In this Courier piece, Mike Howell describes a City of Vancouver plan to permanently close the 800 block of Robson to motor vehicles. I sense the smile from Janette Sadik-Kahn as we look like we’re about to create a new people place. Detailed design yet to come.
City manager Sadhu Johnston said staff is preparing a report to go to council in either late April or early May that will recommend the 800-block of Robson Street, between Howe and Hornby streets, be closed year-round.
“It’s something we’ve been directed by council for a while to work on,” Johnston told the Courier. “We want to do it because we think it’s the right thing to do. There’s not that many public gathering places downtown — plazas like that. So we want to create a really nice public spot that people can gather.”
Here’s one of the summer closure layouts.
Thanks to City of Vancouver for the image
It’s about time. So timid we are. Water Street and lots more of Robson should come next.
Agreed. The real potential of Robson is to be a great pedestrian street. Many cities have converted streets like Robson decades ago. Puzzling that all the focus is on just one block.
I’ve been trying to get some info from the city on the status of this year’s Robson Redux competition … Now I know why I haven’t been getting it!
I wonder about the bus route that currently goes through there. Also about cycle access through it.
Having a bus only lane through an area has been done all over the world. There are ways to make it work. I assume that the bus would go slowly for that section.
About biking through, I think it’s futile to ban cycling through it. Wherever there’s a place without motor traffic, people will want to bike there. The only option is to direct it along a track so that there’s some order.
I don’t think cycling would be banned. Look at the staff report for the new Jim Deva plaza recently approved. Maintaining bicycle access was a goal there. The design can address all active transportation modes from the outset.
Translink intends to put the bus route on Pender until it reaches Burrard, and then it would return to Robson:
https://view.publitas.com/translink/transit-network-review-vancouver-and-ubc/page/16-17
TransLink hasn’t completely caved to the City on Robson Street just yet. The preferred routing is still to use Robson over to Seymour/Richards.
Well, I’m cool either way. Having a bus go through a car-free plaza has been done in many places around the world. I don’t see a problem.
On the other hand, this might be a good time to rethink the West End’s bus access. Two routes that are basically the same route backwards from each other and then the mini bus. Nothing down the centre of the West End. Nothing west of Denman. If a new route or two, even mini buses, were added to the West End then this bit of Robson wouldn’t be so vital.
But the recommendation defers to the City’s decision. If the block is permanently closed or closed frequently throughout the year, the Downtown Bus Review recommendation is to use the Pender to Burrard routing permanently.
“We want transit, we want transit!” (unless of course it interferes with one of the touchy-feely flavour of the month “gathering places” that will be deserted 7 months of the year during the rainy season).
Um, have you ever been to Europe? To any one of a thousand plazas/piazzas that are lively almost every day of the year? To Granville Street even, almost any night? Might it be that that allowing interesting places to be built such that it allows interesting things to happen might also happen in Van? Or do you think we’re somehow too wimpy in Vancouver to go outside when we might melt?
Also, clever design might easily allow transit to coexist happily … Maybe even be BETTER after robsonstraße-fication than before, so quite literally no-one is arguing for worse transit, just more and better public places.
Please don’t suggest self-serving hypoctiticallity where it doesn’t exist.
Have you ever compared the average rainfall in Vancouver to any major European city? Hint: it ain’t pretty.
And you’re seriously holding out the Granville Street Vomitfest as “vibrant street life”?
Vancouver has fewer wet days, and is the same average temp, but significantly warmer minimum temp than Amsterdam. Fewer wet days than Vienna in spring, summer and fall (winter wetter) and warmer all winter than Vienna. Vancouver might get more rain. But it gets it on fewer days, in general. There are lots of clever design decisions made in Europe to enable spaces to function year round in both wet and dry. Vancouver has plenty of things it could copy, so that it’s spaces would do the same.
Vancouver has few spaces which are designed as urban umbrellas, and so it has few spaces people use when one might need one. Why it is surprising to think that with the addition of some good design, that we might use the spaces also?
And I was using Granville as an example that people do, in fact, use the outdoor public space in Vancouver without melting, even in winter. I never said that it was the best use of the space, but that’s another issue.
Used to be people trotted out this canard with 10 months of the year being the length of time Vancouver Cake People couldn’t be left out in the rain. I feel like we’re making progress!
I am sorry, but I leave two blocks away and it’s a traffic mess around the area when they close Robson, needless to say the problem with the routing for the bus that runs along Robson Street. It is especially complicated for people with disabilities from the West End to make it to the area. Traffic should be rearranged before making such decision.
Also what are they going to have on the close street all year around? Space for protesters? If you walk through Robson square in any given day, if there is not a protest going on, is some sad group of street vendors and a couple of hotdog falafel carts. In the summer they put out those increasingly uglier artifacts created for people to sit, and end up being camping/sleeping places for homeless people. It lacks the basic hygiene. Last year, during the water van, when all of us had to suffer not being able to water our planters to keep our city “green”, they had to power wash the “artifacts” as they cannot be left unclean for so long.
Before taking the measure of just closing an intersection, there should be a plan of what it’s going to happen to see if people are happy with it, and not just close the street because it seems like the right thing to do.
The plan is what is going to Council in late April or early May. Staff have been working on this for a while. I agree with you that what is currently there when the block is closed is not as wonderful as we might like to pretend but I am optimistic that the City will up its game (and that it will start to pay more attention to transit users downtown).
It is better to know the block will be closed and have a permanent route for the #5 bus than the ever-changing route that has been the situation.
I’m so excited for this! I wish there were more spaces like these in Vancouver.