The futures of transit and land use along Broadway are the focus of ongoing dialogues between community residents and business owners, city government, and TransLink.

Credit: Doug Shanks

NEWS: Visualizing Broadway’s future

By Jessica Barrett

There is perhaps no better example of Vancouver’s enduring east-west divide than Broadway. Travelling the length of the thoroughfare, it proves difficult not to notice the gradual but dramatic transition from the east’s scrappy community health clinics and heavy traffic noise to the west’s leafy, pedestrian-friendly enclave of cafés and shops. While the former came of age as a result of the freeway mentality of the mid-20th century, the latter grew up around the streetcar lines that crisscrossed Vancouver until motor vehicles became dominant.

Last week, nearly 100 West Broadway residents and business owners turned up to a sweltering St. James Community Square in Kitsilano to push for a return to street-level rail cars, as TransLink and the provincial government prepare to move ahead with long-mooted plans for a rapid-transit line from Commercial Drive to UBC.

“Your whole way of life is dependent on your transportation choice,” said speaker Patrick Condon. A UBC professor of urban design with a specialty in sustainable communities, Condon said a modern, European-style streetcar or tram line would provide the best service for the neighbourhood with the least expense and environmental impact. “At $2.8 billion, an underground line would be the most expensive piece of transit in Canada,” he said, referring to TransLink’s proposed budget for a Canada Line-style option.

Other options put forth by TransLink include streetcar, light-rail transit, rapid bus service, and a train service similar to SkyTrain. Put toward a streetcar or tram line, the same amount of money could provide rapid-transit lines for most of Vancouver, said Condon. “It gives you a sense of the massive amount of potential you’d have if that money were reallocated,” he said.

Condon also noted that while SkyTrain vehicles are low on emissions, the amount of concrete involved in constructing the line nullifies any environmental benefit, making streetcars the most environmentally sustainable choice.

Other speakers at the meeting were concerned TransLink has already decided to go with an underground line that would decimate local businesses along West Broadway in the same way that construction of the Canada Line was blamed for the closure of numerous businesses in the Cambie Village. “We do want better transit on Broadway, but we’re afraid we’ll be starved out like the 50 businesses on Cambie,” said Donna Dobo, president of the West Broadway Business Association and owner of children’s costume shop Just Imagine, who added she also fears high-density transit nodes would threaten the current neighbourhood character.

Dobo said her store has withstood decades of change on Broadway and more than one recession, but she believes it would surely fail if TransLink goes ahead with Canada Line-style “cut and cover” construction or a bored tunnel. “This is different; I can’t survive the Cambie experience with business down 50 per cent for three years or more,” she said.

Reached after the meeting, TransLink spokesperson Ken Hardie said no decisions have been made as to the type of transit that will be installed along Broadway. “The bottom line at this point is that all of those options remain on the table,” he told WE.

Hardie said TransLink held a round of public consultation with stakeholders, including West Broadway residents, in April and May, and it plans to resume public talks in the fall.

The challenge for TransLink, Hardie continued, is balancing residential concerns with the needs of commuters who want the fastest trip possible. “The purpose right now is to get all this on the table, hold them up next to the various technical options that are available, and, over a period of time, work with people to help them work through to something that represents the right thing to do.”

Meanwhile, the future of Central Broadway between Main and Arbutus streets is also up for debate, with the City of Vancouver gearing up to review land-use policies and design guidelines to coincide with the TransLink’s work on the new line.

“This is a parallel process; the two exercises are very closely aligned and cross-pollinate each other,” said Brent Toderian, the City’s director of planning. The second busiest commercial area in the province after Downtown Vancouver, Central Broadway is overdue for a planning review, which hasn’t happened in more than 30 years, he said, adding that with the help of the Vancouver Public Space Network, the City is soliciting public input on a number of issues in the area, including transportation, maximizing job space, and development. “From density and land-use mix, right down to the kind of public realm they’d like to see, we look at it from many levels.”

Yet as crucial as the UBC rapid-transit line is to the City’s future planning in the area, Toderian said the decision is ultimately up to TransLink. “I think [the City has] the ability to influence, and certainly the land-use planning along the corridor can assist with that influence,” he said, “but, at the end of the day, we are not the decision-maker.”

The next public forum on Central Broadway is scheduled for July 6 at Kitsilano Neighbourhood House, 7pm.

reporter@westender.com