A Year in Five Minutes: Vancouver 1978

via re:Place Magazine

The first 15 Vietnamese refugees from the Hai Hong arrived in Vancouver in November 1978. The Hai Hong, journalist Kevin Griffin wrote, was a “rusty old  freighter anchored off the coast of  Malaysia, unable to unload its human cargo. Hung over the side of the boat was a sign in English: ‘Please Rescue Us.’ Captured by television news cameras, it was an image that showed up on TV sets in living rooms in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. Images of hungry and homeless refugees stuck on what amounted to a floating casket also tweaked the conscience of thousands of Canadians. Vancouverites were no different . . . Former Saigon resident Tzee Kok Wu told of leaving in such secrecy that he was contacted about the boat’s departure only an hour before it left. Wu and his four brothers and sisters made it in time but their parents were delayed a half hour and were left behind. Wu told of being so crowded aboard the boat, he could only sit because there wasn’t enough space to lie down. Of the 2,500 refugees crammed aboard the Hai Hong, about 600 arrived in Canada; 150 eventually arrived in Vancouver.”

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Downtown East Side - Van. 1978, photo by Mikey G Ottawa

mroe about Canadian cities:

Skyline photos of Montreal, Canada (2)

Skyline photos of Calgary, Canada (2)

Skyline photos of Calgary, Canada (1)

Pedestrian (and stroller) priority in Vancouver

The Case for Bike-Share

CN TOWER A Monument to Canadian Architecture

Can Ontario deliver the continent's best land-use plan?

Halting Urban Sprawl: Smart Growth in Vancouver and Seattle

by David Fox

Haphazard and unorganized land-use planning in United States cities has resulted in endless sprawl that is straining infrastructure, polluting the atmosphere, and negatively affecting quality of life. This Note compares efforts of two similarly situated North American cities— Seattle and Vancouver—in enacting Smart Growth policies to combat sprawl and argues that Seattle, and American cities in general, should look to Vancouver’s example to limit urban sprawl and comprehensively plan at local and regional levels for sustainable growth and more livable spaces over the coming decades.

The most pressing land use problem facing North American cities is the containment of urban sprawl.1 Sprawl is low-density, land-consuming, non-contiguous development on the fringe of settled areas, often near a decaying central city that invades undeveloped areas.2 It is haphazard development that expands without limits or order from the core of a metropolitan area.3 In areas characterized by sprawl, residential development consists primarily of single-family housing, with a significant number of them scattered in distant areas.4 Examples of non-residential development include shopping malls, strip malls along arterial roads, isolated industrial and office parks, and freestanding schools or other public buildings.5 Sprawl usually results in infrastructure problems.6 Ei-ther the infrastructure (sewage and water distribution systems are examples)
is unavailable in the outer areas where development is taking place, or an entirely separate system must be developed, which is economically wasteful and inefficient.7 By concentrating poverty in urbanized areas, sprawl re-segregates society and drains public investment in vital urban services.8

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A bird-eye view of Vancouver, by ecstaticist

Urban sprawl in Vancouver, photo by Aphex Twin

similar posts about urban and suburban sprawl:

New Austin blueprint envisions new direction for growth

Is `new urbanism' truly a step in right direction?

Iraq's urban sprawl, not looting, threatens Ninevah antiquities

A Libertarian View of Urban Sprawl

Study Shows Urban Sprawl Continues To Gobble Up Land

SHRINKING CITIES—Growing Domain for Urban Planning?

Cleanliness from a car

PRESERVING COST-EFFICIENT INFRASTRUCTURE SUPPLY IN SHRINKING CITIES

Analyzing Land Use Change In Urban Environments

by USGS

Metropolitan areas in the United States are growing at unprecedented rates, creating extensive urban landscapes. Many of the farmlands, wetlands, forests, and deserts that formed the America of 1900 have been transformed during the past 100 years into human settlements. Almost everyone has seen these changes to their local environment but without a clear understanding of their impacts. It is not until we study these landscapes from a spatial perspective and the time scale of decades that we can begin to measure the changes that have occurred and predict the impact of changes to come.
The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Urban Dynamics Research (UDR) program studies the landscape transformations that result from the growth of metropolitan regions over time. Using sources such as historic maps, aerial photographs, and Landsat satellite data, USGS scientists first assemble retrospective urban land use databases that reflect several decades of change. These databases are then used to analyze the effects of urbanization on the landscape, and to model urban growth and land use change under alternative growth scenarios.

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Land use change in lower Queen Anne, Seattle, 1920-1953, by Seattle Municipal Archives

more about urban land use:

SMART GROWTH, SMART CHOICES SERIES: MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT

Innovation and the American Metropolis

Spatial Planning, Urban Form and Sustainable Transport: An Introduction

Research Methods in Urban and Regional Planning

Pedestrian (and stroller) priority in Vancouver

via Planning Pool

Being forced to push your baby out into traffic… feeling like the sidewalk has taken over control of your stroller and is determined to introduce your baby to the fast moving travel lane… having the impression I’m crossing a road when in fact its a lane way.

My wife and I have experienced all this and more in the past year or so as we adapt to life with a baby. We live in downtown Vancouver and use the car only rarely. Thus the stroller gets a LOT of use. Here are my top three annoyances that I’ve observed as we ‘stroll’ around town (although the last one is not stroller specific).

 

1. The lack of drop curbs where they need to be. This is downtown Vancouver in the 21st century, but even here there are significant minority of intersections (especially in the older West End) that have inadequate drop curbs. The usual problem is that there may be one drop curb on a corner, but it faces the wrong way. So with a stroller, you have to push out into the lane in which vehicles are now travelling. At a four way or two way stop it is unclear which way you’re actually crossing. This can be confusing for vehicle drivers as well as dangerous for pedestrians and their (precious) cargo.

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Sidewalk in Vancouver, photo by freedryk

Sidewalk in Vancouver, photo by freedryk

Sidewalk in Vancouver, photo by freedryk

Sidewalk in Vancouver, photo by freedryk

Sidewalk in Vancouver, photo by freedryk

Sidewalk in Vancouver, photo by freedryk

Sidewalk in Vancouver, photo by freedryk

more about urban Vancouver:

Graffiti photos of Vancouver 1

Skyline photos of Vancouver 1

Vancouver: the almost perfect grid

Vancouver Master Plan Project

Graffiti photos of Vancouver 1

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by FallenPegasus



Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by Laughing Squid



Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by Laughing Squid

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by Laughing Squid

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by Laughing Squid

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by Laughing Squid

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by shehani

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by E Wayne

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by FallenPegasus

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by FallenPegasus

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by FallenPegasus

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by FallenPegasus

Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by FallenPegasus



Graffiti photo of Vancouver, by Laughing Squid

 more Graffiti photos:

Graffiti photos of Melbourne, Australia (1)

Graffiti photos of Dallas, Texas

Graffiti in Paris 1

Graffiti photos, Atlanta 1

Skyline photos of Vancouver 1

Vancouver skyline, by Virtual Farm Boy

Vancouver skyline, by dhaun

Vancouver skyline, by VancityAllie

Vancouver skyline, by hatdow

Vancouver skyline, by Gord McKenna

Vancouver skyline, by GlacierTim

Vancouver skyline, by btm

Vancouver skyline, photo by Tim in Sydney

Photo of Vancouver skyline, by GlacierTim

Vancouver skyline, by Snurb

Vancouver skyline, by JohnWuQiongZhi

more skyline photos:

Skyline photos of Memphis, USA

Skyline photos of Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Skyline photos of San Diego, California

Skyline photos of Portland, Oregon 1

Vancouver: the almost perfect grid

via human transit

A grid pattern of arterial streets covers almost all of Vancouver. Most of the time, parallel major streets are spaced about every 800-1000m apart, and since a comfortable walking distance is about half that, this spacing is perfect for efficient transit.

But what's really great about Vancouver from a transit perspective is the position of its major destinations.  They're positioned in a way that solves another transit planning problem: anchoring.

If a transit line is operating through an area of uniform density, about 50% of its capacity goes to waste. That's because the vehicle will leave the end of the line empty, fill only gradually with passengers, and reach its maximum load at the midpoint of the line.  After that, more people get off than get on, and as you near the far end of the line, the vehicle is nearly empty again.  If you plot the load of the vehicle against the position on the line, you get a bell curve:  zero at the ends of the line, and at its maximum level right in the middle.  If you scale your capacity to the maximum level, you end up with a lot of wasted capacity near the ends of the line, and no way to make use of that capacity.

So transit planners are always looking to anchor their lines.  Anchoring means designing a line so that it ends at a major destination, so that there will be lots of people on the vehicle all the way to the end of the line.  A line with strong anchors at each end will have more uniform high ridership over the whole length of the line, and a much more efficient use of capacity overall.

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A street in Vancouver, by blog_bleistift  

A street in Vancouver, by abcde.  

more about Vancouver:

Metro Vancouver Walkability Index

Light Rail, Primary Arterial Transport

Vancouver Master Plan Project

Top 20 Urban Planning Successes of All Time

Metro Vancouver Walkability Index

by Tim S

 

The physical activity of walking is becoming a central part of discussion today in fields such as public health and transportation research. It is a very topical theme in general as cities prides themselves on being "walkable". A report on the world's top ten most walkable cities was released in November 2010. A website called Walkscore was created this past year. Walk Score is a number between 0 and 100 that measures the walkability of any address in North America. Walkability, believe it or not, is becoming very popular because it has economic, social, health and environmental implications.

In the fall of 2010, a team of UBC researchers wrote a report titled "Neighbourhood Design, Travel, and Health in Metro Vancouver". The research was led by a professor in our program named Dr. Larry Frank.

Professor Frank and his team developed the Metro Vancouver Walkability Index (VWI) to measure neighbourhood urban form characteristics in Metro Vancouver. The report summarizes results from local studies that have applied the VWI to explore associations between neighbourhood design and travel behaviour, physical activity, obesity, and air pollution exposure.

 

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Separate routes for pedestrians and bikers, photo by NNECAPA

more posts about Vancouver:

Light Rail, Primary Arterial Transport

Vancouver Master Plan Project

Walkability is a big step toward shaping up a community

Light Rail, Primary Arterial Transport

  via  Transit Sleuth

Skytrain is by far one of the best example of light rail done right in North America.  It carries over 300k people each day and runs an actual profit on operations.  No other system in North America can boast such an efficient, clean, and effective system.

The Sound Transit Central Link will likely become a very strong player in Seattle’s future transit.  The ridership this fourth quarter was up 5%, almost entirely because of Sound Transit Central Link.  Bus ridership stayed pretty much at the same level.  This is the same thing that has occurred in every single system (except Buffalo, NY) that built a light rail line to act as an arterial – or even minor arterial – transport.  The light rail, as people become familiar with it, regularly choose it over regular or BRT bus service, and a huge percentage of riders are choosing it over a car (i.e. they traditionally did not ride the bus or transit at all for that matter).  Light rail is a very effective way to increase transit usage, and in the long run it also decreases operational costs for a transit authority.

Light Rail in Seattle is set to be exceptionally costly in capital costs, primarily because of the city’s decision to build most (over 90% of it) in huge tunnels, raised above road & ground level, or placed underground (dig and cover style).  This has made the capital costs massive.  However, in 20 years, especially with inflation kicking in, the light rail will most likely prove to have been one of the most intelligent transit decisions in Seattle in well over 30 years or so.

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Skytrain Vancouver, photo by Cee-Bee

Skytrain Vancouver, by abcde.

more posts about public transport in North America:

Tussle over SB 375 target for Southern California resolved, but funding challenges remain

Transportation: Austin - Rail studies costing city millions, before public vote

The Belt Line and Rail Traffic in Atlanta’s Urban Core

Vancouver Master Plan Project

via Planning Pool

This fall, I had the honor of participating in the creation of the first large-scale master plan for the city of Vancouver, Canada since the 1920s. Fourteen landscape architecture and three planning graduate students contributed to the plan, which tackles envisioning how the lower density portion of the city outside the downtown core will accommodate the growth expected over the next 40 years. View the finished document here (35MB PDF file behind the link).  Student Mary Wong’s depiction of a Production, Distribution, Repair Typology transitioning to an existing single family home with residential densities in between. Used with permission.

Professor Patrick Condon’s recent book Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities provided a basis for the interdisciplinary studio, and Condon required that the plan reflect a doubling of Vancouver’s population and a reduction of greenhouse gases by 80 percent of 1990 levels.

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Vancouver, photo by Natural Step Online

more about vancouver:

Walkability is a big step toward shaping up a community

Top 20 Urban Planning Successes of All Time

Walkability is a big step toward shaping up a community

By BOB CONDOR
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

When Larry Frank and his partner moved from Atlanta to Vancouver, B.C., they bought a home with the same square footage. But that was about the only similarity.

"The home in Atlanta was in-town but all on one floor," said Frank, a public health and urban design researcher at the University of British Columbia. "It was an urban neighborhood, but we both needed our own car to get anywhere or run errands.

"Our new place is a townhouse near the beach. There are three floors, each small. We go up and down the stairs a lot."

The vertical movement is all to Frank's plan. His academic specialty is linking community design to increased physical activity, which in turn he envisions can help stunt the alarming rate of obesity in the United States.

Frank's townhouse purchase in Vancouver was a "very conscious decision" to literally walk his talk.

"We live in a dense area with so much retail," said Frank. "We take fewer car trips. We sold one car. We use public transportation to get to work and walk to a nearby grocery store and the butcher and fish shop."

Walking, image by aka Kath

But Frank doesn't quite have Atlanta out of his rearview mirror. He is the lead author of an important new study that shows Atlanta residents who live in the most walkable neighborhoods are 2 1/2 times more likely to be physically active than Atlantans who live in the least walkable areas. If a neighborhood even jumped one level in the study's walkability index, it translated to a 30 percent increase in people who were classified as active. The study was published in the Feb. 9 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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more articles about walkability:

Kane County Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan

Gentrification in Hamburg: Can Ikea Save a Run-Down Neighborhood?

On Walkability, Density, and Transit Villages

Top 20 Urban Planning Successes of All Time

Via Public Servant Blog

Planning a great yet functional urban area takes innovation as well as knowledge. The following top 20 urban planning successes of all time range from the Taos Pueblo to the current functionality presented by Camden Town, London. In between, you’ll discover plenty of examples of urban planning that stood the test of time or that successfully remedied the ravages of time.

Granville Island, Vancouver, source: Google Maps

1. Amsterdam, Netherlands: The capital and largest city in the Netherlands, Amsterdam has flourished from the 14th century. In the early 17th century, a comprehensive plan was developed that was based on four concentric half-circles of canals with their ends emerging at the IJ bay. Today, with little expansion, only 20 percent of trips around the city are in a car. Amsterdam is one of the most bicycle-friendly large cities in the world.
2. Billerica Garden Suburb, Massachusetts: Incorporated in 1914, Billerica offered the country’s first garden suburb designed specifically for workers. Modeled after Ebenezer Howard’s English garden city designs, Billerica combined a limited dividend corporation with co-partnership. Workers would own their homes by purchasing shares. The result was the construction of 70 new homes between 1914 and 1917.
3. Granville Island, Vancouver:    Read more