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

Saturday, January 31, 2026

Sydney's First 300m Towers

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUuy94brhLI Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, GC City & Perth, are all allowed to have taller buildings than little stumpy provincial Vancouver, Canada.

How Sydney´s Skyline Will Change by 2030 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzz6aXvTZko Unfortunatly, the AI voice nation wasn't set to an Australian standard.  


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

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Vancouver mayoral candidate pitches plan to build 4,000 City-owned and affordable homes

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-mayoral-candidate-william-azaroff-pitches-affordable-homes Providing more affordable housing in Vancouver would certainly be of great benifit. 

In some cases, if a developer was allowed to build Toronto, Sydney and Melbourne sise towers, provided they agreed to build some affordable housing, it could be of mutual benefit.

Friday, December 12, 2025

History of the Port Mann Bridge in BC

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4aYxObfjJ8 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#Original_bridge The original PMB had only 2 lanes each way with no emergency lanes or wide shoulders. It was designed to be a classic BC bottleneck-chokepoint right from the start. Eventually, a 5th lane was squeezed in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#Opposition_to_twinning_plan While bridge duplication isn't that big of a problem in Australia or the US, it is in the BC part of Canada. Australia is allowed to have 3 proper big cities on the Pacific. Thus, the urban scale of infrastructure in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane are much larger than what's allowed in the Greater Vancouver Region. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#New_bridge Given that this is supposed to be part of the main East-West highway in Canada, a significantly wider bridge was eventually approved. While it was designed with a provision for a potential future rail line, there should have also been a provision for a lower deck. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crossings_of_the_Fraser_River#Main_Watercourse_(New_Westminster_to_Yellowhead_Pass)

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Airport Rail Links

The Transit Every Airport Needs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YeVZVluQWI&t=247s 

https://www.upexpress.com/en/about-up/things-are-looking-up Its only a two and three car train, when it should be between 4-6 cars, depending upon the time of day. https://www.torontopearson.com/en/transportation-and-parking/up-express

At least it's not a perpetual 2 car train joke that is the YVR-Canada Line. The eventual airport REM line should consist of 4 car trains, but the entire REM should eventually have 6 car trains.

Somehow, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane & Perth all are able to have longer trains to the airport. The 10 car SFO-BART trains are pretty cool.

Saturday, November 22, 2025

World’s Tallest Towers Comparison

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pmnf8npA8 

There was a time when no structure in BC was allowed to be as tall as Blackpool Tower. Then there was a time when no building in Vancouver was allowed to be as tall as the Seattle Space needle or the Calgary Tower. Even in late 2025, only one Vancouver building has been allowed to be taller than the Calgary Tower. 

Burnaby, Coquitlam and especially Surrey, don't have such imposed height restrictions as stumpy Vancouver. Thus, Burnaby, Coquitlam and Surrey will all be having taller buildings than Vancouver.  

If Montreal can ever have its equivalent of La_Defense or Canary_Wharf, then it might be able to have some tall buildings that would be impressive by Melbourne and Toronto standards. Perhaps even Chicago or NYC standards. 

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

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

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

City of Vancouver exploring Olympic Line streetcar test revival after the 2026 FIFA World Cup

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-olympic-line-streetcar-demonstration-revival-proposal 

The city and greater urban region should have never gotten rid of the streetcars and interurban tram-trains. Now, its extremely difficult to bring them back. Fortunately, backwards Vancouver was unable to get Toronto, Melbourne and SF to get rid of their street railways. Those cities and many others just never had anything like a Vancouver Mind Virus or BCMV to thwart them. 

Of course Seattle & Portland would bring back some of their streetcar lines long before slow-moving Vancouver can.

Sunday, November 16, 2025

Burnaby apologizes for decades of discrimination against people of Chinese descent

 https://globalnews.ca/news/11528001/burnaby-apology-discrimination-against-chinese-community 

Asia is the most populated part of the world and until recently, China had the biggest population. Thus, people from China or people who are of Chinese descent, live all over the world. There was a strong, KEEP CANADA WHITE agenda, right into the mid 20th century. Of course this mentality wasn't just directed towards Asians, but towards anyone who was nonwhite. 

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

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/chinese-legacy-bc/history/discrimination

It took until the 1970s for Multiculturalism to challenge the, KEEP CANADA AS A WHITE MAN'S PARADISE. 

https://pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/canadian-multiculturalism-policy-1971

https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/200920E#:~:text=In%201969%2C%20the%20Royal%20Commission,Its%20key%20objectives%20were%20these: 

https://publications.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/CIR/936-e.htm#:~:text=A%20Ministry%20of%20Multiculturalism%20was,fully%20participate%20in%20Canadian%20society. 1973 

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/multiculturalism

While Canada hardly has that much of a Pacific Coast, when compared to the US and Australia, the BC part of Canada should have had at least one major city on the scale of Montreal or Seattle, Brisbane or SF. Unfortunatly, Vancouver has retained several of its overlapping restrictions, which prevent it from being on a scale similar to that of Montreal, Seattle, Calgary, Brisbane & SF... 

Despite Burnaby & Grater Vancouver being multicultural for several decades, so much of the restrictive BC mentality remains like an old disruptive computer program that hasn't been deleted. Unfortunatly, after the WW2 era, Greater Vancouver and BC continued with a backwater mentality. Just look at how much bigger things are allowed to be in Australia's 4 largest cities. Look at the scale of Seattle & Calgary & see how much of Greater Vancouver is still held back. Look at how big Edmonton as a capital is, while Victoria remains as a small provincial backwater. 

Unlike Melbourne, SF and Toronto, backwards Vancouver made sure that it was one of the first cities to get rid if its streetcar and tram-train (interurban) network before the 1960s. To make matters worse, the Greater Vancouver Region had and still does, have a system of mostly narrow bridges. 

There was such a push to have a tracks to tires agenda, no one seemed to realize that all the bridges should be wide enough to accomodate 2 bus lanes, or at least build a bus bridge or tunnel next to an existing bridge. 

Just because Multiculturalism in Canada started to officially get going in the 1970s, the city & municipal councils and planning departments were still predominantly managed by people of European descent. For most of the Colonial and postcolonial history of BC, the main municipalities were Vancouver, Burnaby, NW & Victoria. It was that way right into the 1970s. 

Since the predominantly White civic structure was firmly in place well into the 1980s, there was plenty of time to implement and maintain a social engineering agenda. An unofficial (White) Urban Livability Plan was cleverly devised by scaling almost everything down. Since BC can't control non-white immigration, "Livability" had to be symbolically quite visible. Livability was an ingenious way to impose various overlapping restrictions throughout the decades. How does the Livability agenda work? Suppose that there was a mostly subconscious mentality to refuse building up proper big city infrastructure for non-white people. Thus, by symbolically constructing inadequate transportation infrastructure, it becomes a way demonstrating that you are not properly building for the future, despite most of the world being non-white. Now, Burnaby & the Greater Vancouver region are so far behind now, its difficult to catch up to other proper metropolitan areas around the world.  

Despite Canada being the 2nd largest country in overall size, it has such a small area on the Pacific_Rim and Asia is the most populated part of the world. By keeping most of the bridges narrow and the trains short compared to most cities, that fits right in with the symbolism of antigrowth towards a predominantly non-white world. Canada is nowhere near close to having 1% of the worlds population, but most of the world is non-white. Its been that way since the beginning.  


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Burnaby+apologizes

Saturday, November 15, 2025

City of Burnaby makes formal apology for decades of discrimination against people of Chinese descent

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/burnaby-apology-discriminating-chinese-descent-9.6980642 

Since BC started out as a British Colonial outpost, people of European descent were at the orchestrated top of the human hierarchy. Chinese and Asians & nonwhites in general were a concern to the White majority of early BC.  

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/chinese-legacy-bc/history/discrimination

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/people-and-stories/chinese-canadians

South Asians were also a concern to the colonial power structure.  

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/komagata-maru 

https://www.canada.ca/en/parks-canada/news/2016/08/the-komagata-maru-incident-of-1914.html 

Of course Indigenous and Black People were part of being categorized as a lesser class of human. 

It took a very long time for the British_Empire to respect the people of a multicultural world.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_British_Empire#Decline_and_decolonization 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_British_Empire#Postmodern_and_postcolonial_approaches

Multicultural Canada has less than 1% of the world's population. Yet, so many smaller countries are able to have a higher density and larger population than Canada. 

Burnaby in Greater Vancouver is part of Canada's largest urban area on the Pacific_Rim. There are still many people who would like to thwart the scale of growth in Greater_Vancouver. They don't want the region to become as big and dynamic as Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Seattle, SFBA, Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane. 

A big & dynamic urban region means more Asians and more nonwhite people in general. Unfortunatly, some people are still too uncomfortable with that notion.  


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Burnaby+apologizes

Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Cities, the BIG and the small of it

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

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/CN_Tower_1976.jpg/330px-CN_Tower_1976.jpg , https://www.britannica.com/topic/CN-Tower Standing at a height of 1,815 feet (553 meters)  
1815' divided by 581' is almost 3.13 times the height of a stump in Vancouver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbour_Centre "Skyscraperpage lists the buildings height to the roof as being only 139.6 m (458 ft). This is stated to be the height from the Hastings Street entrance while the height from the back entrance on Cordova Street is 146 m (479 ft). It also lists the buildings pinnacle height to the tip of the antenna as being 177.1 m (581 ft)." STUMP!
This Vancouver stump is only 32% of the CN Towers height. 
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/A_look_downtown_%28759827996%29.jpg/960px-A_look_downtown_%28759827996%29.jpg The Harbour_Centre building should have been on the scale of something like the Hopewell_Centre_(Hong_Kong)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Canadian_Place The BMO. Unlike Chicago, Toronto has no 100 story office towers.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/First_Canadian_Place_August_2017_01.jpg/500px-First_Canadian_Place_August_2017_01.jpg Its a 72 story HQ tower in Toronto.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentall_Centre_(Vancouver)#Three_Bentall_Centre A 32 story BC office stump.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Bentall_3.jpg/330px-Bentall_3.jpg

Being from small Vancouver, its amazing that Canada even has one megacity. Toronto is certainly a big city on a lakeshore like Chicago is. Montreal isn't allowed to have buildings as tall as Melbourne, let alone NYC. Montreal has allowed only one office tower to be over 50 floors and a few residential towers in the 60s. 

Calgary has more 50+ story office towers than Denver and Perth. No 40 story office tower exists in BC. The office section of the Harbour_Centre doesn't even have a 30th floor and the revolving restaurant is closer to being like 35 floors up. However, with the overall building being 481 feet, it would be equivalent to 40 floors, if the windows went right up to the top. The flagpole has no windows, but the flag would be like the equivalent of being 48 floors up.

Not just Toronto & Montreal, but Edmonton and Seattle have longer underground train stations than backwards, congested Vancouver. 

The Iron+BridgeOak+Street+BridgeKnight+Street+Bridge & the Arthur+Laing+Bridge should all have a bus+and+bike bridge built next to them. The extremely inadequate Lion+Bridge should have already had a bus and train tunnel close to it. 

Monday, November 10, 2025

Over half of all Metro Vancouver homes projected to be condos by 2051

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/metro-vancouver-housing-growth-forecast-condos 

For several decades, trains, bridges and buildings had to be half the size of what real cities allow. Vancouver and especially the Greater Vancouver Region couldn't build a huge wall, so the next best thing was to heavily impose a symbolic resistance to build big. Thus, by watering the scale of almost everything down by imposing a series of overlapping restrictions, Vancouver & BC remained stunted. 

Then, things started to slowly change going into the 21st century. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Wall_Centre Opened in 2001. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Tower 2004  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Georgia_(Vancouver) 2012 

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

While restrictive Vancouver started to allow some taller buildings, its still behind what many other cities permit. Especially that of what's in Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnacle_One_Yonge Toronto 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_Square_Tower Seattle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stantec_Tower Edmonton 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telus_Sky Calgary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_sur_le_Parc Montreal

Since Burnaby, Coquitlam & Surrey aren't under Vancouvers imposed restrictions, they can build taller. Eventually, Vancouver will have to allow taller residential buildings, but its as if there is a strong mind virus determined to hold the scale of everything back. 

Lions+Gate+Bridge Still, a 3 lane crossing with no plans for a bus, train & truck tunnel. Australia has no problem building tunnels near bridges.

YVR-Canada-Line Still, a 2 car train of a joke, when several cities will have 6, 8 or 10 car trains. 


Thursday, October 30, 2025

World Cup lodging shortfall predicted in Vancouver

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/airbnb-wants-str-rules-relaxed-for-upcoming-2026-fifa-world-cup-in-vancouver-1.7649128  

The proposed 27-storey hotel tower at the edge of Stanley Park is drawing pushback from West End residents over its scale https://vancouversun.com/news/proposed-west-end-tower-that-aims-to-fill-vancouvers-hotel-shortage Parking lots and almost delapadeted buildings should be selected first. This building still seems to be in reasonable shape. 

https://www.biv.com/news/real-estate/vancouver-needs-10k-more-hotel-rooms-says-report-10508458

https://vancouversun.com/news/vancouver-major-hotel-policy-overhaul-room-shortage

https://www.destinationvancouver.com/media/media-releases/BC-hotel-association-provides-recommendations-to-spur-new-hotel-development 

Lots of people in some parts of the West_End end are still accustomed to stumpy buildings, despite the very high land costs. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Vancouver-stanley-park.jpg/960px-Vancouver-stanley-park.jpg Many other cities aren't afraid to build tall close to the water or parks.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Vancouver_west_end.jpg/960px-Vancouver_west_end.jpg People shouldn't be displace just becaus of a new development. An agreement should be reached so that they can still remain in the new structure. However, it's the height issue that usually keeps popping up. A lot of people that still remember Vancouver as a provincial backwater of a city want it to remain that way for as long as possible.

https://www.shapeyourcity.ca/2030-2038-barclay-st , https://stop2030barclay.ca 

https://henriquezpartners.com/projects/2030-barclay The height proposal is at lest a dozen floors too short, it should be about 20 stories taller.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/2030-barclay-street-vancouver-stanley-park-hotel-tower

https://storeys.com/marcon-barclay-street-vancouver-hotel The issue here is that a lot of people don't want a stump replaced with an atempt of a taller building. The people that live there should have the option to live in the new building. If the city and the developer could reach an agreement to allow the current residents to move into the lower floors of the tower. Then remain there at a reasonable rental rate for as long as they want. Then eventually after all the former residents have moved on or passed on, the lower floors could be repurposed into hotel rooms. If a developer in such a situation could agree to that, then the city should allow them to build 15-20 floors higher than 27 stories.

That gets back to the height restriction issue in Vancouver. Other cities have allowed tall buildings right up to the edge of a park. It seems that no one from Vancouver was able to ever stop Sydney. Rather, the Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV) never made it there to thwart big, bustling Sydney.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Sydney_CBD_on_a_sunny_day.jpg/960px-Sydney_CBD_on_a_sunny_day.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Global_Citizen_Festival_Central_Park_New_York_City Anything like the VMV would have thwartted NYC so badly. 

Of course it would have been great if there was future space south of the Hotel+Vancouver (with only 507 rooms) to build a 55-65 story tower. A VPL and Hotel+Vancouver tower could have been started there in the mid 1950s, but Vancouver was still too much of a provincial backwater then. The Fairmont_Royal_York is nice and wide with 1,363 rooms


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westin_St._Francis "...the St. Francis one of the largest hotels in the city, with more than 1,254 rooms and suites." 


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_San_Francisco_Union_Square "Renovated in 2017, it is the largest hotel on the West Coast,[8] with 1,921 rooms."

Fortunately, Sydney, Melbourne, SF and Toronto were never under anything like a Vancouverization agenda. Somehow that backwards mentality was never adopted in most real cities.

https://bcbusiness.ca/industries/real-estate/land-values-how-the-hotel-shortage-in-vancouver-is-coinciding-with-a-boom-in-tourism The BC Mind Virus is so firmly entrenched that its still very difficult to properly upgrade things.


 https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=BC+hotel+shortage

Friday, October 3, 2025

The Scotia (stump) Tower in Vancouver

https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/scotia-tower/4396 138 m / 453 ft with 35 floors

 https://www.skydb.net/building/134544260/scotia-tower-vancouver Height 138 m (452 ft) Floors 35  

https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=65 452 feet https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110142950&page=3

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=1 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/three-proposed-skyscrapers-would-break-vancouver-record-heights/

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

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Vancouver_Skyline_and_Mountains.jpg

Despite The Scotia Tower in Vancouver opening in 1977, it's still a prominent, but small building on the skyline. The windows only go up to the 34th floor, where as the windows on the real Scotia Tower in Toronto go up to the 68th floor.    

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Vancouverdowntown2019.jpg


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotia_Tower Opened in 1977 with 34 floors, plus 2 windowless levels and at least 2 underground floors. Given its prominence on the skyline, the city would not permit it to have a 40th floor. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Scotia_Tower_Vancouver_2015.jpg 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Nauru_House_AON.jpg  


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Mlc_center_syd.jpg



Fahrenheit 451 (1953 Novel) and height limits

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 Two decades before Ray_Bradbury would start writing what would eventually lead to his F 451 novel, LA was sort of close to imposing a 451 foot height limit. However, the LA City Hall would end up being slightly taller than 451 feet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Hall "Dedication ceremonies were held on April 26, 1928. It has 32 floors and, at 454 feet (138 m) high..."  

"A City Council ordinance passed in 1905 did not permit any new construction to be taller than 13 stories or 150 ft (46 m) in order to keep the city's architecture harmonious. City Hall's 454 ft (138 m) height was deemed exempt as a public building and assured that no building would surpass one third its height for over three decades until the ordinance was repealed by voter referendum in 1957." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Hall#History  

https://laist.com/news/entertainment/city-hall-tall 454' not 451 feet, but close nonetheless. LA didn't have to wait until 1953, because it was pondering a 450'-455 foot height restriction in the mid to late 1920s. Of course NYC and Chicago already had tall buildings in the 1920s, so perhaps LA wanted to symbolize an F-U to them by keeping buildings under 500 feet until the mid to late 1960s. 

"The writing and theme within Fahrenheit 451 was explored by Bradbury in some of his previous short stories. Between 1947 and 1948, Bradbury wrote "Bright Phoenix", a short story about a librarian who confronts a "Chief Censor", who burns books. An encounter Bradbury had in 1949 with the police inspired him to write the short story "The Pedestrian" in 1951. In "The Pedestrian", a man going for a nighttime walk in his neighborhood is harassed and detained by the police. In the society of "The Pedestrian", citizens are expected to watch television as a leisurely activity, a detail that would be included in Fahrenheit 451. Elements of both "Bright Phoenix" and "The Pedestrian" would be combined into The Fireman, a novella published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1951. Bradbury was urged by Stanley Kauffmann, an editor at Ballantine Books, to make The Fireman into a full novel. Bradbury finished the manuscript for Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, and the novel was published later that year." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451#Writing_and_development 

F 451 was published in 1953, on 10-19.   

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13079982-fahrenheit-451 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451#Historical_and_biographical_context 

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/451/summary  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451#Writing_and_development  


Did Metropolis_(1927_film) help to restrict the height of tall buildings in LA for several decades? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)#Influences  

Whether the LA City Hall is 454', 453' or 452 feet, it's not exactly 451 feet, but still close enough. 

https://www.latimes.com/visuals/photography/la-me-fw-archives-20190403-htmlstory.html "The 32-story, 454-foot-tall Los Angeles City Hall opened with a three-day public celebration April 26-28, 1928. Construction started in 1926."

https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/city-hall/4376 138.4 m / 454 ft 

https://buildingsdb.com/CA/los-angeles/los-angeles-city-hall "The Los Angeles City Hall reaches an architectural height of 453ft (138m). It has a total of 32 floors, 28 above ground and 4 basements..."  

https://www.travelinusa.us/visit-los-angeles-city-hall "At the time of construction, a regulation was in effect in the city that prohibited buildings taller than 150 feet. Los Angeles City Hall was therefore an exception and, at an impressive 32 stories and a height of 452 feet, it remained the tallest building in Los Angeles until 1964 when Union Bank Plaza opened." 

https://waterandpower.org/Museum2/Los_Angeles_City_Hall_1928.html 

https://www.c40.org/cities/los-angeles 

By the 1970s, LA, SF, Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, Toronto, Montreal and Paris, all had some buildings over 600 feet or even over 200 m. 

https://www.c40.org/cities/vancouver 

Unfortunately by the 1970s, stubborn and backwards Vancouver wanted to go in the opposite direction of most cities. Thus, a kind of censoring agenda was implemented. SF and Sydney and even Seattle, proved that a scenic city by the water can have taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains than what little Vancouver would allow.

While there isn't any direct correlation with the F 451 story and Vancouver, BC imposing a height limit, there is something peculiar. Some people might consider that if a building is around 500 feet in height, or at least 150 m, that's in the category of starting to be a tall building. 

Well, Vancouver, always looking for ways to symbolically project a watered down or scaled back city, height restrictions were at the top of the list. 

Somewhere in-between the 1950s & 60s, Vancouver started to refine its height restriction mandate. Thus, as several cities in the 1970s started to allow for taller buildings, Vancouver has never allowed any office tower to have 40 floors. Perhaps an imposed 451 foot height limit would have been too obvious, so Vancouver generally had an imposed height restriction of 450 feet, with some occasional variations. 

Right through the 1960s only one building in Vancouver, or anywhere in BC had a 30th floor.

The first residential building to have at least 40 floors. https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=921 1973 https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=3 

The first residential building to have more than 45 floors. https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=3 2001 https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=6

It wouldn't be until the early 21st century before Vancouver would permit 2 buildings to rise above 600 feet. https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=8 , https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=9 

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?countryID=1 Vancouver has no building that makes it onto the first page. Burnaby just barely makes it. 

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110144876&page=10 However, Vancouver has another chance to actually have some taller buildings. https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?countryID=1&status=15 Over the decades, various plans have been stopped, due to all the red tape B$ and extreme restrictions. 

Vancouver has had quite a history of limiting, restricting, thwarting & censoring proper big city stuff. 


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=LA+City+Hall

Monday, September 29, 2025

SF and Sydney...

 https://publish.reddit.com/embed?url=https://www.reddit.com/r/skyscrapers/comments/1ntjh3p/san_francisco_usa 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/San_Francisco_Downtown_Aerial%2C_August_2025.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/San_Francisco_skyline_from_Marin_Headlands.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/San_Francisco_and_SFO_Aerial_2018.jpg/960px-San_Francisco_and_SFO_Aerial_2018.jpg , 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Sydney
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Sydney%28from_air%29_V2.jpg   
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Portjackson.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Sydney_02_11_2008.JPG


SF is just as scenic as Sydney. They allow taller buildings, longer trains and wider bridges than backwater Vancouver. Unfortunatly, backwards Vancouver keeps going in the opposite direction, despite more people wanting to move to SW BC. 

The longstanding argument is that since Vancouver is in a scenic setting, every excuse should be used to scale back or water down the urban prescience. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/False_Creek%2C_Vancouver_%282025%29.jpg 

Fortunately, this watered down approach hasn't made it to Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, SF, LA and Seattle. Thus, all of them are able to have taller buildings, longer trains and wider bridges. The Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV) or the Backwards Vancouver Mentality (BVM) is an intertwined horrible concept. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Vancouver_Skyline_and_Mountains.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Shore_Mountains Even the San_Gabriel_Mountains are allowed to be taller than the ones near Vancouver.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Los_Angeles_with_Mount_Baldy.jpg 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_San_Antonio 10,064 ft (3,068 m)   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lions_(peaks)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Mountain_(North_Shore_Mountains)

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

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

Friday, August 8, 2025

North East Link Tunnels - The Big Build Victoria, Australia

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/news/north-east-link/tbms-resume-digging-victorias-longest-road-tunnels

 https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/north-east-link/design/north-east-link-tunnels/map 

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/metro-tunnel

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/suburban-rail-loop London has the Circle Line, Chicago has its elevated loop, Toronto has an underground loop, so it makes sense that Melbourne would also have a train loop. 

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/news/suburban-rail-loop/faster-easier-journeys-with-srl-east Melbourne like most real cities, have an extensive regional road system, but having a good regional rail network might even be more important & beneficial. https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/suburban-rail-loop/about/project-benefits

Unfortunately, Greater Vancouver is still lacking with its transportation infrastructure. 

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/regional-rail-revival 

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/roads

https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/library/west-gate-tunnel-project/maps


L.A. and Melbourne in the 1960s really started to plan on a big scale. Of course Vancouver went in the opposite direction.

https://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/maps/1968_final_proposed_transit_master_plan_concept_map.jpg , https://cityplanning.tumblr.com/post/24841307901/past-visions-of-l-a-s-transportation-future  

https://transitmap.net/1969-melbourne-plan , https://images.theconversation.com/files/303673/original/file-20191126-112489-1mpon3i.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip , https://theconversation.com/50-years-on-from-the-melbourne-transportation-plan-what-can-we-learn-from-its-legacy-127721  

https://transitmap.net/melbourne-trains-1981

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/a-birdseye-view-of-melbournes-transformation-from-1945-to-2015-20150226-13pd5v.html