Granville on Game Day
July 7th, 2026 might have been the last chance to see the Granville pedestrianization in full swing, with the final Vancouver hosted game of the World Cup taking place between Switzerland and Columbia. I didn’t want to miss some of the scenes, and was keen to get a taster of what Granville could become… Can the pedestrianization survive?
The game started at 1pm at BC Place… I couldn’t hear much as we rolled by on Dunsmuir around 1.30pm. With many people at the game itself, I wasn’t sure what to expect on Granville… Starting at the north end, heading south from Georgia, a few “placemaking features” signal a fun addition to the side of the street…
Every tourist destination needs a sign to take photos at right… Nobody taking photos as I passed at this one… Well except for me… Robson and Granville completely closed… I say just keep the closure going all the way along Robson…
I took a slight detour to Robson Square to capture the balls in the sky…
And then back on Granville, south of Robson where we start to see bars extending onto the street… And someone pretending to be a statue…
In most places in Europe, patios are very open to the street, it feels like you’re part of the street and it’s very easy to just walk by and take a seat. This is maybe overly dramatic, but by comparison the fenced off patios on Granville make the act of sitting down much more of an intentional decision than simply stopping on a whim… You’re trapped in there and you’ll order your food, drink and then make space for the next people… I imagine it’s due to our regulations to stop a business taking over the whole street, but it changes the feel… These ones also sit out from the street to maintain the sidewalk, whereas if the street is pedestrianized they can sit immediately adjacent to the business…
I talked about the neat signs in Whitehorse in the last blog post, that’s something Granville does well in a few places…
Union Latinos at the the south end was the epicentre for Columbian fans that didn’t have tickets… Big cameras filming the reactions…
Should have brought a pen…
Walking back to the north… People rolling by various means… Some of the temporary barriers may have made entry awkward in a wheelchair…
Guys having fun… Not sure on the mushrooms, should have scanned the QR code…
Getting close to full time and still 0-0… Many passers by watching the final few minutes on the patio expansions…
And the buildings where they were open to the street…
Robson and Granville was completely closed… Albeit the signals still cycling through which you could see momentarily confuse people… Maybe just switch them off… Another statue with a prime spot in the centre of the scramble crosswalk…
Not that I saw any others, but TSN probably had the best studio of the tournament… Pretty neat seeing the seaplanes arrive with the north shore in the background… It was a neat place to watch the game, and people getting nervous in extra time at this point…
A quick loop around Stanley Park to grab some photos and video before some upcoming changes… Just bikes on the beach for now…
We finished up with another walk along Granville after the game… It finished 4-3 to Switzerland on penalties, and with most of the shirts I saw being from Columbia, there was a more subdued atmosphere than if it had gone the other way I think…
A few corners were still jumping through…
If you brought smoke bombs for the party… Might as well use them…
The slow walk home…
Back at Union Latinas, the vibes changed from anxious during the game to disappointment… But the street furniture was at least being well used…
A few Columbian fans even biked home, two of them on their Dutch Gazelle…
On our way home… The Science World football before it disappears…
And another perspective from the new construction on Ontario…
What’s Next for Granville?
Council have extended the pedestrianization until the end of summer, but what does success look like when you don’t have the World Cup to attract people to the space? If I think back to all the pedestrian streets I’ve enjoyed, largely in Europe… Although special mention to Montreal… There’s often nothing that incredible about them. They are largely destinations because of the shops and restaurants adjacent that bring people into the centre and to the street itself. Done right, it’s not a place that needs to be activated, its a place people already go to, ideally with opportunities to have a coffee or a beer on a patio while watching the world go by… Here’s a collection of pedestrian streets from my recent travels… Not necessarily good or bad, just examples…
Granville today has a, how would you say… Less family-friendly reputation. It is all about the bars, the clubs, and the nightlife, rather than hanging out in the middle of the day with the family… That probably needs a more varied mix of establishments along the corridor if it’s to change, something that won’t happen during this temporary pedestrianization…
To prove people will come once the World Cup is over, it will take temporary activations of the space. I think food trucks, seating, playgrounds, patios, music and programming, much of which is already in place. I think another trip or two down there in the next month will be interesting.
Longer term, it will likely take investment in the street, paving and vehicle control, landscaping, shops with interesting frontages, i.e., no blank walls, the right policies in place to allow businesses to expand onto the street, build patio limits into the paving design rather than fencing them off and use bylaw enforcement to keep patios within their limits… Then just time, if not early incentives for that mix of establishments to happen…
Is Granville the best street for it… Robson already has more foot traffic in my experience, and would be activated from day one without the challenges that Granville has. Heck, why not do them both… And then connect down to the waterfront and Gastown while we’re at it…