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Parking-lot occupancies decline, gas stations disappear in Vancouver’s increasingly car-light downtown

January 8th, 2012 · 60 Comments

The numbers for 2011 just came in and it’s official: parking was down at both city and private lots downtown, while street parking (though still bring in more millions every year) didn’t keep growing quite as fast as expected.

Some are cheering at the news; others are blaming Mayor Moonbeam and Vancouver’s anti-car policies. (Check one)

In any case, as engineer Jerry Dobrovolny said in my Globe story, it was a year where the equilibrium shifted noticeably in the city, instead of the gradual change that usually happens.

(It wasn’t a Vancouver-only tax that produced the change, btw, for those confused by the headline, but a TransLink and provincial government tax.)

Another sign of the decline of the car in Vancouver that I didn’t include in the story, but remembered over the weekend, is the death of the downtown gas station. As far as I can tell, according to my knowledgeable tweet-responders, there are two gas stations left downtown: the Chevron on Georgia near Stanley Park and the Esso at Burrard and Davie.

The Shell at Main and Second is the latest to fall, as that area around the Olympic Village prepares to boom with new condos.

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  • Everyman

    @Agustin 28
    There’s very little that is special or unique about downtown anymore. Most of the stores or equal restaurants can be found outside of the peninsula. The exception being the vomit-zone on Granville or a couple cultural institutions. And some of those cultural institutions, like the Playhouse, would dearly love to enjoy the success a downtown escapee like the Arts Club does.

  • Agustin

    Oh, Max.

    Debating can be a wonderful thing, but all participants must approach it honestly. This means that, to use an old phrase, they must tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Otherwise the debate breaks down into an argument, and it becomes destructive rather than constructive.

    In your post about the column in the Courier, you said

    They attribute part of the revenue loss to parking.

    when you knew* that in fact they attributed it to lousy weather. That is dishonest debating because you didn’t tell the whole truth. This is not a cheap shot, it’s simply pointing out that you are not being entirely honest.

    I like reading your posts because you represent a view that I don’t hold. It’s good for me to challenge my assumptions and conceptions. But to be frank I get the impression that your reason for posting here is that (a) you are mad at the world and need an outlet to vent, and (b) you get pleasure from getting under people’s skin. (a) is valid, though you can get carried away, but (b) is completely useless and in fact destructive.

    I would encourage you to stay away from (b) altogether. You’ll find that you get more sympathy, and you might discover that when you try to get under others’ skin you are actually mainly aggravating yourself.

    * Or perhaps you didn’t know, hence my comment about ignorance.

  • Agustin

    @ Everyman #51.

    There’s very little that is special or unique about downtown anymore. Most of the stores or equal restaurants can be found outside of the peninsula. The exception being the vomit-zone on Granville or a couple cultural institutions. And some of those cultural institutions, like the Playhouse, would dearly love to enjoy the success a downtown escapee like the Arts Club does.
    Does this mean that downtown is being trivialized, or that more of the city is catching up to downtown’s amenities?

  • Agustin

    Oops – bad formatting in my post #53. Sorry about that.

  • MB

    Next time someone has the inspired opinion that Vancouver is a “no fun” city, I hope the counterargument includes the word “vomitorium.”

    Clearly, council was swayed by the nightcrawling club owners of the day.

  • Frank Ducote

    Everyman@51 – I got a small “taste” of the colourfully named “vomit-zone” during an earlier round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and it was fairly scarey. If your impression is true or even generally perceived to be true, the future of downtown Vancouver as an everyday and necessary shopping, entertainment, dining and cultural destination (as opposed to once in a blue moon) is definitely under threat. With the exception of some parts of Gastown, the Woodwards complex and nearby fringes, IMO.

  • Bill Lee

    @Frances Bula // Jan 10, 2012 at 8:11 pm
    Too bad UBC didn’t keep the honours thesis and digitize it.
    A thin Masters thesis is digitized with restrictions is at the SFU library “No news here : the feature genre, newspapers’ “other” storytelling form” 184 leaves ( 4.6 Moctets PDF file)

    “Ce matin là en me levant
    J’avais bien mal aux dents
    Oh oh la la
    Je sors de chez moi et je fonce en pleurant
    Chez un nommé Durand
    Mm Mm
    Qu’est dentiste de son état
    Et qui pourra m’arranger ça…..”
    [ Le Blues du dentiste, 1958 ]

    Odd man that he translated the Canadian writer A. E. Van Vogt’s “Th world of Null-A” and so much jazz. For me he was more of a song writer popular in Quebec.

    Even the tromp, tromp of Le Deserteur was admired.
    “Monsieur le Président
    Je vous fais une lettre
    Que vous lirez peut-être
    Si vous avez le temps
    Je viens de recevoir
    Mes papiers militaires
    Pour partir à la guerre
    Avant mercredi soir….”

    Butor books I saw too much off when accidentally in the “Esoterica” (nutbar) sections of various “libraries”

  • Max

    @Frances:

    I noted 3 gas stations within blocks of each other just over the base of the southside of the Burrard St. Bridge, on Burrard between West 2 and West 4.

    I would guess as one commentor mentioned, the land in the downtown core holds a great value developed into condos than gas station lots.

    Plus, if there is a change from gas station to ‘whatever’ else down the road, the cost of cleaning the soil is immense.

  • Bill Lee

    Thinking about the lack of gas stations downtown, I was wondering about where to buy gas except at the one on West Georgia or walk out to the Coal Harbour gasoline barges from downtown.
    But if you think about it. Gasoline can come to you. BCAA or taxis will bring a five or 10 litre container to you.
    There is a whole passel of autorepair shops under the Granville Street Bridge (last of downtown light industry?) that would have some fuel.
    There are several new and used car dealerships down town with repair facilities which might sell gas to non-customers.
    There used to be some repair garages in back lanes such as off Seymour and Dunsmuir, but I think they have gone now.
    Do any parking lots have a pump as the one at Howe and Pender used to have? Don’t the downtown car rental agencies have their own pumps for topping up?

    Always keep a bicycle in the trunk then. And your own gasoline gerry-can.

    Many gasoline and repair shops east and south of downtown.

  • Chris Keam

    “Plus, if there is a change from gas station to ‘whatever’ else down the road, the cost of cleaning the soil is immense.”

    Glad you mentioned that Max. It points out another problem with relying on cars for transportation. There’s an empty lot that used to be a gas station AFAIK, taking up roughly a quarter of the block at Guelph and East Broadway. It has sat idle for at least a decade thanks to the toxic soil that is commonplace with decommissioned gas stations. In a city with so much pressure on our land base it’s a real shame that it can’t be turned into housing or a park or retail space.

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