Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts could be greenways
Vancouver cyclist Scott Nelson would like to see our city’s viaducts transformed like New York’s High Line (above) into an elevated walkway.
Straight.com By Matthew Burrows, December 8, 2011
When Coun. Geoff Meggs approaches the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts these days, he visualizes them not being there.
“I can see the space and the different views and the openness that could develop,” Meggs, recently reelected to a second term with Vision Vancouver, told the Georgia Straight in an interview in a Commercial Drive eatery. “We’re still going to have Pacific Boulevard, and Expo [Boulevard] will still be there, but you could do a much better job. Right now, if you look at that [the viaducts] from an aerial photo—even if you ignore the parking lots—it’s eight lanes into the heart of the city that goes about maybe five blocks and has a stoplight at each end. It’s the shortest expressway I’ve ever been on.”
Meggs has made no secret of his wish to see the elevated viaducts removed.
“This is the stub of a rejected freeway system, around which we’ve already got 15,000 residents, and we’re going to add 7,000 more,” Meggs said, later adding: “They may be great for drivers, but they are miserable for everybody else.”
The original Georgia Viaduct dates back to 1915, but the double-barrelled upgrades on Georgia and Dunsmuir streets date back to the 1960s, according to the City of Vancouver website home page for re:CONNECT, an open-ideas forum that recently kick-started a call for submissions on how the viaducts and the eastern downtown core should be shaped.
In 1968, Vancouver council voted against unleashing a freeway network that would have flattened Strathcona, adjacent to Chinatown, and altered Vancouver forever. The viaducts are the orphaned relics of that past.
That nuance is not lost on local commuter cyclist Scott Nelson, who told the Straight he finds the viaducts to be an “eyesore” and used to want them torn down but is now more in favour of retaining them with a new purpose. This change of heart happened partly because of a visit to New York City, where Nelson and partner Tannis Braithwaite recently spent two weeks.
“So we went out for a walk into the [Chelsea] neighbourhood,” Nelson said. “We’re really into walking, and so it became apparent that it is really like Yaletown, with nice restaurants and all that kind of stuff. And then I noticed what looked like a line of people and greenery, like, elevated. And I’m like, ‘What is that over there?’ And I’m very attracted to these kinds of things. So I was like, ‘We’ve got to go and look at this.’ ”
So began Nelson’s acquaintance with the High Line, formerly a 2.3-kilometre freight-train spur line elevated through Manhattan’s Lower West Side, from Gansevoort Street to 34th Street between 10th and 11th avenues. A 1.6-kilometre section of the line was turned into a walkway and garden by a group of community organizers in 1999. Another section is still in the works.
Upon seeing the line, Nelson said, he thought: “Wow, that’s what we need to do with the viaducts.”
Meggs said he has heard many views like Nelson’s, but he said New York City has much greater density and a lot of money has been spent on the High Line.
Meanwhile, rookie NPA councillor George Affleck said that, overall, the viaduct issue is “not a priority” for him.
“But if developers are saying get rid of them and communities are saying get rid of them, and we can make the traffic flow nice and easy and without creating too much gridlock—and it doesn’t cost the city any money—then I don’t see any problem with getting rid of them,” Affleck told the Straight at his public-relations company’s office on Broadway. “But a serious amount of research and analysis and I guess…I just don’t want to spend trillions and billions of dollars tearing these things down when we have a lot of other things to deal with right now.”
Meggs said it will be next summer before council begins to see the ideas from re:CONNECT filter down through various staff reports.
“I can see the space and the different views and the openness that could develop,” Meggs, recently reelected to a second term with Vision Vancouver, told the Georgia Straight in an interview in a Commercial Drive eatery. “We’re still going to have Pacific Boulevard, and Expo [Boulevard] will still be there, but you could do a much better job. Right now, if you look at that [the viaducts] from an aerial photo—even if you ignore the parking lots—it’s eight lanes into the heart of the city that goes about maybe five blocks and has a stoplight at each end. It’s the shortest expressway I’ve ever been on.”
Meggs has made no secret of his wish to see the elevated viaducts removed.
“This is the stub of a rejected freeway system, around which we’ve already got 15,000 residents, and we’re going to add 7,000 more,” Meggs said, later adding: “They may be great for drivers, but they are miserable for everybody else.”
The original Georgia Viaduct dates back to 1915, but the double-barrelled upgrades on Georgia and Dunsmuir streets date back to the 1960s, according to the City of Vancouver website home page for re:CONNECT, an open-ideas forum that recently kick-started a call for submissions on how the viaducts and the eastern downtown core should be shaped.
In 1968, Vancouver council voted against unleashing a freeway network that would have flattened Strathcona, adjacent to Chinatown, and altered Vancouver forever. The viaducts are the orphaned relics of that past.
That nuance is not lost on local commuter cyclist Scott Nelson, who told the Straight he finds the viaducts to be an “eyesore” and used to want them torn down but is now more in favour of retaining them with a new purpose. This change of heart happened partly because of a visit to New York City, where Nelson and partner Tannis Braithwaite recently spent two weeks.
“So we went out for a walk into the [Chelsea] neighbourhood,” Nelson said. “We’re really into walking, and so it became apparent that it is really like Yaletown, with nice restaurants and all that kind of stuff. And then I noticed what looked like a line of people and greenery, like, elevated. And I’m like, ‘What is that over there?’ And I’m very attracted to these kinds of things. So I was like, ‘We’ve got to go and look at this.’ ”
So began Nelson’s acquaintance with the High Line, formerly a 2.3-kilometre freight-train spur line elevated through Manhattan’s Lower West Side, from Gansevoort Street to 34th Street between 10th and 11th avenues. A 1.6-kilometre section of the line was turned into a walkway and garden by a group of community organizers in 1999. Another section is still in the works.
Upon seeing the line, Nelson said, he thought: “Wow, that’s what we need to do with the viaducts.”
Meggs said he has heard many views like Nelson’s, but he said New York City has much greater density and a lot of money has been spent on the High Line.
Meanwhile, rookie NPA councillor George Affleck said that, overall, the viaduct issue is “not a priority” for him.
“But if developers are saying get rid of them and communities are saying get rid of them, and we can make the traffic flow nice and easy and without creating too much gridlock—and it doesn’t cost the city any money—then I don’t see any problem with getting rid of them,” Affleck told the Straight at his public-relations company’s office on Broadway. “But a serious amount of research and analysis and I guess…I just don’t want to spend trillions and billions of dollars tearing these things down when we have a lot of other things to deal with right now.”
Meggs said it will be next summer before council begins to see the ideas from re:CONNECT filter down through various staff reports.
