Context and Links

Context of the Downtown

Downtown Vancouver is the primary employment, retail and tourism centre of the Greater Vancouver region. In addition, it includes a strong and growing residential component, allowing people to live near work places in a vibrant and diverse urban environment.

Plan Study Area

N-hood map.gif (30430 bytes)The Downtown Transportation Plan will address transportation requirements on Vancouver's downtown peninsula - defined as the area west of Main Street, north of Terminal Avenue and False Creek, west of Stanley Park, and south of Burrard Inlet. For convenience, this area has been divided into eight neighbourhoods, each with their own distinct characteristics. Click on the small map at right for larger view of the area and its boundaries.

Population and Employment

Substantial changes in the residential and daytime populations of downtown are projected to occur over the next two decades. By 2021:

  • The downtown peninsula may be home to about 100,000 people (an increase
    of 61 per cent over 1996).

  • Employment is also expected to increase. The number of employees may grow to more than 173,000 (up 28 per cent from 1996).

Little growth in either population or employment is projected in mature areas such as the West End while developing neighbourhoods, such as Downtown South and Triangle West - Coal Harbour, will experience substantial growth. The traditional Central Business District will retain its dominant employment role.

The chart at right illustrates these projected changes for the downtown overall while the following charts show how this growth is distributed among the downtown neighbourhoods.

Transportation

To estimate the transportation effects of growth in downtown and throughout the region, a computer transportation model has been developed to project how and where travel will take place in the future. The second chart on the right shows how people are expected to travel to downtown in 2021, based on the transit supply and transportation demand assumptions listed below.

Supplying Transit
Managing Demand

Current travel patterns to the downtown feature a higher use of transit than anywhere else in the region. This is a result of having a high-density employment centre with restricted road access and parking, and a reasonable transit alternative. In 1996, 31% of downtown commuters used transit, compared to a regional average of roughly 10%.

The City has helped reduce transportation demand by encouraging residential growth downtown near places of work and play. Nevertheless, the total number of rush hour trips to downtown is projected to increase by 40%. As the bar graph at right shows, 73% of these new trips are expected to be made on public transit. Most of the remainder will be made by walking and biking with vehicular trips staying relatively constant.

[top]