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OK your claiming that Calgary is more dense than Vancouver and to support your point you assert that Guildford mall (IN SURREY) is 30km from downtown. You’ve been around a while so I’m going to assume you name has been hijacked.

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The Seattle LINK system (total cost $3.6b) has yet to extend to the airport, but what is built so far (over $2b) is lucky to attract 20,000 riders per day.

I would have liked to see the Canada Line built with Skytrain technology, but it’s not the end of the world. The politically driven “hodge-podge” is more the result of classic Vancouver NIMBYism than anything else.

The fact that this is the first rapid transit link to the airport in any Canadian city is an example of forward thinking, not some “Olympic driven mistake”.

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So you’re also claiming that Vancouver didn’t time it’s bid correctly for the Olympics to co-incide with an economic downturn to reduce construction costs????

No, I’m claiming that the rapid transit link to the airport was in no way required to host the Olympics, and therefore building it during a time of high construction costs was a bad choice in itself, whatever the link’s other merits, which I’m not convinced of either.

I’m also not critical of the bid timing, I’m critical of the bid itself. I’m opposed to the Olympics, period, and voted against it in 2003.

And I’m not engaging in Calgary-worship, just pointing out that it has a rationally planned rapid transit system that is suited to the density of the city and is more cost-effective and comprehensive than the politically driven hodge-podge that Vancouver has ended up with.

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Now you’re claiming that it’s not the density that matters, but the ‘compactness’, ie more dense in the middle than the fringes.

No I’m not. I’m saying that both compactness and density matter for transportation issues. That should be self-evident.

“How many people in metro Vancouver live over 20*1.4 = 28 km (17.5 miles) away from downtown?” – Not very many, since this radius would encompass all of Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, North Van, West Van, North Delta, North Surrey. In other words 90% of the population of the GVRD.

According to Yahoo Maps the Guildford Mall is 30 km from downtown. That’s not as the crow flies, but commuters don’t fly.

Also of course the GVRD (or Metro Vancouver as it’s now called) is not the whole metro de facto. But just within the GVRD, the two Langleys, Pitt Meadows, and Maple Ridge have about 200K people, and that’s not counting South Delta, South Surrey, and White Rock. So I don’t think the areas you’ve noted comprise 90% of GVRD population.

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“….to the airport for the 1988 Winter Olympics, even though it was only a few km way from the end of the existing line across empty prairie. In fact no host city apart from Vancouver has done so.”

Hmmm, I think Sydney did.
——————

Err, Sydney did not host the WINTER Olympics.

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Calgary is less dense than Vancouver it is a fact. I’ve been following this blog since VHB was around and I have to say the level of discussion has fallen pretty low. Is it the fact that the market hasn’t dropped like we feel it should that is driving you guys to make (and defend) flat out false points? You know you make us all look bad when you cling to simply false (and easily verifiable) facts.

It seems every time Vancouver is compared to another city a couple of people take it on them selves to praise the other city and heap scorn on Vancouver. I understand this insofar as it is true but when you start holding up Halifax as anything but a hellhole and Calgary as a model of urban planning you have simply lost the plot. Vancouver has its faults but a lack of density and low livability (compared to Halifax) arn’t among them.

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“Compare with Calgary which held the Olympics and built its NW and NE LRT legs during the 80’s oil and construction bust.” – Huh? So you’re also claiming that Vancouver didn’t time it’s bid correctly for the Olympics to co-incide with an economic downturn to reduce construction costs????

No doubt that Vancouver has made a lot of mistakes along the way, but trying to hold Calgary up as a model of urban planning is laughable. You need to take off the Calgary-coloured glasses, these are some really incredulous claims….

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“How many people in metro Vancouver live over 20*1.4 = 28 km (17.5 miles) away from downtown?” – Not very many, since this radius would encompass all of Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, North Van, West Van, North Delta, North Surrey. In other words 90% of the population of the GVRD. And this despite the fact we’ve chosen the center point in downtown at the very Western end of development (due to the water constraint), not smack in the middle of the population center like Calgary.

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Hmmm, I think Sydney did.

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In addition to the questions of just how cost-effective it will be, the timing of the construction of the RAV – during BC’s biggest RE bubble and construction boom – could not have been more wrong from a macroeconomic perspective. Compare with Calgary which held the Olympics and built its NW and NE LRT legs during the 80’s oil and construction bust.

http://www.calgarytransit.com/....._stop.html

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Are you kidding? Look at Google maps

Just did. The furthest out built up area of Calgary, 194 Ave SE, is 20 km (12 miles) from downtown (and just a km past the end of the LRT system). The other two legs of the LRT extend almost to the limits of development in the NW and NE as well. How many people in metro Vancouver live over 20*1.4 = 28 km (17.5 miles) away from downtown? That’s what I mean by more compact.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl.....CA0Q8gEwAA

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What’s the matter, don’t you play? I guess what with the lady boy nails and hair it’s pretty impractical. Still i’d recommend you not hang out by the locker room offering to love him long time Supra. It probably wouldn’t go over as well on the East Coast as it does in Richmond.

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That is, Vancouver being about twice as populous as Calgary, a smaller % of people live within a circle of radius 1.4*x as opposed to x in Calgary.

Still, I have little doubt occupancy per SFH in Vancouver city is higher than Calgary. The difference in Calgary is how long you need to travel from DT before you’re in a morass of true SINGLE family dwellings, not the “SFHs” that are actually multi-unit dwellings common in Vancouver and its near-burbs.

Vancouver, as you mention, is constrained by geography that will tilt its density to be less but its geography may lend itself to plan for more density sooner. Plowing an LRT through Cambie Village and over Broadway would have been difficult; it is as busy as stretches of Yonge St. They should, however, have brought it above ground after 33rd IMO. Oakridge and south is LRT material and will remain so for the next several generations.

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We may get a hint on interest rates tomorrow, as the US Treasury is scheduled to sell $42 Billion of 5 Year US treasuries. On Wednesday, they will sell $32 Billion of 7 Year Treasuries.

Then again, last week the Fed bought up $75 Billion of treasuries, while foreigners bought only $11 Billion. So the Fed will probably manipulate the interest rate… again.

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My personal hope is that the gentrification will fail as it will just push a problem onto a new neighborhood. That said, I also said the same thing about Yaletown and that didn’t exactly work out the way I hoped. Go figure.

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Thing is all the services are down in the woodwards area.
I am in the area everyday and see entire block long lineups of really miserable people. It’s not like they can move elsewhere, there are no support services for them in White Rock….

Putting in some really expensive condos ,with fast internet connections, won’t solve the highest rate of Hep C and HIV in the developed world, being the poorest postal code etc.

The current asking rents of $1500 for woodwards aren’t very tempting when new buildings in yaletown can be had for $1350, with pets.

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The question becomes whether or not the poorest postal code is going to get kicked down the road to the east side of main street as the condo gentrification continues.

If the gentrification takes hold, the quality of tenants will increase, if not, a ghetto is almost inevitable as the early adopters bail-out

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