Comments on: More traffic on Cambie Street

By: How to reduce road space « Stephen Rees’s blog

How to reduce road space « Stephen Rees’s blog — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:50:40 +0000

[...] capacity – and of course transit can move many more people than a lane of cars. Which is why the Cambie Street situation is so unnecessary. But central places are where cities show why they have persisted for [...]

By: Dave 2

Dave 2 — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:07:12 +0000

Oops, make that ~75 species, I miscounted their list (double spaced)

By: Wayne

Wayne — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:27:36 +0000

I’ve always been impressed by the boulevard section of Cambie. My feeling has been that if we wanted to impress first time visitors coming from the airport we ought to bring them down Cambie rather than Granville or Oak. Now many will be coming down Cambie, under ground. Protecting the boulevard was the right thing to do in my view.
The trolleys should definitely be returned to Cambie but I don’t think Translink sees it that way.
Bulges tend to slow traffic, especially on bus routes as the bus stays in the traffic lane to load and unload, in theory also speeding up bus service.
Although it would be extremely unpopular among motorists generally I am in favour of raised crosswalks (at least in areas with high pedestrian activity) which effectively become a speed bump while making the pedestrians more visible.

By: Dave 2

Dave 2 — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:17:28 +0000

The difference is in the trees. There are something like 150 different species planted there, according to their website.

By: Graeme

Graeme — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:36:26 +0000

I agree with Stephen that the Heritage designation is somewhat specious. Why not have King Edward West, Renfrew and 16th Ave West designated heritage boulevards?

Cambie St. residents complained vocally about the transit line but their property values will increase a lot owing to having the line underground. People on Knight Street would have loved to have had such a great transit line. The east-west bus routes, such as the new route 33 along 33rd Ave on the East side and 16th Ave on the west side, would be ideal for trolley wires, but poles would of course have to be added. I would like to see trolley buses returned to 41st Ave before returning to Cambie St.

By: Sungsu

Sungsu — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:28:31 +0000

One of the major benefits of bulges is that they discourage people from parking too close to, or even in, the crosswalk, which I’ve seen way too many times in my neighbourhood. This is especially frustrating when I see people do this even when there are plenty of free parking spaces nearby.

By: Meredith

Meredith — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:07:58 +0000

The Main Street curb bulges are bland, but they work well. The budget for the Showcase project was only $6 million from three agencies, and that had to cover the entire length of Main from the inlet to the river. In effect, the blandness of plain concrete reflects the budget. In future they can be planted up and receive a more refined hard treatment with accent paving, more pedestrian scale lighting and even public art. The work so far could be considered as building a foundation.

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:28:05 +0000

If I remember correctly, TransLink has no intention of restoring trolley service to Cambie. I can’t remember at the moment in which document I read that. It would be a shame since trolleys are so much nicer than a noisy diesel (unless the trolley poles keep coming off the wires).

I like pedestrian bulges personally, though I do not live near one. I like what I’ve seen on Main Street except the bulges are just more concrete in a concrete environment. I wish the city would do more greening up or spicing up of the bulges. They are just plain concrete at the moment. Nice to have the pedestrian space, but really quite bland to be honest.

By: Meredith

Meredith — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:07:30 +0000

A couple of points. First, it appears the recently restored King Edward to 16th Ave segment of Cambie has been redesigned to accommodate a centre median, left turn bays at almost every block, and bicycle lanes between the travel lane and parking lane. The previous configuration in the Cambie Village did not have a median except at a few major interections. I’m not sure if this is just a temporary thing or not (it’s only paint at this point), but it struck me that built-up medians would help accommodate the local traffic, remove one lane capacity from speed demon through-commuters (maybe slow them down a little), and provide a refuge for pedestrians crossing Cambie. Perhaps this is part of the City’s strategy when their final restoration plans for which they have budgeted $2 million.

Secondly, a good portion of pedestrian, bus and corner bulges I’m aware of in Vancouver are associated with pedestrian and bicyclist-activated lights. Again, the pedestrian refuge idea makes sense, especially when the bulge occupies a parking lane that would otherwise partially obscur pedestrians, especially on our all-too-common dark rainy nights.

I agree fully that regular trolley service should be restored on Cambie. I am a little dismayed they missed the opportunity of placing a Canada Line station at 16th Ave.

By: Stephen Rees

Stephen Rees — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:22:23 +0000

Point taken. We do not know the actual motivation of these particular Engineers. BUT the consequences of choosing a design that allows more space for moving cars is that there will be more traffic – and indeed your original post actually says that “Vehicular Capacity Will Induce Traffic” – and I have a strong suspicion that both the engineers and the politicians know that – and if they don’t (or won’t admit it) that means they have ignored the experience of every other city that has tried to cope with congestion by expanding road capacity