City wants to remove viaducts

The City of Vancouver wants to tear down the Georgia and Dunsmuir Street viaducts.  The viaducts are key traffic arteries for commuters who work downtown.

Councillor Geoff Meggs says the area between Yaletown and Chinatown has the potential for  development and green space.  So did the site of BC Place Stadium, one of two underused stadiums in Vancouver's downtown, but the city opted to give it a half-billion dollar face lift instead.  Have we mentioned recently that British Columbia has Canada's highest rate of child poverty?

Meggs claimed:

"Right now Chinatown is cut off and quite isolated from the downtown core, and so is the Downtown Eastside.  This area is poised for change.  We turned down the casino proposal but there will be re-development coming around BC Place and Rogers Arena."

This is, of course, not really true.  As can be easily seen from the map at left, Chinatown and the Downtown East Side are actually directly connected to the downtown peninsula, the only parts of the city that are.  On the north side, one can actually drive along Hastings Street right from Chinatown, through the DTS, and right into the central business district.  On the east side, taking the Dunsmuir Viaduct will take one right from Chinatown to the heart of downtown.

In fact, the Georgia (which is eastbound, out of downtown) and Dunsmuir (northwest-bound, into downtown) Viaducts are two of only four bridges connecting the downtown peninsula with Vancouver (the Lions Gate Bridge connects downtown with North Vancouver).  Removing them will place additional pressure on the Burrard, Granville and Cambie bridges, and Quebec Street/Expo Boulevard (which runs through a residential area and connects with the Cambie Bridge offramp) and Hastings Street.

The current options being considered are ending the viaducts at Main Street, tearing them down altogether, or building ramps to connect Georgia Street with Pacific Boulevard and Dunsmuir Street with Expo Boulevard.

Meggs says that the viaducts were closed during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games with little disruption to the surrounding areas.  This is true.  Meggs fails, however, to note the fact that nearly no private vehicles were permitted to enter or even get near the downtown core during the Olympics, and that even business deliveries were restricted to nighttime and early morning hours, when there was less traffic anyway.  A $300,000 study has already been completed, but the city wants another one.