As a part of research I have been conducting around public spaces within Downtown Vancouver, I was curious to look into Vancouver’s history, and began my search in the Vancouver Archives. The archives were filled with an assortment of documents, plans, and images of the city, but what particularly caught my interest were a collection of photos capturing public plazas during the 1970s and 1980s – stills taken of people using these plazas and a variety of public spaces around Downtown. Many of these spaces still exist in the city today and one can’t help but wonder if they are still as popular.

I enjoy archival photos because they vividly depict the physical landscape that once existed, as well as the many lives and people lived within their respective settlements. With Vancouver’s downtown public plazas, one sees people congregating around and within them, as an essential part of civic life. Each plaza either provides public art, green space, public seating, or all three, and allows people to linger, read books, eat lunch, enjoy a coffee, or talk to one another freely.

The photos are a reminder of how public spaces should be available for everyone to use and enjoy. This sparks reflection on how many downtown public plazas and spaces are being used like this today. Over time, the streets of downtown have changed dramatically, through rezoning and site redevelopment, sacrificing many public spaces along the way. Should this really be the case?

I recently took a walk around Downtown and visited some of the public sites captured in the archives. I know Vancouver’s weather is not the best year-round, however I could not help but notice a lack of people taking advantage of these spaces. Public plazas don’t appear as alive or thriving as they used to be. Is it because people have moved on and found new public spaces that are more attractive and appealing? Or could it be that these spaces no longer appear open to the public, but are increasingly becoming private spaces?

These are some of the questions I ask myself and continue to consider as the city transforms. It was an eye opening experience to take a look back and see how public plazas were built in the past and used by the public. We should all make it a goal to consider how public spaces can be protected in the city, and how they can be revitalized as part of the city’s future. Simply put: people need public spaces.

For more photos, visit the original piece on Spacing. 

An informative blog post from our last Park(ing) Day describes a short history of the transformations of underutilized parking spaces into engaging temporary installations.

Back in 2005, a group of bold, creative folks at the Rebar Art and Design Studio in San Francisco transformed selected metered-parking spots into a park for a day. Using ‘guerilla’ tactics, this group started a global movement called PARK(ing) Day to expand and challenge the definition of a parking space. Since then, a number of cities have participated in PARK(ing) Day with a variety of temporary installments to demonstrate the underutilized potential of your average parking space. The Vancouver Public Space Network has been taking advantage of this opportunity to creatively and boldly participate in the public realm since 2008.

Marking the 7th year that the VPSN has held a Park(ing) Day event, this year’s “Bike-in Movie Night” will turn the GOPark parking lot on Hastings Street at Hamilton Street into an open-air theatre. The VPSN hopes to provide a fun night of movie watching under the stars for bike lovers, movie buffs, public space conveners, interventionists, and other fine folk.

GOPark parking lot at 300-block W Hastings. Enter from the north side alleyway between Cambie & Homer

Ride your bicycle, take transit or just put your Feet to the Street – VPSN encourages all to attend! The evening starts with bike-focused short films from Vancouver Cycle Chic before the double-bill feature films: The Triplets of Belleville followed by Premium Rush. Movies will begin at 8PM.

FEATURE FILMS

Triplets of Belleville

When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters–an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire–to rescue him.

Premium Rush

Dodging speeding cars, crazed cabbies, open doors, and eight million cranky pedestrians is all in a day’s work for Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the best of New York’s agile and aggressive bicycle messengers. It takes a special breed to ride the fixie — super lightweight, single-gear bikes with no brakes and riders who are equal part skilled cyclists and suicidal nutcases who risk becoming a smear on the pavement every time they head into traffic.

The Bicycle Valet will be on-hand to babysit your bicycle; brought to you by BEST (Better Environmentally Sound Transportation). Bring blankets, chairs or something comfy to lounge on. VPSN’s Park(ing) Day Bike-In Movie Night is a Rain or Shine event. See the Facebook event page for RSVP details.

Earlier today the VPSN sent a letter to Mayor Gregor Robertson and members of City Council, supporting the proposed separated bikelane on Hornby Street. The proposal, which has been open for public comment for some time now, will be in front of the City’s Transportation and Traffic Committee (of Council) tomorrow. A staff report (PDF) authored by Jerry Dobrovolny, recommends proceeding with the project. Despite the many benefits of the project, there has been opposition from a number of the local businesses. We felt it important to voice our support for this key initiative.

The following is an excerpt of the letter penned by Brandon Yan and Demian Rueter, two of the VPSN’s Transportation Coordinators:

We are writing to express our support for the Hornby Street two-way separated bike lane that is currently undergoing public consultation. We believe that Hornby Street is a crucial link in creating a substantive and comprehensive bicycle lane network that will increase ridership and safety and will provide benefits for residents and businesses alike. We would like to take the time to stress the importance of these facilities to Vancouver’s goal of being the Greenest City in the world by 2020.

We wish to identify a few other relevant items that lend further support to this initiative:

The City of Portland estimates that around 60% of their population (around 300,000 people) is interested in cycling but is ultimately intimidated and discouraged from riding their bike because of concerns over safety. Their report states that, “[people] would ride if they felt safer on the roadways—if cars were slower and less frequent, and if there were more quiet streets with few cars and paths without any cars at all.”

TransLink’s 2009 Regional Cycling Strategy also endorses this view. It finds that although Metro Vancouver has over 1,400km of bicycle routes, the majority will not attract people to cycling. Translink suggests that in order to achieve a significant increase in the bicycle mode share, bicycle facilitates and programs should be targeted to those concerned about riding in traffic by promoting low-traffic, separated or off-street facilities.

We are pleased that the City of Vancouver is attempting to promote cycling as a viable mode of transportation. In many cities, cycling rivals and even surpasses driving as the fastest, safest, most convenient way to get around. The separated biking facilities on the Burrard Bridge and Dunsmuir Street have proven popular in attracting new ridership with few, if any, negative impacts.

Finally, we are aware that a number of businesses along Hornby Street have voiced their concern over the removal of on-street parking. However we note in response that the perception that bicycle lane infrastructure creates negative impacts on local businesses has been frequently shown to be inaccurate. For example, a 2009 study in Toronto found that the removal of on-street parking in favour of a downtown bike lane would have few negative effects on businesses and that businesses along the route could actually benefit from lane re-allocation. In fact, in the case of the Toronto example, it was determined that only 10% of those businesses’ patrons drove and that those that arrived by foot and bicycle visited more often and spent the most money per month. Alleviating the fears of businesses will be crucial for the success of the Hornby Street bike lanes.

We further note that the loss of parking spaces from the redesign (158 spaces) will be more than offset by the return of street parking on Howe Street (and also Seymour Street), the presence of a number of nearby parking garages, the continued availability of street parking on every block of Hornby, and – best of all (given the City’s desire to encourage a shift to sustainable transportation activities) the installation of improved cycle parking facilities. Given that there are approximately 10,000 off-street parking spaces available within one block of the proposed cycle route, we feel that the argument that the separated bike lane will compromise Hornby businesses is problematic and suspect.

Another good public space related press release from the City of Vancouver… this one on the proposed Hornby Street separated bike lane (designed to provide a connection between the Burrard Bridge and Dunsmuir bike lanes).

At the same time, some interesting numbers on the numbers of riders using the Dunsmuir separated lane.

A good opportunity for folks to provide input and to let Council know about their thoughts on this new cycling infrastructure. There’s a website survey, as well as a public information session taking place mid-August.

City launches consultation on downtown bike lane;
Ridership on Dunsmuir sets new record

The City of Vancouver invites public input on the development of a separated bike lane in the Downtown core to connect existing lanes and provide greater separation between cyclists and vehicles.

Under the proposed plan, a separated bike lane on Hornby Street would connect the existing Burrard Bridge and Dunsmuir Street separated bike lanes and also connect with the seawalls in Coal Harbour and off Beach Ave. on the English Bay end.

An information session will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 11 between 11 am and 7 pm in the rotunda of the Pacific Centre Mall at Howe and Georgia streets. City of Vancouver staff will be on site to provide information, offer survey cards and receive feedback from the public.

Surveys will also be mailed to businesses and residents along Hornby to solicit feedback. For more information on the proposed plan, visit Cycling – City of Vancouver. To fill out a survey on the proposed bike route visit Vancouver.ca/hornbysurvey.

The consultation runs from now until mid-September.

When considering which street to implement a north-south separated bike lane, City staff evaluated factors like safety, truck and transit use, existing bike routes and use, traffic flows as well as the presence of on-street parking and loading zones. Staff evaluated Burrard, Thurlow, and Hornby streets.

Hornby Street is the preferred option for a cross-town separated bike lane because:

• it already has a one-way bike lane;
• there is high bicycle and medium vehicle use of Hornby;
• it has no transit routes; and,
• it is not a designated truck route.

The consultation for the route comes amidst significant growth in the use of the new separated bike lane on Dunsmuir and the Burrard Bridge milestone of one million cyclists across the bridge on July 7, just six days short of the bike lane’s one-year anniversary.

Counters also show 2000 cyclists are using the Dunsmuir lane each day, up from 500 a few months ago, a 250 per cent increase.

About 30,000 bike trips a week are being made across the Burrard Bridge this summer.

The City is committed to becoming the greenest city in the world by 2020 and bike lanes are an important way to help reach that goal. The increased use of separated bike lanes shows cyclists prefer a protective barrier between vehicles and cycling traffic.

As more people get out of their cars and onto a bike or walk, the city will enjoy improved air quality, less traffic congestion and reduced greenhouse gases.

It’s official! The new separated bike lane on Dunsmuir Street is open for traffic — creating a great opportunity for car-wary cyclists to try biking into the heart of the city.

Up to this point, the city’s network of separated bike lanes has been more piecemeal – the success of the Seawall not finding much company on the network of ‘regular’ city streets. For some time Carrall Street was a lonely standout for separated lanes in the city. Then came the Burrard Bridge lane last year… followed by the Dunsmuir bike lane earlier this year. Now the City’s Engineering Department is pedaling ever closer to a linking all of these components together. With the Dunsmuir lane complete, the next candidate for lane separation is Burrard Street.

This is great news on the sustainable transportation front. It’s more than just a nice idea for being green — it’s pretty darn practical too. Better still, give it a whirl and you’ll see something else: it’s a mighty sweet ride!

The new one kilometre lane moves the state of the city’s cycling infrastructure forward yet again – providing a safe and convenient linkage from the well-used Adanac bike route into the downtown core. Kudos to the City’s Engineering staff for moving this initiative forward so effectively.

The ride, short as it is, is a nice one – with a decent grade, a good pace and a pleasing view of the city — all key ingredients that give the route an enjoyable quality. This is important – in order for cycling to truly succeed as a popular alternative it has to be more than just safe and economical… it has to be fun too. (It’s this last part that sometimes gets left out of planning work, but that’s another story).

The really exciting thing, as the precipitating Council report from early February makes clear, is that there is more to come. The next stage of work to take place downtown will be to look at developing a series of separated bike lanes to link the Dunsmuir viaduct with the Burrard Bridge. The same Council report that preceded this new lane, also reiterates other, earlier, proposals for separated lanes elsewhere in the downtown core.

As the following Engineering map illustrates, the number of separated bike lane routes (and the total length of these routes) in the city is, at present, woefully small.

On the positive side, there has been a definite increase in the amount of cycling infrastructure created over the last two decades:

But as we’ve argued, it’s separated bike lanes that will ultimately be most effective in broadening the cycling demographic, making it a more intuitive option for a wider range of people.

At a cost of $300,000, the Dunsmuir bike lane is expensive, but ultimately money well spent. It’s one of the more high profile projects currently being undertaken by the City’s Engineering Department, and an initiative that will, (along with the Burrard Bridge lane installed last year), provide people with good opportunities to gear into more sustainable modes of transportation.

* * * * *

On that note… isn’t the Dunsmuir lane a marked contrast to the Burrard Bridge bike project?

Where the lead-up to the installation of the Burrard lane saw a veritable twelve-lane pile-up of apocalyptic renderings (lots and lots of honking and bleating about traffic chaos, endless gridlock, the economic collapse of the city… none of which actually happened), this latest Dunsmuir venture seems to have generated nary a peep.

True, the lane had been closed for construction for some time before hand, and perhaps drivers had simply learned to live without the lane… or is it possible that we’ve actually turned a bit of a corner? Perhaps the Burrard Bridge and Olympic lane closures have yielded a bigger lesson than anticipated. Like that new public art installation on Pender Street says: “Everything will be all right.”

Robson Street has never been so busy. The City has been closing the street to traffic and there are just so many people there. It has become the most popular place to go and hang out in the City. From talking to people and from my own experience though, most people are not going there to line up for hours for a particular exhibit or event (five hours in line for the Canadian Mint anyone?!). Most are going to ‘take in the atmosphere’. What does that mean for urban planners and designers who try to understand why people are drawn to certain places?

People are drawn to people. This of course is not a new idea, but the Olympics have brought it into perspective in Vancouver. People are seeking a communal experience, a sense of community. The high density centre of Vancouver usually means residents walk the streets as relative strangers to each other, not meeting (or even wanting to meet) anyone they know. This time though, people want to experience something as a community. I think it’s more than a communal experience though, people are also drawn to being part of a common identity, in this case Canadian. If in doubt about this, just ask The Bay. I have never seen so many people wearing the same ‘uniform’ outside of a sporting venue. In fact, it is a great visual example of community through common identity.

In Vancouver, we are making this happen through temporary street closures or similar. Robson Street and Robson Square would not usually be described as great squares or meeting places. However, right now, they’re doing an amazing job. The French have an expression – joie de vivre (joy of living). Robson Street is currently the definition of it. And it is wonderful.

You can check out Tim’s own blog here.

The Games, of course, will be over in a matter of weeks – at which point the last Olympian and Paralympian will depart, and the city, no-smallish hangover in head, will try to get back to normal. The population “flood” will recede. But for how long? One of the interesting – and less-talked about aspect of these Games – is the fact that, from a demographic perspective, they act as a bit of a sneak preview of things to come.

According to Games organizers and City officials, Vancouver is currently witness to approximately 150,000 more people than normal – the tourists, media, dignitaries and athletes who are currently visiting our city for the 2010 Olympics. This is a big surge: assuming our 2010 population is somewhere around the 600,000 mark, we’ve grown, for this month, by a whopping 25%.

But Vancouver’s population continues to grow anyways. And over the last four census periods (stretching back to 1991), we’ve gained roughly 30-40,000 new residents every five years. Our rate of growth between the 2001 and 2006 census was 5.9% — which, while representing a decrease from previous years, is reflective of the fact that our over-all population (in sheer numbers) continues to increase.

If you use these trends to extrapolate into the future (population projections being a tricky and inexact science to be sure) chances are we will see 150,000 more people in the city in just over two decades. The key drivers here in Vancouver will be the same ones that have characterized much of the current growth in Canadian urban areas: increasing immigration, increasing resettlement from rural areas to cities, increased life-expectancy (StatsCan just reported an increase in the life expectancy rate)… and the fact that cities like Vancouver continue to act as a magnet for a host of social, cultural, and occupational reasons. And these sort of factors will likely continue to be supported by a range of policy and land-use planning decisions that favour increasing densification and the sort of development patterns that enable it.

The Olympic crowds may not be a perfect analogy — and one hopes that the sort of population increase that 150,000 more people will bring will not be entirely concentrated in the downtown core… but you can safely bank on a large portion of it taking place in the peninsula neighbourhoods. Indeed, several new towers have been approved or are in process in the West End and the Downtown areas. Add to that the new North East False Creek project which, when completed, will provide homes for at least 7,000 new residents. Couple that with the planning work taking place around the City’s Heritage Area Height Review and… you get the picture. It’s a different sort of ‘own the podium’ (podium towers versus ‘going for gold), but the demography is close enough. Of course, there will be other hot-spots that emerge too. This past census saw sizeable population increases in Marpole, Arbutus Ridge, Renfrew Collingwood and elsewhere. And, depending on the policy directions taking by City Council over the next few years, there is the possibility for other hot-spots to emerge, or, indeed, a more evenly placed form of densification across the city.

All the more reason — and this is a separate discussion — to ensure that the city we build for the future has the sort of quality urban design, adequate public spaces, all-age amenities and other features that will enable us to ensure a high standard of liveability for all residents.

So when you’re walking the streets over the next few days and weeks, take note: the crowds presage the future of the city. And while we (hopefully?) won’t have a future that involves quite so much red spandex and facepaint, we will have celebrations and gatherings and surges into downtown that may just look and feel… a little like right now.

With the Olympic Games in full swing, we’ve been getting a lot of requests for the map we did of all the surveillance cameras (CCTV) in the Downtown and Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods.

The good news is that this map is available for download from our main VPSN Surveillance & Security webpage. The bad news is that it only documents the 2000 or so cameras that we found before the Olympics. The mapping project recorded this data in the Fall of 2009 – prior to the installation of the Olympic CCTV cameras that now encircle the various athletics venues and Livesites (and streets and gathering places) around town.

That means the map is shy by at least 900-1000 cameras (our best guess, based on reports of government-installed, games-related CCTV, but excluding any other CCTV installed by the private sector, foreign contingents, etc.)

Statements made by local elected officials prior to the Olympics have suggested that Games-related CCTV will be “temporary” – though this term has never been particularly well-defined. With recent Olympics in Greece, China and the US resulting in CCTV “legacies” being left behind in host-cities, we are hopeful that Vancouver will chart a different course… and the cameras will be boxed and returned to Superstore once the 2010 games are over.

Blame the great outdoors, but Vancouver lacks a central square — a place for citizens to turn inward and for visitors to feel that they have arrived.

It’s not the first time that these sorts of comments have been made, but as the Olympics roll-out across the city, it seems a timely reminder about the roll that grand public squares play in other cities.

At peak times, the downtown core of Vancouver will be seeing between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors pouring in — to catch sporting events, visit Live Sites and pavilions, and wind their way through the city’s streets and public spaces.

Granville Street and the Robson corridor between Granville and Burrard will be acting as stand-ins for our ‘missing’ downtown square. The pedestrianization of these two streets and there transformation into linear ‘squares’ was a critical step in creating sufficient gathering space for the crowds of Olympic enthusiasts.

Of course it’s a moot point to ask how these Games could play out if we had a larger central public square to add to the mix. ‘Sides, it would sound needlessly grumbly on our part (though for those who are interested, some of the lively possibilities for public gathering space are, in fact, well-profiled in the entries to our Where’s the Square? design competition.)

Our hope rather, is that the Olympic Games show us once and for all that we actually deserve the sort of central gathering space in Vancouver that you find in other cities. Temporarily pedestrianized streets are wonderful, but something more permanent and even more conducive to large public gatherings would be ideal. We may not get the Olympics again, but there’s no need to turn our back on other large gatherings.

At times during our Where’s the Square? Design Competition we heard a line of argument that suggested that the City and its residents were too focused on the mountains to want a central public square. This argument always seemed a bit dubious to us (what? Vancouverites aren’t capable of liking and partaking in both types of space?).

It’s only been a few days, but the Olympics have already shown us a different side to the city’s public life. Want a good legacy for the Games? Let’s make this the year that we finally get serious about planning for a central public square.