Pandemic forces urban rethink
City maps out vision to transform streets into people-friendly spaces
From the ancient plazas of Europe to Asia’s metropolises, the COVID -19 pandemic is forcing the world’s cities to rethink urban design, and in Vancouver, that likely means taking space away from cars and using it for people.
At Wednesday’s city council meeting, conducted by conference call, senior Vancouver staffers mapped out a vision for “short-term actions for long-term transformations” of city streets in response to the health crisis. The coming weeks will see 50 kilometres of Vancouver roads designated as “slow streets” with traffic calming measures to promote walking, rolling and cycling, while other side streets could be closed to car traffic altogether to make way for temporary plazas.
The general vision presented by staff is largely consistent with the goals set out under the current and previous civic administrations, even before the emergence of the coronavirus: Improving how people enjoy and access public space, and encouraging them to get out of their cars and walk, bike and take transit.
“The transportation network has had a huge shock to it. We’ve seen a change in travel patterns like we’ve never seen before happen so quickly,” Vancouver’s director of transportation, Paul Storer, told council Wednesday. “We see both challenges and opportunities.”
On the challenges side, while Vancouver’s transit ridership had been growing in years before the pandemic, it plummeted by 80 per cent between April 2019 and April 2020, Storer said.
There are concerns people might hesitate to take transit again even after the pandemic, opting to get back in their cars. That could worsen congestion and represent a setback for the city’s climate goals.
But the pandemic is creating opportunities, council heard Wednesday, like the massive reduction in cars driving and parking, allowing the city to make strides on long-standing goals of promoting active transportation for a more healthy, happy, environmentally friendly city.
Lisa Parker, Vancouver’s branch manager of street activities, said the city is also looking to quickly turn some side streets and parking spaces into plazas, at least temporarily. This could provide a boost for struggling restaurants and other local businesses, allowing people to practise safe physical distancing outdoors while shopping, socializing, eating, and potentially, drinking.
City council has also signalled support for more flexible patio rules, the Vancouver park board is looking at liberalizing drinking in parks and on beaches, and the B.C. government said Wednesday it would expedite provincial approvals for outdoor alcohol service.
Charles Gauthier, Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association CEO, said his team has been in talks with the city about opening a large plaza with seating on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
There’s often pushback to repurposing any car spaces. When Gil Kelley was San Francisco’s director of citywide planning, before coming to Vancouver in 2016, he and his colleagues had to drag local engineering and transportation departments “kicking and screaming to the table to even think about these things,” he told council on Wednesday.
“So I was truly delighted to come to Vancouver and find our engineering department was already there,” Kelley said. “Putting pedestrians at the top of the pyramid, rather than vehicles, is something a number of us have been advocating for a couple decades or more in
the planning and transportation sphere.”
The current moment, he said, provides a chance “to realize that, even more than we already have in Vancouver.”
And while we don’t hear about “the war on cars” in Vancouver as often as we did a decade ago, such discussion of putting pedestrians’ interests before vehicles will still anger some folks and likely generate a few disgruntled calls to talk-radio shows. But Vancouver’s council and staff seemed largely on the same page Wednesday on this issue. But, to some observers, Vancouver has actually been lagging on this front.
“Vancouver seems slow out of the gate compared to some other
cities ... Paris, Portland, (Ore.), Oakland, (Calif.), they were moving on this stuff back in March,” said Kevin Quinlan, chief of staff for former Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, whose legacy will always be intertwined with bike lanes, among both his most ardent supporters and detractors.
Creating 50 kilometres of “slow streets” is good, Quinlan said by phone, but 100 or 150 km would be better.
“If there is ever a city that should be setting the standard for opening up streets for public space right now, it’s Vancouver,” said Quinlan, who now works in climate change consulting in Toronto. And while Vancouver hasn’t quite been the leader on this issue Quinlan might
have hoped for, he was quick to point out his new home’s approach to public space and active transportation during the pandemic also left much to be desired.
Toronto’s local government has been criticized recently for its heavy-handed closure of city parks, and reluctance to promote pedestrians’ and cyclists’ safety at the expense of drivers’ interests. When Toronto officials finally announced their own “slow streets” plan last week, the network amounted to only 50 km, the same total as Vancouver, which has less than a fifth of the geographic area.
So at least we’re not losing to Toronto.