Tearing down a highway to enjoy more urban benefits
The removal of the viaducts in Vancouver is an exciting opportunity that will surpass the significance of not building a highway through the city. While Toronto seems stuck with its elevated “freeway” cutting off the city from the lake, Vancouver has a tremendous opportunity to right a bit of terrible urban planning and highway engineering that tore apart communities. If the Viaducts are removed there is a chance to do a lot of city building including more park space, affordable housing and better transportation infrastructure. And what is not to like about taking down a bit of concrete to build a park?
The time to do this project is urgently needed now as the cost of seismically upgrading the structures or demolishing them will continued to increase and there is still a lot of detailed planning to be done.
The removal the viaducts will be funded in a variety of ways including development revenues such as Development Cost Levies (DCL) and Community Amenity Contributions (CAC), partnerships, the capital plan and by other levels of government.
A part from the cost of the project there are many exciting benefits that the project will provide to Vancouver.
Some of the potential merits of taking down the viaducts are:
-more park space
-a more efficient replacement road network that has the ability to accommodate growth
– a replacement street network would provide new opportunities for future streetcar service
-more affordable housing
-more childcare
-better infrastructure for people walking and riding bikes.
-potential for positive health out comes for residents of Vancouver
-new transit routes
-more connectivity between neighbourhoods
-more opportunity for cool urban design like a dedicated pedestrian and cycling bridge
-a new programmable gathering space for major public events
-an opportunity to reconcile the cultural history of the area.
-a mini “high line” park
Vancouver traffic engineers will fully replace the capacity of the viaducts with a new road network, which means we will be taking different routes and modes than we do now, but with whole lot more benefits than what we are enjoying now.
Here is the full staff report:
http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20151020/documents/rr1.pdf
Photos of the viaducts and the area:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brentgranby/albums/72157634302871775