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

Sunday, August 24, 2025

Second Harbour Crossing, Auckland

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Harbour_Crossing,_Auckland   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Harbour_Crossing,_Auckland#2023_Waitemat%C4%81_Harbour_Connections_proposals  

https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/5312416/Debate-continues-over-second-harbour-crossing

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/majority-of-auckland-wants-additional-harbour-crossing/6IV4J64EVYPT7D46F6PE3E2L54 

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/second-auckland-harbour-crossing-next-steps-revealed-technical-work-to-begin-soon/4VSLTUM7XVGPTFNESXOAHBEQIM/

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/aucklands-second-harbour-crossing-could-be-practical-and-a-thing-of-beauty-garth-falconer/WALMPRJ3NZHT3MOQRGUMBSX2HE   

"With the second bridge in place, traffic lanes would be split and shared, with northbound lanes on the new six-lane bridge and south bound traffic on the eight-lane Auckland Harbour Bridge. 

There could be dedicated public transport lanes in both directions, and on the eastern side of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, two of the outside lanes can be freed exclusively for walking and cycling.

This plan would reduce the loading on the existing bridge."  https://reseturban.co.nz/news/fresh-thinking-needed-on-second-auckland-harbour-crossing 

Wow, this would be a duplication on the scale of what Brisbane did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Leo_Hielscher_Bridges#Duplication 

https://briscycle.com/moreton-bay/gateway-bridge-cycleway/ 

https://www.brisbane-australia.com/sir-leo-hielscher-bridges.html

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/queensland-mourns-sir-leo-hielscher-who-brought-gateway-bridge-expo-88-20250805-p5mkg2.html



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

Friday, February 6, 2026

Timelapse of the Skytrain-Canada Line from Richmond to the Vancouver Waterfront

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

How this new railway will reshape Auckland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpcMBDeZo7Y Of course Auckland can eventually have 9 car trains, because they aren't like backwards Vancouver is.

Sunday, May 31, 2026

Vancouver 450 ft and Fahrenheit 451

Was a 450 foot height restriction just by chance, or was it intentionally made to be very close to 451 Fahrenheit? Despite being around the same size as Paris, Boston & SF, Vancouver remains as a very restrictive city. 

Any tall building in SL City is under 450 feet. Honolulu is still stuck around the 450 foot maximum, while San Diego is stuck at 500 feet. Even Rio DeGennaro still has shorter buildings than Vancouver, BC. Washington, DC has strict height limitations like Paris. However, W,DC could eventually set up their own equivalent of La_Defense. Its a fine example of allowing tall buildings just beyond the city limits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 (1953) By the 1950s, so many things were already banned, watered down or scaled back in provincial backwater Vancouver. Generations later, there was the No Fun City 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 at, or over 40 stories by 2030. However, Burnaby and Surrey could, because they aren't under the extreme restrictions of the Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV). 

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/One_Wall_Centre It opened in 2001 at 157.8 m (518 ft). Its 49 feet shorter than the Philadelphia_City_Hall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_City_Hall Opened in 1901 at 548 ft (167 m).

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

Despite its size, Canada has less than 1% of the worlds population. Its been difficult enough just for Canada to even have half of 1% of the worlds population. 

One expects Melbourne and Sydney to be proper big cities. However, Australia has big stuff at both ends of the country. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Leo_Hielscher_Bridges#Design Its a 12 lane crossing in Brisbane. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrows_Bridge_(Perth) 10 lanes with 2 commuter train tracks in the middle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Skytower It has 90 floors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q1_(building) Almost has 80 floors.

Perth Central_Park_(skyscraper) at 51 floors and 108_St_Georges_Terrace at 50. Very restrictive Vancouver still won't permit any office tower to have a 40th floor. Calgary and Seattle each have a few over 50 stories.


So far, provincial Halifax hasn't been allowed to be on a similar scale as Boston and Montreal. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_L._Macdonald_Bridge 3 lanes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Murray_MacKay_Bridge 4 lanes. 


The scale of Vancouver is kept below that of Calgary & Seattle or even Auckland, in some ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_Gate_Bridge A classic 3 lane BC bottleneck-chokepoint. No parallel bus and truck tunnels and especially, no LRT tunnel. 

Provincial backwater Victoria isn't allowed to be on a similar scale of Wellington, NZ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Street_Bridge Another BC 3 lane wonder.

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. 

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Such short platforms and trains for the SkyTrain-Canada Line

http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/short-platforms-and-trains-is-the-skytrain-canada-line-under-built-and-nearing-capacity 

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

Unfortunately the multibillion dollar Canada+Line was designed to have very short stations. Much shorter than any underground stations in Edmonton & Seattle, especially Montreal & Toronto. Planning & building proper big city size infrastructure in BC has mostly been difficult through the decades. There has been a multi-generational mindset & agenda to hold BC back. 

http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canada-line-skytrain-richmond-tsawwassen

How could such a backwater BC agenda be so powerful since the 1800s? Well, if you can't build a wall around BC or generate a Star Trek like force field around Greater Vancouver, you can at least continually demonstrate a reluctance to build proper size infrastructure. Originally, BC was supposed to be a Whiteman's paradise. Thus, there was a strong resentment to build anything for nonwhites. Somehow, since BC was starting to be more multicultural since the 1960s & 70s, then even morso by the 1990s, one would think that there would be proper big city infrastructure built-up. 

Instead, it was like the White British Colonial mentality continued right into modern times. Hospitals & schools weren't being properly expanded. Most bridges or crossing were kept narrow. Unfortunatly, such narrow-mindedness also went towards the planning & building of short trains. It was as if there was such a resentment to plan & build big for nonwhites, so almost everything has been kept small or backwards in BC.   

http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/surrey-light-rail-skytrain-mistakes-underbuilt

BC has had such a slow growth agenda for several decades. Thus, by symbolically building inadequate infrastructure, it is hope that frustrated people will go elsewhere, or don't even show up. WTH? Fortunately, this agenda hasn't taken over Edmonton & Calgary or Seattle WA & Perth WA. 

Most of the world is nonwhite & in most of the world the major cities are allowed to think & build big. Despite the size of Canada, it has less than 1% of the world's population. During the colonial times there was a strong KEEP THEM OUT mentality. However, while Canada has embrace multiculturalism for several decades, Canada has yet to contain 1% of the worlds population, let alone 2%. So much infrastructure, especially in backwards BC has been heled back or thwarted. Yet, the Pacific Rim has a big portion of the worlds population. 

Pacific cities like Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane, Seattle, Portland, SF, LA & SD, just don't have the same impose restrictions & inept planning like Vancouver & Victoria have.



Monday, December 29, 2025

No fireworks in downtown Vancouver for New Year's Eve or the rest of 2026

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-fireworks-2026-new-years-eve-nye 

While Vancouver hasn't been able to get most other cities across Canada and around the world to stop, ban or cancel their NY Eve fireworks, bizarre Vancouver will retain this part of its NO FUN CITY (NFC) mentality and agenda. 

https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/fireworks-banned-halloween-vancouver-fire-department-9726922 Why just ban them in October and January, when you can ban them throughout the year? 

https://www.ehnewspaper.ca/articles/third-year-of-vancouvers-fireworks-ban

For some strange reason, backwards Vancouver hasn't been able to get other cities around the world to adopt the same bizarre idiosyncrasies.  

Officially, there isn't supposed to be a Vancouver+Mind+Virus, but the backwards city is so stunted and strange. Other cities in a scenic setting such as SydneyAucklandSan_Francisco and Seattle are able to have wider bridges in or close to their city centers. 

Despite warm and scenic Honolulu having some very short bridges, they are still wider than what extremely restrictive Vancouver allows. These two short bridges in Honolulu provide 4 lanes each way. Thus, they form an 8 lane crossing and they aren't even part of a freeway.  

There is also a very short 6 lane bridge in Honolulu. In addition to its 6 lanes, there is a turning lane and a one lane wide median, which makes it equivalent to being 8 lanes wide. Plus, there are 2 wide sidewalks, which are wider than the original sidewalks on the Granville Bridge in Vancouver. In other words, no bridge in Vancouver is allowed to be as wide as it. Despite regional population growth, the Granville Bridge was reduced from 8 lanes to 6 lanes. 

Considering how Vancouver has such a narrow road system, one would think that a regional network of bus and bike bridges would be essential. Of course the backwards city and greater urban region is too cheap to fund such infrastructure and rather opted for a congestive transportation approach.

In contrast, The+Helix+Bridge in Singapore is fine example of what backwards Vancouver refuses to build. No lanes had to be removed from the 6 lane Bayfront+Bridge or the 10 lane Benjamin+Sheares+Bridge. Stubborn Vancouver could really benefit from something like the Helix Bridge. 

While Vancouver went backwards after Expo 86, Brisbane really took of after Expo 88. The Kangaroo_Point_Green_BridgeGoodwill_BridgeKurilpa_BridgeJack_Pesch_Bridge and the Go_Between_Bridge are all great examples of what strange Vancouver refuses to build. What's really amazing from a backwater Vancouver perspective is that those bike and foot bridges in Brisbane never required any lanes to be removed from the cities road bridges. 

In comparison, Vancouver removed 2 lanes from the Burrard St. Bridge (BSB), 1 lane from the Cambie Bridge and 2 lanes from the Granville Bridge. If urban planning in Vancouver was wise and the city never got rid of its trams or streetcars, perhaps something like the Tilikum_Crossing could have been built across False_Creek.


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

Friday, October 25, 2024

320 Granville Street, Vancouver

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/320-granville-bosa-faria-flooding-dispute

It's a nice looking building, but once again, it's only a half-size figurine, or a stump. 

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bosa-waterfront-centre-320-granville-street-vancouver-office-tower

Unlike scenic Auckland, NZ & especially Sydney, Australia or SF, California, Vancouver continues to cut off the top 15-30 floors of any office tower development. 

https://bosadevelopment.com/project/320-granville , https://320granville.com/

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/320-Granville-St-Vancouver-BC/27653032/

https://storeys.com/vancouver-bosa-waterfront-office-complete/

Even no residential tower within little Vancouver has been allowed to be as high as the tallest condo tower in Seattle, Calgary, Edmonton & Toronto. Especially, Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane.


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne-Toronto-SF

Friday, March 7, 2025

Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne-SF-Boston-Toronto (B-S-M-SF-B-T)

 Auckland, NZ, along with Perth, WA and Seattle, WA have no problems with taller buildings and wider bridges than what Vancouver allows. Established cities like London & Paris, NYC & Chicago, big L.A. and even smaller Singapore, all seem to plan, spend & build more infrastructure than backwards Vancouver does. 

Cities like Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne-SF-Boston-and-Toronto are all on a much larger scale, simply because they don't have anything like the overlapping restrictions that backwards Vancouver & BC has imposed for itself.

https://x.com/CityHallWchVAN/status/1517347123225718785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Eembeddedtimeline%7Ctwterm%5Escreen-name%3Acityhallwchvan%7Ctwcon%5Es1 What seems big in little Vancouver is small or just average in many other cities.


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne-Toronto 

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Brisbane+Airport+Railway+Line