Homeless in Vancouver

Homeless in Vancouver: More Broadway subway station location speculation—this time Arbutus

by Stanley Q. Woodvine on April 2nd, 2019 at 1:00 PM
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      While I’m all afire on the subject of of station locations along the line of the soon-to-be-a-digging Broadway subway, I have to disagree with the DailyHive website’s declaration in November of 2018 that the Arbutus Street terminus station entrance will be located at 2097 West Broadway.

      If that is the case, why did TransLink pay $16.8 million in May of 2018 to acquire 2096 West Broadway, the longtime location of Fletchers Fabricare, which is on the other side of the street from 2097?

      Not that I want to contradict the Hivemeisters.

      Not only did the website generously copy, er, echo (in November of 2018), the conclusion and evidence for the location of the Granville station contained in my March 2018 post, back in 2016, I too believed that the City of Vancouver-owned property at 2097 West Broadway was the natural location for the Arbutus terminus of Phase One of the Broadway Subway Project.

      A terminal case of speculative fever

      My 2016 overview of the intersection of West Broadway and Arbutus Street.

      I actually argued for the city-owned 2097 West Broadway (backed as it was by the added bonus of other city-owed property) for the first seven paragraphs of a post in May of 2016. Then I related the overwhelming contrary evidence pointing to the existing subway station void already built as part of the Pinnacle Living condo at 2080 West Broadway.

      Surprisingly in the 2016 post, while I did exclude the corner gas station property at 2103 West Broadway, on the grounds of the time needed for soil remediation, I did not voice my concern about the Fletchers location—that the land under the buildings could be fouled with over 40 years of toxic dry-cleaning solvents.

      But that would not necessarily matter in the case of a station entrance because all that dirt would be dug up and hauled away, wouldn't it?

      Of course, TransLink may not have purchased 2096 West Broadway to serve as the Arbutus terminus station. It’s quite possible that the regional transportation authority spent the $16.8 million (nearly twice the land’s assessment in 2016) to have an all-important, extra place to park subway line construction equipment. 

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