Main Street is a major north–south thoroughfare bisecting

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, British Columbia, Canada. It runs from Waterfront Road by

Burrard Inlet french: Baie Burrard , image = Burrard Inlet 201807.jpg , image_size = 250px , alt = , caption = Aerial view of Burrard Inlet , image_bathymetry = Burrard-Inlet-map-en.svg , alt_bathymetry ...

in the north, to Kent Avenue alongside the north arm of the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

in the south.

Route

Beginning by the

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terminals near the nexus of the city's historic

Downtown Eastside The Downtown Eastside (DTES) is a neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. One of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, the DTES is the site of a complex set of social issues including disproportionately high levels of drug use, homeles ...

and

Gastown Gastown is the original settlement that became the core of the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and a national historic site and a neighbourhood in the northwest section of the Downtown Eastside, adjacent to Downtown Vancouver. Its hi ...

districts, the street runs south through

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

south of Hastings Street and continues past the Pacific Central railway station and the Main Street–Science World SkyTrain station. At Terminal Avenue, it slopes up into the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, which mixes commerce, light industry, brewing, and high-density residential areas. The residential/commercial mix continues south of

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

, with a high density of restaurants and fashion retailing. This neighbourhood was once blue-collar but is growing distinctly upscale. Between 33rd Avenue and 41st Avenue, the street becomes decidedly more residential as it reaches its topographical summit. South of 41st Avenue, the street enters the Sunset neighbourhood and takes on a markedly Indo-Canadian character. The

Punjabi Market The Punjabi Market ( pa, ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਮਾਰਕਿਟ/), also known as Little Punjab or Little India#British Columbia, Little India, is a commercial district and ethnic enclave in Vancouver, British Columbia. Officially recognized by the c ...

district begins just north of 49th Avenue; south of the Market the street again becomes predominantly residential. At Main Street's intersection with

Marine Drive Marine Drive may refer to: Roads Bangladesh * Cox Bazar-Tekhnaf Marine Drive, world's longest marine drive road. Canada *Marine Drive (Nova Scotia), a scenic route in Nova Scotia * Marine Drive (Greater Vancouver), a number of roadways in Metro ...

in southern Vancouver, its character becomes big-box commercial, notably including a

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supermarket. Between Marine Drive and its southern terminus, Main Street's neighbourhood is a highly miscellaneous commercial mix including office space, manufacturing, and warehousing.

History

The north end of Main Street is located just west of the historic site of

Hastings Mill Hastings Mill was a sawmill on the south shore of Burrard Inlet and was the first commercial operation around which the settlement that would become Vancouver developed in British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1865 by Edward Stamp, the sawmill oper ...

, the nucleus around which the settlement of Granville, later

, grew. In its earliest days, the intersection of Main Street and Hastings Street was the centre of

downtown Vancouver Downtown Vancouver is the central business district and the city centre neighbourhood of Vancouver, Canada, on the northwestern shore of the Burrard Peninsula in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. It occupies most of the north sh ...

, boasting the city's central public library (now the

Carnegie Centre Carnegie Community Centre is located at 401 Main Street at the corner of Hastings Street, in the old Carnegie Public Library building in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1901 Vancouver requested $50,000 from industrialist ...

) and — a few blocks away — the old City Hall. The intersection of Main and Hastings is now a local byword for the poverty, addictions, homelessness, and prostitution often associated with the Downtown Eastside. The thoroughfare was originally named "Westminster Avenue", since it connects to New Westminster Road (now Kingsway). It received its present name in 1910 at the behest of local merchants, who thought that it bestowed a more cosmopolitan air to the neighbourhood. Main Street was previously separated into two segments by

False Creek False Creek (french: Faux ruisseau) is a short narrow inlet in the heart of Vancouver, separating the Downtown and West End neighbourhoods from the rest of the city. It is one of the four main bodies of water bordering Vancouver, along with ...

, with a

bascule bridge A bascule bridge (also referred to as a drawbridge or a lifting bridge) is a moveable bridge with a counterweight that continuously balances a span, or leaf, throughout its upward swing to provide clearance for boat traffic. It may be single- or ...

linking the two. The two segments were joined together after the eastern section of False Creek was

reclaimed Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lak ...

for railway lands in the 1910s and 1920s.

Neighbourhoods

Main Street passes through the following Vancouver neighbourhoods (north to south): *

* Old Japantown *

* Strathcona * Mount Pleasant *

Riley Park–Little Mountain Riley Park–Little Mountain is a neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia. Its boundaries are 41st Avenue to the south, 16th Avenue to the north, Cambie Street to the west, and Fraser Street to the east. The main commercial thoroughfare of th ...

Sunset Sunset, also known as sundown, is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon due to Earth's rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth (except the North and South poles), the equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring ...

Major intersections

From north to south.

References

External links

Extract from ''The History of Metropolitan Vancouver'' by Chuck Davis
{{Authority control Streets in Vancouver Former segments of the Trans-Canada Highway