1201 replies to this topic

[Nparker]

Imagine instead of WALMART it was pubs, restaurants, independent bookstores, ice cream shops, boutique hotels, condos, tourists, people on bikes.

Then you'd likely have exactly the pedestrian volume that Government Street sees now and deals with quite well, IMO.

[jonny]

Imagine instead of WALMART it was pubs, restaurants, independent bookstores, ice cream shops, boutique hotels, condos, tourists, people on bikes.

 

The Wal Mart probably turns over in the order of magnitude of 5-15 thousand customers per day. It's an incredibly busy store. There isn't a combination of bookstores, restaurants, hotels or stores that could replace that volume of people in Greater Vic. 

[dasmo]

The Wal Mart probably turns over in the order of magnitude of 5-15 thousand customers per day. It's an incredibly busy store. There isn't a combination of bookstores, restaurants, hotels or stores that could replace that volume of people in Greater Vic. 

The people hanging out in the square aren't all WalMart shoppers. Those just hook their cart to the escalator and descend down to their cars and drive away....

[jonny]

Nope, but the volume of people milling about would undoubtedly decrease if Wal Mart was replaced by some combination of small outfits. 

 

The point is, Wal Mart is a gargantuan draw. Replace it with some smaller stores and you end up with Estevan Village or Caddy Bay. 

[Cassidy]

Copenhagen has ~10,000 outdoor seats. In a city that gets more rain and more snow than Victoria (and is 55 North)

Just a small difference in population ... wouldn't you say?

Perhaps another small difference in the age of the city, the overall culture, and status on the world stage.

 

Let's be honest, you can't compare the two no matter how hard you squint!

[Cassidy]

Victoria has loads of outdoor cafe space. Seriously, this is one of the city's biggest assets. There are so many pubs and cafes with outdoor spaces that are used probably forty-some-odd weeks per year it's not even funny. Like, do you not even spend time out and about Greater Victoria?

 

I personally sat outdoors at the Govt/Yates Starbucks with a big group just after Christmas.

I think you're overstating just how much Wintertime outdoor space there is in Victoria ... and just because they keep the doors to a patio open all year, certainly doesn't mean people are sitting outside using it.

Indeed I drive by the very Starbucks you reference above twice a day, every single week-day, all year 'round ... and the outside tables are completely empty just as often as they have somebody sitting at them.

 

Regardless, my post noted that Victoria doesn't do "a lot" of outdoor space ... I certainly didn't say it doesn't do any outdoor space. But for a city of 350,000 people, a couple of hundred downtown "outside" tables is a minuscule drop in the bucket in terms of total numbers of restaurant and bar tables in Victoria.

[jonny]

^ I don't agree with you Cassidy, but it's your anecdote vs mine. Outdoor seating is an asset of ours, IMHO. Your intimation that outdoor seating isn't used for 9 or 10 months of the year is misleading and not at all my experience. 

[Cassidy]

^ I don't agree with you Cassidy, but it's your anecdote vs mine. Outdoor seating is an asset of ours, IMHO. Your intimation that outdoor seating isn't used for 9 or 10 months of the year is misleading and not at all my experience. 

I think you have to better define "used".

You can have a patio open all winter long, but have folks sitting on it (often in great numbers) on only the four or five sunniest days in January, with the rest of the cold, rainy month showing the same patio utterly empty.

This does allow one to say quite factually (in January), "I was sitting on that patio the other day, and it was full".

I myself was sitting on the patio with some associates at Disco Coffee on the corner of Blanshard and Broughton in early January ... but it was one sunny day in the middle of 10 crappy days where the same patio was habitually empty.

 

But perhaps we'll just have to agree to disagree ... although I can assure you that I do get out and about in Victoria, sometimes obliged to, and sometimes far more often than I'd like!

[aastra]

 

The point is, Wal Mart is a gargantuan draw. Replace it with some smaller stores and you end up with Estevan Village or Caddy Bay.

 

This is what I'm saying. The square at Uptown would be just another turkey of a space without the people.

 

Here's my snarky analogy re: the ongoing mission to create people spaces while believing the people themselves have only tangential relevance:

 

 Victorian #1: I'm out of shape. Thus, I'm going to buy a Fitbit, put on some flashy new sportswear, and binge-watch "American Ninja Warrior" while reading every article at menshealth.com.

 Victorian #2: What about exercise?

 Victorian #1: Don't change the subject.

[dasmo]

And WalMart in Langford is a huge draw but I don’t see people hanging out in front sipping coffee, playing with their kids, and chit chatting with friends.

Architecture creates place. So does nature but we don’t have that downtown so it’s up to architecture. Government street could be the very heart of town and become a real jewel. But it won’t happen because it rains too much here and we need to preserve what is at the expense of what could be.

[DustMagnet]

The only people hanging out in front of the Langford Walmart is fundraisers - wanna buy some cookies, chocolate, donuts, etc...?

[sebberry]

And WalMart in Langford is a huge draw but I don’t see people hanging out in front sipping coffee, playing with their kids, and chit chatting with friends.

 

You can't make a cake with just flour, you need the right ingredients.  

 

You can't turn a road into a 'people place' without a mix of the right attractions.  

[dasmo]

You won’t attract the right attractions without the people place

[FogPub]

Allow me to present a completely different let's-make-transport-more-efficient viewpoint here: Government St should go back to being a full-time 4- or 5-lane road road all the way down to the Inner Harbour.

 

Then, turn it around: make Government St one-way inbound (i.e. going south) from Hillside to Belleville and make Douglas St one-way outbound (going north) from Belleville to Hillside.  That'll give enough space on both roads for all the bus lanes, bike lanes, and anything else anyone could ever want as a part of the street, while at the same time making it far easier to get into, out of, and through downtown.

 

Broad St as a pedestrian mall from Centennial Square to Broughton would make sense except that it's broken up by the Bay Centre.  Another option, perhaps more feasible, would be to make Wharf St a bike-and-pedestrian-only route from Yates to where it meets Government...or leave just one vehicle lane over that stretch going one-way southbound.

[Cassidy]

Allow me to present a completely different let's-make-transport-more-efficient viewpoint here: .........

This kind of creative thinking isn't permitted in the COV.

 

With this Council, it's all about hindering traffic flow, preventing cars from entering the downtown core, and not worrying at all about impact on businesses that depend heavily on residents in the outlying municipalities as part of their customer base.

[Nparker]

...Broad St as a pedestrian mall from Centennial Square to Broughton would make sense except that it's broken up by the Bay Centre...

Unless some major attractions were added to Broad Street (which is not much more than parking lot with attractive sidewalks now) I can't see it drawing more people than it does today. That being said, it would probably make more sense to close it to traffic from Pandora to the Bay Centre than Government Street.

[dasmo]

Broad st isn’t connected to the right things. And it’s a little cut off. Structurally it should not start there. It could work if it could connect to Government as an expanded pedestrian zone.

[FogPub]

Broad st isn’t connected to the right things. And it’s a little cut off. Structurally it should not start there. It could work if it could connect to Government as an expanded pedestrian zone.

Except I'm trying to think of options that turn Government St back into a full-time road.  This doesn't.

[dasmo]

Except I'm trying to think of options that turn Government St back into a full-time road. This doesn't.

Ah well then just rip up those useless sidewalks. And widen the road. Should improve things there a lot apparently....

[Cats4Hire]

Why do people always have to go to extremes? It's either pedestrians only or cars only in your world?