What kind of public spaces should Vancouver's Broadway area have?

What kind of public spaces should Vancouver's Central Broadway area have?

Map of the potential opportunities for more public spaces in the Broadway Plan area. (City of Vancouver)

Public consultation is being conducted to determine in finer detail what kind of public spaces should be improved and added into the Broadway Plan area.

This follows last year’s approval and enactment of the Broadway Plan, which guides how Vancouver’s six sq km Central Broadway district will see significant new residential and employment density over the coming decades.

The plan calls for adding 50,000 residents and 40,000 jobs in the district, with this growth anchored by the six new subway stations of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line Broadway Extension to Arbutus, which is slated to open in 2026.

This consultation will build on the Broadway Plan’s broad strategy for public spaces.

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According to City staff, the area is currently short on public space, such as public parks and other types of open and green spaces.

City staff state land acquisitions by the municipal government to establish public parks and other types of public spaces will be challenging due to the high cost of land and other public benefit priorities. That leads to the other options of establishing public parks on private property secured through redevelopments (such as community amenity contributions or CACs), building privately-owned public spaces on private property (such as office plazas), and road space reallocation.

Map of the deficit of public spaces in the Broadway Plan area. Click on the image for an expanded version. (City of Vancouver)

Map of the currently planned new and improved public spaces in the Broadway Plan area. Click on the image for an expanded version. (City of Vancouver)

The public consultation seeks input on the amenities, uses, principles, and themes that should used to design the area’s public spaces. This feedback will then be used to develop Public Realm Plan and Broadway Streetscape Plan, which will be drafted by Spring 2024 and finalized by City Council by Fall 2024.

An online survey is open through October 22, 2023.

Earlier this year, City Council rejected the incorporation of protected bike lanes on both directions of Broadway by utilizing the existing curbside lanes. The Broadway Plan calls for maintaining four vehicle lanes (two vehicle lanes in each direction) and using the curbside lanes for expanded sidewalks for pedestrians and patio spaces, but the push for bike lanes — which was ultimately rejected — would replace this plan for wider sidewalks.

The alternative bike lane option would be to narrow Broadway from its current configuration of six vehicle lanes (three vehicle lanes in each direction) to only two vehicle lanes (one lane in each direction), but this was strongly opposed by City planners due to the anticipated severe traffic congestion, as Broadway serves a critical function as an east-west arterial road across the city, and a key route for commercial trucks and to Vancouver General Hospital. As well, a downgrade of the road’s arterial function would require TransLink’s approval, as Broadway is protected under the regional Major Road Network.

Conceptual artistic rendering of the typical standard of Broadway reduced from four vehicle lanes to two vehicle lanes for wider sidewalks for pedestrians and patios. (City of Vancouver)

This week, the Vancouver Park Board also began its separate public consultation process towards creating a detailed design for the city block-sized Burrard Slopes Park near the south end of Granville Street Bridge. The Broadway Plan suggests Pine Street to the west of the future park site could be partially closed for expanded public spaces.

Burrard Slopes Park is currently slated to become the largest new additional public park within the Broadway Plan area, but its planning started in the 1990s, long before the planning process for the Broadway Plan.

Public park, open spaces, and green spaces strategy within the Broadway Plan. The future Burrard Slopes Park site is shown. Click on the image for a larger version. (City of Vancouver)

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