in 1982, when the line was being planned? The prime interchanges (Broadway, Main Street and Columbia stations) were already commercial centres that required improved transit service. The following stations resulted in after the fact development: 22nd Ave (in New West), Edmonds (South Burnaby), Joyce (Vancouver), Metrotown (Burnaby -note that only one mall was under construction, but the other 2 were planned at this stage), Patterson (Burnaby). The ones which have stayed realtively unchanged as residential with connections elsewhere are: Nanaimo, that one in Vancouver between Joyce and Nanimo -name escapes me atm-, and Royal Oak. Stadium station was developed simply as the gateway to Expo 86. It also had a major advantage of using an existing tunnel to the harbour to save the government vast sums of money. The others in the downtown core were basically connections to business.
Note: I lived in Burnaby in 1980's and 1990's.
My point is that Cambie between 4th and 25th (King Edward) is not a destination sufficient for placing a line down (or over)the middle of it. What you have with the Arbutus line is cheap land on an existing right-of-way, wide enough to do the construction without shutting down the road or demolishing buildings. What you have with the Arbutus line is a line that will connect to critical centres easily (not far from Oak, Granville, Cambie on one side and crossing 4th, Broadway, King Edward, 41st and 49th, while providing closer access to UBC on the other side). As well, you can run the line down parallel to 4th etc. to connect with the Main Street station for downtown access through those existing rail right-of-ways. You do not have to take the line downtown.
Cambie has the advantage of a nice wide boulevard that goes from Marine Drive to King Edward, it has one mall at 41st, but at King Edward is gets choked. There is no place for it to go without tunnelling (hideously expensive) or demolition of many buildings. As well, you will have to make the False Creek crossing at a very poor location on the south side, or demolish the new police station and many other structures to tie into the existing right-of-way. The prime problem with Cambie is 25th Avenue to False Creek. |
