In the post on Port Mann, a commenter makes this point:
I walk and drive along Broadway all the time. I was working on Broadway recently too. There’s not much traffic. Many commenters seem to think that more Broadway buses is the answer because the need is really bunched up during rush hours only. There are still many single storey structures along Broadway. The density isn’t there – yet.
So perhaps it’s time to run another post I did back in 2012: “Five Metrotowns on Broadway.” Broadway is a trip destination equal to half that of Downtown Vancouver – already. The second downtown of British Columbia.
If rapid transit opened today, it would be one of the busiest routes in North America. Yeah, Broadway is ready for a subway. The question is whether we’re ready to pay for it.
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According to this population and density map comparing the use of the B-Line with the rapid-transit lines, there is the equivalent of five Metrotowns along Central Broadway:
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This effectively illustrates the case of the City of Vancouver for the construction of rail rapid-transit along the Broadway corridor.
The B-line is said to be the busiest bus route in North America [It’s not, as an upcoming post on Mexico City will make clear), carrying more than many light-rail lines. It carries about half the hundred-thousand transit users in the Broadway corridor.
Already Broadway has a transit usage equal to the Canada Line – and yet only about 20 percent of those in B.C.’s second largest downtown are using transit. Compared to the Central Business District, the potential is actually greater – probably closer to 35 or 40 percent could be on transit.
But too many people have given up and are not prepared to use an overcrowded system no matter how frequent the buses. At any rate, there just isn’t room for more buses, argues the City, and the demand will be further driven up once the Evergreen Line is constructed. Other routes could take some of the load, but the only real solution is to get some form of rapid transit connecting to UBC, the largest single transit destination in the entire region. ….
Broadway is tremendously congested for 7 months a year by the mass shipping of students (and some campus workers) back and forth between a remote western campus and affordable accommodation on the east side; 20-30 kms roundtrip daily. It’s not just time and cost, there’s a huge social impact; imagine the cumulative effects in the results of a study on student’s lost productivity and increased stress.
Contemporary sustainable planning involves putting destinations close to residents, and, it works vice-versa, It’s how we found a massive forest in the city, the supply of fibre from tons of recycled newspapers. Or how a region ‘gains’ energy by conserving. So leave aside the low-density west side, the hundreds of acres of surplus lawns and parks in which housing could be sensitively sited, and even the remaining greengrove areas directly adjacent to UBC.
The Jericho site (a short, pleasant walk from campus … too short for some to cycle) has the same land area as South East False Creek. With housing dedicated for students, using smaller-sized units and many shared & common areas, a mid-rise building form would accomodate a high-density population. It would remove over HALF of the entire current student commute. It doesn’t require huge political courage, as long as Jericho isn’t high-rise, luxury market.
The successful effect of this can be done within years – not decades – and free-up substantial surface transit capacity, of which we have an obligation to pursue before
Other cities are crying, “It would be a miracle if we had 90 surplus acres near our University district.” If the rare Jericho opportunity is squandered, and billions thrown underground, it will, in decades to come, be looked back upon as a colossal error in TDM and city-building. And you know the names of the careless who will be tagged. Just say NO to people pipelines.
Jericho land development is under discussion and some rental housing is a good idea . However market condos are the more profitable choice the owners will likely take.
More people at UBC today and in the future means more, not less public transit needs as people wish to go about: to the movies, to the beach, to restaurants , downtown, to work, to the airport or to visit friends. We need more transit as we build housing in many areas, not less. At the very least the Broadway subway needs to include Jericho land and not end at Arbutus.
People always get stuck on UBC…..but 2/3 of the projected ridership on Broadway is East of Arbutus.
Building high-density rental housing on the Jericho lands will just increase the need for a subway, or do you think those people will never want to travel east of Alma? The city is one big space and people need to be able to move around it. No amount of smart planning will get rid of that need.
The density for UBC looks suspiciously low. They must have used the Pacific Spirit Park area as the base for the density. And the 2006 population numbers are also outdated. The daytime work/study population estimate is 64,000 alone on an area of 400 hectares would push UBC into the highest category. And that does not count the 9000 non-student and mostly non-faculty/staff residents. Or address the projected growth. Throwing in the UEL area still keeps it in the highest category. Of course when the parks area is also included does UBC population density drop significantly, actually in the category below the one it is coloured in.
Maybe they don’t count students and use census areas in a given radius from the station? Curious to hear if anyone knows for sure, but whatever they did the numbers don’t add up.
Judging from the legend, it sounds like it doesn’t count students (“combined population and employment per hectare”), and only counts an 800m radius around the potential stop. It’s also from the 2006 Census, and I presume that most students living in campus residences would have stayed on their parents’ census form, thus further lowering UBC’s census numbers. I know that’s what I did when I was living there.
So I think it’s safe to say that UBC is a much, much denser transit destination than that map would indicate.
The UBC dot is the wrong colour because Population + Employment excludes all the students who commute to/from campus and possibly most of the ones who live on campus.
An 800m circle includes all the undergraduate housing, but most students move out at the end of term and if they return to student housing it’s to a different building. I don’t know if a census counts people in that type of temporary housing. The circle also includes most of the family housing areas and UEL Area A, but mercifully excludes some of the largest mansions near NW Marine Drive.
The small city UBC is building at Wesbrook Village is more than 1.5km from the proposed subway station and will therefore never be included in the dot. A circle big enough to encompass all the housing and employment in the south campus would also capture huge areas without a significant number of residents or jobs: playing fields, gardens, three schools, a farm, a 6500 yard golf course, half of Pacific Spirit Park and a whole lot of salt water.
Using the Jericho lands to house students and staff is a fine idea, but one that ignores the value of the property and is based on a misguided notion that it’s within easy walking distance of campus. From the barracks near 4th and Highbury to any of the academic buildings is a 5km walk up a rather big hill.
So it should be ‘Six Metrotowns”. I am guessing that not counting students is just laziness of the map makers, or are there actual reasons why student population should not factor into a transit map?
Yes. Jericho would be interesting but as David says, it’s 5km from campus.
Perhaps eventually a rail link to Macdonald or Alma, then a surface rail link into UBC that would run on a frequency more suited to the academic calendar. This would have to loop around first to Blanca and 16th to big and growing Wesbrook.
A light-rail link would then go by the Jericho lands.
Yes that would make common sense.
Yet:
Common sense is not so common.
UBC is rebuilding the bus transit terminal now, and Wesbook Mall soon, and guess what, NOWHERE is there even a mention of a subway or even a second station near Wesbrook @ 16th.
UBC operates utterly disconnected from any MetroVan plans, with the Electoral Area A rep AWOL or powerless.
Technically UBC isn’t in Electoral Area A so they don’t have to listen to what their neighbours in the UEL and Metro Vancouver have to say.
Many years ago UBC drew up plans for an underground bus terminal with the long term plan to convert it to a combined bus/subway station, but a combination of events made them scrap the idea. They’ve decided to focus on the foreseeable future and deal with subway planning if it ever looks like it will happen.