Talk:Lower Mainland

Area covered by "Greater Vancouver" article
See Talk:Greater Vancouver for a discussion on this topic. Please make your comments there, not here. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:37, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

There was a Vancouver Coast and Mountains aricle. Text has been moved here and that turned into a redriect. See Talk:Vancouver, Coast & Mountains for the discussion. (WT-en) Pashley 03:58, 27 April 2008 (EDT)

Proposed new sub-regions for Lower Mainland
I'd like to propose a slightly different set of sub-regions for the Lower Mainland region article. I'm interested in gathering feedback for a while before I go head. Please give your comments below.

The proposed change has 5 parts:
 * 1) Make Vancouver, the article about the city of Vancouver proper, a top-level entry in the Lower Mainland hierarchy.
 * 2) Move the contents of the Metro Vancouver article to Lower Mainland or other articles as appropriate (there's not much there), and make Metro Vancouver and Greater Vancouver be redirects to Lower Mainland.
 * 3) Move Vancouver/North Shore to North Shore (British Columbia), making it a top-level entry in the Lower Mainland hierarchy.  Include Anmore and Belcarra here.
 * 4) Modification: don't put Anmore and Belcarra here. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 18:09, 27 July 2008 (EDT)
 * 5) Create a new region article Vancouver suburbs under Lower Mainland, and have it contain Surrey (British Columbia), Burnaby, Coquitlam, and all other destination articles in the close south and east vicinity of Vancouver, but not in the Fraser Valley region.
 * 6) Modification: make two new region aricles: Vancouver eastern suburbs and Vancouver southern suburbs. Eastern has Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Moody, etc. north of Fraser river, and includes Anmore and Belcarra. Southern has Surrey (British Columbia), Richmond (British Columbia), White Rock, etc. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 18:09, 27 July 2008 (EDT)
 * 7) Keep the current Sea to Sky, Fraser Valley, and Sunshine Coast regions under Lower Mainland.

After this change, Lower Mainland will have a comfortable six sub-regions. The confusing entity "Greater Vancouver" will disappear from the geographic hierarchy. Vancouver, which is a two-level Huge City destination and the most important destination article in the Lower Mainland, will be higher up in the hierarchy. It will also shed it's bizarre dual identity as a region article. The North Shore will be treated as the region it is, instead of a district of the Vancouver destination. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 01:31, 24 July 2008 (EDT)
 * Modification: now seven sub-regions, not six. Still comfortable. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 18:09, 27 July 2008 (EDT)



The motivation for the change is that the Greater Vancouver article has taken on a greater scope than I think it merits, in order to fit it to the political entity named "Metro Vancouver"; and it is less useful to travellers as a result. It overlaps other region articles (see Talk:Metro Vancouver). Discussion there led me to the conclusion that it's better to get rid of the Metro Vancouver concept entirely, and replace it by traveller-focssed regions. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 01:31, 24 July 2008 (EDT)

Comments?


 * I agree with making Vancouver a top-level entry in the Lower Mainland. Still thinking about the North Shore and Vancouver suburb aspects. I'll be away this weekend so I'll post some comments next week when I'm back. One really quick thing -- Anmore and Belcarra aren't accessible from the North Shore (they can only be reached thru Port Moody), so I think they should reside in the same region as Port Moody rather than the North Shore. Actually, I think they should be amalgamated into a Port Moody article (or even a Tri-Cities article), but that's another discussion! (WT-en) Shaund 17:57, 25 July 2008 (EDT)


 * Actually, after rereading it and the modifications, the proposed structure pretty much matches what I had been thinking about. I'm just not sure what to do with Bowen Island. The most logical place would be to put it under the North Shore, however the North Shore article is currently a city article so it would look odd sticking one city article under another. Some things I've thought of are:


 * 1) Treat the North Shore as a region with separate city articles for North Van, West Van and Bowen Island.
 * 2) Leave it on its own as another subregion within Lower Mainland.
 * 3) Move it to another region within the Lower Mainland, such as Sunshine Coast or Sea to Sky.
 * 4) Put it under a North Shore city article anyway.


 * The first option is probably more consistent with the typical Wikivoyage hierarchy, but I think it's not as useful to the user. North and West Van are pretty much the same city so I think the current combined article makes it easier for the visitor than having to go through two smaller articles. I don't really like the last option either because I think it would be awkward to include in a city article. Out of 2 and 3, I'd probably lean towards 2 -- we only have seven subregions, so another one shouldn't be a problem. (WT-en) Shaund 02:03, 31 July 2008 (EDT)
 * Shaund, I like #3, move it to Sunshine Coast or Sea to Sky. From a traveller's point of view Bowen is very different from the North Shore, because it's wild rather than paved, and it takes a bit of effort to get to. Like the Sunshine Coast, it takes a ferry ride to get to. Like the Sea to Sky, it's just beyond Horseshoe Point and most people drive right by it without thinking about it.  I lean towards putting it in Sea to Sky.  (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:10, 1 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Sea to Sky seems reasonable to me. We'll see how it goes. (WT-en) Shaund 00:47, 2 August 2008 (EDT)
 * One other thought I had was should we consider amalgamating some of the city articles together where the various suburbs are indistinguishable? For instance, Belcarra and Anmore could easily be folded in to Port Moody. Same thing for Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam. We could merge all five into a Tri-Cities article since it is a recognized name in the region. Surrey and White Rock are also good candidates. I know the standard policy is each city has its own article, but for a traveller in a metro region like Vancouver, do they really care about Coquitlam versus Port Coquitlam? One weird thing I noticed was White Rock and Crescent Beach. I always thought Crescent Beach is in White Rock, but technically it's in Surrey.  Because of that, even though it's pretty close to the main boardwalk and that in White Rock, it would end up in a separate article. Just a thought anyway. (WT-en) Shaund 02:03, 31 July 2008 (EDT)
 * One way to resolve merger dilemmas is to merge, but create redirects from the individual municipality names to the actual destination articles. Thus North Vancouver and West Vancouver exist as redirects to Vancouver/North Shore. I must also say that I lean towards dividing destination articles, as long as both parts of the destination have something that could be added to the See, Do, Eat, Drink, and Sleep sections. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:10, 1 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Note - I added a map above with the existing Greater Vancouver articles and colour-coded by the new region. (WT-en) Shaund 10:42, 31 July 2008 (EDT)
 * (WT-en) Shaund, nice work with the map and with your thoughtful comments. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:10, 1 August 2008 (EDT)

I'm hearing consensus to go ahead. Any objections? (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:10, 1 August 2008 (EDT)
 * One last thought since we're looking at the Lower Mainland -- should the Fraser Valley be split into two regions given that there's probably 11-12 articles that could fall under it? The more suburban Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Langley and Fort Langley would be Fraser Valley West and Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Hope and others would be Fraser Valley East. (WT-en) Shaund 14:38, 3 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Interesting point. This leads me to re-think some other boundaries. How about replacing three regions by four, for a total of 8 sub-regions under Lower Mainland? (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 19:28, 3 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Vancouver suburbs region, to include Burnaby, New Westminster, Delta, Ladner, etc. Just the inner ring, most tightly connected to Vancouver by Hwy-99 and Skytrain.
 * PoCoMo or Tri-Cities (British Columbia) (see Wikipedia's Tri-Cities) to contain Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Anmore and Belcarra. This applies (WT-en) Shaund's idea at a region level, rather than as a destination.
 * Suburban Fraser Valley to contain the suburban valley destinations: Surrey, Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Langley and Fort Langley. Alternate name: Lower Fraser Valley.
 * Fraser Valley now contains the destinations east of Langley and Maple Ridge: Mission (British Columbia), Hope, etc.
 * Or another idea: How about assigning Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge to the new Vancouver eastern suburbs? And maybe Langley and Fort Langley to the new Vancouver eastern suburbs? This drains a few destinations from the Fraser Valley region, to take the pressure off dividing it. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 19:28, 3 August 2008 (EDT)
 * The first suggestion is interesting but I think people might find it confusing that Delta is a Vancouver suburbs region while Coquitlam and Surrey are not. The second one is easy to implement, but I think I still prefer to see Pitt Meadows and company with the other Fraser Valley destinations (they don't quite have the same suburb character yet). I guess ultimately this is something we could probably slice up many different ways and never be perfect. I don't think 11-12 articles in the Fraser Valley is too bad, maybe we should just go with the original plan. (WT-en) Shaund 02:36, 4 August 2008 (EDT)

Recap of proposal, Aug 3
Here's a recap of the proposed new Region breakup for Lower Mainland. It's worded as a draft for Lower Mainland. Please make comments below, and edits to the draft immediately below. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:39, 4 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Vancouver, a beautiful, vibrant city with diverse neighbourhoods, a very multi-cultural and cosmopolitan city — and the political core of the Lower Mainland and economic core of the province.


 * Vancouver eastern suburbs, a series of towns north of the Fraser River and east of the Pitt River, all fairly urban and defined by their relationship to Vancouver. This region includes Burnaby and New Westminster; the Tri-Cities of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody ("PoCoMo"); and Anmore and Belcarra villages.
 * Vancouver southern suburbs, the area between the Fraser River and the US border, where much of the Lower Mainland's population growth and suburban sprawl takes place. It includes the towns of Surrey, Richmond, Delta, and White Rock.


 * The North Shore of the Burrard Inlet is where dense urban meets dramatic tall mountains. Formally the separate municipalities of North Vancouver and West Vancouver, they are in practice one destination. The mountains provide attractions like Grouse Mountain ski resort. At the west of the North Shore is Horseshoe Bay, ferry terminal to the Sunshine Coast.


 * The Fraser Valley has lush fertile farmland, which contributes a large portion of the local produce. The Fraser is also the world's greatest salmon producing river, and a focus for the region's economy, transportation and culture. The towns of Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, and Langley are transforming from agricultural to suburb. Abbotsford, Mission, Chilliwack, and Hope remain closer to their agricultural roots, but are also transforming.


 * The Sea to Sky region stretches from Lions Bay (just north of Horseshoe Bay), up the east side of Howe Sound past getaway destination Bowen Island to Squamish, the gateway to BC's magnificent alpine country of forests, lakes, and year round world class outdoor activities. The Sea-to-Sky Highway (Highway 99) clings to the mountainsides, letting you drive from Vancouver to Whistler, one of North America's top ski resorts, in two hours.  Further in is Pemberton. The area is rich with archaeological sites and historical lore of the Salish Indians.


 * The Sunshine Coast, named for its 2,400 hours of annual sunshine, is north-west of Vancouver, a 40 minute ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay. It is a 180 km (110mi) stretch of rainforest, seashore and mountains. This is the secret destination of many individuals, where the island life is found on the mainland. Here is a slower pace of life, where those who appreciate the beauty of outstanding marine parks and marshland bird sanctuaries, old growth forest and alpine peaks will find this the perfect destination.

Any last comments? (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:39, 4 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Looks good. I just fixed a few links and tweaked the wording a little bit. (WT-en) Shaund 14:25, 4 August 2008 (EDT)
 * OK, I'm implementing. See next section. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 01:54, 12 August 2008 (EDT)

Implemention plan and status
There are a number of steps required to implement this Lower Mainland redistricting. This is a list of the steps. Feel free to bite off a few of these and do them. Then make a note at the end of the bullet point that you've done it. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 01:54, 12 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Lower Mainland: replace with "recap" text above. Done (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 01:54, 12 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Vancouver: Change IsIn to Lower Mainland. Otherwise unchanged.
 * Done (WT-en) Shaund 00:29, 13 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Vancouver eastern suburbs: create new region article. IsIn Lower Mainland. Use Lower Mainland as a starting point for region's description. Make sure these cities are listed: Burnaby and New Westminster; the Tri-Cities of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody ("PoCoMo"); and Anmore and Belcarra villages. Done (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:10, 12 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Vancouver eastern suburbs: For each city in region, set IsIn to Vancouver eastern suburbs.
 * Done (WT-en) Shaund 01:16, 13 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Tri-Cities (British Columbia): redirect to Vancouver eastern suburbs. Done (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:53, 13 August 2008 (EDT)
 * PoCoMo: redirect to Vancouver eastern suburbs. Done (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:53, 13 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Vancouver southern suburbs: create new region article. IsIn Lower Mainland. Use Lower Mainland as a starting point for region's description. Make sure these cities are listed: Surrey, Richmond, Delta, and White Rock. Done (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:10, 12 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Vancouver southern suburbs: For each city in region, set IsIn to Vancouver southern suburbs.
 * Done (WT-en) Shaund 00:27, 13 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Move Vancouver/North Shore to North Shore (British Columbia). IsIn Lower Mainland. Merge Lower Mainland into description. Done (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 02:22, 12 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Change all links pointing to Vancouver/North Shore to point to North Shore (British Columbia) instead.
 * Done (except Talk pages and my user page -- I'll update it later) (WT-en) Shaund 00:27, 13 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Fraser Valley: Modify region article. Change IsIn to Lower Mainland. Merge Lower Mainland into region's description. Make sure these cities are listed: Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, and Langley, Abbotsford, Mission, Chilliwack, and Hope Done (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:07, 13 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Fraser Valley: For each city in region, set IsIn to Fraser Valley. Done (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:07, 13 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Sea to Sky: Modify region article. Change IsIn to Lower Mainland. Merge Lower Mainland into region's description. Make sure these cities are listed: Bowen Island, Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton.
 * Done (WT-en) Shaund 00:14, 18 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Sea to Sky: For each city in region, set IsIn to Sea to Sky. Done (WT-en) Shaund 00:14, 18 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Review Bowen Island, set IsIn to Sea to Sky. Done (WT-en) Shaund 00:14, 18 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Sunshine Coast (British Columbia): Modify region article. Change IsIn to Lower Mainland. Merge Lower Mainland into region's description. Make sure cities are listed.
 * Done (WT-en) Shaund 00:17, 20 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Sunshine Coast (British Columbia): For each city in region, set IsIn to Sunshine Coast (British Columbia).
 * Done (WT-en) Shaund 00:17, 20 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Metro Vancouver / Greater Vancouver: Move any destinations out to appropriate region article. Be sure that every city mentioned there is mentioned in the appropriate region article. Change page to #REDIRECT Lower Mainland.
 * Done (WT-en) Shaund 01:14, 20 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Change all links pointing to Metro Vancouver or Greater Vancouver to point to Lower Mainland instead.
 * Done, except for Talk pages and Vancouver (disambiguation). I'm not sure what to do with the reference to Metro Vancouver on the disambiguation page -- should we let it be or delete it since anyone who enters the page will be automatically redirected to the Lower Mainland page? (WT-en) Shaund 01:14, 20 August 2008 (EDT)
 * I polished Vancouver (disambiguation) a bit. I took out links to Greater Vancouver, but put in a link to Lower Mainland. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:26, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

Bravo! to (WT-en) Shaund for doing so much work to complete the project! Thank you! (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:26, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

Lower Mainland map
Wow, (WT-en) Shaund, you never cease to amaze! Great work producing a map. And that template that wraps it — I had no idea it existed! Still, I think the map could benefit from some tweaks. The map looks to be the right size in the article, or maybe a tad small, but the text is hard to read. I think it could stand to be 2-3x as big. This means the region names will fill and perhaps overflow the region boundaries. Perhaps we need a call-out for the Vancouver & Suburbs regions, since they are so much smaller than the outlying regions. Could you upload or point to the source file, please? Image:Lower_Mainland.svg doesn't appear to exist. Maybe I could take a crack at it. Great work! Thank you! (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 01:44, 25 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Thanks. The SVG file is in Wikivoyage Shared (Category: British Columbia). To get to a link that works, open the image file and click on the file description page link. This brings up a nearly identical page that has a working link. Not sure why the link on the first page doesn't work, I think it defaults to wikivoyage/en rather than WT Shared. (WT-en) Shaund 01:42, 26 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Ah, got it. It was a capitalisation problem: Image:Lower_Mainland.svg doesn't work, Image:Lower_mainland.svg (lowercase 'm') does. Location on Shared: isn't a factor, because each language version of Wikivoyage looks on Shared as well as on the local wiki. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 03:37, 26 August 2008 (EDT)


 * Cool. I'll let you work on the Lower Mainland map and I'll finish the (high level) street map for Vancouver that I've been working on. (WT-en) Shaund 10:33, 26 August 2008 (EDT)

Excessive detail
There is way too much detail in the Get in section, which makes up most of the article. Per Region article template,
 * "This is where you would note the best arrival points to start exploring this region from. For example, it would be worth listing Phoenix and Albuquerque as good starting points for the American Southwest. You can also give driving directions from large nearby cities that readers might be coming from. Save the nitty-gritty details of how to get to the main entry points for a region for their city pages, though."

I plan to start pruning this down to bring it in line with policy by moving detail to city level articles if appropriate. Any concerns? Ground Zero (talk) 17:11, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I say prune away. A lot of the Get in section is just replicated from Vancouver from the looks of it and isn't needed here. -Shaundd (talk) 21:25, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

please read this discussion. It is a bad idea to duplicate information that appears in other articles. It is more difficult to keep this info up to date. It is better to keep the up-to-dare info in the Vancouver article, and refer readers to that article from here. Ground Zero (talk) 03:59, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I reverted Pab's last bunch of edits to this article and Vancouver, and s/he reverted me, so I reverted again. If s/he reverts again, that'll require a short block, I'm afraid, as I've also posted an explanation to their user talk page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:08, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
 * You are making some great contributions to Wikivoyage, and we appreciate your participation. On this article, you've added a whole lot of stuff that duplicates what is in other articles, or doesn't belong (like directions to Vancouver, which belong in the Vancouver article). So I've taken a lot of it out. Edit-warring (i.e., reverting others' edits without discussion) is a frustrating waste of time. That's why people who do it end up being blocked from editing. Neither Ikan Kekek nor I want you block you from editing, but if you ignore us and continue reverting, we will have to do that.
 * A better way is for us to discuss on the talk page how the article should look before making further changes. You will find that most editors here are interested in resolving disagreements amicably, and are will to compromise. Please work with us. Ground Zero (talk) 13:35, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
 * And I feel like the "Get in" section is still way too long and detailed. All of this should be summarized, with specifics put in articles for individual cities. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:42, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Undated warningbox
Is it still needed, or hasd the floods settled? -- SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 11:05, 3 February 2022 (UTC)