This article from Salon describes the status quo in most North America urban regions:
Why it’s so hard to punish drivers who kill pedestrians
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Harmful driving is criminal, but its systemic roots can’t be ignored: The modern city is dangerous by design.
That means, on the one hand, that streets requires high speeds, left turns across traffic into crosswalks, and turning across bike lanes. But it’s also a broader indictment of heavy automobile use in cities, which, in close proximity to thousands of pedestrians and cyclists, spawns a specter of violence that can’t be vanquished by speed limits or intersection design. …
The auto lobby is reluctant to admit that there’s a structural problem here because drivers don’t want to see changes to an environment well-suited to their needs.
Only in the last few decades has Motordom design been questioned, and answered with alternatives. In the case of freeway-less Vancouver, it was largely a strategy of not redesigning the existing grid to accommodate high-speed traffic at ever larger volumes, and to place greater emphasis (and funding) on pedestrian and cycling priorities.
The question that will face this region, and certainly the city, is whether, in the face of a No vote, we retreat to ‘Motordom by Default:’ car dominance will be assumed, and engineers and planners will have to accommodate it in their day-to-day decisions.
Pedestrian deaths will just be an unfortunate byproduct.
It is indeed unclear to me why so few streets in Vancouver are traffic calmed or closed to cars altogether. Robson should be one long ped mall from Stadium to Stanley park .. with Christmas market in winter and other jugglers, entertainers or booth in the summer .. kind of like a second long Granville Island .. or Alberni .. or many of the street closer to the water. It would be a huge hit with shoppers and businesses and walkers alike. A real gem for this car infested city … very pretty at the edges (where there is water) but pretty ugly or unremarkable once you are 2 blocks off the water in downtown Vancouver.
I am amazed that this has not yet happened. WHY ?
One good reason is because it’s bus route. Awkward, circuitous routing of the Robson bus is the sole reason I’m against closing it completely between Howe and Hornby.
Where is the subway to Stanley Park @ Denman @ Davie .. from SkyTrain, Seabus and Canada Line ?
Robson / Denman / Davie to Yaletown needs a subway loop. Then we can shut down those diesel emitting, noisy, uncomfortable and wobbly buses AND get a livable city with ample of pedestrian space and new plazas.
Where is this vision in “Vision” Vancouver ?
Thomas – while I appreciate your enthusiasm for subways (and perhaps a westward extension of the Expo line may be justified in future), it is not justified to continually denigrate buses, which carry over 60% of Translink’s riders, and are the feeder routes by which rapid rail services are successful.
Moreover, the 5 route on Robson is an electric trolley – it is not diesel-emitting or noisy, and it is certainly not any more uncomfortable than Skytrain.
If we want substantial changes in car users’ behavior we need SUBSTANTIAL changes in transit, i.e. subways and not just enhanced bus service.
If the transit referendum fails all mayors that voted for it should resign.
The proposal is weak. It is a poor plan with 0 vision. Just higher costs, no clear benefits for car users.
Agreed. It would be one thing to restrict private vehicles to reduce congestion, but Robson is a heavily-used bus route, one of two which operate entirely within downtown. It is ridiculous that the city closes that section of street outside the art gallery every summer, making connections to the Skytrain longer and more awkward.
Thomas, subways are not only very expensive but require buses to travel on the street to cover the large gaps between the underground subway stations…ie Cambie with diesel replacing trolleys. There is a city preserved right of way, and still planned for the future, of a streetcar/LRT from Olympic Line (abandoned by city for time being) from Science World to CPR station and Stanley Park, with a second line from Science World on North side of False Creek. A line for both tourists and locals allegedly at least break even but one can guess the city is not interested in it,now, as it would interfere with development plans for the Broadway subway-which just dumps everyone at Arbutus and back to the buses. Buses can never be as comfortable as rail vehicles so even 1930’s PCC’s were more comfortable then the best of buses. The extra buses above the subway, apparently, are not included in the cost of a subway which would lower apparent subway costs operational and building….I agree with your mall on Robson but with only a transit-and only transit-right of way, ala Europe.
Thomas:
80% of SkyTrain users get to/from the station by bus. If we built all the subways you envision we’d need substantially more buses than the current plan calls for to get people to and from the trains. So please stop saying negative things about buses.
I do not believe there is a Plan B, Plan C or Plan D. I believe that a “no” result means that the funds promised by the BC Liberals for the mayor’s plan will be spent on more roads and bridges. Without that money it will be impossible to build any grade separated rapid transit in Vancouver, Surrey or anywhere else in BC. I believe voting “No” on the plebiscite means you and I may not live long enough to see a single km of new subway in Metro Vancouver.
You are free to believe otherwise.
Buses do not provide enough incentives for car users to switch.
If no plan B or C exists than the MetroVan mayors have failed in their job. They are just unwilling to raise property taxes, land transfer taxes, parking fees or bus ticket fees .. or borrow more money at sub 2% as that is a viable alternative to build more public transit.
MetroVan bus based public transit is a joke. One cannot whine on teh one hand about “we need less cars” and then not offer RAPID alternatives NOR make cars more expensive, by, for example, charging $250/month per car parked in clogged Point Grey, or $500 per stall downtown in the West-End to reflect true land value.
Buses alone won’t attract drivers, but without buses the trains would be empty. Even in cities with a myriad of dense subway lines there is a huge need for buses.
If we vote “no” I believe the Provincial money will disappear and with it the Federal contribution too. So any Plan B would need to raise three times as much money as is currently being asked for. Doing so would be political suicide so it won’t happen.
Any politician who proposed charging $250/mo to park in a residential area would be out of job faster than you could say “Price tags”.