, what was easily one of if not the most depressing area on the North Shore for walking. I spent part of my teenage years there, and it’s a big improvement over what came before.
While I’d love to see much smaller scale architecture, similar to the older buildings on 4th, I have to resign myself to accepting that that was never going to happen. The next best thing is what the Bank of Montreal building does there in the last photo: although that’s all one building, it’s split up into three sections, each using different materials and a slightly different architecture style. That is hands down my favourite.
The big problem that hasn’t been at all addressed in the redesign, however, is the traffic on Marine Drive itself. Especially since there’s very little on-street parking on Marine, you really do feel like you’re right next to those cars going by, and in places, especially outside of Save on Foods, the sidewalk is uncomfortably narrow. In some of the new developments there seems to be a green buffer, but I’d prefer to see on-street parking, at least in off-hours, in the long-term, and maybe a shift away from being a commuter street to more of a neighbourhood street. One can dream, anyway. But until something’s done about the traffic and speed of the cars, I don’t think the street life will get a lot better.
I agree that it’s not nice to walk on Marine Drive, despite the wider sidewalks, shops and new trees. Too noisy, too polluted and the road is wider than 4th in Kits. There are pretty benches along Marine right by the curb, but who would sit next to heavy traffic? Maybe the retail should have been built on 15th Street, the next street south of Marine with good walking & biking spaces and slow local traffic. Marine tries to do everything, major arterial, major transit route, retail, pedestrian space and bike route. None works very well. The architecture is a bit bland, with a few exceptions, but it seems a minor problem compared to (lack of) functionality.
I agree that arterial roads trying to do everything doesn’t solve any of the issues well.
(I.e. retail is on Robson St., not West Georgia St. in downtown Vancouver)
Burnaby saw that by placing retail on Dawson St. (not on Lougheed) in the Brentwood area.
Richmond has failed to see that by trying to place everything on No. 3 Rd. (i.e. rather than retail on Hazelbridge).
It’s also interesting that Vancouver area planning tends to focus retail in linear strips – rather than creating retail districts with multiple shopping streets. (i.e. compare downtown Seattle (shopping scattered) to downtown Vancouver (largely Robson or Granville (Pacific Centre)).
Great point about Vancouver focusing retail along linear strips, outside of Gastown, Yaletown and Chinatown this is overwhelmingly the case, a remnant of our streetcar lines which are now mostly stroads sadly. I would like to see more “Node” neighbourhoods where retail and amenities bleed out from a central energy point or prominent intersection to sidestreets, alleys and civic spaces creating a ranging of pedstrian experiences. Seattle has 2 great examples in Fremont and Ballard. I still think the intersection of Fremont Ave/Fremont Place/35th/36th is one of my favourite nodes with it’s magical combination of historic architecture, topography, street trees, traffic speeds and randomness. I think there are possibilities for this in Vancouver where Kingsway slices through the grid, especially Kingsway/Fraser/15th/16th, but Kingsway needs a serious road diet!
I like the architecture – I think it works well for North Vancouver with the timbers etc. having a Whistler vibe to it.
They need some “drawing card” retailers along the strip to step up retail activity (assuming the below condo retail spaces are big enough).
With Save-on-Foods changing the banner at the former PriceSmart (next to Capilano Mall) to SoF, I suspect that the days are numbered for the Pemberton Plaza store and the plaza will be redeveloped. It looks like one of the deeper sites along Marie Drive and could house a large streetfront retail store.
WRT roads, I suspect that the District didn’t want to widen the street at the time of the redevelopments – it’s pretty obvious when driving, as the “through” lanes zigzag around to avoid left turn lanes more than any other arterial street I know of. If you aren’t alert or familiar with the lanes, you could easily have a side impact collision with another car because your lane zigs an entire lane width to the right.
Reblogged this on GitanoAfricano and commented:
This is part of my cycle route from home in Kitsilano to our offices in Lower Lonsdale. I am pleased with the transformation, but will the three local governments and the Squamish be able to collaborate on a long term plan to build a tram or fixed link transit option to move all these people between Park Royal and Lower Lonsdale? Or is the solution to just let automobile congestion clog up Marine Drive?
Totally agree! Marine Drive is not a provincial highway so at least the pro-motordom province cant interfere.