A Bike Boulevard, and a Discussion

We walked a little further west, to some older, lower apartment buildings. Along the way, we learned about the importance of the alleys, or "lanes" in creating livable streets; because the buildings can be accessed from behind for parking or deliveries or whatnot, the sidewalks are not broken up by driveways. (The historic presence of lanes has allowed Vancouver to make some great strides toward livable density that would be harder for another lane-less city, like... Portland!) We also talked about the issue of height and density. Gordon pointed out some tall apartment buildings and explained that they are not actually as dense as some lower buildings that take up more of the lot.

Then we stopped at a traffic calming element, the name of which I cannot remember.











It lets bikes and pedestrians through, but not cars.













The street in which we are all standing is a bike boulevard...












Then Gordon got into a debate with a resident, who felt strongly that all new development that entails the eviction of tenants should include apartments for those individual tenants at the rate they were paying before. Gordon thought this was impossible. He also argued with her about whether or not the neighborhood was changing. She thought it was changing very quickly, and he said it wasn't. There was more to this conversation, but I missed it. The sun was shining.