Sky High or Down Underground?

y Christine Szeto, VIA Architecture's Vancouver Office

Part 1: Growing Up Riding the Sky
On a Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1992, I rode the SkyTrain for the very first time. My family usually spent Saturdays in Chinatown but we lived in Surrey. My parents were working late that day and my two older sisters thought that they could ride the train home to work on their “homework”. Of course, much to the dismay of my parents, as well as my sisters, I insisted on tagging along. Our ride would take us from Main Street Station to Scott Road. (King George would have been the closer station but it hadn’t been built yet.) I had just turned 10, and my sisters were 12 and 16.

Like all parents who are learning to trust their children, my parents were a bit worried about dropping off three girls near skid row and then having them ride the train all alone for an hour. Anything could happen -- we could get lost, or could lose a sister, especially the little sister. We could have missed our stop at Scott Road Station, or we could get off too early. Cell phones were still sort of new and expensive so there wasn’t a way of contacting us until we reached our destination. Besides, we could have lost the precious gigantic brick of a phone. “But, c’mon, get real – mom, dad, are you serious?” We only had one train line to ride, how could we possibly get lost? All we had to do was stay on the train until the end; until it couldn’t go any further.

I remember my sisters picking the last car to ride on so that I could look out the tiny back window as we rode home. It gave them a moment of peace because they knew that the view would keep me quiet – and they were right. Nothing was better to me than seeing the entire city from above as I traveled home. Time passed quickly because there was always something interesting to look at.

After several more rides, I got so used to the landscape that I began to look for specific objects or structures to judge how far along I was in between stations. It never became boring; not for me anyway. Even after years of riding the same line, there was always something to look at. Things looked different each time we rode the SkyTrain. Maybe because it wasn’t raining this trip, or the sun was setting or perhaps a building was torn down. Whatever it was, it was always worth a look.

From then until my mid twenties, SkyTrain was basically my only experience with rapid transit. It was what I knew and it was easy. Just one line and 40 minutes later I’m in the city or back at home. Of course, at times, the train wasn’t the most convenient because the stations can be quite far from my departure or destination points, but I’ve always enjoyed the ride.

So, because I was so used to seeing sunlight and landscapes while commuting, I was a bit closed to the idea of riding a subway system. Expo Line does go underground for some stations, but the train eventually resurfaces to an elevated railway. To ride constantly underground sounded somewhat bleak and depressing, if not slightly claustrophobic. I also wasn’t the most attentive commuter – I guess I was too busy looking out the window – so changing trains did not seem favorable either.

Just last September, my husband Stanley and I vacationed in Paris and we thought it would be a much better (and cheaper!) experience to visit the city as pedestrians. Besides, we had heard that driving in Paris was extremely aggravating. Obviously, then, the subway would be our main method of touring the city.

At first I got really ambitious and thought “why spend all that time underground when we can see the city on bicycles? It’s so Parisian!” But Stan wasn’t thrilled with that idea, especially when the forecast predicted rain. So, onto the subway we went and well, honestly, it was a lot of fun! I suppose since I was born and raised in the Greater Vancouver area, there’s a natural inclination to the city’s transit infrastructure – you just know what to expect – but I was wrong to be so biased. As beautiful as the city of Paris is, the transit infrastructure was also a real eye-opener for me.

Of course, understanding how the system works in a practical sense – point A to point B – and in French, is a slightly different story….

(tune in next week for Part 2 of Sky High or Down Underground?)

Here's a video clip of the original test track from the mid-1980's 

Images: cell phone, Vancouver skybridge, expo line map

Vancouver Streetcar: We've Missed You

by Dale Rickard,  MAIBC, Director of Transit Architecture, VIA Architecture

The streetcar is returning to Vancouver’s streets again after the original system was torn up in the 1950’s. This is a city that was organized around the streetcar starting in 1890 with a system that continued to grow as the city expanded creating a network of linked communities like Kitsilano, Marpole, Kerrisdale, Dunbar, and Mt. Pleasant. All of those communities continued to develop and mature but the streetcars that generated them have long disappeared.

I happen to live at 41st and Dunbar a few hundred feet away from a bus terminus loop. The loop was originally occupied by the streetcar turnaround built before the First World War and was built before there were any houses. The area had just been logged and there were acres of stumps where the forest had been. This is the way transit planning should be: first comes the infrastructure which then generates the development. If this is not done proactively, transit planning can become a much more challenging process of developing routes through existing neighborhoods.

The City of Vancouver is now serious about reintroducing the streetcar. Interestingly it is a City initiative proposed to be a project independent of TransLink’s larger regional system but creating connections and linkages that will make at least the inner core of the City very well served by transit choices. And like the original system of 100 years ago, it will be designed to link communities and neighbourhoods primarily in the central area: Granville Island, Southeast False Creek, Downtown Eastside, Chinatown, Gastown, Coal Harbour, and North False Creek.

This is a vision that was articulated in 1999 and approved as a concept by City Council to be developed with a series of consulting reports on ridership, costing, and preliminary engineering. The City had the foresight a few years earlier to buy a stretch of the disused CPR right of way on the south shore of False Creek from Granville Island to Main Street and, combined with this, there have been corridors planned that pass through the Southeast False Creek area, Concord Pacific, Coal Harbour, and Bayshore developments.

This vision of a streetcar system ringing False Creek and the Downtown central area will create connections to virtually the entire TransLink network including the SeaBus, the Expo Line, the Canada Line, the West Coast Express, the major buses, and ultimately even the Millennium Line when it is extended west.

Even though this vision is a few years away, the City included it as a part of the Olympic Bid Book and will be opening a short segment of this full system in January to move people from Granville Island to the Canada Line at a cost of $8.5m from the City with an additional grant from CMHC / Granville Island of $0.5m. This will fund a demonstration line running free trains intended to generate excitement during the Olympics for a couple of months, with 1.8K of single track connecting a platform at the entrance to Granville Island with another platform located behind the Canada Line station at Olympic Village. This will form part of a ring of movement around the Creek planned for the Olympics with streetcars, ferries, and bike paths connecting the seawalks, Granville Island, an Olympic venue at David Lam Park and the Olympic Village.

VIA Architecture has been a part of the planning of the system, working with HMM Engineers to do the preliminary engineering for the first major segment. This is planned to be built from Granville Island to Science World with a works yard under the Georgia Viaduct and a number of stations including the Science World station with connections to the (soon to be upgraded) Main St. Station (also a VIA project). Although a fair amount of conceptual initial thinking took place concerning the platform architecture, this has not been developed further and the 2 Demonstration Line stations will consist of a minimal asphalt platform.

The exciting thing that has been in the news this week is that the 2 cars to be used on the Demonstration Line have started their journey from Brussels, through Germany and the Panama Canal, to Tacoma and then to Vancouver. Bombardier is contributing these borrowed vehicles to showcase Canadian technology and to promote their expertise when a fleet of cars are ultimately chosen. These cars carry 50 seated and 128 standing passengers, are bi-directional, and very low-floor (300/ 350 above the tracks) which allows for full accessibility and 2 bicycles. And they look great!

The 2 stations at the entrance to Granville Island and behind the Olympic Village Canada Line Station, along with the new single track bed have been basically completed, although the station platforms will have some lighting poles and pairs of bus shelters added. The station platforms will be extremely simple and are defined by a concrete curb edge beside the tracks that create a level access into the cars.

GRANVILLE ISLAND STATION

OLYMPIC VILLAGE STATION

Less Carbon, More Footprints

by Kate Howe, VIA's Urban Planner

Just under two weeks ago, I attended the WALK21 conference in NYC. Now in its tenth year, WALK21 is an international coalition that advocates for walking, focusing on the pedestrian as the integrative point in any transportation system. This year the conference was underwritten by NYDOT- and partnered with the Association of American Bike Pedestrian Professionals (APBP) combining both hands-on training seminars with the broader themes of WALK21.

Walking, as we know, touches on everything; from urban design, to transportation and land use planning, to air pollution and climate, to public health. And so the topics ranged broadly from the economic benefits of building walkable neighborhoods, to planning for climate change, to the measurability and design of walking and transport planning. This year, the typically eurocentric nature of the conference was challenged as attendees hailed not only from Stockholm and Copenhagen but also Mexico City to a broad North American showing of both US and Canadian experience.

WALK21’s goal is to give each the tools to advocate for and to design excellent walking environments.  In fact, the promise of clear, standardized empirical tools was one of the conferences most exciting ideas for me. As the WALK21 board and their partners move forward with their Pedestrian Quality Needs Index, they are helping all of us reach the goal that will standardize how cities can measure what has always before been considered soft information about the quality of a street.

Rodney Tolley of WALK21 discussed their current development of a replicable pedestrian quality survey that Cities around the world could undertake for about $20,000. The survey is distilled from the best practice experiences in Copenhagen, London and now New York and would help even small governments understand the condition of walking and provide them with access to global expertise. The smaller scaled survey is available now, while a full report planned for release in 2010. The group is looking to identify;

·      What should we measure?
Which dimensions / indicators are desirable and/or necessary to evaluate walking and public space?

·      How should we measure it?
Which methods and tools are useful; how should data be collected?

·      And what should we standardize internationally – and how?

At the conference, it seemed clear that London is the city most responsible for blazing a new trail for measuring, accommodating and supporting walking. Since 2000, they have all but redesigned their transportation system to provide for massive population growth on the same tired infrastructure. Transport for London has found that carrying space for a pedestrian is three times higher than the next most efficient form (bus). Walking also accounts for 80% of trips made under a mile. Yet there was limited official recognition of the efficiency of walking as a mode of transport. This blind spot has since disappeared through a system now designed to measure person flow rather than vehicle flow. The TFL transport models now include Pedestrian demand models, the results are redesigned tube entrances, street crossings, intersections, and enhanced pedestrian safety. TFL is also fighting an information war to change people’s habits particularly in a city where even locals get lost. Some of their latest campaigns to get people more comfortable walking include mapping of walking routes, and a way finding system “Legible London.”

However, back to our US based leader -  New York City. Here there is entirely less empiricism, but the City under Bloomberg’s PlanNYC initiative has already conducted successful tests and done a complete overhaul of the NYC Street Design Manual…. DOT is seeing the results; and expanding the programs. How will this affect pedestrian safety and congestion? One can already look at what has happened in the take back of Times Square. I walked the length of Broadway from Herald Square to midtown for the first time ever – even after growing up 30 miles from the city and living in New York for five years- never before would you go to Times square as a local ON PURPOSE. Now it is a pleasant, amazing, experience to see what a bucket of paint and some picnic tables can do.

I am curious to see how New York City will influence other cities to think about management of their own pedestrian networks. Can this city, with arguably the best walking environment in the country, lead the way for others as they collect data on separated and buffered bicycle lanes, street pedestrian islands, and street closures in overly congested public spaces. This link to streetsfilms gives a good overview of just what they are up against.