Cascadia Report

Category: Vancouver

  • is gridlock just a myth?

    Complaints about traffic in the Seattle area are so common that it’s easy to believe it’s actually as bad as it seems. But maybe we’re exaggerating? Maybe we should simply adjust our expectations?

    I remember finishing a meeting in downtown Vancouver and needing to make another an hour later at Delta Port past Surrey. My hosts downtown said I should just forget it — there’s no way to get there through the traffic. Of course Vancouver lacks freeways so you crawl through city streets. But I ventured out anyway.

    Consider this opinion piece from Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. We suffer from “a deflation of greatly raised expectations,” the writer argues, because we actually expect to travel across vast metropolitan areas at high speeds. I think nothing of going from Redmond to Ballard to South Seattle and back in a single evening. But fewer people would do the equivalent in Vancouver.

  • Cascadia envy?

    Seattle broke ground today on a new 1.3-mile streetcar line that could one day link a series of dense, livable in-city neighborhoods. But let’s not forget how incremental this step is.

    Take a look at this thoughtful story that the Seattle Times resurfaced online today. Writer Bill Dietrich shows in painful (for a Seattleite, anyway) detail how the Vancouver and Portland have become models for development while the Seattle area has dithered.

    It’s all here: the historical differences between the cities, the different mentalities about growth and the prospects for the future. Dietrich describes what I’ve sensed over and over during trips north and south — Seattle has wasted its opportunity. And he includes a challenge:

    IF ALL THIS seems a little harsh, go visit downtown Portland and Vancouver. If you haven’t been there for awhile you’ll be astounded by their urban atmosphere. Ask yourself why our downtown parks are so few and uninviting, in comparison. Why our waterfront access pales. Why our transportation choices are so much more limited. Why our sidewalks are plainer, our street trees fewer, our housing choices narrower, our towers uglier, our choices so nonsensical.

    Cascadia has grown more integrated since this article appeared. But I wonder how much we’ve learned?

  • Airport aims to meet Cascadia growth

    The town of Delta, British Columbia this week passed funds to start an expansion of low-profile Boundary Bay airport. The airport, which now serves mostly small private planes and flying schools, hopes to capitalize on its location a half-hour from downtown Vancouver and near Highway 99, which connects to I-5.Plan

    The first step is relocating nearby roads, which is supposed to begin next month. Plans call for longer runways, a terminal, customs and other changes to accommodate corporate jets and commerical service to the Gulf Islands, Vancouver Island, Victoria, Bellingham, Seattle and Calgary.

    Alpha Aviation, the operator of the privately run airport, is meeting with neighbors to soothe concerns about noise, according to the South Delta Leader newspaper. One big reason for the expansion push? Yep, the 2010 Olympics.

  • Cost of Vancouver’s New Transit Line Grows

    The cost of Vancouver’s newest rapid transit line passed C$2 billion ($1.76 billion) for the first time. Critics seized on the announcement as proof that taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth. Vancouver’s third rapid-transit rail line is slated to connect downtown to the airport and Richmond by 2009.