The remaining four new stations will have single-occupancy washrooms accessible from public areas of the stations, but only with the assistance of a SkyTrain attendant, similar to the existing procedure on the SkyTrain network.
But in a motion that will be discussed by city council next week, Wiebe writes that all new stations should include universally accessible, public gender-neutral washrooms.
He is also taking issue with the number of elevators in the stations. Only Broadway-City Hall Station and Arbutus Station will have paired elevators reaching every level of the station. The inclusion of a secondary elevator is seen as necessary to provide additional capacity and redundancy whenever elevators are out of service for maintenance.
Some have also suggested such multi-storey buildings should be built concurrently with station construction.
SkyTrain Mount Pleasant Station design concept, April 2021. (Government of BC)
SkyTrain Oak-VGH Station design concept, April 2021. (Government of BC)
The only two exceptions are South Granville Station and Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station.
Construction on this building is well underway after a simple development permit application was swiftly approved, but the developer is anticipated to return to the municipal government in the near future with a rezoning application for added floors for residential or extra commercial density.
The five-storey building at South Granville Station is currently being built to accommodate this eventual vertical expansion; there will be six underground levels of parking and an extra elevator core to serve an overhead tower.
Consultation materials note there will be single-occupancy washrooms accessible from the public areas of the stations with the assistance of a SkyTrain attendant, similar to the existing policy on the SkyTrain network.
Two of the busiest stations Broadway-City Hall Station and Arbutus Station will be built with accessible washrooms in the fare paid zone in the future.
At Broadway-City Hall Station, the Millennium Line extension will share the existing Canada Line street entrance through an expansion. An interconnected series of underground pathways will seamless connect the Canada Line and Millennium Line platforms to support transfers; with the project replacing the 99 B-Line, it is estimated 75% of the Canada Line and Millennium Line passengers at Broadway-City Hall Station will remain underground when they perform their transfer.
Best Buy will occupy the top five floors about 77,500 sq ft of the 177,500-sq-ft office space being built. This completely replaces the company’s sprawling business park office campus at 8800 Glenlyon Parkway in the Big Bend industrial area of South Burnaby, where the company has occupied about 140,000 sq ft of space for the past 25 years.
Artistic rendering of the new office building at 425 West 6th Avenue in Vancouver, the future Best Buy Canada headquarters office. (CBRE/Cressey Development Group)
The current Burnaby office has a capacity to accommodate all 1,200 workers with the company, but the new Vancouver office, at only half the size, has the capacity for just half at 600.
As noted previously, every level of the stations will be linked by elevators, staircases, and both up and down escalators.
All stations have a concourse level the middle level between the street entrance and the platform level for the circulation space needed to accommodate passenger flows moving in and out of the station. The concourse levels vary in size, but the largest appear to be at Broadway-City Hall Station and Arbutus Station.
Apart from South Granville Station, the fare gates of most stations are located on the ground level, near the entrance.
Every station has a commercial retail unit, with all six units totalling over 3,300 sq. ft. of leasable space.