Showing posts sorted by date for query The small Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query The small Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver. Sort by relevance Show all posts

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

Saturday, November 22, 2025

The small Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/westin-bayshore-vancouver-best-luxury-hotel  

https://vancouversbestplaces.com/vancouver-hotels/vancouver-westin-bayshore-hotel

Of course the Vancouver location wasn't allowed to be as big as the Westin in Seattle. Just like the Hotel+Vancouver wasn't designed to be as tall and especially as wide as the Royal+York+Hotel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westin_Seattle "The hotel originally consisted of a single 40 story tower, today's south tower, reaching a height of 121 m (397 ft). The tower was topped out in January 1969 and the hotel opened on June 29, 1969." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westin_Seattle#History "The 137 m (449 ft), 47-story north tower opened in June 1982..." 

While Vancouver is only warm for half of the year, at best, the old Bayshore Inn wasn't allowed to be as big as anything in Waikiki. 

https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/council-approves-new-policy-address-vancouvers-hotel-room-shortage.pdf 

https://corporatemeetingsnetwork.ca/2025/05/01/tackling-vancouvers-hotel-shortage-crisis/

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/no-rooms-at-the-inns-knock-on-effects-of-vancouvers-hotel-shortage 

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/vancouver-s-last-undeveloped-waterfront-site-could-house-convention-centre-hotel-according-to-city-memo/ar-AA1vO3Bz 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Westin_Seattle_from_Olive_8.jpg
Unlike Seattle, Vancouver no longer has its first 40 story hotel. Perhaps if the city had allowed a much taller condo tower, the hotel tower could have been saved. Or, a new double tower combination of a 55 story hotel and 65 story condo tower. Instead, the old landmark was replaced with 2 stumps that have less than 40 stories.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Empire_Hotel_Landmark.jpg/330px-Empire_Hotel_Landmark.jpg 

Other cities seemed to be more interested in cultivating their hotel and tourism industry. Even encouraging more hotel towers. However, Vancouver with its very strict (multigenerational) imposed height restrictions, kept falling behind.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/sep/27/wipe-out-era-1970s-vanish-vancouver 

After several decades of keeping Vancouver hotels short and small, now the city realized that there aren't enough hotel rooms for the tourism industry. 

https://globalnews.ca/video/11127278/biv-vancouver-needs-thousands-more-hotel-rooms

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-tourism-risk-hotel-development-construction-policies 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_Seattle Vancouver has yet to permit a big, bulky hotel like this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_Square_Tower While this isn't a hotel, its 60m taller than the tallest building in Vancouver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telus_Sky No hotel, just an office and residential tower. However, its about 22m taller than the tallest in Vancouver. 

The (unofficial) rule is that almost everything in Vancouver has to be scaled back or watered down in size.  


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

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Hotel+Vancouver