COMMERCIAL DRIVE EAST VANCOUVER
Broadway north to Hastings south.

THU DRIVE

Two typical Vancouver Specials. Probably built 1960/1980 and currently threatened by the Eco-Density Charter.

This much maligned housing genre is folk architecture at it's best: comparable to the historic Mayan Chosa.

Built on the ubiquitous 33' x 66' East Van lot, off the shelf dimension lumber with little waste, and other materials, and ground level basement mortgage helper, or in-law suite. Close together they make for a boring streetscape, but some imaginative owners, especially Italians, have elaborated front facades and gardens to quite an effect.

Commercial Drive is a good place to talk intermodal. Showing how SkyTrain has been a very big mistake!

Intrusions like this are totally unacceptable. Vancouver is replete in villages such as Thu Drive. They should be protected and nurtured. Transport planning should not be spoke and hub

(it worked for Curitiba because the city grew by the system). It should be an interative network, surface LRT (i.e. trams), bicycles and pedestrians, connecting quartiers north south / east west. And if that is an impediment to traffic, so be it!

Dave Barrett's NDP administration, 1972, proposed such a network configuration. I don't know why it didn't happen.

Encouraging strip sprawl down the Canada Line and the PCI Marine Gateway are more of the same in a different guise and The Evergreen Line will be anything but evergreen. They will divert financing, better prioritized elsewhere, and contribute to ever increasing blight.

This hi-tech assault on the city is not the fault of the planners, nor council: they are trying their best in face of a TransLink mesmerized by gadgets: without the money to carry them out. This is the work of back room deals and the sooner we realize the protagonists don't give a hoot about Vancouver the sooner we can take green and sustainable seriously.