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

Saturday, June 27, 2026

How much will Vancouver change by 2036?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJtotvMq2ls 

The Lion+Bridge will likely still not have an express bus and LRT tunnel near it. The+Iron+Bridge still might not have a proper BRT and LRT bridge next to it. The OSB and the KSB will likely not have a bus and bike bridge built beside them. There will still likely be no new Fraser Street Bridge for bikes and buses. No Boundary Road bridges to provide a direct link between the North Shore and Richmond for buses, trucks and bikes.

While the first 2 Skytrain lines will have 5 car trains, the stunted YVR-Canada Line will only have 2.5 car trains. Vancouver still might not permit any office tower to have a 40th floor, but might allow some residential towers to be on a Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane & Toronto scale. 

However, BIG city thinking and planning in Vancouver has always been so difficult. Boston, SF and the City of Paris are ridiculously small cities like Vancouver with all 3 having a land area of less than 50 sq. mi. or 129.5 sq. km. Yet, Boston, SF and especially the City of Paris, have all been able to fit so much more into the same general space. That's because they aren't bound by anything like the inept and extreme Vancouver type restrictions. 


Friday, June 26, 2026

CN Tower celebrates 50 years of being a skyline icon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujWLEBhbdt8 

If it were possible today, the KEEP VANCOUVER SMALL AND BACKWARDS people would still not permit any building to be a 3rd of the height of the CN_Tower. (CNT) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CN_Tower#Height_comparisons

The Harbour_Centre opened just over a year after the CNT, and is just under a 3rd of its height. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbour_Centre#Height

https://www.cntower.ca/

Unfortunately, The Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV) was able to ensure that the Canada_Line Stations aren't even quite a 3rd of the length of the 152.5 m Montreal Metro stations. 


Even the North-Shore mountains aren't allowed to be as tall as the mountains north of L.A. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Shore_(Greater_Vancouver) 


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/LA_San_Gabriel_Mountains.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gabriel_Mountains#Gallery 


Whether you are from Toronto or Chicago, LA or SF, Melbourne or Sydney, you might be shocked as to seeing how scaled down or watered down Vancouver is. Yet, the City of Paris, despite having a slightly smaller land area than Vancouver, can fit so much more inside. Boston and SF are only slightly larger in area than the City of Vancouver, yet they can also fit in so much more. 

Monday, June 8, 2026

The Unusual transportation approaches used in Vancouver

 https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/history/5-of-a-kind-unusual-modes-of-transportation-used-or-nearly-used-in-vancouver-12388220 

Vancouver is such an unusual and backwards city with its inefficient and congestive approach towards transportation infrastructure.

Getting rid of the streetcars and interurban trams was utterly foolish! Fortunately, such MADNE$$ wasn't adopted in Melbourne, SF, Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans. 

Just because a no freeways mandate was chosen for Vancouver, the streets should have been kept wide enough for busses as well as other vehicles. 

https://movementyvr.ca/the-case-of-vancouvers-nine-missing-bus-lanes

Despite most of the Vancouver bridges being too narrow, some bridge lanes were removed, because the city wasn't interested in building parallel bike bridges. 

Since most of the bridges are so narrow, there isn't enough room for proper express bus lanes. Of course the city isn't interested in building parallel bus bridges next to the narrow bridges. 

Since Vancouver is supposed to be a major, properly functioning city in Western Canada, the city should have pressed the designers of the first 2 Skytrain lines to make sure that all of the 80 m stations could gradually be extended to 152.5 m, the same as the 500 foot long Montreal Metro stations and trains.

Unlike the first 2 Skytrain lines, the Canada Line was only designed to ultimately have 50 m stations and trains. A 2 billion dollar line to YVR could have been designed in such a way that would have allowed it to look and function like a proper big-city passenger train. 

A commuter train to the North Shore keeps taking a long time to be finalized.

https://northshoreconnects.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/BIRT-Benefits-Assessment_Final.pdf

Think small and build backwards, or not at all. 

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Racism is a risk when Vancouver and Toronto hosts the World Cup

https://www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/world-cup-2026-raises-human-rights-concerns-in-canadian-host-cities 

https://football.dhgate.com/lifestyle/world-cup-guide-reporting-racism-at-games-what-you-need-to-know-and-do/

 https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/national-sports/racism-is-a-risk-when-vancouver-hosts-world-cup-but-measures-exist-bc-ag-sharma-12361474 So, this is basically the same article repeated. 

https://www.britannica.com/place/British-Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Rivalry_with_other_European_empires

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2026/06/01/racism-risk-vancouver-hosts-world-cup-measures-exist-ag-sharma/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Expansion_and_colonial_conflict_(1707%E2%80%931783)

Despite its overall area, Canada has less than 1% of the worlds population. A global population that is mostly nonwhite. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Consolidation_and_global_dominance_(1783%E2%80%931815)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/world-cup/article/racism-is-a-risk-when-vancouver-hosts-world-cup-but-measures-exist-bc-ag-sharma/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Britain's_imperial_century_(1815%E2%80%931914)

For its first century, Canada was supposed to be primarily for people from Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Changing_status_of_the_white_colonies 

That was the British Colonial Agenda, but eventually the British_Empire had to acknowledge that most of the worlds population is nonwhite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Decolonisation_and_decline_(1945%E2%80%931997)

There are strong arguments that Canada should be able to gradually contain a little more of the worlds population. Since a lot of the worlds population is from warmer areas, a lot of people might not like the Canadian Winter season. SW BC just happens to be the most mild part of Canada during the winter. The Lower_Mainland of BC and SE Vancouver_Island have been very reluctant to think big and build on a grand scale. 

The Lions+Gate+Bridge and the Johnson+Street+Bridge are both classic 3 lane BC bottleneck-chokepoints. They are both fine examples of not wanting to build for a growing population on a world that is composed mostly of nonwhite people.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/06/02/news/racism-risk-when-vancouver-hosts-world-cup-measures-exist-says-bc-ag-sharma 

Toronto and Southern Ontario just never had the same level of small scale thinking as in SW BC. In fact, it the backwards BC approach to things just never caught on in Toronto, Melbourne and SF. They never got rid of their streetcars and trams like Vancouver and Victoria did.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lzvgg7/the_british_empire_at_its_territorial_peak_oc/ 

As Canada started to become more multicultural in the 1960s and 70s, predominantly White city councils in BC kept imposing a small-scale approach to things. 

Will some people start to say that by keeping most of the world out of Canada is good for the environment? There are already some people that would like to use nonwhites as being too much of a carbon footprint and that Canada should never have 1% of the worlds population. This would be a very clever and sinister way to perpetuate the KEEP THEM OUT agenda. 

The days of Canada being officially under a British Colonial, White authority management power structure are long gone. As of 2026, Canada has yet to have half of 1% of the worlds population. 

Sunday, May 31, 2026

Vancouver 450 ft and Fahrenheit 451

Was a 450 foot height restriction just a chance, or was it intentionally made to be very close to 451 Fahrenheit? Honolulu is still stuck around that maximum, while San Diego is at 500 feet.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 (1953) By the 1950s, so many things were already banned, watered down or scaled back in provincial Vancouver. Generations later, there was the No Fun Vancouver mind virus that further tried to cancel out things in such a small city with so much red tape and other ridiculous obstacles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(1966_film) By the mid and late1960s, the city made sure that its first office tower to have more than 29 floors wouldn't be until the 1970s. Its highly doubtful that Vancouver will have an office tower over 40 stories by 2030. However, Burnaby and Surrey could, because they aren't under the extreme restrictions of Vancouver. 

It wasn't until 1973 when Vancouver allowed its first building to be taller than the Los_Angeles_City_Hallhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Hall 

The Scotia_Tower (stump) is a good reference point to visualize the small scale of backwater Vancouver, as its about the same height as the Los_Angeles_City_Hall at 453'. 

https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/scotia-tower/4396 453'

https://skyscraperpage.com/b65/vancouver/the-scotia-tower 452'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(2018_film) By 2018 it was quite apparent that Vancouver was in the process of allowing for more buildings over 450 feet. However, nothing has been permitted to reach 700 feet, so far. A tower over 1000 feet would help to water down its provincial mindset. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/Vancouver_panorama_%2849988799796%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/3840px-Vancouver_panorama_%2849988799796%29_%28cropped%29.jpg

SF, Sydney & Auckland are just as scenic as Vancouver & warmer throughout the year. They all have taller building than what Vancouver currently permits. Seattle is just as scenic as Vancouver, but its allowed to function like a proper big city, because it doesn't have the imposed restrictions like Vancouver has. While its cold, damp & depressing like Vancouver during the fall & winter, Seattle usually gets noticeably hotter summers than Vancouver, BC. The tallest building in Seattle is the 76 story B of A office tower. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/LA_Skyline_Mountains2.jpg/1280px-LA_Skyline_Mountains2.jpg While the L.A. City Hall looks like a stump there, in Vancouver it would still be one of the prominent buildings.

Everything is so small or scaled back in Vancouver. Even the Greater Vancouver mountains aren't allowed to be as tall as the ones in L.A. While the San_Francisco_Bay & Port_Phillip Bay by Melbourne are big next to their cities, English_Bay in_Vancouver is so much smaller. Its even smaller than Elliott_Bay by Seattle. 

Vancouver really needs to have bus and HOV bridges built next to its mostly narrow & congested bridges. Only a 5 car Skytrain is the max on the first 2 lines and ultimately, just a 2.5 car joke of a train on the YVR-Canada Line. 

Selective+Door+Operation can allow a short train to have an extra car at each end, despite a shorter platform. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Vancouver_sunset_%28J%29.jpg/3840px-Vancouver_sunset_%28J%29.jpg 
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Los_Angeles_with_Mount_Baldy.jpg/3840px-Los_Angeles_with_Mount_Baldy.jpg

Australia like the USA, has some big & tall cities on the Pacific Rim. However, Vancouver symbolically kept watering down its size, because that's how you demonstrate a reluctance towards proper urban planning & growth. 

Oddly enough, the small scale Vancouver mentality & agenda wasn't adopted by most cities around the world. Officially, there is no Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV), but somehow it keeps manifesting, just like the BCMV. 

Despite its size, Canada has less than 1% of the worlds population.

Tuesday, April 28, 2026

A New Supertall Skyscraper could be Rising in Vancouver

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0JAcGSwrMk 

While Vancouver has allowed a couple residential towers to have at least 60 stories, no office tower has been permitted to have a 40th floor. While buildings over 200m have been allowed in Sydney and SF, slow provincial Vancouver has been very restrictive to allow big city symbolism.

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 5, 2026

Why the Widest Freeway on Earth still Made Traffic Worse in Houston

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMwKgT4ZUvQ It is utterly foolish to not have enough space for a commuter train to run above, or in the middle or underneath the widest highways. 

https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/houstons-15-year-growth-three-charts Simply building wide roads like in Houston, L.A. and Toronto is just as bad as having mostly narrow bridges in Greater Vancouver.  

Whether its 10 lanes or 20 lanes wide, there should always be 2 dedicated bus lanes and 2 HOV lanes. While the highway will get clogged up during the day, at least the buses and trains can still get through quickly. 

The Pattullo+Bridge+replacement is only 2 lanes each way with narrow shoulders. It should have opened with enough space for 2 bus lanes and 2 HOV lanes, but that would go against the congestive urban planning mentality of BC.

The Samuel-De+Champlain+Bridge in Montreal is just as good as similar wide highway and train bridges in Seattle+and+Perth. All were possible, simply because they aren't limited by anything like the Vancouver and BC Mind Virus.

The narrow-minded Vancouver and BC approach is to try to funnel everything into just 2 or 3 lanes each way. Then there just isn't enough space to have 2 bus lanes and 2 HOV lanes. Greater Vancouver has certainly gone in the extreme opposite direction of Houston, L.A. and Toronto...

A wide Greater Houston highway has lots of space, but without 2 bus lanes and 2 HOV lanes, everything gets plugged up. In contrast, Greater Vancouver has most of its bridges and highways so damn narrow, there isn't enough space to accomodate a proper express bus and HOV network. 

This deliberate backwards BC bottleneck-chokepoint planning approach is totally absurd. 

There is no commuter train tunnel near the Lions+Gate+Bridge or even for the Massey+Tunnel+replacement. Thus, they are the best examples of BC choke-point urban planning. Despite having twice the lanes as the inept 3 lane LGB, the newer Iron+Bridge never had any emergency lanes. A bus and HOV bridge was never built next to it. Plus, no commuter train bridge. It's another fine example of BC choke-point, bottleneck planning. 

A north and south Boundary+Road bridge system would provide direct access between the North+ShoreRichmond+and+Delta, but that's what a proper big city would do. Backwards BC has quite a problem with thinking and building big. The 2 car Canada+Line is another example. Don't build it to at least have a 5 car train, just design it to only have 2.5 car trains, someday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Houston#Transportation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_610_(Texas)#Lane_configurations There is a point when simply adding more lanes won't provide long-term improvement. However, when combined with dedicated bus and HOV lanes, other options become available. Especially, if there is rail rapid transit and commuter rail as well. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/METRORail While not as extentise as DART_rail, it still works like a tram-train. 

Of course longer streetcars or tram-trains are still slow on the actual surface street segments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Melbourne#System_upgrades 

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muni_Metro SF

Friday, February 20, 2026

Aerial view of downtown Vancouver in 1969

 https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1r960mq/tbt_aerial_view_vancouver_downtown_coal_harbour_c This was still a time when Vancouver didn't allow any office tower to have a 30th floor. As of 2026, no office building in Vancouver has been permitted to have a 40th floor. However, Burnaby & Surrey are planning to have their first office building over 40 stories. That's because they aren't under the extreme height restrictions that Vancouver imposes. 

Seattle had its first 50 story office tower in 1969. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeco_Plaza 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Square The first 50 story office tower in Australia (1967) was possible because they don't have anything like the height restrictions in Vancouver.

Toronto had its first 50+ story office tower in 1967. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto-Dominion_Centre#Late_20th_century

SF had its first office buiding over 50 stories open in 1969. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_California_Street 52 stories, but the equivalent of 60 when counting all of the mechanical plant floors.

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

San Francisco just approved a 67-story, 820-foot residential tower at 10 South Van Ness

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-oBDIsEHSQ 

SF is finally allowing a building within a few blocks of City Hall to be much taller than the LA City Hall.

Thursday, February 5, 2026

SF and Seattle, etc.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seyMIhry1M8 

The SF and Boston land area can almost both fit into Seattle. However, the SF Bay Area and Greater Boston still have a lot more people than the Seattle-Tacoma Area.

Unfortunatly, growing poverty and substance abuse, combined with more job losses makes for a tougher situation, overall.

Seattle's Economic slide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxB8-RotFIU 

 Massive layoffs hit Seattle tech companies as city struggles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLvbQGr0Xmg

Seattle’s Downtown Isn’t Coming Back the Same https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLRMYCSm1Cs

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. 

Friday, January 30, 2026

Tree-inspired office tower concept proposed for revived Waterfront Station project

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/601-west-cordova-street-vancouver-waterfront-station-tower-cadillac-fairview-james-cheng 

Singapore, Perth, Sydney, Seattle, SF and Miami are allowed to have tall buildings right near the water, because they are allowed to be big and tall cities.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/555-west-cordova-street-vancouver-the-crystal-office-tower-opposition 

Vancouver has several restrictions which prevent it from becoming a proper big city.

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

SD and SF vs. LA

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izx7Y_qw_NQ 

San Diego and SF have their downtowns right up to the water, but Downtown LA is a good ways inland.