Parking lot proposal threatened heritage
Change was in the air in January 1946.
“The adage `New times demand new measures and new men' was never more apt than at present,” urban planner Russell H. Riley wrote in a report on Vancouver's Downtown Business District.
“The post-war years will witness many significant changes in urban life, in transportation, in building construction, and in many of our individual habits and activities.”
The Vancouver Sun reported on Riley's plan for downtown on Jan. 23, 1946. The “many significant changes” he recommended were startling.
“Expert Would Raze Downtown Blocks,” was The Sun's headline on the front page. “Drastic Plan to Provide Parking Space for Motor Cars.”
Indeed. Riley proposed to double parking spaces downtown by knocking down almost five blocks for “off street parking areas.”
Riley was an American who worked with the legendary planner Harland Bartholomew of St. Louis. Bartholomew had been tapped to produce a landmark 310-page civic plan by the city in 1928.
Planners often look forward rather than back, and Riley didn't seem to have an appreciation for Vancouver's history. One of the blocks he wanted to raze was bounded by Water, Carrall, Cordova and Abbott — the birthplace of the City of Vancouver in 1886.
It contains 21 buildings that are on Vancouver's Heritage Register, including the Byrnes Block at Carrall and Water (built in 1886-87), the Boulder Hotel at Carrall and Cordova (1890), and the Dominion Hotel at Abbott and Water (1900).
Riley also wanted to knock down a second Gastown block in “the triangle” bounded by Water, Cambie and Cordova streets. There are now nine buildings on the heritage register on the block, including the 1888 Masonic Temple at Cordova and Cambie. The other blocks to be demolished were the western half of the block bounded by the CPR, Howe, Hastings and Burrard; the block bounded by Hastings, Hornby, Pender and Burrard; and the northern portion of the block bounded by Dunsmuir, Hornby, Georgia and Burrard.
“The plan would provide space for an estimated 9,750 cars in the Vancouver business district, in contrast to the present 4,115 car capacity,” The Sun reported.
“The report reveals that there are at present only 10.9 spaces for every 1,000 of Vancouver's population — an `exceedingly low figure.' The Dallas, Texas ratio is 45.8, and larger cities like Detroit, St. Louis and Los Angeles have a ratio of 16.”
There were no freeway proposals in the 1946 document, but Riley recommended creating one or more “distributor streets” similar to Burrard to improve traffic flow “on the other boundaries of the congested area.” He also recommended cutting traffic signals “to a minimum” downtown, “and supplementing the signal system with manual control during rush hours.”
He also thought the city should move forward with a “civic centre” on the Central School site at Pender and Cambie, where Vancouver Community College is today. It would have been built over a parking garage for 2,000 cars.
A civic centre proposal had been mooted since the original 1928 Bartholomew plan, which had proposed an art deco wonder at Burrard and Pacific. The only part of the original civic centre proposal built was the Burrard Bridge.
Riley's other startling suggestion was to place a limit of 10 to 12 storeys on any new buildings downtown. That one didn't seem to go anywhere.
The Sun's editorial pages dubbed the plan to raze much of Gastown “drastic.”
“Yet drastic steps are in order if this city, like many on the continent, is to meet the ever-growing problem of traffic congestion in the city centre,” wrote an unnamed editorial writer.
The writer didn't offer an opinion on whether the city should knock down its history for parking lots, but did suggest turning Water Street into a local version of a New York “expressway,” allowing “high speed” east-west travel into downtown.
Most of Riley's recommendations fell by the wayside, but two blocks of Gastown were eventually razed for the Woodward's parkade (the Cordova street side in 1957, the Water Street parkade in 1971).
In 2011, planner Andy Yan convinced his boss, architect Bing Thom, to scan several Vancouver plans by Bartholomew and his associates, including Riley's 1946 plan. It was Thom's 125th birthday present to Vancouver.
Thom died in 2016, but his gift keeps on giving. You can view and download the old plans at archive. org/details/harlandbartholomew.