Plan features more green space, less viaduct

The city has unveiled a conceptual plan for the area, which includes a new neighbourhood and more green space. Patrick Johnston has the highlights.

1. No more viaducts

Beyond all the planned green space, this is clearly the most notable item in the plan. City engineers insist the new plan, which includes a new Georgia Street extension down from the height of land by Beatty Street down to Pacific Boulevard, will “accommodate 100 per cent of today’s traffic volumes.”

Pacific, for instance, would become a two-way street, and would carry traffic from Georgia out of downtown. The city hopes to secure funds from the B.C. government for a new arterial route running east, which would follow either National or Malkin avenues and connect with Clark Drive.

The viaducts — the current ones went up in 1972, replacing a single, decaying roadway from 1915 — originally carried traffic over railway yards and industrial lands on the northeastern edge of False Creek. They were also reminders of an earlier plan to build a freeway connection to downtown that would have levelled a large portion of east Vancouver.

Former city planner Brent Toderian once called them “leftover thinking.”

City council voted unanimously in 2013 to move forward with planning for the viaducts’ removal. Public outcry led to the city delaying plans for two years and engaging in a further series of studies. In the end, city staff said they found only six per cent of trips into the downtown core happen along the viaducts.

2. A great big park

The large area south of the viaducts is currently some green space and a large amount of paved-over space leftover from Expo 86.

The city is calling this whole area the “Creekside Park Extension” and groups it in with added green space on both sides of the new Pacific Boulevard, turning Carrall Street into park space and also adding park space west along the False Creek waterfront. The new park would be 13.75 acres in all.

3. A greenway on Dunsmuir

The plan calls for retaining part of the Dunsmuir viaduct from Beatty to Abbott streets and turning it into an elevated park. Think of New York’s High Line, the city says.

4. A new neighbourhood southwest of Rogers Arena

With Pacific Boulevard realigned into a big bend due east of Rogers Arena — roughly where Expo Boulevard is today — the city proposes that a portion of the land freed up, including land still owned by Concord Pacific, be developed for both residential and non-residential purposes.

5. City points to solid support after consultations

In the last four years the city says they held 38 stakeholder meetings, two joint workinggroup meetings, 13 open houses and a two-week exhibit at Science World. The former three connected with roughly 1,700 people, while the city estimates the Science World exhibit was seen about 20,000 times.

In a survey of 658 people, the city said 69 per cent of respondents said they were either supportive or strongly supportive of the city’s plan; 25 per cent said they were opposed.