Geog 355 Final Project -- Introduction

According to the Greater Vancouver Regional District Livable Region Strategic Plan, the City of Vancouver is chosen as one of the municipal districts in the region to be the growth concentration area, and downtown Vancouver is selected as the core of the metropolitan. The main idea of having a growth concentration area in GVRD is to accommodate the increasing population in the present urban areas rather than having urban development continues to spread into the outlying areas of GVRD and the Lower Fraser Valley. The advantages of concentrating growth are numerous, and they include more green zones (Fig 2) being protected. Therefore higher density developments are encouraged and expected in the growth concentration region. The strategic plan also discourages the uses of cars because they tend to increase congestion and create air pollution. There are numerous factors that are crucial in determining how to work out this strategic plan, and one of the most important factors is to increase transportation choice in the region. Figure 1 illustrates some important factors in the strategic plan.

Background Research

The information about the GVRD livable region strategic plan is obtained from the Greater Vancouver Regional District website. The website contains a lot of information about ways to concentrate growth in the present urban areas. The Translink website also has the “area transportation plan” pages that give me some ideas on the project.

Presently, skytrain and buses are probably the most common modes of public transportation in the City of Vancouver. However, there is still a lot of car traffic on the roads of the city. One of the factors that keep residents from choosing public transit is the walking distance from their home to public transit. Different modes of public transportation is also a factor people’s decision on taking transit – the frequent and fast services of Skytrain and the B-line buses are obviously more attractive than having to wait 30 minutes for a bus! The aim of this project is to determine people’s decision on taking public transit based on the walking distance to transit and the attractiveness of different modes of transit. We will also determine areas that need improved public transit services and areas that are suitable for higher density development.

The main hypothesis of this project is that to concentrate growth, we need to improve the attractiveness of public transit. The factors that determine the attractiveness of public transit are the proximity to public transit, the frequency of transit service, and the modes of public transit available (skytrain more attractive than bus). Areas that need to improve transit services are those where most people find transit to be unattractive and areas suitable for higher density developments are those that already have sufficient public transit services to support higher density development. Potential areas for higher density developments also need a low population density currently because the aim of the strategic plan is to concentrate growth but not adding density to presently high density areas.