Showing posts sorted by date for query Edmonton. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Edmonton. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Sunday, June 21, 2026

How the Seattle to Vancouver area could become a megaregion

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POcg0oFvVf8 

The larger Portland, Seattle and the Vancouver, BC (V-BC) region has a lot of growth potential. However, Seattle size buildings haven't been allowed in Portland and in Vancouver, BC. Nothing like a 12 lane Ship Canal Bridge has been allowed in Portland and Vancouver. While Oregon and backwater BC haven't been able to thwart the largest city in Washington State, Seattle might eventually become more of a magnet in pulling more people into the area between Portland and V-BC. 

Right now, Vancouver, WA (V-WA) still has a wider bridge than V-BC. Most of the V-BC bridges are so damn narrow that its not possible to have an efficient regional express bus network. As long as there is a refusal to build proper BRT bridges as part of a regional system, it remains a sad joke. 

The Skytrain (LRT) was built with shorter stations than what the underground stations in Seattle and Edmonton are at. Whenever possible, the Skytrain stations are shorter than the C Train stations in Calgary, DART stations in Dallas and even the Max in Portland. 

The biggest mistake of the Skytrain was to not build all of the stations with a future level clearance to eventually have Montreal Metro size stations of 500 feet or 152.5 m. Instead, the first 2 lines only have 80 m stations and the line to YVR (The Canada embarrassment Line) is only 50 m. Backwater BC logic is that a 5 car Skytrain could run twice as frequent as a 9 car Montreal Metro train. Someday, a 2.5 car YVR-Canada Line train could also run much more frequently than a 9 car Montreal Metro train. 

There is just one key problem with that type of BC logic. While initially constructing short stations and having short trains can save money, its not proper BIG city size infrastructure. In the long run, it costs more to try to lengthen stations for longer BIG city type trains. 

Sunday, May 31, 2026

City's chief planner emphasizes creating a 'Vancouver approach' to taller towers

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-higher-buildings-review-taller-towers 

Seattle, Calgary and Edmonton all have taller and wider downtowns, where as most of downtown Vancouver is confined to a small peninsula. Yet, Seattle, Calgary and Edmonton already each have a taller residential tower than what restrictive Vancouver allows. 

So far, only three buildings have been permitted to be higher than the flag at the top of the 581 ft. Harbour_Centre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Vancouver 

As of 2026, no residential tower within Vancouver has 65 stories and no office tower has been permitted to have a 40th floor.

Backwater BC is 75% mountainous, yet there has been such a cultivated fear that somehow provincial Vancouver could block out most of the mountains by allowing significantly taller towers. 

Whenever retuning from Los_Angeles to Vancouver, you quickly realize that even the mountains just north of Vancouver are shorter than the ones in L.A. Its as if even the Vancouver mountains are under height restrictions.

Honolulu and San Diego...

Honolulu is very reluctant to allow buildings to go much higher than 450 feet. SD can't go higher than 500 feet, because of the airport being so close. However, that's not the case in Boston.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honolulu#Economy

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=421 

Will Honolulu ever have some Miami or Singapore size buildings? That remains to be seen. For now, Honolulu like San_Diego will remain free of 50 story hotels and condos and 40 story office towers. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_San_Diego

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=120 

If SD can ever relocate its airport, then it can have much taller buildings. Once Edmonton closed an airport that was too close to its downtown, the city eventually had the tallest building in Western Canada. 

Honolulu got a nice airport train station long before SD.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2024/09/05/will-san-diegos-airport-ever-get-a-light-rail-connection/

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Senakw's first completed tower

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/senakw-rental-housing-rents-rates-first-tower-completion-photos 

These towers should have been taller, because they aren't supposed to be under Vancouver's very restrictive height limitations. 

So far, no residential tower in Vancouver has been permitted to be as tall as the 222.3 m (729 ft) Telus_Sky Tower in Calgary, or the 250.9 m (823 ft) Stantec_Tower in Edmonton. Then especially, the 850-foot (260 m) Rainier_Square_Tower in Seattle. The former Living_Shangri-La (Park Hyatt) is the tallest within Vancouver's city limits at 200.86 m (659 ft).

Vancouver has yet to ever permit an office tower to have a 40th floor.

Friday, May 22, 2026

Canada Line station platforms being extended for interchange hub with Broadway Subway

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canada-line-broadway-city-hall-station-platform-extension-millennium-line-interchange Fortunatly, the planning for the TTC Subway, Montreal Metro & Edmonton LRT, all have much longer stations than what backwards Vancouver settled for. 

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-canada-line-rebuilding

Once all of the YVR-Canada Line stations have 50-metre-long platforms, it will become quite apparent that the long-range planning for 5 car trains wasn't seriously considered. The 50 m stations will only be long enough for a 2.5 car joke of a train. 

However, there is a potential to work around this particular manifestation of the Vancouver Mind Virus. Selective_door_operation can allow for longer trains, despite the ridiculous short Vancouver stations. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_door_operation#International_variations


There is such a problem with Vancouver and BC in general of not properly planning for future transportation infrastructure expansion. 

https://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/the-skytrain-lobby-get-over-it/

Sunday, May 3, 2026

Just mostly more stumps or some real Towers in Vancouver?

 https://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/2026/05/02/opinion-the-yiyby-critique-bilsker 

https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/the-stack/35667 Only 38 floors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Centre_(Vancouver) Just 37 stories. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Center Seattle's tallest has 76 stories. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_Canal_Bridge 12 lanes consisting of three 4 lane sections.

Mostly short buildings, short trains and narrow bridges are all part of the imposed symbolism to keep Vancouver small and backwards. 

While Seattle had its first 50 story office tower in 1969 and Calgary in 1984, stubborn Vancouver still won't permit any office tower to have a 40th floor. 

A 30-35 story office tower would be impressive if it was in Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops and Prince George. However, what's impressive in backwards Vancouver & backwater BC isn't impressive in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Washington State, Victoria State, NSW, Queensland & WA... 

Stumpy buildings, short trains and narrow bridges makes for the Vancouver trifecta of B$ city planning.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fort+McMurray,+AB 10 lanes. Only the TCH bridge between Surrey and Coquitlam in BC has been allowed to have as many lanes as this. Some people still wish that everything could have remained funneled into just 2 or 3 lanes each way.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Quesnell+Bridge 8 lanes in Edmonton. 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hwy.+2A+Red+Deer+City+Centre+Bridge 6 lanes.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Calgary,+AB 10 lanes.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Calgary,+AB 8 lanes.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lethbridge,+AB It has 6 lanes. Being from backwards Vancouver, its amazing that this 6 lane bridge wasn't funneled into just 2 lanes each way. That's what happened with the Knight_Street_Bridge.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hwy.+2A+Red+Deer+City+Centre+Bridge As a 5 lane TCH crossing, it only has 1 less lane than the 6 lane Iron Bridge in congested, backwards Vancouver. Since Alberta isn't under anything like the imposed BC restrictions, this crossing will likely be eventually upgraded to have 6 lanes, plus 2 wide emergency lanes & 2 wide shoulders that could provide 4 lanes each way, some day. 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Winnipeg,+MB A TCH bridge with 9 lanes, because no one from narrow-minded Vancouver was able to get them to narrow this crossing. The TCH Iron Bridge in Vancouver just has 6 lanes. No bus and LRT bridge has ever been built next to it, so far.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Winnipeg,+MB A 6 lane crossing. 

As of 2026, congested Vancouver only allows 2 bridges to have 6 lanes. A total of 5 lanes were removed from 3 Vancouver bridges. Had Vancouver built a series of proper bus and bike bridges, no lanes would have been removed. 

Despite NW trying to be one of the smallest cities in BC, Surrey is set to become the biggest city in BC. Fortunately, small NW & backwards Vancouver can't stop that from happening. However, narrowminded NW was able to force a narrower new bridge to Surrey. 

This bridge-replacement is one of the best examples of BC bottleneck-chokepoint planning today.

McBride_Blvd. and Royal_Ave_in_New_Westminster are mostly 4 lane corridors.

King_George_Boulevard and Scott_Road both are at least 4 lanes wide. One might think that the new bridge should have had 10 lanes, or at least 8 lanes, because two 4 lane boulevards, a 4 lane avenue and a 4 lane road, are all funneled into a bridge that opened with only 2 lanes each way. The old bridge that it replaced was also a 4 lane crossing. A congestive approach to transportation planning is the name of the game in backwards B.C.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Stalewasem_Bridge_%282026-03%29.jpg/960px-Stalewasem_Bridge_%282026-03%29.jpg 
At the very least, this new 4 lane bridge should have had enough room for 2 wide emergency lanes, 2 wide shoulders and especially, 2 bus lanes. There should have been a provision for a lower deck for LRT, bus and truck lanes, given that this is supposed to be a seaport region.

The narrowmindedness planning by Greater Vancouver to still have mostly narrow crossings, has made it very difficult to implement a proper regional express bus network, let alone BRT. 

The first 2 Skytrain lines only have station lengths that can barely accommodate the new 5 car trains. The YVR Line or the C Line, has stations than can only accommodate a 2.5 car train, some day. Given that the Skytrain network is a multibillion dollar transit system, all of the stations should have been designed to gradually accommodate 8-10 car trains, but that's what a proper big city would do. 

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2026/05/02/expo-86-40-years-later-the-memories-live-on 

Four decades later and Greater Vancouver remains so far behind with the scale of its infrastructure.

Friday, May 1, 2026

Link 2 Line Cabview POV Seattle to Redmond Eastbound

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlJHHuLdOj0 

Unlike backwards Vancouver, Seattle, WA has longer underground stations, just like Edmonton has. Longer stations make it easier to have longer trains. 

The Narrows Bridge in Perth, WA, Australia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mVXcX-4h4 It has 5 lanes each way and 2 commuter train tracks. The Homer_M._Hadley_Memorial_Bridge is part of an 8 lane I-5 crossing with 2 LRT tracks. The Samuel-De_Champlain_Bridge has 8 lanes, plus 2 REM commuter train tracks. These 3 fantastic bridges were all possible, because they aren't in heavily restrictive Vancouver. Plus, WA and Que. never wanted to adopt the BC-B$ approach to things.

Unfortunately, in backwards BC, the 1st two Skytrain lines only have 80m stations and the YVR-Canada Line has 50m joke stations. Some of the stations on the first 2 lines might have enough level clearance to only have an extra car at either end of a lengthened platform. 

However, the shortsighted Canada Line wasn't designed to eventually accommodate 5 car trains, just a 2.5 car joke of a train, someday. It was as if someone thought that there was no need to have enough level clearance so that the very short stations could be double or tripled in length eventually.

At least by 2025, the first SkyTrain line was running some 5 car trains. Unfortunately in 2026, the 2nd Line and the 3rd Line are still only running 2 car joke trains. Every Skytrain line should have had stations designed to eventually accommodate 8-10 cars trains, but that's what a proper big city would do. Backwards Vancouver wants to hold out for as long as possible, by symbolically building small.

Monday, April 20, 2026

How Edmonton Became a Megacity in the north

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLboMx9sjwI Partially because its not in backwards BC and partially, because Edmonton isn't under anything like the restrictions that Vancouver imposes.

Saturday, March 28, 2026

Vancouver 1960s vs Today: The Shocking Difference

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnMLMp_gf1w 

Unlike Toronto, SF and Melbourne, Vancouver was one of the first cities to get rid of streetcars and tram-trains or interurbans. Backwards Vancouver will likely be one of the last cities to ever bring them back. 

No office tower in Vancouver was allowed to have a 30th floor before the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TD_Tower_(Vancouver) The first 30 story office tower in backwater BC opened in 1972. As of 2026, no office tower in Vancouver, or anywhere in BC has been permitted to have a 40th floor. 

As of 2026, no Skytrain stations are even close to the length of the Montreal Metro, TTC subway and underground Edmonton LRT stations. 

Unfortunately, almost every city around the world is expensive. Its just that you get less of things in Vancouver. Short trains, short buildings, narrow bridges and mostly narrow streets. 

Thus, its no surprise that there isn't a regional network of bus-bridges. Congestive transportation planning is what Vancouver does best. 

Vancouver seems to be reluctant in constructing a network of bike-bridges. The city would rather remove a total of 5 lanes from 3 bridges for bike lanes. 

Broadway will eventually be reduced from 6 lanes to 4 lanes so that even some small towns will have wider major streets.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_municipalities_in_Canada_by_population 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Mainland

Thursday, March 26, 2026

K Line (Los Angeles Metro)

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro) 

https://la.urbanize.city/post/metro-seeks-state-funds-extend-green-line-platforms 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)#Rolling_stock 

Car length89 ft (27.13 m)
Width8 ft 8+34 in (2.66 m)
Height12 ft 6 in (3.81 m)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinki_Sharyo_P3010 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/LA_Metro_Rail_Expo_Line_Kinki_Sharyo_P3010_17th_St_Santa_Monica_College_Station_%2848943282587%29.jpg/960px-LA_Metro_Rail_Expo_Line_Kinki_Sharyo_P3010_17th_St_Santa_Monica_College_Station_%2848943282587%29.jpg  

https://www.metro.net/projects/kline-northern-extension Just like in SD, Seattle, Calgary and Edmonton, their LRT trains are longer than the ones on the first 2 Skytrain lines. Especially, the embarrassing Canada Line. 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-03-24/this-rail-line-would-get-you-to-grove-beverly-center-cedars-sinai-is-it-l-a-s-missing-link In backwards BC its like it takes 2 or 3 people to turn a lightbulb than someone in Quebec. An 80m Skytrain on the first 2 lines would have to be about twice as frequent as a 152.5m Montreal Metro train to match capacity. The ridicules 50m maximum allowance for Canada Line trains would have to run 3 times as frequently as a Montreal Metro train. 

https://la.streetsblog.org/2026/03/18/metro-committee-again-sides-with-nimbys-postpones-key-north-k-line-rail-decision Unfortunatly, the Vancouver Mind Virus is all about holding back the scale of the city. Thus, anytime that a bridge or street can be narrower, a building kept shorter and especially a train kept short, is all part of the imposed symbolism of refusing to build on a BIG city scale. 

Sunny L.A. has been thinking, planning and building like a BIG city for over a century. In contrast, rainy Vancouver has been refusing to think on a big city scale throughout its history. For several decades, all White city counsels kept imposing various restrictions to keep Vancouver on a small scale. 

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Vancouver City Council green lights funding to keep Car Free Days afloat

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-car-free-days-funding-city-council 

The no+fun+city aspect of the Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV) isn't suppose to be real, but it occasionally keeps manifesting. Fortunately, these street festivals still have a chance in Vancouver. Just like some truncated summer fireworks still might be possible. 

What's really fortunate is that the VMV hasn't spread to Montreal & Toronto, Calgary & Edmonton, or Winnipeg, QC & Halifax. Especially to any of the major cities in Australia & NZ.  


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=VMV

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Surrey should have more night-bus routes.

 https://www.reddit.com/r/Translink/comments/1rop925/thoughts_on_yvr_movenments_idea_of_making_surrey 

Alberta has two cities with over a million people each, those being Calgary and Edmonton. 

Vancouver has never had 1 million residents, but the Metro_Vancouver_Regional_District has well over 3 million people.

Victoria,_British_Columbia has yet to reach 100K, but the Capital_Regional_District is getting close to half a million. 

Surrey has almost 3 quarters of a million people and is expected to be the first city in BC to eventually have a million residents. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrey,_British_Columbia#Current_transportation_network 

Surrey like Burnaby, will eventually have some of the tallest buildings in BC, that's because they aren't under the extreme height restrictions that Vancouver has.

https://www.surrey.ca/about-surrey   

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=2&status=15 Surrey

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=1&status=15 BC 

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?countryID=1&status=15 Canada

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Seattle, Calgary and Edmonton are all allowed to have residential floors higher above the street than what stumpy little Vancouver permits

 Seattle's Tallest Luxury Residential Tower: The Residences @ Rainier Square https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i2DivRATcg 

2022 OCEA Award Winner - Rainier Square Redevelopment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HegSZiVNQx0 

New Rainier Square Tower becomes Seattle’s second tallest building https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5yKXkCeAGg  


At 60-storeys, TELUS Sky is the leading example of a dynamic community of urban living and working. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qWRYwK8z_E

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sRpGYPQY3RY The 3rd tallest in Calgary  

Telus Sky top floors view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HirkgwyphUk

Monday, February 9, 2026

Saturday, January 31, 2026

Why Greater Toronto Has Several Skylines

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9WJa9Q8dA 

Of course many large urban areas around the world have more than 1 or 2 skylines or tower clusters. 

For the longest time, no building in Vancouver or BC, was allowed to be as tall as the 1930s CIBC tower, which is now a stump.

https://www.blogto.com/city/2017/05/toronto-lost-observation-deck-commerce-court-north/

https://www.torontojourney416.com/canadian-bank-of-commerce-building/ 

https://www.25king.ca/the-history 

It wasn't until the early 1970s when stumpy, Vancouver allowed a building to be taller than the L.A. City Hall, or the Smith Tower in Seattle. 

The 1930s CIBC tower, the L.A. City Hall and the Smith Tower, would still be prominent towers in Vancouver, but stumps in their own cities. 

Despite Vancouver being divided by an inlet and a river, the city wasn't able to build a huge wall along Boundary Road. Thus, the KEEP THEM OUT agenda was a little thwarted. The various White city councils tried to do the next best thing. That was to symbolically impose various restrictions as a reluctance to think, plan and build on a BIG city scale. The time especially from 1960 to 2000 had predominantly White City Hall and its councils continually impose several overlapping restrictions. 

Since Vancouver can't control immigration or the movements of non-white people, keeping things small and backwards, means that less people will move there than to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. However, with a mild winter climate, more and more people want to move to backwards BC, especially small-minded Vancouver and provincial Victoria. 

In spite of immigration and Multiculturalism, Vancouver was to perpetually promote its small scale agenda. 

While the first Skytrain line can finally run 5 car trains, the stations weren't designed to become long enough to eventually accomodate 9 car trains like the big city Montreal Metro has. 

The 2nd and 3rd Skytrain lines are still only running 2 car joke trains. Running 8-10 car trains is what a proper big city would do, but not backwards Vancouver. 

Narrow bridges provides strong symbolism of the cities narrow-mindedness. When bridges are too narrow, its difficult to have a proper express or rapid bus system. The reluctance to build parallel bus and HOV bridges helps to maintain the congestive planning approach that is vancouver and the Greater Region. 

Vancouver's refusal to build parallel bike bridges has meant that 2 lanes were removed from the Burrard Bridge, 1 lane from the Cambie Bridge and 2 lanes from the Granville Bridge. 

Keeping buildings symbolically short when compared to what scenic Sydney, Auckland, SF and Seattle allow, also helps to maintain Vancouver's reluctance to enter the big and tall urban scale. In fact, the scenic setting that Vancouver is in has been used as the main excuse to continually scale the city down. Yet, several scenic cities around the world are either able to have wider bridges, wider roads, longer trains or taller buildings. 

The world is mostly composed of non-white people. Canada has less than 1% of the world's population and stubborn Vancouver symbolically remains as a small provincial backwater on the Pacific Rim. 

https://centralparktower.com.au Unlike Perth, Vancouver forbids 50 story office towers and Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne size residential towers. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/108_St_Georges_Terrace In fact, no office building in Vancouver has been permitted to have a 40th floor. However, since Burnaby and Surrey aren't under the restrictive controls of Vancouver, they will eventually allow office towers over 40 stories. 

Despite Australia having less people than Canada, Perth is allowed to have taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains than Vancouver. Taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains are even less likely in Halifax than whats in Brisbane or Queensland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q1_(building) To see buildings on a similar scale of what Brisbane allows, one has to get to Greater Toronto. Brisbane is allowed to have some buildings that would even be impressive in Melbourne and Sydney. 

While Montreal is allowed to have taller buildings than Vancouver, Montreal isn't allowed to have Sydney size towers. Especially not on the scale of what Melbourne and Toronto permit. 

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

SkyTrain's Canada Line service disruption

(service disruption ends after 14 hours) https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-canada-line-service-disruptions-january-14-2026 

For a rapid transit line that opened in 2009, on the surface, it sure wasn't designed to be an efficient high capacity line for the future. It's still just a 2 car joke of a train. Fortunately, most real cities around the world planned for not only 6 car trains, but even 8-10 car trains. 

Unfortunatly, Vancouver has been hit very hard with a multigenerational agenda of continually imposed small scale infrastructure. Vancouver has water on 3 sides, as its on a peninsula. Since the powers that be couldn't build a Boundary+Road moat or trench, the next best thing was to symbolically show the reluctance to build proper big city size infrastructure. This stunted approach to things is about symbolically holding the scale of the city back for as long as possible. 

Despite backwards Vancouver not being able to apply a castle-moat-and-drawbridge control system, the next best thing was to symbolically keep things smaller than what normal or proper big cities allow. 

Here are some of the best examples of holding the size of things back. The 3 lane joke that is the Lions+Gate+Bridge has never had a rapid transit rail tunnel and no express bus tunnel next to it. Especially, no 6 lane highway tunnel. It's a classic BC bottleneck-chokepoint, by design.

From a 3 lane joke of a bridge to a two car Canada+Line joke of a train. It met the symbolic requirement to be shorter than the LRT in Edmonton, the C Train in Calgary and the trains in Seattle and Portland. 

The+Post+building+complex could have been Vancouver's first 50 story office tower, it's not even 25 floors. It would be impressive if it were in Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops or Prince George. That's the unfortunate thing about Vancouver, so much is done to only be impressive to small cities or towns.  

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=The+small+Westin+Bayshore+Hotel+in+Vancouver

Things have been kept so small in Vancouver throughout its history, that any big city stuff might seem overwhelming. There has been an unofficial KEEP THEM OUT mentality, but since the city cant have checkpoints, building things small symbolically demonstrates the perpetual reluctance to not allow a big city in backwater BC. 

Since Vancouver can't control Burnaby and can't stop Surrey from eventually becoming the biggest city in BC, they are able to build things on a larger scale than Vancouver.


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=YVR-Canada+Line

Mild Victoria, BC

Victoria has been a provincial backwater for most of its history. Despite being in a mild winter setting, it's so small when compared to Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax. 

https://victoria.citified.ca/news/35-storey-one-victoria-place-mixed-use-tower-unveiled-blanshard-st-pandora-ave

https://www.onevictoriaplace.ca 

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=37&status=15  

While Edmonton was eventually allowed to have a tall building, even by Toronto, Calgary and Montreal standards, Victoria was always supposed to have shorter buildings than Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax. That's part of the KEEP THINGS SMALL mentality on V. Island. 

Victoria should have had its first LRT line by now, but that might improve urban mobility. Eventually, Victoria and Nanaimo will merge into one linear urban area. Eventually, the Comox_Valley_Regional_District will have over 100,000 people, the Regional_District_of_Nanaimo will have over 200,000 people, the Cowichan_Valley_Regional_District will exceed 100,000 people and the Capital_Regional_District will have over 450,000 people. 

Of course there doesn't seem to be any big regional scale planning from Sooke to Courtenay. Perhaps the island's urban planners will wait until there is 800,000 and over a million residents on the island.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Island#Demographics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Rail_Corridor#Vancouver_Island_Transportation_Corridor_Coalition

So, as more people discover that Victoria and Vancouver are the mildest winter cities in Canada, more people just might want to move there. Especially, when Canadian Snowbirds don't feel as comfortable with Florida, Texas & California.  


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=population+growth