The Marine Gateway project situated at Marine Dr and Cambie St has now been redesigned and scaled down. The plan now calls for the tallest of the residential buildings to be 335 feet with the other tower running at 255. According to the developer, Marine Gateway will add over 6000 trips a day to transit within the area. Considering the Canada Line is currently running at about a third of capacity, they figure that transit should be more than able to absorb this increase.
The design is very much a transit village type idea, reminiscent of the Commercial Drive Skytrain Station and also of the new development that has gone in at New Westminster Station. The overall goal of the project is to decrease the amount of new car trips made, as such this development has 25% less parking spaces within it than other typical Vancouver developments. Another interesting note is that their own studies have found that since the Canada Line has opened, traffic along both Cambie St and Marine Dr are down 9-20%.
I know there is considerable public opposition to this project and as such in the past year the developer has scaled down the scope of it. I saw some people on the news who had just bought houses in the neighborhood within the past couple of years and had sunk heavy money into renovations. To me anyone who buys property beside the new SkyTrain and then complains right after about development should have their head checked. This is exactly the kind of development the City of Vancouver desperately needs. I hope and pray that cooler heads will prevail and that both the developer and residents of the area can reach some sort of compromise.
BC Urban Planning Blog 