1) Briefly describe 3 main points of your presentation
a) Make the car the alternative:
Design our campus for people, not cars. This sounds obvious, but at UBC, nearly 50% of commuters use their cars and we have a parking lot right at the middle of the campus. Rather than being a central mode of transportation for commuters, cars need to become the alternative, and UBC needs to facilitate this shift.
b) Creating a 2030 vision (and using backcasting to achieve this vision). Here is our 2030 vision:
We envision a pedestrian & cyclist only zone for the "academic heart" of the campus. Cars would not be allowed between East and West Mall, and between Agronomy road (Forestry building) and Crescent Road (Chan Center). Filling up ground-level parking lots, new student housing will be double, allowing near 30% of students to live on campus and avoid peak transit times. Public bike sharing stations, such as the Montreal's Bixi, would be implemented across the campuses. In partnership with Translink, Tramway lines will run through West Mall and Wesbrook, from the Museum of Anthropology to Wesbrook place, to give residents and the near 60,000 people that work and study on campus better access to services (Wesbrook place), and distant attractions and amenities. A rapid light train will have replaced the B-line and other buses will unload their passengers near the new SUB. The parking lot near the bookstore will be a public green space and the health science parkade would be converted into an urban vertical farm, which can be used for research as well as providing local produce for UBC residents. Parkade fees will be increased dramatically, but financial incentive will be given for carpooling. Staff and faculty will work at home at least 1 day per week, and many commuter students will be enrolled in distance education courses.
c) Keep the diesel bus loop where it is, and move the B-line to University Boulevard to reduce congestion:
UBC intends to move the diesel bus loop, either to a non-central location out at Wesbrook Place, or to disperse bus stations throughout campus where ground-level parking lots currently exist. UBC would like to build student housing at the current diesel bus loop. We thought the bus loop should stay where it is because 1- Bus terminals are located near the center of the "academic heart", optimizing the walking distance for most of students. 2- A single, central location for the bus loop gives students many route options to reach a final destination. The B-line at University Boulevard would free up a significant amount of space at the busy bus loop, as well as provide a location for a Subway or light rail train station for one coming down Broadway in the future.
2) What prize did you win:
We won one of the two $1000 prizes
3) How did you feel
We are quite pleased to see that UBC could be opened minded to our ideas, even though they are somewhat radical. However, it is disappointing that they are not committed to implementing any of our ideas, and that we can not get involved in UBC’s transportation planning process in any concrete way. Time will tell if the Ideas Fair was simply a way to humour us, or if our ideas will actually be taken seriously.
4) What will you do now in terms of helping make transportation better at UBC?
Here’s one idea: many bus routes are at capacity during peak hours. In order to reduce the amount of congestion in the short term, we plan to encourage UBC to offer more, and further promote online education courses, where students and staff can work from home. We would also like to see more classes in the evening to distribute bus traffic.
5) What are you going to do with the money?
Alex: pay the bills. Rebecca: save the world.
6) What is the biggest problem with transit at UBC currently?
Besides the crowded buses, the biggest problem is that UBC is considering moving the diesel bus loop to other locations. They are talking about a new bus loop at Wesbrook place, and another one near the Thunderbird parkade, or else dispersing bus stations throughout campus. These options are not very convenient for UBC commuters, and might involve bus transfers and/or a longer walk to campus destinations, making the car a more attractive option. UBC said that they must move the loop because they have an agreement with the University Endowment Land (UEL) residents. UEL residents often find buses noisy, stinky and non aesthetic... The UBC community must stand up for itself and the interests of 50 000 commuters, which should prevail over few tens of UEL residents. In the future, replacing the B-line fleet by a light train and adding tramway lines should win the hearts of the UEL residents.
Finally, we hope that the the AMS, UBC campus & communiy planing and other stake holders sit down together. With the construction of a new SUB and the implementation of the campus plan and others, it will be great to have a unified vision for the center of our campus and not 4-5 plans that will make no sense once all built side-by-side.
