Vancouver has plenty of under-bridge conditions in dire need of being used for SOMETHING! The city has the country’s most expensive property, its nuts that so much of it would be entirely and spectacularly useless. Use dead space for a living city please.
Here’s an example from Hackney Wick, in East London.
Folly for a Flyover transformed a disused motorway undercroft in Hackney Wick into an arts venue and new public space. Over nine weeks, 40,000 local residents, artists and visitors from across London came and performed, ate, watched and got involved with workshops, talks, walks and theatre.
Starting with the idea that how spaces are imagined is often as important as their physical characteristics in determining their use, the Folly reclaimed the future of the site by re-imagining its past. The new ‘fairy tale’ for the site described the Folly as the home of a stubborn landlord who refused to move to make way for the motorway, which was subsequently built around him, leaving him with his pitched roof stuck between the East and Westbound lanes.
Before
After
Thanks for posting this Ken, very inspiring.
The city’s most popular skateboard park– arguably its most popular park space based on a per person/per sq. ft/per day use — is coming down with the viaducts. Does anyone know any other covered otherwise “dead” spaces where it could be relocated?
What about under the south end of the Cambie bridge? It’s currently a very wide pedestrian path. There’s also an access road for the Olympic Village station parking lot, but I don’t see why that couldn’t be closed off as well. No idea how it compares in terms of potential space.
The COV engineers require a 3m setback for anything below a bridge deck, for safety reasons, i.e., spalling concrete, etc.Also, planning policy requires a 15m/50′ setback from bridge decks. (I think the residential buildings adjacent to the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts don’t meet this constraint, with resulting positive outcomes in terms of streetscape.)
Between them, these two regulations make it a real challenge to achieve many of the things noted in this line of thinking.
These setback conditions can be relaxed with an indemnify and save harmless clause in the legal agreements required by a development permit as long as all safety issues are dealt with satisfactorily and the underlying idea is a compelling one.
Exactly my reason for hating the viaduct removal plan. It’s more about political theatre and handing developers yet another bone.
I’ve chided others in the past for promoting concepts that work great in dry climates but not so much in our rainy city. The skateboard park illustrates how well a covered space can be used year round just because it is dry. Rather than take a creative look at what could be done with this covered outdoor space near the heart of the city, Vision chose to pander to a certain segment of their voter base.
“It’s more about political theatre and handing developers yet another bone.”
That’s one view. Maybe there’s a grain of truth in it.
An engineer will point out the obvious – those things will not stand up in even a medium-range earthquake no matter who owns the land around them, irrespective of the value of that land in any point in time.
An urbanist would point out the obvious, that a big chunk of the NEFC land will be preserved as public open space in the form of parks and seawalls post-viaduct demolition, irregardless of the scope of development around it.
A bit of perspective on earthquakes;
The viaducts are built to the requirements of the seismic code in force in 1972.
The last major earthquake anywhere in North America occurred in 1994 in the Greater Los
Angeles area resulting in 60 deaths with most casualties resulting from collapsed buildings of frame construction and unreinforced masonry. One death is recorded as a result of an elevated roadway collapse.
Earthquakes are not predictable but traffic jams can be observed and predicted.
The sad truth is this; with the removal of the Georgia Viaduct the emergency travel time from anywhere downtown to the new hospital will be increased and face delays and this will certainly put lives at risk on a daily basis.
Fear mongering is a deplorable means for the achievement of aims. We need to keep the big picture in perspective and we need to understand that lives will be at risk for the sake of a few more feet of park. There really is no justification for this behavior.
Emergency travel doesn’t use the viaducts. Didn’t you just deplore fear mongering?
The removal of the viaducts will connect re-connect communities, create new park space and help to create a more vibrant, walkable and cyclable community. This will encourage more physical activity and hence will improve health and extend lifespans. It would be interesting to calculate the life-saving benefit of this over a few seconds lost to ambulances transit time. And if ambulance transit times are so super important, then why is the hospital being moved at all?
You cannot travel west on the Georgia Viaduct no matter how desperate you are to get to Saint Pauls’ Hospital. Leaving downtown for a hospital on the flats via the Georgia Viaduct is a different story without a history, but I expect it will prove to be a speedy route without traffic delay.
I figured that travelling west on the Dunsmuir viaduct was a similar experience to travelling east on the Georgia viaduct. Maybe I’m wrong. Do you expect the ambulance service to start using the viaducts if they were retained?
Let’s say that you Mr. Leigh are lying in the middle of the intersection at Cambie and Georgia and your bike is half a block away under a truck. Let’ say you have ten minutes to get to a hospital.
The travel time to VGH is ten minutes down Cambie and over the bridge but it is rush hour with congestion at Broadway.
The travel time to Saint Paul’s on the flats is seven minutes down the new Georgia Street ramp and around the park. But it is rush hour so we should expect a two to three minute delay just as predicted for the post viaduct reality. Things do look grim don’t they?
Fortunately for you Mr. Leigh the hospital on the Flats insisted that the Georgia Street Viaduct is a vital piece of its emergency services infrastructure. That caused the Province and the Feds to chip in on the seismic upgrades because in reality no one can support building a hospital on the far side of a traffic jam.
Fortunately for you Mr. Leigh I am driving the ambulance and the traffic is light on the Georgia Viaduct during the morning rush hour just as predicted by the traffic studies. I will have you there in three minutes because I plan to drive at speeds up to 90 k.
Mr Olsen: “Fortunately for you Mr. Leigh the hospital on the Flats insisted that the Georgia Street Viaduct is a vital piece of its emergency services infrastructure”
Did you see the quote regarding the BC Ambulance Service that was part of the viaducts study and report?
“staff have heard from emergency service providers that they do not use the Viaducts due to concerns that they can easily become stranded on the elevated roadways if there is an accident.”
ps: this all seems very formal.
The past is not the same as the future.
Very good Mr. Leigh you have uncovered the clue to the essential deceit upon which the murderous tale turns. The design professions are all about providing life support and only secondarily about beautification. The new hospital is the enterprise that will transform the neighbourhood not the demolition of the viaducts as the experiential planners hope. The new hospital will be connected to downtown via the Georgia Street Viaduct and Malkin Avenue because it needs to be. Ambulances will use this route and the City will facilitate their needs. With the participation of all levels of government the cost to the City for a seismic upgrade is in the order of eight million dollars, far and away a good investment and one that will certainly save lives.