Urban Tech Links: UTL: July 2023

The Lions+Gate+Bridge is a classic 3 lane bottleneck, or the quintessential urban chokepoint. The LGB could become an excellent foot, bus & bike bridge, if only a tunnel could be built close to it.

Five-blocks east of the park, Georgia Street is continually seven lanes wide.

https://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/west-georgia-complete-street.aspx

While that segment of W. Georgia_Street is 7 lanes wide, an 8 lane tunnel could cross the 1st Narrows. A 7 lane tunnel might be a little cheaper with a middle centre lane section & barrier, two 4 lane compartments would be much better. During the morning, all 4 lanes could be heading into Vancouver with 1 as a HOV lane. Then, during the afternoon, all 4 northbound lanes would be open with the 4th being a HOV lane.

The 4 lane northbound tunnel could emerge just north of the LGB. Then the surface route could connect to Marine Drive and then turn onto Capilano Road. The Cap interchange is already there. Simply moving the yellow line over one lane would allow 3 lanes of northbound traffic on Capilano Road.

A reconfigured TCH & Taylor Way interchange could allow for 3 southbound lanes right down to the mall, simply by moving the yellow line over 1 lane. Then, a 3 lane Taylor Way southbound tunnel could start just south of the Marine Drive intersection. A southbound HOV lane would have to be routed into it.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/this-week-in-history-the-great-georgia-harris-viaduct-opens-in-1915 Aparently, no one bothered to make sure that the 4 lane structure could properly support streetcars. Thus, the inept city couldn't use it as a major east-west streetcar route.

https://spacing.ca/vancouver/2011/06/16/the-viaducts-past-present-and-future-part-1 Even in the 1970s there was no concept to have an express bus corridor betwen Vancouver, Burnaby & Coquitlam.

https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2015/01/13/john-mackie-the-georgia-viaduct-and-the-freeway-fight-1972

Then when the first 2 SkyTrain lines were built, the stations were barely half the length of the 152.5 meter Montreal Metro stations. Evidently, this was to save money, but the stations should have still been built to proper big city standards. Then to further reinforce the symbolism of congestive planning agenda, the 3rd line only has enough clearance for 50 meter stations.

Sydney started to have taller buildings than Vancouver by the early 1960s. https://ca.pinterest.com/pin/west-georgia-street-1960--497647827546801125 It took until the end of the 1960s for Melbourne to start having taller buildings than Vancouver. Then as Melbourne soared into the 1970s, Vancouver started to create a series of overlapping restrictions to thwart the city.

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/british-columbia-vancouver-skyline-1970s-with-possible-building-site-of-west-coast-transmission-building--716424253196467928 Despite being a Pacific city, Vancouver & Canada don't seem to be interested in having a proper metropolis on the scale of Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane. The tallest buildings in Vancouver must be shorter than even the tallest in Perth, Seattle & Calgary. Most of the roads & bridges are to be half the width & the trains are also to be a half-length joke. Thus, Greater Vancouver has been in a perpetual state of congestion.

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Georgia+Street