We take the SkyTrain quite a bit to visit Rebecca’s family in Surrey, and it’s no secret that I have a fascination with it. Not so much that the obsession of wearing overalls and an engineer’s hat overtakes me, but I am a consistent gawker as the world passes by. That and trains are pretty cool.
When we passed through New Westminster a little over a week ago, I noticed that the development going up near the New Westminster Station had a portion of the building hanging out, above the track. At first we thought, they’re building a balcony over the SkyTrain? Since that hardly made sense, we only could come up with the conclusion that they are building around the track, making this building straddle the elevated track. Note the following picture.
This isn’t anything new in the wide world of mass transit, but I think this is going to be a first for the SkyTrain. When we went passed it again this recent weekend, Rebecca was sure to grab the website address for this fortress, Azure at Plaza88.
I can’t grasp all the details of how this will affect the New Westminster SkyTrain Station or the line itself, but it looks like there will be a series of buildings being constructed there with the SkyTrain “underneath”. From their site:
With the SkyTrain underneath, you are constantly connected to the best of the Lower Mainland. No more traffic hassles or parking stress. Downtown Vancouver in 26 minutes; Metrotown in 12.
No, I’m not being sponsored to post this, nor to I endorse the development. Still, I wonder how many people are aware that this is happening. How much of the line is going to be covered? About a year ago, this area was a mess of land preperation and pile driving. It’s only a matter of time until these suckers are shooting up into the sky. How very Tokyo of the SkyTrain.
The MTR in Hong Kong is noted as a subway, but there are significant portions of the train that run above ground. If you ever get a chance to visit HK, taking the MTR is like a link to the entire city. You can get off at any station and you are greeted by a shopping mall bustling with commerce…or a city park…or whatever. There are very few stations that are remote and need any sort of extra development to give them life. In fact, most development in HK is done with the transit system in mind (ie the Airport Express train was completed and open BEFORE the airport was). It’s amazing… And the development you point out is SO Hong Kong in scope, scale and thought.
And then, I think of the dysfunctional transit system in Portland where they have a train that really goes nowhere people want to go…except to downtown Portland (where the jobs are leaving anyway and moving the to suburbs).
This has been done before to a small degree on the Skytrain line; the VanCity tower that you pass under just beside Main Street station did not exist when the Expo line was built, but was built over the tracks about 10 years later. They made quite a bit of noise about it at the time, with stories quite often in the news; I guess just for publicity purposes.
I realized this last night when R brought it to my attention. From what I can tell, this development will dwarf what the VanCity building did a little bit. I just find it incredibly curious.
dude check out (google) skyscraperpage.com/forum your mind will boggle with information fo whats going on in your city