Songs About Vancouver

Why are there no great songs about Vancouver? For a city so rhapsodically beautiful, why has it not inspired more lyrical passion?

The contrast with San Francisco, my favourite sister-city reference, could not be sharper. The City by the Bay offers such internationally loved classics as Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and hippie anthem “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)“. A pedigree of 70s psychedelic bands got their start in San Francisco of the 60s, such as Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.

Vancouver has not a single homage to its name, much less a musical movement to feel nostalgic about. What few candidates I was able to find are embarrassingly open in their cynicism. Matthew Good’s “Vancouver National Anthem” warbles about needles and high rent, until refraining “we all live downtown, we all die downtown”. Young and Sexy’s fondly titled “The City You Live In Is Ugly” starts with the SkyTrain chime before describing how commuters “look so resigned to the daily grind”, in a lifeless city where “there’s no use for you here”. It doesn’t get much more depressing than that. What is it about Vancouver that has failed to inspire song, and on what few occasions, has instead inspired hostility?

Plenty of talent comes from Vancouver, but avoids making a point of it. For Michael Bublé and Diana Krall, origins in the Lower Mainland are a kind of footnote to international jazz fame. Sarah McLachlan still resides in West Vancouver, though few seem to even know she’s from here (or nearly so, having moved from Nova Scotia over 25 years ago).

Perhaps the closest we come to a local sound is the punk movement, which briefly flourished in the 1970s and somehow survives with a core following. So I present the reluctant, provisional winner in my search: The Smugglers’ comic pop-punk postcard “Vancouver, B.C.“. Seems I’m not the first to be disappointed.

Main and 2nd’s Transit Problem

What’s happening at Main and 2nd? Condo prices may be flat, but on the eastern edge of False Creek it looks like the rising downtown of years past. Crowded along 2nd Avenue toward Main Street, nearly 10 different condo developments are in construction around the former Olympic Village. But no transit improvements are planned to serve this new, ostensibly urban population. How will all these people get to work and around Vancouver?

The growing neighbourhood will be dense enough to permit local errands by foot. Main and 2nd is also an eminently bike-friendly location, connected by the seawall, the Ontario Bikeway, and various routes east and west. But geography and weather ensure that year-round trips to major employment destinations — downtown, central Broadway, the universities — will be made by transit or car. In this regard, Main and 2nd seems to have a problem.

From condos on the flat of Quebec Street, such as Central and Meccanica, most downtown commuting will be made by SkyTrain, with Main Street station one or two hundred metres away. But mode share will likely shift to cars further west along 2nd Avenue, where no transit is particularly frequent or accessible. This is especially true of residents for whom transit is not forced out of economy, as will often be the case in these developments. Use of transit from Main and 2nd to reach Central Broadway seems particularly remote, despite being only 2km away, simply because of the poor connectivity of the system between these locations. Few will walk to Broadway to ride the B-Line given the grade of the hill, especially when the trip can be made by car in half the time or less. What this means is more cars on Broadway, 2nd Avenue, and Main Street, where densities would instead suit fixed rapid transit. In short, the same mistakes that led to high rates of driving in North False Creek, a tragedy considering its location, are being made again.

Most proposed routes for the Broadway extension of SkyTrain neatly bypass the neighbourhood. This means that even if the shortsighted policies of the Provincial government were somehow contorted into funding the Broadway line, this area would remain poorly connected. While I generally favour the unambiguous extension of SkyTrain to UBC, the rise of Main and 2nd may paint an argument for the Combination Alternative. LRT running west from Main Street Station through the Olympic Village would integrate the neighbourhood into the surrounding transit network, although it would still fail to solve the problem of connecting False Creek Flats to Central Broadway, being separated by both busy 6th Avenue and a very steep grade from the presumed tracks.

What is to be done? The 84 bus will perhaps find its potential along this corridor for trips to UBC. But it would seem the majority of new residents at Main and 2nd will be driving to work or elsewhere, and adding more cars to Metro Vancouver’s roadways. Hardly the greenest city.

Jarret Walker wrote about walking distance to transit a few years ago, offering available data on the subject. The verdict? Not surprisingly, transit use tapers with distance to the station, nearing negligible levels beyond 500m. Manitoba and 2nd Avenue is roughly 800m to both Main Street SkyTrain and Olympic Village Canada Line stations, and a kilometre uphill to the B-Line stop. Transferring from the 3 bus (Main Street) may work for some, but widespread use of fixed transit will not be available despite the rapid increase in density. Cars will naturally be the mode of choice given the wide boulevards adjacent.