Open houses for Waterfront Station hub, Thu Mar. 5 & Sat. Mar. 7
Open houses for Waterfront Station hub, Thu Mar. 5 & Sat. Mar. 7
Come down to one of two open houses about the Waterfront Station hub in downtown Vancouver!
The City of Vancouver and TransLink want your feedback on a framework to guide future development around Waterfront Station — the Central Waterfront Hub.
This is the second third round of open houses to be held (the first was in March 2007 and April 2008), so you’ll be able to see a draft framework that resulted from the earlier consultation.
Here are the dates and locations you’ll need:
Thursday, March 5, 2009 – 3:00 – 7:00 pm
Waterfront Station Concourse, 601 West Cordova St.Saturday, March 7, 2009 – 10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Central Library Concourse, 350 West Georgia St.
As the City of Vancouver’s Hub website says, the main objectives of the Central Waterfront Hub program are to:
- Create a transportation hub which better integrates the many transit modes which converge in this area – Skytrain, Canada Line, West Coast Express, Seabus, Helijet and numerous bus lines.
- Establish planning and urban design guidelines for the various development sites which exist in the area.
- Introduce measures to enhance the public realm – streets and open spaces – in this important location.
The City of Vancouver’s website has much more info on the earlier open houses and the plans so far. Grab the open house flyer from the site too: you’ll notice it has a few pictures of Canary Wharf and Liverpool Street Stations in London as possible inspiration for the Waterfront hub.
And for more information, please contact Colleen Sondermann at 604 453 4687 or at colleen_sondermann@translink.bc.ca.
This would be an excellent public project to push the economy forward during these times. The current hallway like concourse is a huge wasted opportunity.
Also get on with the White Cap stadium already. How many other private enterprises are willing to put that much effort behind a stadium ?
I have just moved to Vancouver from London. Canary Wharf is a great station but part of a larger project to regenerate London Docklands, Liverpool Street got re-built with modern infrastructure and with quite a few shops. There is a lot of open space in Canary Wharf but Liverpool Street is in the heart of the City and is quite stressful with passengers treating you like a walking target; small, rude and stinky.
I lived about 10 minutes away from the new St Pancras station and they did an amazing job. It’s a large station with a wonderful array of food places with French bakeries such as Pauls and Le Pain Quotidien and not forgetting Europe’s longest champagne bar! I would love the station to turn into something a little bit more sophisticated along the lines of the structure of Grand Central in New York but with trendy establishments as in St Pancras – a great meeting place.
Currently Vancouver’s transport facilities look sterile and now is the time to inject a bit of sophistication and character.
Liverpool and Canary Wharf are large transport hubs but each has it’s drawbacks. Liverpool is overcrowded Canary Wharf doesn’t connect to anything except the Docklands Light rail system which is about a 5 minute walk away above ground which isn’t good in bad weather. The St. Pancras station, Grand Central in New York and Union Station in Washington DC are much better examples to draw inspiration from.
Thanks guys — I’ve let Colleen know about your comments so consider them read!
We need to make sure plans for the waterfront hub allow for medium to long term (that is, after the lease expires c. 2015) expansion of West Coast Express services. Also need to make sure all diesel services (WCE, Seabus) remain well ventilated, that is, no low ceilings.
I went to the open house last night. Three comments….
-good to see a climate controlled connector from upcoming Canada Line
-no public washroom was planned. As a minimum, I’d like to see a 24hr washroom like what they have at Main at Terminal at that location.
-after 30yrs, there are still no immediate solutions to resolve that long walk from the building to the Seabus dock. Horizontal escalators or people movers would be appreciated.
;-):
Thanks for this — I’ve forwarded it on to Colleen as well, and she says thanks. It’s the type of feedback we are looking for and it will be added to the consultation report. (PS. She said that other people have also been talking about putting in people movers to mitigate that long walk — so you’re not alone on that one!)
I don’t think a moving sidewalk is need, just add retail and provide visual simulation along the walkway, the distance itself isn’t long it just seems it because there is nothing to entertain the mind.
As for the ventilation there are 6 new jet fans being installed along the roadway right now to assist with the bus drop off zone for the new convention centre. The waterfront hub upgrade if it proceeds as envisioned would require a few more fans to be installedon the eastern end, additional height is not needed. In fact the fans only activate at carbon monoxide levels above 250ppm, monitoring during heavy construction periods never even surpassed 60ppm. So the ventilation should be fine w/o any fans, but the city prefers to err on the side of caution for good reason.
i just CANNOT understand why there is no public washroom at waterfront station!!!
isn’t it illegal to have no washroom where there is food served??
come on people, this is a transportation hub, with thousands of people going through every day in the middle of long commutes!
Why no washroom??????
Way back when the Expo Line opened there was a washroom next door to today’s Starbucks. But like payphones, society took advantage of these conveniences and turned them into criminal nuisances. Today, you need to hike a mile down to the Seabus terminal to get relief.
I hope Vancouver puts one of those automated washrooms right on Cordova for transit users.