Geoff Meggs - City of Vancouver

This week's speaker was councillor Geoff Meggs who gave a very interesting talk about the future of the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts.  They were built in l974 to be part of a freeway going right downtown.  There were huge demonstrations at the time and they became the only part of the freeway that was built.  Over the Olympics both viaducts were shut down for 14 days and it showed that the city could get by without them.  Council did a traffic study to see if they were eliminated if it would cause congestion.  The traffic engineers did not think so - Expo and Pacific Boulevards would be combined into a single boulevard.  It would give Vancouver a 13% increase in park space which would be a huge benefit for the community.  The costs of removing the viaducts would be offset by the rezoning of the land underneath.  Housing could be built or the land sold to a developer.  One of the plans includes a pedestrian walkway from Chinatown to Yaletown.  It will be up to the city to decide the future of these viaducts.