This sounds a lot like the situation in Copenhagen. In the 1970's they wanted to "modernize" the infrastructure and planned a whole network of highway viaducts going through the city. They managed to build exactly one of those streching about 1 km, but the whole project was dropped after a lot of protests when they wanted the highways to go through richer neighbourshoods. Instead Copenhagen shifted strategy to build bike lanes instead of more car lanes and in more recent times, an underground metro system. The one viaduct that was built then still stands today, but they are working on tearing it down, building a tunnel instead and develop the land above. The price tag is about $3 billion.
Dang, five or six years later we’re still waiting for the viaduct to be torn down-with seemingly no agenda or schedule ahead. I don’t know if the city, in the wake of the pandemic, has resulted in not having the money to tackle this now, or if the new St. Paul’s hospital project has strategically preempted the Viaducts removal to be undertaken. It is interesting thaw shuffle game that is happening with the “new” proposed park, and the Carral Street border of it. The False Creek Residents Association has been outspoken about this.
90% of East Indian do not date other race, I have NEVER seen a Chinese and East Indian together as a couple, and vice versa. 99.8% of Chinese girls WILL NOT date a white men. Tinder, Plenty of Fish, Bumble. Most the girls do is show off there pictures but do not date, there is something very weird when you have a city full of pussy but it doesn’t want to be touched. Our documentary will be done in the spring with special guest star Snoop Dogg talk to me about our dirty streets. God bless be nice to each other STICKY ICKY MUSIC PRODUCTIONS
C. E. Torchia that is like saying flowers do not need sun. A lady needs a man for reproduction of the human race, children can not be made by two men or two lady’s, a lady needs a man for friendship and love. Only the cold hearted want to be alone. People follow what celebrities are doing and that will be shown in our documentary.
I'm currently studying Urban Studies in the UK and I obviously enjoy the course and the area of study, but watching this video just granted me the first moment where I have literally gotten goosebumps over how exciting it all is. The editing and information in this video is unbelievable. I don't suppose for future videos you could leave references in the end credits or description? I think this video has just swayed me into writing my essay on exemplary public health on Vancouver lol.
The removal of the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco is one of the most ambitious of the Freeway Removal projects. You can see the old highway in many old TV shows from the 1970s, like "The Streets of San Francisco." It seems like the primary use of the highway was to provide a location for gun battles below the main road.
Dude I've been binging your videos all morning and I have to say I've learned so much. Also heading to Vancity tomorrow to move all my savings to them from TD
Our leaders continue to describe old neighbourhoods as supposedly blighted and in need of renewal. Except now we replace them with highrises instead of freeways. Note that we are not rebuilding Hogans Alley, but simply replacing it with highrises for rich yuppies.
...also he fails to note that the viaducts were not built in the 70's for the first time ever...they were built to replace a previous Georgia Viaduct built closer to the twenties....I remember driving over th eold viaducts....
i was just about to mention our similar situation here in Halifax! it’ll be a really good spot for a transit hub because there is a major bus stop that’s very busy right by it, but it’s on a busy road so it slows down traffic a lot and gives little room for all the cars and buses going through. Originally, they were also planning to build a waterfront highway in Halifax, but it was cancelled because the people didn’t want the historic properties to be destroyed.
Thank you sooooooooo much for making videos about Vancouver. I’ve been living in this city since 2007, I love Vancouver and since couple years ago, I began to interested in the history of Vancouver. Your videos are so helpful. Hoping forwards to see your new video!
Wow. I visited that river in seoul, had no clue that used to be a highway. Btw, great videos! I absolutely love it. I find architecture and infrastructure so interesting and sometimes, they make it physically beautiful too. Keep it up! If you want to really to see peak advancement of infrastructure, just look at Seoul's subways.
As someone who lives in the Seattle area it is quite a shame that we ever let freeways go right through the city separating neighborhoods. These freeways are bad for property value, create unsafe spaces, and make it more difficult to plan pedestrian friendly areas. Hopefully in the distant future we can possibly put a lid on i5 and reconnect our grid
I disagree I lived in city’s that didn’t have freeways and hated every minute and when ever I’m in a city that has freeways in the middle I love them do like the idea of moving freeways underground
I agree with this proposal but Vancouver needs to do more and get their infrastructure together. The roads here are a freaking mess and it seems nothing is being does to address the issue.
The problem here in North America is, we still wanna sell cars like it's the 50's and 60's while adopting city planning practices from friggin' Amsterdam! This would be a great idea if the city planned alternate transport for people from outside Vancouver so they don't have to drive their vehicles to town, whether for work or pleasure. Our public transport infrastructure is just incomparable to that of European cities that we so insist on comparing ourselves to. Bottom line, if a major artery for transport is being torn down to make way for more development and $$ without providing alternative modes of transport, then it's creating more traffic congestion, emissions and stress. Take for instance the WestCoast Express train, it connects a select few communities to Vancouver and it's schedule hasn't been updated since the Flintstones. It runs 2 services in the morning to Van and 2 in the evening from Van. That would pretty much classify as a joke anywhere in Europe. Nice Clip!
Great video! Montreal did this by demolishing part of the Bonaventure Expressway into downtown, extending a main boulevard at ground level and turning the land the elevated expressway once occupied into a public space as the “entré de ville”. There’s also big plans for a large park to be made where a section of Autoroute 20 once was. The 60s was the era of highways, while today we’re in the era of reimagining areas once occupied by highways.
The highway itself (highway 1A and 99A) is not being gotten rid of it is just being returned to its original routing. When the viaducts are gone just go up main to Hastings and make a left turn which was what the highway did for years before it was put on the viaducts to give them something to do.
Chengdu double decked their inner ring roads over the last 12 years, with integrated bus lanes in the middle. I think the speeds are only 60 kph. I loved riding my bicycle under/ beside them for 13 weeks in 2015. So few bikes now, so the lanes are a pleasure to ride, though I also lament the passing of the way it was in 2006. They are not ugly or noisy at all. A lot of it has artsy touches and now vines are on some of it. There are also crazy complicated flyover intersections of course.
@T Wilson Honestly if the municipal govts in the LM were dissolved for a spell and management put in the hands of a provincial govt ministry to sort out the jumbled mess of problems would anyone even notice? Most people dont even care to vote in the municipal elections in the LM anyway
Subscribed, Im a native vancouverite, been living downtown for about 20 years now since growing up in the suburbs (ridge, poco and the like) I was first upset about the proposal to demolish the viaduct when it was first brought up, and recently hearing about it on the radio again, and watching your video, it does still concern me with how it will affect traffic, having traveled on the viaducts plenty of times, the first intersection (shall i say multiple intersections) caused traffic enough and delay. However I am more on board with it than I was before, and just hoping the project itself won't delay any access in and out of the city. And after talking to deadpool, he says he's sad about it, he wanted to kill more bad guys on the viaduct.
Right? Is this dude getting paid by the city for their propaganda? I mean I don’t care much for the viaducts but to suggest they’re tearing it down cause of earthquakes is a joke! In that case, why build more highrises? Let’s get rid of all the old bridges too 🤦♂️
@@LDeol Many new buildings have requirements for a certain % of units to be affordable housing. If councillors and residents push developers we could fit a lot public housing in this spot. Which is better than an underutilized, partial highway with empty space underneath if you ask me. Plus a park!
Relocating > redesigning the highway strikes me that the motive isn't to make Vancouver more people-friendly. No, instead I suspect it's simply to justify residential redevelopment (special interests, perhaps?). After all, like he said, they never looked great.
Tearing down the highways and building more residential is a noble goal in and of itself. Highways are, in general, a terrible thing for a city's livability. HOWEVER, if the city council doesn't also decide to improve public transit and bicycle facilities alongside, it'll probably end up terrible. Higher downtown density provides more opportunity for a living city where people want to be, but it does, of course, need to be planned out properly. There is, however, also an effect called Induced Demand, which causes traffic to become worse when highways are opened. Closing down a highway may just improve traffic, even without building a replacement highway. But of course, people still need to get from A to B, so again, infratstructure for public transit and bicycles will need to be improved alongside the removal of the highway.
Its all about the real estate tycoons. Id like to see the real estate profession killed brutally in BC. Im not a socialist but if we must put real estate into governments hands so be it. These greedy real estate developers have been a thorn in the ass of the good people of BC for too long
Viewer from Hong Kong here. I think my opinion is in two parts: It's surely a positive act to release the waterfront and restore public space to the city. A swift from a car-oriented policy to a mass transit oriented one also do favour to commuters, traffic and long term urban planning. But I am wary of the idea of redeveloping the waterfront into private buildings or shopping complexes. These examples are all too familiar to Hong Kong citizens.
Do developers in Vancouver donate funds to the city government to well get guranteed planning permits? Because wealthy developers can cover that cost of $200 million.
@@mickanvonfootscraymarket5520 technically yes. The city will FORCE the developer as a part of their building permit to fund the necessary works needed for off-site (public) construction. This includes roads, underground utilities like water and sanitation as well as electrical and communications like streetlighting and traffic signals and city comm networks. So essentially, the developers are donating to the city. Just not directly. If I am not mistake the city is covering some of the project too. But it's been mostly paid for by the developers. Which is also why those condos will only ever be used to launder dirty money from overseas because nobody who has lived here their whole life will ever reasonably be able to afford it. My advice, as shitty as it is take the train into downtown still.
Subscribed. Looking forward to more videos. Maybe some on making more urban spaces for people? Plazas, robson square, pedestrian only type stuff. Nice work!
As bad as some think our traffic is, our traffic is nothing compared to dozens of others. If one does not like the drive, take public transit or move downtown, or work somewhere else. we all have the same choices.
A similar plan was proposed for Edmonton in 1969. Six freeways cutting into the city (NE, E, SE, SW, W, NW) meeting at a loop around downtown. Freeways as wide as a block is long, running in the valley along the river, through neighbourhoods like Rossdale, Cloverdale, Grandin, Oliver, Chinatown, Boyle Street ... and on and on. The first part of the first stage was actually built: the MacDonald Bridge, Low Level Bridge, Connors Road, Scona Road interchange. Thankfully Edmonton was late to the game of freeway-ifying cities so by the time that interchange was done experiences elsewhere were already making it clear that freeways through the heart of the city were a bad idea. A search for "Metropolitan Edmonton Transportation Study" should turn up some of the plans.
Good to know this history of Vancouver. It just recalled me those railways in EastVan that divide the whole area in pieces and make traffic very hard among those communities.
I honestly think cities need to design cars to be as little car dependant as possible and connect areas by high speed electric rail, buses, subway, rail etc. Bike lanes too. Easy walking
Could have been fixed a long time ago. Tom Campbell vetoed the Highway into Vancouver, Was more interested in "Beating on the Hippies". Uh huh. When he died nobody missed him.
@@vancouver4sure well blame all the boomers for voting for the liberals instead of the socreds in the 1990s (thus splitting the vote and letting the NDP in) because they wanted to get in on the real estate game
Sounds like a grand idea, except that ... traffic in Vancouver is abysmal. The viaducts are one of the major arteries, and unlike the Granville & Cambie bridges which are redundant in nature, there is no real parallel path that compares to the viaducts. Also, the claim of "the viaducts are under-utilized" is also a false statement because it fails to note the efficiency of the viaducts. Don't get me wrong. I am all for the new City Planning paradigm (non-suburbia, satellite centers, walking downtown etc), but Vancouver's city council consistently ignores the problem of traffic. "Get a bike.", "Live downtown", "Use public transit". etc. (To which I say, "not everyone can do that") Also note, for accuracy - Boston didn't bulldoze and obliterate it's highway; they just built it under-ground. Vancouver city planners need to stop talking about "utopia" city layout. Fix the traffic problem first, that is in front of all Vancouverites, before you even start talking about utopia. News flash to Vancouver city planners - we have been driving cars for the last 50+ years and guess what? we are still driving cars, whether you like it or not.
Vancouver city council sees too much money coming from foreign interests, most of them from communist countries. The matters of the people fall to the side when its about money. Greedy bastards. They don't care about your commute, they will say this is to help people live closer to the city XD only 5000$ a month right? for a cubicle hahahaha
@@iamcleaver6854 *100%* agreed. Don't get me wrong -> I'm an environmentalist. The younger me used to cycle to work twice a week; I would regularly curse at the smog I had to breathe while going down Lougheed highway, and dreamed of the day when there were no cars on the road and _everyone_ had to cycle. Reality check: cities are not laid out in a public transit friendly way. For example, in Vancouver, heading East-West is not as easy as going North-South because skytrain is not laid out everywhere. If I had a choice, I would take public transit. But there are still times that I drive around Vancouver. And traffic is just _terrible_ . While we shoot for nirvana, we cannot ignore the problem of traffic congestion. But I get your point. Putting in *more* asphalt is not the answer - public transit & bike lanes is. ps, currently living in Ottawa. Traffic is *way* better here (yes, it is a smaller city), and I am truly impressed with OC Transpo and the city's commitment to public transportation (without sacrificing vehicle traffic, besides the seemingly constant heavy construction that goes on but I guess that is the price that one pays)
@@robertlee3778 What do you propose? The city has to improve public transport along with redevelopment of automobile infrastructure, yes but if people still chooses to use cars, let them. There might be huge traffic jams at first, but most will realise that going by public transport is faster and will switch. This is what happened here in Moscow, when city centre streets were narrowed to give way to pedestrians. Granted, this narrowing coinsided with a major bus reform...
Sigman Floyd it was three each way and actually needed more capacity than it does now because it served the downtown community. Now the 99 tunnel just bypassed downtown all together. The 99 was rendered obsolete when the I-5 was built anyway.
Boston had plans for addition highways throughout the city in the 1960’s, but local residents managed to get them stopped. Now, the city has awesome traffic problems with stop and go traffic during rush hour. There are no real plans to address the problem. Also the big dig in Boston was very expensive. It was necessary since the old highway was not up to modern safety and design standards. But the city could have leased the land above the highway to help recoup costs instead of making it into parks. That was done in nyc when the rail roads buried their lines underground. Those air right leases are still in place today.
cool video, you should do one about the MASSIVE overhaul going on in Montreal ATM. The 720 highway, the Turcot interchange, the new Champlain bridge, the REM transit system are the biggest projects, but there's loads of others too.
Where I live, in Kansas City, Missouri, they built all the highways they could, and continue to expand them without any opportunity for opposition. The traffic on all roads is now much greater and worse than it has ever been. It's obvious that people live on one side of town and work on the other.
Vancouver continues to plan poorly in the long run. Cars are not going away, transit is not keeping up and the added population will have limited choices to get around. The video can spin you thinking this is a good idea, but without a viable alternate option to traffic congestion, it will be another poorly thought out plan. Developers seem to own city hall. It just will not go away because you will it away. Vancouver is not like or think like other cities who have torn down freeways. They are in a space all their own.
maybe if cities didn't half ass transit people would use it. either go all in on transit and make it not worth it to have a car or leave the cars alone. they just opened an lrt here and it crosses every major street in my city. you'll have literally 50-100 cars waiting at rush hour for 20 train passengers to go by. real environment saver.
Memet Rush you cannot see all the pax that go on the Canada line as it is below ground, so how do you get those numbers. Plus thousands are travelling by bus and sky train.
I think viaducts or sky roads that are above ground level kind of look cool. But the street level underneath them never looks as pretty as it does in the concept art or film. They look more blighted and dilapidated than the "slums" they replaced. But I never seen that kind of decay under elevated railways. Why? Is it because elevated roads need more space or too much support pillars to have anything useful directly under?
And yet, if you go to Tokyo... they have found a way to integrate highways into the urban landscape, separating arterial traffic from pedestrians. And given that it rains 9 months of the year in Vancouver, the viaducts could provide traffic-calmed community pedestrian space with just a little bit of imagination. Instead we're going to plow a super-wide blvd taking traffic from up in the air to down on the ground next to bikes and pedestrians. Genius.
If the overpasses were made with more aesthetics, they could put on something attractive under it for pedestrians. But alas, they were ugly and vulnerable to earthquakes, so nobody wants to go under that...
@@dontgetlost4078 That's why we reinforce them to handle earthquakes. That argument is overblown. Lighting under the viaducts, stores under them etc. You Don't need to make them PRETTY for them to be functional. The part that isn't pretty is the space underneath them. We could get creative but some in the city see this as a real estate deal. Remember, you'll STILL have some viaducts in the proposed plan... and in addition you'll bring all those cars down to a super wide street... ground level. That's not exactly smart, is it?
Why? Because of real estate interests. A link between the downtown escarpment and false creek existed long before there were freeways in Vancouver. In fact, two of them...
The viaducts are essential to move workers in and out of the city, where they work, to the valley, where they can afford to live. The demolition of these will have a huge human cost. The ONLY reason to take them down is to advantage Concord Pacific or those ones that own the Canucks hockey franchise. The removal of these essential paths will cause huge traffic back-ups and of course release more exhaust as cars will idle for hours more to go home. They can be renovated to upgrade seismically. Cheaply. The only reason to remove is so that money can be made by a select few and that is all. Vancouver has never had much in the way of foresight, of planning for the future. It will be a disaster if these come down. And if the people of Vancouver allow it - shame on them. Are we all thinking about where St. Paul's hospital is being relocated to? Are we really? Then let's see the details on the Ambulance routes and the Fire routes and the rush hour counts. Thank you for your video. I would imagine there are many commuters whose whole life is built around raising their kids in the suburbs and working downtown. Suddenly the rules change to suit the developers. Vancouver is one of the leading cities of just doing things quite wrong. As if it's all made up by local yokels on the spur of the moment. Born here 65 years ago - I keep thinking that there is going to be hell to pay when the adults show up.
I wish you would have talked more of what a parasite highways are to the city considering how much of a tax sink they are while also creating insane traffic jams on streets they connect to and like you said robbing important strategical land in prime city location from being used as something productive like businesses,offices,parks or homes. I highly recommend Strong Town which is an American advocacy which has fought against poor traffic engineering and city planning practices in US which has caused many of them to go bankrupt. Also some numbers regarding the construction of highway vs these redevelopment plans would be great. For example for context the plans to repair the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto that runs next to our coast is projected to be 2 billion dollars. Compared to that the prices for these highway demolitions (excluding the big dig example which was a shit show) is nothing.
Awesome can't wait for more congestion money grab by the municipal gov and rich folk the ones able to afford and buying these new condos for investment only with zero community development... more tent city space is what those parks will end up like oppenheimer
I was thinking that as well like those parks aren't gonna last long before the homeless move in with tents, but also to be fair if the city doesn't want to help the homeless, they might as well make the city's life hell.
This sounds a lot like the situation in Copenhagen. In the 1970's they wanted to "modernize" the infrastructure and planned a whole network of highway viaducts going through the city. They managed to build exactly one of those streching about 1 km, but the whole project was dropped after a lot of protests when they wanted the highways to go through richer neighbourshoods.
Instead Copenhagen shifted strategy to build bike lanes instead of more car lanes and in more recent times, an underground metro system.
The one viaduct that was built then still stands today, but they are working on tearing it down, building a tunnel instead and develop the land above. The price tag is about $3 billion.
Sussy
and now it sucks to get around.
@@markbrinton6815it really doesnt, but "mark brinton" isnt exactly a danish name so how would you know?
Remember "London's unfinished motorways" by Jay Foreman?
The history of highway planning back then are apparently similar throughout the world.
TheAmir259 but Londons outcome was way better than this bought out mess
In Boston you can see interchanges where highways were almost built, but cancelled due to community protests.
I'm glad they never tried to build any highways on the middle of my city. A2 runs around it, not through it.
Dang, five or six years later we’re still waiting for the viaduct to be torn down-with seemingly no agenda or schedule ahead. I don’t know if the city, in the wake of the pandemic, has resulted in not having the money to tackle this now, or if the new St. Paul’s hospital project has strategically preempted the Viaducts removal to be undertaken.
It is interesting thaw shuffle game that is happening with the “new” proposed park, and the Carral Street border of it. The False Creek Residents Association has been outspoken about this.
Keep making more videos on urbanism in Vancouver, this is wonderful stuff.
Thanks so much James! Hoping to put another video out there next week :D
James Hansen we are making a documentary about the dangers of hidden racism in BC. Thanks for your videos they will help provide information.
@C. E. Torchia yes it hides in dark alleys and only comes out at nighttime
90% of East Indian do not date other race, I have NEVER seen a Chinese and East Indian together as a couple, and vice versa. 99.8% of Chinese girls WILL NOT date a white men. Tinder, Plenty of Fish, Bumble. Most the girls do is show off there pictures but do not date, there is something very weird when you have a city full of pussy but it doesn’t want to be touched. Our documentary will be done in the spring with special guest star Snoop Dogg talk to me about our dirty streets. God bless be nice to each other
STICKY ICKY MUSIC PRODUCTIONS
C. E. Torchia that is like saying flowers do not need sun. A lady needs a man for reproduction of the human race, children can not be made by two men or two lady’s, a lady needs a man for friendship and love. Only the cold hearted want to be alone. People follow what celebrities are doing and that will be shown in our documentary.
I'm currently studying Urban Studies in the UK and I obviously enjoy the course and the area of study, but watching this video just granted me the first moment where I have literally gotten goosebumps over how exciting it all is. The editing and information in this video is unbelievable. I don't suppose for future videos you could leave references in the end credits or description? I think this video has just swayed me into writing my essay on exemplary public health on Vancouver lol.
The removal of the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco is one of the most ambitious of the Freeway Removal projects. You can see the old highway in many old TV shows from the 1970s, like "The Streets of San Francisco." It seems like the primary use of the highway was to provide a location for gun battles below the main road.
Dude I've been binging your videos all morning and I have to say I've learned so much. Also heading to Vancity tomorrow to move all my savings to them from TD
Our leaders continue to describe old neighbourhoods as supposedly blighted and in need of renewal. Except now we replace them with highrises instead of freeways. Note that we are not rebuilding Hogans Alley, but simply replacing it with highrises for rich yuppies.
More like highrises to be flipped by foreign speculators.
As residents we need to push city council and developers to include substantial affordable housing in the new buildings. It's doable.
@@J.5.M. Another way of saying it is, "we need to pressure people to give us something for nothing". It's doable.
@@rh6625 Yup. Stay out of Vancouver then if you don't like that concept.
@@J.5.M. supply and demand wouldn't allow that ppl r willing to pay higher prices
Simply the reason. The city and the planners were bought out by the developers. I was working for the city planning when it happened. Believe me.
...also he fails to note that the viaducts were not built in the 70's for the first time ever...they were built to replace a previous Georgia Viaduct built closer to the twenties....I remember driving over th eold viaducts....
how where they bought out? they were paid with money under the table to do as they say?
Rumour has it that the Aqualinis own all the property underneath the viaducts.
lovitz69 Nope, City of Vancouver (East Half) and Concord (West Half). This is confirmed.
it's free real estate....for the developers
i was just about to mention our similar situation here in Halifax!
it’ll be a really good spot for a transit hub because there is a major bus stop that’s very busy right by it, but it’s on a busy road so it slows down traffic a lot and gives little room for all the cars and buses going through.
Originally, they were also planning to build a waterfront highway in Halifax, but it was cancelled because the people didn’t want the historic properties to be destroyed.
Thank you sooooooooo much for making videos about Vancouver. I’ve been living in this city since 2007, I love Vancouver and since couple years ago, I began to interested in the history of Vancouver. Your videos are so helpful. Hoping forwards to see your new video!
Wow. I visited that river in seoul, had no clue that used to be a highway. Btw, great videos! I absolutely love it. I find architecture and infrastructure so interesting and sometimes, they make it physically beautiful too. Keep it up! If you want to really to see peak advancement of infrastructure, just look at Seoul's subways.
As usual, five years later and nothing done. Welcome to Vancouver.
i love the music you use in these videos everytime, not really on-topic but wanted to show my appreciation :)
As someone who lives in the Seattle area it is quite a shame that we ever let freeways go right through the city separating neighborhoods. These freeways are bad for property value, create unsafe spaces, and make it more difficult to plan pedestrian friendly areas. Hopefully in the distant future we can possibly put a lid on i5 and reconnect our grid
I disagree I lived in city’s that didn’t have freeways and hated every minute
and when ever I’m in a city that has freeways in the middle I love them
do like the idea of moving freeways underground
did your city had transit? @@dogcat823
I agree with this proposal but Vancouver needs to do more and get their infrastructure together. The roads here are a freaking mess and it seems nothing is being does to address the issue.
Well if a majority of people in the lower mainland actually voted in the municipal elections they might have someone who listened
I'm not from Vancouver (never been), but I still find your videos educational and interesting.
I love your videos man. The writing, narration, editing and use of music is tip top. Great work.
Great Video. Lived here half my life, and didn’t know the background. Keep up the good work.
The problem here in North America is, we still wanna sell cars like it's the 50's and 60's while adopting city planning practices from friggin' Amsterdam! This would be a great idea if the city planned alternate transport for people from outside Vancouver so they don't have to drive their vehicles to town, whether for work or pleasure. Our public transport infrastructure is just incomparable to that of European cities that we so insist on comparing ourselves to. Bottom line, if a major artery for transport is being torn down to make way for more development and $$ without providing alternative modes of transport, then it's creating more traffic congestion, emissions and stress. Take for instance the WestCoast Express train, it connects a select few communities to Vancouver and it's schedule hasn't been updated since the Flintstones. It runs 2 services in the morning to Van and 2 in the evening from Van. That would pretty much classify as a joke anywhere in Europe. Nice Clip!
Great video! Montreal did this by demolishing part of the Bonaventure Expressway into downtown, extending a main boulevard at ground level and turning the land the elevated expressway once occupied into a public space as the “entré de ville”. There’s also big plans for a large park to be made where a section of Autoroute 20 once was. The 60s was the era of highways, while today we’re in the era of reimagining areas once occupied by highways.
The highway itself (highway 1A and 99A) is not being gotten rid of it is just being returned to its original routing. When the viaducts are gone just go up main to Hastings and make a left turn which was what the highway did for years before it was put on the viaducts to give them something to do.
Chengdu double decked their inner ring roads over the last 12 years, with integrated bus lanes in the middle. I think the speeds are only 60 kph. I loved riding my bicycle under/ beside them for 13 weeks in 2015. So few bikes now, so the lanes are a pleasure to ride, though I also lament the passing of the way it was in 2006. They are not ugly or noisy at all. A lot of it has artsy touches and now vines are on some of it. There are also crazy complicated flyover intersections of course.
You have to acknowledge that developers are in on this. Lobbying city hall for more towers, more people, and making it harder to get around.
1 year later, its still here
@T Wilson nothing. they've already sold their soul to Asian investors
@@ktowniecity7269
"Asian investors"
*communist invaders
@T Wilson
Honestly if the municipal govts in the LM were dissolved for a spell and management put in the hands of a provincial govt ministry to sort out the jumbled mess of problems would anyone even notice? Most people dont even care to vote in the municipal elections in the LM anyway
This was such an amazing video! Thank you for pointing out Hogan’s alley!
this channel is sick i can’t believe i’ve never seen it until now!!
TH-cam algorithm is very strange.
Really liking your videos man. Great music choice. Excellent graphics for a small channel. Love it
I am here from City Beautiful.
Vancouver, a more expensive and boring Asia. What a place!
@@ktowniecity7269 I like Vancouver now. It is a lot nicer
Subscribed, Im a native vancouverite, been living downtown for about 20 years now since growing up in the suburbs (ridge, poco and the like) I was first upset about the proposal to demolish the viaduct when it was first brought up, and recently hearing about it on the radio again, and watching your video, it does still concern me with how it will affect traffic, having traveled on the viaducts plenty of times, the first intersection (shall i say multiple intersections) caused traffic enough and delay. However I am more on board with it than I was before, and just hoping the project itself won't delay any access in and out of the city. And after talking to deadpool, he says he's sad about it, he wanted to kill more bad guys on the viaduct.
The same was done in Madrid as in Boston, the M-30 motorway went underground, and parks and entertainment areas were created on the surface.
I keep on coming back to this video. Great stuff man!
Wow just discovered this, like a little news info channel right in Vancouver! :)
Earthquakes lolol it's for property to build more unaffordable housing.
Right? Is this dude getting paid by the city for their propaganda? I mean I don’t care much for the viaducts but to suggest they’re tearing it down cause of earthquakes is a joke! In that case, why build more highrises? Let’s get rid of all the old bridges too 🤦♂️
bruh did I even watch the video
@@LDeol Many new buildings have requirements for a certain % of units to be affordable housing. If councillors and residents push developers we could fit a lot public housing in this spot. Which is better than an underutilized, partial highway with empty space underneath if you ask me. Plus a park!
That's better than a highway to nowhere.
@@Jacob-yg7lz it's the literal entrance to the downtown wtf are you on about
Thanks for explaining this project. Love your videos, very informative and well researched.
Watched the video mentioned in high school. Glad to see that it’s being brought to light! ❤️
This is high quality! Can't wait to see this channel in a month at 250k
Another one was the Seattle viaduct as much as i remember it well it ended up adding a bunch of new ped and bike space
Dude you got my sub cause you hands down deserve. Love supporting home grown talent, I'm waiting for more videos!
I dont live in vancouver. Hell I live in Philly, freeways are everywhere. I just love this channel
Thanks to CityBeautiful for the promo. Otherwise I’d never have found your excellent and interesting channel. Keep it up!
The one cool thing about the Georgia Viaducts is how the SkyTrain swoops underneath
Relocating > redesigning the highway strikes me that the motive isn't to make Vancouver more people-friendly. No, instead I suspect it's simply to justify residential redevelopment (special interests, perhaps?). After all, like he said, they never looked great.
Tearing down the highways and building more residential is a noble goal in and of itself. Highways are, in general, a terrible thing for a city's livability. HOWEVER, if the city council doesn't also decide to improve public transit and bicycle facilities alongside, it'll probably end up terrible.
Higher downtown density provides more opportunity for a living city where people want to be, but it does, of course, need to be planned out properly.
There is, however, also an effect called Induced Demand, which causes traffic to become worse when highways are opened. Closing down a highway may just improve traffic, even without building a replacement highway. But of course, people still need to get from A to B, so again, infratstructure for public transit and bicycles will need to be improved alongside the removal of the highway.
Its all about the real estate tycoons.
Id like to see the real estate profession killed brutally in BC. Im not a socialist but if we must put real estate into governments hands so be it. These greedy real estate developers have been a thorn in the ass of the good people of BC for too long
@@P7777-u7r Isn't it the case that much of Canadian real estate is owned my foreigners - namely the Chinese?
MelancholyMood
I don’t know (or care) about Canada but it’s the case in BC or specifically Vancouver at least for now
I like the video, very easy to listen to. Good music and you have a very nice voice, smooth and well spoken.
Thanks for the informative video. As one that is new to the GVRD, I appreciate the history lesson.
Viewer from Hong Kong here. I think my opinion is in two parts: It's surely a positive act to release the waterfront and restore public space to the city. A swift from a car-oriented policy to a mass transit oriented one also do favour to commuters, traffic and long term urban planning. But I am wary of the idea of redeveloping the waterfront into private buildings or shopping complexes. These examples are all too familiar to Hong Kong citizens.
Great video..thanks for making this! Interesting to see what Vancouver will look like in the next 5-10 years
Wow - you packed a LOT of data in one 5 and 1/2 minute video. It felt much longer (and that's a good thing). Thanks for this.
Great video.
Tokyo is moving forward with plans to take an elevated express way to underground.
So looking at the most recent comments, it seems that nothing has actually been done nor no word of it
Really fantastic video! Loved the quality, and well laid-out information.
It will cost more than $ 200 millon dollar to tear them down
😩😩😩
And ensure we own the worst traffic prize
Yea,don't you know trudope has to give that money to illegal immigrants?
Do developers in Vancouver donate funds to the city government to well get guranteed planning permits? Because wealthy developers can cover that cost of $200 million.
@@mickanvonfootscraymarket5520 technically yes. The city will FORCE the developer as a part of their building permit to fund the necessary works needed for off-site (public) construction. This includes roads, underground utilities like water and sanitation as well as electrical and communications like streetlighting and traffic signals and city comm networks. So essentially, the developers are donating to the city. Just not directly. If I am not mistake the city is covering some of the project too. But it's been mostly paid for by the developers. Which is also why those condos will only ever be used to launder dirty money from overseas because nobody who has lived here their whole life will ever reasonably be able to afford it. My advice, as shitty as it is take the train into downtown still.
@@TheGhjgjgjgjgjg really? Tell me how the chineses jumped the wall to Vancouver.
Keep it up, i like these kind of channels
Subscribed. Looking forward to more videos. Maybe some on making more urban spaces for people? Plazas, robson square, pedestrian only type stuff. Nice work!
Thanks! More coming soon for sure :D
I’m not even from Canada but i know what everything here is because of Arrow and The Flash
Deadpool?
They were already destroyed in Deadpool 2 lol
welcome to Vancouver, where your 20 km commute will take you 1 hour
Not if you get an e-bike. They go 30+ km/hr.
get a bike
Not lane splitting it don’t. Braap braap bois
As bad as some think our traffic is, our traffic is nothing compared to dozens of others. If one does not like the drive, take public transit or move downtown, or work somewhere else. we all have the same choices.
That's really not that bad lol.
A similar plan was proposed for Edmonton in 1969. Six freeways cutting into the city (NE, E, SE, SW, W, NW) meeting at a loop around downtown. Freeways as wide as a block is long, running in the valley along the river, through neighbourhoods like Rossdale, Cloverdale, Grandin, Oliver, Chinatown, Boyle Street ... and on and on. The first part of the first stage was actually built: the MacDonald Bridge, Low Level Bridge, Connors Road, Scona Road interchange. Thankfully Edmonton was late to the game of freeway-ifying cities so by the time that interchange was done experiences elsewhere were already making it clear that freeways through the heart of the city were a bad idea.
A search for "Metropolitan Edmonton Transportation Study" should turn up some of the plans.
Thats great to hear. Edmonton dodged a massive disaster
Dude your vids are just what im looking for
Good to know this history of Vancouver. It just recalled me those railways in EastVan that divide the whole area in pieces and make traffic very hard among those communities.
As a contractor I refuse to go to Vancouver anymore, it's just not worth the hassle.
City Beautiful brought me here. Great quality man keep it up
Came across your page from the beautiful city page. Great job! Interesting.
I used to go there on Sundays. Stanley Park was my hangout.Urban renewal was black removal.
I honestly think cities need to design cars to be as little car dependant as possible and connect areas by high speed electric rail, buses, subway, rail etc. Bike lanes too. Easy walking
Vanvouver has never had good planning. I remember when Georgia St dead-ended. What did the viaducts do? Move the dead end a mile and a half East.
That plan was good but the NDP took over and stopped it.
Could have been fixed a long time ago. Tom Campbell vetoed the Highway into Vancouver, Was more interested in "Beating on the Hippies". Uh huh. When he died nobody missed him.
Its to the point that the provincial government should just step in and fix things despite how much the real estate oligarchs moan and whine
@@vancouver4sure
well blame all the boomers for voting for the liberals instead of the socreds in the 1990s (thus splitting the vote and letting the NDP in) because they wanted to get in on the real estate game
Sounds like a grand idea, except that ... traffic in Vancouver is abysmal.
The viaducts are one of the major arteries, and unlike the Granville & Cambie bridges which are redundant in nature, there is no real parallel path that compares to the viaducts.
Also, the claim of "the viaducts are under-utilized" is also a false statement because it fails to note the efficiency of the viaducts.
Don't get me wrong. I am all for the new City Planning paradigm (non-suburbia, satellite centers, walking downtown etc), but Vancouver's city council consistently ignores the problem of traffic. "Get a bike.", "Live downtown", "Use public transit". etc. (To which I say, "not everyone can do that")
Also note, for accuracy - Boston didn't bulldoze and obliterate it's highway; they just built it under-ground.
Vancouver city planners need to stop talking about "utopia" city layout. Fix the traffic problem first, that is in front of all Vancouverites, before you even start talking about utopia.
News flash to Vancouver city planners - we have been driving cars for the last 50+ years and guess what? we are still driving cars, whether you like it or not.
Vancouver city council sees too much money coming from foreign interests, most of them from communist countries. The matters of the people fall to the side when its about money.
Greedy bastards. They don't care about your commute, they will say this is to help people live closer to the city XD only 5000$ a month right? for a cubicle hahahaha
well they are doing this to you know change that last point of yours so people can STOP killing this planet with cars.
How about developing public transport instead and let everyone who still chooses to use a personal vehicle enjoy the traffic all day long...
@@iamcleaver6854 *100%* agreed. Don't get me wrong -> I'm an environmentalist. The younger me used to cycle to work twice a week; I would regularly curse at the smog I had to breathe while going down Lougheed highway, and dreamed of the day when there were no cars on the road and _everyone_ had to cycle. Reality check: cities are not laid out in a public transit friendly way. For example, in Vancouver, heading East-West is not as easy as going North-South because skytrain is not laid out everywhere. If I had a choice, I would take public transit. But there are still times that I drive around Vancouver. And traffic is just _terrible_ . While we shoot for nirvana, we cannot ignore the problem of traffic congestion.
But I get your point. Putting in *more* asphalt is not the answer - public transit & bike lanes is.
ps, currently living in Ottawa. Traffic is *way* better here (yes, it is a smaller city), and I am truly impressed with OC Transpo and the city's commitment to public transportation (without sacrificing vehicle traffic, besides the seemingly constant heavy construction that goes on but I guess that is the price that one pays)
@@robertlee3778 What do you propose? The city has to improve public transport along with redevelopment of automobile infrastructure, yes but if people still chooses to use cars, let them. There might be huge traffic jams at first, but most will realise that going by public transport is faster and will switch. This is what happened here in Moscow, when city centre streets were narrowed to give way to pedestrians. Granted, this narrowing coinsided with a major bus reform...
Sounds like Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct. They're tearing down the waterfront double decker freeway and building a new tunnel.
~ Which holds half the traffic. What was the freeway, three, four lanes each way and now the tunnel only has two lanes. 🙄
Sigman Floyd it was three each way and actually needed more capacity than it does now because it served the downtown community. Now the 99 tunnel just bypassed downtown all together. The 99 was rendered obsolete when the I-5 was built anyway.
@@calvinrovinescu6166 ~ Thanks
I live in Surrey and we have many of our own traffic issues here but great videos on vancouver maybe you could do some on surrey as well :)
Love this. Very well made. I'm subscribed. Keep it up!
Hey these are great videos! Thanks for the research! Hope you can do more.
Thank you for this video! Eager to learn more about urbanism in my city
This video is so well done, great work!
Loved this video, well done! My first video of yours that I watched and I am subscribing.
I love your videos! These are great!
Boston had plans for addition highways throughout the city in the 1960’s, but local residents managed to get them stopped. Now, the city has awesome traffic problems with stop and go traffic during rush hour. There are no real plans to address the problem. Also the big dig in Boston was very expensive. It was necessary since the old highway was not up to modern safety and design standards. But the city could have leased the land above the highway to help recoup costs instead of making it into parks. That was done in nyc when the rail roads buried their lines underground. Those air right leases are still in place today.
damn, it is still here.
Love this type of content! it's like the Vancouver version of Vox videos!
cool video, you should do one about the MASSIVE overhaul going on in Montreal ATM. The 720 highway, the Turcot interchange, the new Champlain bridge, the REM transit system are the biggest projects, but there's loads of others too.
This is great, love the videos! Keep them coming, please? :D
Yes, absolutely there will be more coming Rahul! Thank you for the kind words :)
awesome knowledgeable videos! do not stop! :)
Keep up the good work👌🏼
Well researched videos
The viaducts are also nearing the end of their design life, and to keep functional would require expensive upgrade projects.
Where I live, in Kansas City, Missouri, they built all the highways they could, and continue to expand them without any opportunity for opposition. The traffic on all roads is now much greater and worse than it has ever been. It's obvious that people live on one side of town and work on the other.
This is an amazing channel. I will definitely promote it!
Vancouver continues to plan poorly in the long run. Cars are not going away, transit is not keeping up and the added population will have limited choices to get around. The video can spin you thinking this is a good idea, but without a viable alternate option to traffic congestion, it will be another poorly thought out plan. Developers seem to own city hall. It just will not go away because you will it away. Vancouver is not like or think like other cities who have torn down freeways. They are in a space all their own.
Love the editing on your videos!
maybe if cities didn't half ass transit people would use it. either go all in on transit and make it not worth it to have a car or leave the cars alone. they just opened an lrt here and it crosses every major street in my city. you'll have literally 50-100 cars waiting at rush hour for 20 train passengers to go by. real environment saver.
Memet Rush transit and cycling are huge in downtown van
Memet Rush you cannot see all the pax that go on the Canada line as it is below ground, so how do you get those numbers. Plus thousands are travelling by bus and sky train.
@@chriswilliams6568 im talking about kitchener
Great research! Thank you
your videos are very well made!!!! almost like vox??? good quality, you deserve more subs!!!
Love this, your channel is really cool--keep it up!
I think viaducts or sky roads that are above ground level kind of look cool. But the street level underneath them never looks as pretty as it does in the concept art or film. They look more blighted and dilapidated than the "slums" they replaced.
But I never seen that kind of decay under elevated railways. Why? Is it because elevated roads need more space or too much support pillars to have anything useful directly under?
And yet, if you go to Tokyo... they have found a way to integrate highways into the urban landscape, separating arterial traffic from pedestrians. And given that it rains 9 months of the year in Vancouver, the viaducts could provide traffic-calmed community pedestrian space with just a little bit of imagination. Instead we're going to plow a super-wide blvd taking traffic from up in the air to down on the ground next to bikes and pedestrians. Genius.
If the overpasses were made with more aesthetics, they could put on something attractive under it for pedestrians. But alas, they were ugly and vulnerable to earthquakes, so nobody wants to go under that...
@@dontgetlost4078 That's why we reinforce them to handle earthquakes. That argument is overblown. Lighting under the viaducts, stores under them etc. You Don't need to make them PRETTY for them to be functional. The part that isn't pretty is the space underneath them. We could get creative but some in the city see this as a real estate deal. Remember, you'll STILL have some viaducts in the proposed plan... and in addition you'll bring all those cars down to a super wide street... ground level. That's not exactly smart, is it?
Why? Because of real estate interests. A link between the downtown escarpment and false creek existed long before there were freeways in Vancouver. In fact, two of them...
Just discovered your channel, I like your style subscribed
The viaducts are essential to move workers in and out of the city, where they work, to the valley, where they can afford to live. The demolition of these will have a huge human cost. The ONLY reason to take them down is to advantage Concord Pacific or those ones that own the Canucks hockey franchise. The removal of these essential paths will cause huge traffic back-ups and of course release more exhaust as cars will idle for hours more to go home. They can be renovated to upgrade seismically. Cheaply. The only reason to remove is so that money can be made by a select few and that is all. Vancouver has never had much in the way of foresight, of planning for the future. It will be a disaster if these come down. And if the people of Vancouver allow it - shame on them. Are we all thinking about where St. Paul's hospital is being relocated to? Are we really? Then let's see the details on the Ambulance routes and the Fire routes and the rush hour counts.
Thank you for your video. I would imagine there are many commuters whose whole life is built around raising their kids in the suburbs and working downtown. Suddenly the rules change to suit the developers. Vancouver is one of the leading cities of just doing things quite wrong. As if it's all made up by local yokels on the spur of the moment. Born here 65 years ago - I keep thinking that there is going to be hell to pay when the adults show up.
This is the most educated comment of them all. Kudos
I wish you would have talked more of what a parasite highways are to the city considering how much of a tax sink they are while also creating insane traffic jams on streets they connect to and like you said robbing important strategical land in prime city location from being used as something productive like businesses,offices,parks or homes. I highly recommend Strong Town which is an American advocacy which has fought against poor traffic engineering and city planning practices in US which has caused many of them to go bankrupt.
Also some numbers regarding the construction of highway vs these redevelopment plans would be great. For example for context the plans to repair the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto that runs next to our coast is projected to be 2 billion dollars. Compared to that the prices for these highway demolitions (excluding the big dig example which was a shit show) is nothing.
Awesome can't wait for more congestion money grab by the municipal gov and rich folk the ones able to afford and buying these new condos for investment only with zero community development... more tent city space is what those parks will end up like oppenheimer
I was thinking that as well like those parks aren't gonna last long before the homeless move in with tents, but also to be fair if the city doesn't want to help the homeless, they might as well make the city's life hell.
Excellent. They need a place to live, too.
Please keep making videos, fantastic channel. Are you studying urban planning in school or something like that?
Very cool...driven those ducts many a times playing gigs as a rock n roll band... Tear the dangerous things down! Lets see some progress!