O2 – Click
Confident prediction #1: No Olympics will be more photographed than this one. Until the next one.
Maybe that’s always been true. But the digital revolution has put the camera permanently at our touch, embedded in our phones. (Not to mention the surveillance cameras above us.) And so it seems today everyone is out on the street clicking away at everything. At least on Granville Street.
Speaking of which:
We blew it. Granville below Nelson is a dud. The attempt to use the sidewalk as flexible space, sometimes for people, sometimes for cars, just doesn’t work. The bollards makes for clumsy clutter, and, too thick for U-locks, they can’t even be used for bike parking.
We’re used to cars separating us from traffic. That’s a good thing. But here they’re at the same level, not a few centimeters below.
The difference is profound - like a like a very large person intruding into our personal space. We’re uncomfortable even if we’re not sure why. On a cross-section it may have looked like enough space for everyone; in reality the wall of metal creates a restricted corridor.
In time, leaking oil will discolour the concrete, which along with the gum will make the sidewalks feel permanently dirty. (One of the reasons the sidewalks of downtown Portland seem so pristine is the care they take to remove gum. That and the absence of cigarette filters shows how small things have large impacts.)
So okay, we tried. At least the solution won’t be costly. The cars go back on the other side of the curb; the bollards come out. Everyone’s happy.
Ouch. Vancouver just can’t seem to get it right when it comes to public spaces that don’t front onto water. Granville still just feels half hearted, like the political will to create something special just wasn’t there and the result is a half-baked ‘almost’ space.
I suspect the powers that be didn’t realize how ready Vancouver would be for a truly pedestrianized Granville – just as the City overestimated the Burrard bike lane in the 90′s.
Tear out the bollards. It completely ruins the space. And keep the buses on Howe and Seymour – they work just fine there. Leave Granville as the celebration street. More public art, more street performers, more festivals, more people, more reason to be – that is the future of Granville.
+1 For Paul Hillsdon’s comment.
The cars completely destroy the space. So ugly.
This end of Granville is no longer necessary as a traffic artery, nor as we have seen for the past two years as a bus artery. The Granville Street Redesign never addressed the real issues such as a new vision for bicycles and pedestrians, as have many other cities in the past few years, nor have the other two related downtown initiatives the Waterfront Hub Study and the Granville Loops Study addressed the potential to reinvent this street by connecting it to the water. All we are seeing is the application of new lipstick, and finding that we don’t even like the colour.
+1 For Paul Hillsdon’s comment.
I thought it was a good idea at the time too when there did not seem to be support for a pedestrian zone. It seems to work in European cities. I suspect the problem here is that automobiles are much larger.
In hindsight, it would have been a good idea to have some renderings or some Photoshopped pictures of what it was going to look like. Or, some cars could have been parked on a wide sidewalk in the city to see what it looked like.
Anyway, we do need to try new ideas. They don’t always work out but neither do old ideas or just not doing anything.
Beware – the City had proposed a similar configuration for Pacific Boulevard too. Not sure of the status of that – I know there’s a “multi-way” built between Homer and Richards.
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Agreed that’s it very awkward. I wouldn’t park my car there either because it could be viewed by pedestrians as intruding on the sidewalk and get keyed or scratched, etc.
It makes sense to allow curbside parking – hmmm next to the curb.
BUT here’s the problem:
- there are only 4 lanes on Granville. Occupy the two curb lanes with parkig and buses and cars have to share the remaining centre lanes. Transit is hindered.
Solution: Keep transit in HOV lanes on Seymour and Howe. That also allows more predictability as to where the buses run in the face of street closures on weekend nights andfor festivals and other events.
shared space-fail
I am convinced that 80% of people on the road, while they may know “how” to drive, don’t know the “why” of driving