Friday, September 25, 2009

The Canada Line: it needs some help

I had a wine tasting event last night for Arts Umbrella at the Convention Centre, so decided to take the Canada Line from 49th and Cambie. While I really like the train, and the trip was good, we really must do something about the stations and signage.

Above is the station at 49th and Cambie. COULD IT BE ANY UGLIER? Surely we can do better. I, and no doubt others, would love to build a townhouse project on the vacant lot beside the station since that would help to partially hide it, and generate some money to improve its appearance. But somehow, I doubt this will happen in the near future.Returning from the Convention Centre, I found these signs at the entrance to the existing station...IS THIS HOW THE DESIGNERS ALWAYS INTENDED TO DIFFERENTIATE THE CANADA LINE FROM THE EXPO LINE? It directed us into The Station.Once inside The Station we looked for the entry to the Canada Line. But it is so poorly signed, especially in the evening, that it was difficult to find. I took this rather poor fuzzy photo.Ironically, when I took the photo with a flash, the sign lit up! Now that's what it probably should be like all the time.How disappointing. If anyone knows how these bad decisions were made, I'd love to know. But more importantly, let's fix this up before the world comes in February.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Three words Public-Private-Partnership.
The absolute minimum was done by SNC Lavalin to open the stations. I have heard that in many places the single escalator that was installed per station is already at capacity during peak periods.
A shame they did not have a longer term view beyond their pay-back period.

Avril Orloff said...

Re: ugly blank walls on Canada Line stations - time to call in Eric Grohe, mural artiste extraordinaire! See http://www.ericgrohemurals.com/projects/crossroad.html for an example of his work, and browse the rest of his website for others.

Seriously: why is Vancouver so murally-challenged?

Anonymous said...

The stations really do vary from boring to hideous. I totally subscribe to the idea you mentioned on Bula's site that eventually we'll cover the walls of the underground stations in art, that is about the only solution but it's a good one at that. Avril is right, some of these stations are just dying for murals.

As to how these mistakes happened, it's like any organization, you look at the leadership and the leadership structure, in this case of Translink. Translink has the most pretzel-like governance structure that only its mother, Mr. Falcon, could love. It's a zombie organization, and these stations (and much about this project) reflect that.

Anonymous said...

...said Michael Phillips

Lisa said...

Re: Vancouver + murals.... anyone with a blank wall can apply to get one: http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/streets/graffiti/murals.htm

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