Stanley Parks roads full of traffic after bike lanes removed

Good morning,

I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend and weren't stuck waiting for a B.C. ferry.

Speaking of getting stuck, I heard traffic was bad at Stanley Park this weekend, which is also the big story in our newsletter. Here’s what we’re covering:

• All the details on the Stanley Park bike lane removal 🚴‍♀️

• A breakdown of investor-owned properties and what it means 🏢

• And what can we learn about affordable housing from a European city 🇦🇹

Let’s get to it!— Geoff Sharpe, Vancity Lookout newsletter writer

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WEATHER

Wednesday: 22 🌡️ 12 | 🌤

Thursday: 25 🌡️ 14 | ☀️

Friday: 25 🌡️ 13 | 🌤

VANCOUVER BY THE NUMBERS

💰 $5.2 million: The amount of money the federal government is contributing to the new Chinese Canadian Museum. [Global]

🚢 80,700: The estimated number of cruise ship passengers that arrived in Vancouver this weekend. [Daily Hive]

🛬 72%: The volume of passengers in 2022 compared to pre-pandemic, at 19 million versus 26.4 million in 2019. [Urbanized]

🍜 3: The number of years Congee Noodle House was shut down. The beloved restaurant on East Broadway is once again open. [Global]

TRANSPORTATION

Traffic, traffic everywhere (in Stanley Park)

Does increasing roads reduce traffic? Not in Stanley Park…

What happened: This weekend the city took down the Stanley Park bike lanes, as part of a plan that the ABC-dominated Parks Board said would improve accessibility in the park, and reduce traffic by freeing up an additional lane for vehicles.

• Yet that didn’t really appear to happen. In fact, according to CityNews, traffic was even worse this weekend, with one woman saying it took her 50 minutes to get from Second Beach to the causeway exit.

Background: The ABC party majority voted in February to remove the bike lanes after they were put in place during the pandemic. The cost to remove the bike lanes was $300,000.

• Dig deeper: Read the history of how the bike lane was established. [CBC]

Bike advocates protested the decision on Sunday as the lanes were torn up, saying that the lack of protected lanes will make cyclists feel less safe, according to CBC.

Zoom out: The traffic problem may have less to do with vehicles or lanes of traffic, and more to do with horse drawn carriages that slow down traffic.

Yesterday the Parks Board office was tagged with chalk, featuring slogans such as "Stanley Park-ing Lot," "All 'Bout Cars," and "Just pave the entire park already,” according to Vancouver is Awesome.

Reality check: The idea that increasing roads reduces traffic is a theory that has been thoroughly debunked by numerous studies. The removal of the bike lane, coupled with ABC’s vote against a bike lane on Broadway, could be interpreted as a troubling sign for active transportation in the city.

POLL

HOUSING

Investor-owned housing higher in Vancouver and B.C.

In what will be a surprise to no one in Vancouver, data from Statistics Canada shows that B.C. has the highest number of investor-owned occupants in Canada.

Breaking it down: Approximately 10 percent of homes in BC are owned by what’s called investor-occupants, those who own a single property with multiple residential units, of which one is their primary residency, according to Urbanized.

• For comparison, that number is 0.8 percent in Ontario. Yikes.

Zoom in: The number is even worse in Vancouver, where 15.9 percent were investor-occupied.

• Incremental forms of density are the main reason why ownership is higher, such as single detached homes with secondary suites or duplexes and triplexes, according to CTV.

Zoom out: This is a subset of a bigger issue, which is investor ownership of housing. In 2020, a fifth of all homes were owned by investors in B.C.

What it means: The increased number of investor-occupied homes isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Homes such as Vancouver specials mean there’s more housing stock available then just a single family home. But the larger trend of investor ownership, coupled with such a limited housing supply, begs the question who should have access to new homes — first-time buyers or investors?

DREAM HOME

In keeping with what feels like an early summer, we’re featuring a place near arguably Vancouver’s best beach.

This property in Kitsilano has a stunning view of English Bay, with 1,600 square feet of living room, meaning you can host your friends before heading down the beach. The patio is the real winner, with expansive views and space to soak up the sun.

But with a price like this, you can’t even get a fully detached place!

THE AGENDA

🎉 Want to live in an up-and-coming area? Stanley Park District may be seeing a resurgence as new development projects break ground. The proximity to the park ain’t too bad either. [Vancouver is Awesome]

🚨 B.C.’s police watchdog has opened an investigation into the death of a man who was sent to the hospital after going into medical distress while in police custody. The Vancouver police member who was working at the time has been suspended with pay. [CTV]

⛴️ B.C. Ferries’ services, including website and app bookings, were down on Monday over the long weekend… [CityNews]

🧑‍🔧️ And staff shortages caused B.C. Ferries to cancel a dozen sailings to and from Bowen Island over the May long weekend. Some residents are saying they plan to leave the island due to unreliable transportation. [CBC]

🚫 The city says a supposedly agreed-upon removal of the residential school memorial at the Vancouver Art Gallery was not removed as part of an agreed-upon plan. It appears volunteers took it into their own hands to remove the items. [CBC]

⚖️ B.C. developer Wall Financial is suing to shut down the Yaletown supervised injection site, claiming it contravened its own property usage bylaws. The developer owns a property that is in the same block. [Vancouver Sun]

🏥 In the midst of a family doctor crisis, UBC announced they have filled all their training positions for family physicians. Part of the reason is because of a pay raise for family doctors. In places across the country, filling spots for family physicians is difficult. [Vancouver Sun]

🅿️ Parking. Depending on who you are, it’s a good or bad thing. A deep dive on parking in the city explores how the city is approaching it, new trends in pricing and how developments in the area could impact car usage. [Business in Vancouver]

🌊 A man died rescuing his dog from Cypress Creek, after it was caught in a fast-moving current. One resident is calling for more fencing along the creek to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. [CTV]

AROUND THE WORLD

What we can learn about housing from a city in Europe

Every so often, our team will highlight a story from around the world that relates to a big issue in Vancouver.

What is it: The New York Times wrote an in-depth profile on Vienna’s unique housing market and how it’s bucked the trend of unaffordable housing in Western countries.

Background: Housing has increasingly become a financial asset in Western countries like Canada. As the story notes, housing prices have grown far more rapidly than incomes. Housing becomes an investment rather than something you need to live. The cause? Policies designed to encourage buying and home ownership.

Why the difference: Vienna undertook a massive expansion of housing between 1923 to 1934. The massive supply allows 80 percent of residents to qualify for public housing, a huge difference here in Canada. An astonishing 43 percent of housing is not tied to market prices, with subsidies set for a wide range of income levels.

• About 80 percent of households choose to rent in Austria, compared to 43.5 percent as of 2020 in Canada.

The numbers: Because of the large supply of rental housing in Vienna, people spent 26 percent of their post-tax income on housing. In Metro Vancouver, it’s an astonishing 51.37 percent of their pre-tax income on rent, according to liv.rent.

Here in Vancouver: The focus of affordable housing tends to be means-tested and focused on lower-income people which, while not a bad thing, ignores the desperate need for middle-income households who cannot afford to live in the city. Lower-market priced rentals are also being built, but it’s not nearly enough.

What it means: Diversity of housing options tends to mean more affordability. Here in Vancouver, some of the most affordable housing is co-op ownership. Government intervention by setting under-market rates for certain units has also been critical.

But it’s hard to imagine Vancouver, B.C. or any place in Canada, investing the money needed to build housing like this on the scale that’s required. What it does show is that alternative forms of housing can exist outside of the current paradigm, and at the very least, that’s worth remembering as governments consider the best way to solve the housing crisis.

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

• Congrats to the Loden Hotel which was named the second best hotel in Canada. [Vancouver is Awesome]

• Vancouver is great because it’s close to so many wonderful spots. Here are eight day trips worth checking out. [Curiocity]

• It turns out Vancouver is the number one city in North America for the percentage of electric vehicle kilometres driven by Ubers, according to the company. [Daily Hive]

• It’s never too late to go back to school. Just ask Arthur Ross, a 71-year-old, who just received his degree after enrolling 54 years ago. [CBC]

• Want to feature your announcement in the newsletter? Contact our team!

GAME TIME

Today’s VancouverGuesser looks a lot different now than it did when Google took this photo. Can you name either street on this block? Bonus points if you know what’s being built here.

The first five people to correctly answer will have their names included.

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