A Concrete Wasteland

Location

At the Vernon Plaza — the diagonal crossing where Union Street, Vernon Drive, and Adanac Street meet. The plaza is a pedestrian and bike-only space; the bike path through it is part of the Adanac Bikeway and it gets a lot of traffic. Coordinates are approximate.

Do not drive into the plaza. Street parking around it fills up — try a block or two further out on Union, Adanac, or Vernon Dr.. Most of these streets are in the Strathcona residential permit zone with a 2-hour limit 8am–6pm Mon–Fri, and are unrestricted otherwise. If you're driving, park a bit away and stay a while - have some gelato or a pizza.

Cache Description

Cache is in the plaza, not in one of the planters. Please be deliberate retrieving and replacing — it's attached, not loose.

If the logbook has become wet, please note in the comments so I can replace. If you find a small piece of red electrical tape in a potential spot but no logbook with it, also put that in the comments because it means the logbook has been taken/lost/destroyed.

Warning

The plaza sits on the Adanac Bikeway, one of the busiest cyclist routes in the city. A lot of bikes come through, and many don't stop at the stop signs. Watch for them, especially when crossing the painted bike lane — but also stick around and watch. It's a working commuter corridor in action.

Extra Background Location Info

Quiet, quirky, and underrated — the kind of place that grows on you. There are permanent concrete couches (they look almost real at night), a terrazzo chess/checkers table, bleacher-style steps, painted planters and barriers, a heavy-duty ping pong table, and a small welded-metal creature bolted to one of the barriers (if it's still there when you visit). In spring the place is under a canopy of cherry blossoms.

Not everyone agreed at the time. Some still don't. In 2017, Vancouver is Awesome ran a piece on the new plaza. Excerpts below.

The city had called it "a place to sit, hang out and watch the world roll by."

Local residents and business owners were less enthused:

• "seating carved out of hulking concrete blocks and grey planter boxes filled with nothing but soil and cigarette butts"
• "A dumped, battered purple couch with scattered trash"
• "It's too bad. It doesn't look nice. I don't think it adds to the neighbourhood."
• "Thanks for putting a place for garbage to accumulate"
• "Soon somebody's going to be sleeping here"

And finally, "a few terms collected over a half-hour" by the reporter:

Dangerous.
Stupid.
Not well thought out.
Fast fix.
Half assed.
Concrete wasteland.

People say things.

        Don't believe the hype

Thanks as always to my partner in cache crime, wiresandwaves.