A-Go-Go?Ville
How fast is the 'Broadway Plan' to increase density proceeding in Central Lotusland's Kitsilano?
According to Brian Palmquist it is proceeding super-fast:
A year ago there were 10 Broadway Plan new high-rise projects in East Kits—today there are 25 new high-rise projects “in the pipeline” between Burrard and Vine Streets, 1st and 16th Avenues—that’s one additional per month.
Meanwhile the city’s official tracking advises 12 projects are in the pipeline—their definition of what to include is way less than the reality on the ground.1
Those 25 projects will involve demoviction of 13 existing mature rental buildings—that’s one affordable “mature” rental building gone for each pair of new projects.
The 25 projects total 3,821 homes2. At the city’s (and others’) standard of 2.2 persons per home on average, that means more than 8,400 new residents in East Kits—admittedly that excludes the populations demovicted from the 13 mature rental buildings, unknown because the city does not track that number (why not? you may ask).
“Only” four projects have had their rezoning approved to date, for a total of 795 housing units, 20% of which (159 units) are supposed to be “below market” rentals. The good news is that of these four, only one, 1960 West 7th Ave, involves destruction of an existing mature rental building. One down, 12 to go.
There are still no plans for additional schools, community centres or park space.
It's that last bullet point that disturbs me most.
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Image at the top of the post?...A 3D projection of the potential ultimate BWay Plan build out (white towers are in the pipeline; grey towers are possible/potential) looking East from Vine St by Stephen Bohus who uses the moniker 'digitalmonkblog' over at CityHallWatch...Here's his latest post on the proposed twenty story towers just west of Arbutus on 6th avenue.
1 comment:
A major issue, that no sitting politicians will address is transit and transportation.
As we density Broadway, there is no attempt to deal with transportation except for saying ; "the Broadway subway will deal with that".
It won't, not even close.
The current $4 billion (yes that is the current cost that Eby and the CoV are afraid to tell the taxpayer), 5.7 km extension to the Millennium Line, which includes the Broadway subway will do little to attract customers.
Why?
The line goes east west and does not directly service downtown Vancouver or Richmond/YVR. I doubt many renting those 4 figure apartments want to go to the Tri-Cities.
To go to the downtown or Richmond YVR, one has to transfer onto the capacity constrained Canada Line. The Canada Line has limited capacity as the system was designed to operate only 2-car trains. To go North South, depending on the time of day, one could wait up to 30 minutes!
Taking the car will just be faster.
This translates to a major increase in traffic and endemic congestion and gridlock.
Those thinking that the subway will be completed to UBC, well think again because the cost to do that will be about $8 billion and that is in 2025 dollars. The only way to reduce cost is to build it elevated and the rumour i have heard is that there is a plan to build the SkyTrain elevated from around MAcDonald to UBC, and save about $2 billion!
The other issue is that the UBC extension will cater to $1 a day U-Pass holders, which means massive subsidies to keep the extension operating.
The current estimated cost to operate the current Broadway extension is now around $40 million. Ditto for the $7 billion Expo line extension to Langley as the total operating costs for the two lines will top $80 million annually!
Remember that $633 million federal grant for transit, over 10 years - PRESTO it's gone and then some!
The following should cap how utterly incompetent TransLink, the CoV and the NDP are when it comes to transit. The following comes from Thales News Release announcing the $1.47 billion re-signalling program for the Expo and Millennium Lines :
When the program is fully implemented, the Expo Line will be able to accommodate 17,500 passengers per hour per direction, and the Millennium Line will be able to handle 7500 passengers per hour per direction, a 32% and 96% increase respectively.
Despite spending well over $5 billion for the 5.7 km Broadway subway the subway will have less capacity, 5K pphpd less capacity than what Toronto streetcars were carrying on select routes in the late 1940's and early 50's.
The reason there are still no plans for additional schools, community centres or park space, is that there is no money for it. As predicted the Broadway subway is acting as a major black hole sucking every available dollar to fund this massive pork barrel project.
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