Excerptcize

Posts Tagged ‘The Vogue Theatre’

As we’ve moved into the homestretch of final preparations for the Olympic Games, which kick off with the opening ceremonies here in Vancouver on February 12th, the city has been doing a fantastic of installing user friendly information displays that will aid visitors to the city for the games and beyond. At SkyTrain station’s new, detailed yet easy to read transit maps have been put in place. Additionally, a single new typeface has been used for all signs, bringing a coherence to the train system that was previously missing.

At major street corners around the downtown core new information/map displays have been erected in the past few weeks. Here’s one that is near my place:

The graphic is clean and easy to follow along with. Points of interest and venues are noted as well as transit hubs and pedestrian corridors. My personal favourite piece of information is the circle that is centred on the ‘You Are Here’ mark with the radius of the circle representing 15 minutes of walking time. It’s unfortunate that it has taken the Olympics coming to town, but residents and visitors are benefactors both of these kinds of improvements and I sincerely hope they will be maintained post games.

That being said, some of the simplest signage is the most important. Last night I took a stroll through the Granville St. Entertainment District. This a stretch downtown that has some of Vancouver’s most recognizable music venues, like the Vogue Theatre and The Commodore Ballroom, as well many clubs, bars and eateries. Were I not a resident of the city, I would have had no idea where I was when I crossed both Nelson St. and Smithe St., as there was not a street sign to be found at either of these intersections.  Granville St. has been under reconstruction for many years and is just in the final stages of completion. My hope is that the street signs are one of the last touches still to be put up. It would be a shame if all the great pains the city has gone to present useful and relevant information to those travelling through the city centre were undermined by the lack of adequate street signs on some of Vancouver’s main thoroughfares.

• Olympics and all that Thursday evening saw a divided panel come together for a public forum on security and civil liberties during the 2010 Olympics at the SFU Harbour Centre.  The forum was organized by the Impact on Communities...
• Change we can believe in? One thing that I've that I've learned in my short time in the blogoshpere is that snark plays. I had hoped to avoid resorting to it as much as possible.  Sadly, my initially positive reaction...

• Freakonomics at Prosper Days 2008 Stephen Dubner, co-auther of Freakonomics, will be the keynote speaker at Prosper Days this year. Described as a melding of pop culture and economics with...
• First Ever Youth Olympic Games The International Olympic Committee has given their approval on the sports program for the first ever Summer Youth Olympic Games. The Youth Olympic Games will...