Sticking up for the Cambie Business Association

I hate the idea of lawsuits to get anything settled, but there is some validity to their argument. Being that I am commuting into the heart of the Canada Line construction, the businesses in that area are truly suffering from the mind numbing construction going on in that area.

Cambie Business Association considers lawsuit against TransLink

[…]They’re calling it a last resort. Leonard Schein with the Association says they would have preferred to negotiate with TransLink, but says after that went no-where, they’ve decided to take it to the next level. “The merchants would prefer not to have to go to a lawsuit because it costs everybody a lot of money, and we were hoping to negotiate a fair mitigation for the merchants, but we heard last Wednesday from TransLink that they aren’t going to pay one penny for any of the losses.”

Schein says many businesses have been suffering. “The Park Theatre has lost $160,000 from January 1st to October 31st and we still have another month of construction in front of the Park.”

A survey conducted by the Federation of Canadian Businesses last summer has found the average merchant has lost over $100,000 during the project. Shein says it’s not fair that merchants will have to pay out of their own pocket. A decision and vote on the lawsuit will take place December 12th.[news1130]

I will admit that a majority of my interaction with this construction is in the area where Cambie Street intersects with Broadway, so how the rest of the world on down the path exists is beyond personal experience. However, I’ve heard horror stories.

On the other hand, I will say that I spend as little extra time that I need to because of the Canada Line. Additionally, there are three other areas being developed that screw that entire neighborhood up in conjunction with all the TransLink construction. When you factor in a those three other buildings in their various phases of development, it’s a complete disaster, and that makes me not place the sole blame on TransLink.

I don’t know how many times I have heard people say how much they go out of their way to avoid the area around Cambie and Broadway[googlemaps], but it happens daily. Sure, this headache will be temporary, and I know it sounds like I’m a true Vancouverite that is complaining about anything and everything that annoys me. But, how much will the businesses in the area change after all this is done and over with?

You have to consider what the personal, economic effects this will have when it is complete. Sure, millions of people will be able to easily reach the airport via rail transit, but the lives it will complicate, if not destroy, when their businesses are forced to close down because we dread the traffic snarls just to get there is depressing. Life can and will go on, but the price might be too much for some to recover.

Will it be better that, down a major portion of the Cambie corridor, the trains will run underground so those who pass through don’t have to gaze upon an area of Vancouver that has been shocked into rediscovering itself once this is all said and done?

It’s not so much that these entrepreneurs deserve monetary compensation as much as they deserve a break for sticking through the tough times when everything is finished.

Unless, and this is a total conspiracy theory, your plan is to drive out existing tenants so you can overhaul the neighborhood, a la Coal Harbour[wiki] or Yaletown[wiki]?