[murman]

76 minutes from surrey to downtown is no death sentence.

No, but getting stuck there is.

[Jared]

Does riding public transit while drunk count as public intoxication? (Though surely a far less serious offense than DUI.)

I've gone home from parties on a bus at like 5 in the morning while completely drunk. The bus driver helped me lie on my side with my head right by the back stairwell so I would end up puking into the stairwell (which I never did inthe end). I guess they figure you might try driving if they don't let you on the bus...

[queetz@home]

Driven to frustration

By Mike Howell-staff writer

Kevin Falcon has a helicopter to catch.

It's 7:15 on a Wednesday morning and the province's transportation minister is sitting behind the wheel of his black Nissan Pathfinder in the parking lot of his constituency office in Cloverdale.

The Liberal MLA has to be at the Vancouver waterfront before 9:15 to catch the Helijet to Victoria for a cabinet meeting. He, like all commuters in this area, isn't looking forward to the trip.

Falcon will drive along Highway 15 to the Trans-Canada Highway, head west to the Port Mann Bridge, through the Burnaby lakes corridor and exit the freeway at the East First Avenue off-ramp.

He will carry on past Commercial Drive to Southeast False Creek before dropping off his front seat passenger-a Courier reporter-at the newspaper's office at Sixth Avenue and Fir Street.

Falcon agreed to the ride-along to demonstrate the need for the provincial government's ambitious Gateway Program plan to ease congestion on Lower Mainland roads.

The most controversial and expensive piece of the plan is twinning the Port Mann and widening the freeway by one lane on either side of the bridge to Vancouver. The cost is $1.5 billion.

Some suburban mayors, local councillors, academics and Commercial Drive activists-who refer to the plan as Frankenstein's monster-say the money should be spent on a massive public transit network.

Continued from page 1

More cycling routes, better carpooling options and light rail running from the Fraser Valley to Vancouver would also make for a less polluted, less vehicle dependent society, they say.

Falcon, however, doesn't buy it.

Overlooked by the critics, he says, is the need to move commercial goods on semi-trailers into and out of the Lower Mainland. He calls the portion of freeway that crosses the Port Mann the most important truck route for B.C.'s economy.

"I'm not going to lie to you," he says. "[The Gateway Program] is about the economy, it's about the movement of goods, it's about securing the economic future of our children and grandchildren. But the side beneficiary of all of that is that it will be a great benefit to commuters. There's no doubt about it."

As he drives north along Highway 15 with a coffee in hand, Falcon points out the construction on the well-travelled road. It will be doubled to four lanes to allow transport trucks to travel faster to and from the nearby Canada-U.S. border.

Same goes for Highway 10, he notes, as he passes the busy stretch that intersects with Highway 15. Both highways cut through farm land, where homes are tucked away from the rush of vehicles.

Traffic is heavy this morning as Falcon approaches the 176th Street on-ramp to the freeway. As he reaches the overpass, he looks east down the freeway at the hundreds of vehicles idling in the lanes heading to the Port Mann.

It's 7:30 and still dark.

"Holy cow, look at this," he says. "It's going way, way back. See how far the lights go. Look at that. Oh my God, that's way past 200th Street. Unbelievable. This is exactly what I'm talking about."

The queue isn't surprising, considering the number of people who reside in Cloverdale, Langley, Aldergrove and Abbotsford, where housing prices are cheaper than in Vancouver.

Provincial government statistics say the Port Mann is congested 13 hours a day. When a vehicle stalls or crashes, it can take more than two hours for a commuter to travel the 29-kilometre stretch from 200th Street in Langley to Willingdon Avenue in Burnaby.

"Most people in Vancouver who are critics of this, I guarantee you one thing-they never drive the bridge," says Falcon, inching along in traffic.

When the Port Mann was built in 1964, the population of Greater Vancouver was 800,000. It's now at 2.1 million. And in the past five years, there has been a 12.5 per cent increase in the number of registered vehicles in the Greater Vancouver Regional District.

Widening the freeway in these parts will mean adding an HOV lane and another lane on either side from Langley to the bridge. HOV lanes already run from the bridge to Vancouver.

Falcon is quick to point out the Port Mann/Trans-Canada project is not all about accommodating vehicles. The plan includes restoring public transit over the bridge, an option cancelled in 1986 because buses couldn't keep a schedule in congestion.

Designated bus lanes will be added, interchanges leading to the freeway will be upgraded and bike lanes will be built over the new bridge, allowing cyclists to link up with communities' bikeways.

"We're not just adding lanes to allow traffic to fill them," he says. "We're not morons. I mean we actually think about this kind of stuff."

The new bridge will also be engineered for future light rail transit to travel over it. Falcon balks at the suggestion of introducing rail transit now, noting it was a recommendation of former Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell.

He says Campbell's idea to run a light rail line from the Fraser Valley along the freeway to Vancouver would be "a colossal misuse of public funds."

Citing a recent Translink study, Falcon says only 27 per cent of vehicles travelling west over the Port Mann continue to Vancouver. The majority turn off in Coquitlam, New Westminster and Burnaby, he says.

If a rapid transit line were to be built now, Falcon could only see it going to New Westminster's Braid Street SkyTrain station and to a future station in centre of Coquitlam.

"Vancouver is under this incredible deception that all of the traffic is pouring into Vancouver and it's simply not the case," he says.

His argument is evident as he crosses the Port Mann. Large numbers of vehicles exit the freeway at off-ramps to Coquitlam and New Westminster.

Traffic travelling east on the freeway is heavy, which leads Falcon to rattle off another statistic. He says the growth in Vancouver residents going to work in the suburbs is nine times greater than the growth of suburban residents going to work in Vancouver.

Traffic thins out considerably for Falcon as he continues through Coquitlam, only to hit gridlock as he approaches the Burnaby lakes corridor. It's the one traffic-clogged portion of the freeway always highlighted in morning radio traffic reports, but one motorists can't avoid to get to Vancouver.

Falcon doesn't have statistics handy for the number of motorists who get on the freeway in Burnaby, and this is where critics say the transportation minister's 27 per cent argument goes off the road.

In fact, Eric Doherty, a master's candidate at University of B.C.'s school of community and regional planning, says Falcon's oft-quoted 27 per cent figure is irrelevant.

Standing at the corner of East First Avenue and Victoria Drive the day after the Courier's commute with Falcon, Doherty talks over the roar of the morning rush.

"We know the Port Mann is not the busiest part of the highway," says Doherty, the author of an alternative report to the government's Gateway Program Definition Report. "The highest traffic flow-as you saw in your commute with Falcon-is in Burnaby and the Tri-Cities area. And where do you think all those cars are going?"

Doherty pauses as a dump truck rumbles by.

"We're about to spend a whole bunch of money on a rapid transit line out to the Tri-Cities area. If you widen the freeway, you're just stealing riders from the transit system."

Doherty belongs to Citizens Concerned with Highway Expansion and the Livable Region Coalition, which includes the David Suzuki Foundation and Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC).

Despite the perception in the public and by Falcon that the fight to stop the project is solely a Commercial Drive effort, Doherty says residents from across the city feel the same way.

They fear that twinning the bridge and widening the highway will bring more traffic to the city's neighbourhoods, many of which are already overrun by motorists using side streets.

More vehicles means more pollution and an increased potential for pedestrians to be struck. A sad reminder of that danger, Doherty says, is a makeshift memorial on a light pole near the East First-Victoria Drive intersection.

David Fields, a co-founder of the concerned citizens group and a transportation campaigner for SPEC, joins Doherty at the memorial to discuss the 73-year-old woman's death in October 2004.

The woman, whose name hasn't been released for publication, was crossing Victoria Drive at Graveley Street at 7:18 p.m. when she was struck by a pick-up truck. She died after she fell back and hit her head, police said.

"She was well-known in the community, she would watch people's children for them," explains Fields, who organized hockey games on Commercial Drive to protest vehicle traffic. "This Victoria Drive corridor has become a shortcut for many people making their way back and forth to work, and is just an example of what other neighbourhoods stand to experience."

Retiring from the drone of traffic to the Continental cafe on Commercial Drive, Fields and Doherty sip coffee and tea as they offer their alternatives to Falcon's plans.

Doherty's report, "Transportation for a Sustainable Region: Transit or Freeway Expansion," outlines several recommendations to increase transportation choice.

For $300 to $500 million, Doherty says, increasing TransLink's bus fleet by 20 per cent, adding 44 SkyTrain cars and building designated bus lanes and HOV lanes on both sides of the Fraser River would alleviate congestion and pollution.

For example, he says, a designated bus lane could be built from Guildford Mall in Surrey to the Port Mann without having to put a designated bus lane on the bridge.

He points out once traffic is on the bridge it flows-as the Courier's commute with Falcon proved. Buses would then link up with more designated lanes on the other side of the bridge.

"There are two basic choices," Doherty writes in his report. "One is to go back to the 1950s vision of Vancouver as a city of freeways, following the Los Angeles model towards automobile dependent sprawl, gridlock and environmental decline. The other is a future with public transit that gives people real choice about how they get around, without choking our communities on traffic and pollution."

Fields believes Falcon's promises of bike lanes and restoring public transit over the bridge are "distractions" from the government's real plan to turn the Lower Mainland into another Los Angeles.

"He's grafted on ideas like bike lanes, ideas like possibly having light rail crossing the bridge. These are really distractions from the core issue which is when you twin bridges, when you expand highways, you're going to increase congestion. It's proven, we've seen it all over North America."

During the Courier's commute with Falcon, he picked up Doherty's report twice from this reporter's lap, shaking it to emphasize how "unrealistic" it is.

The most "glaring weakness" of the report, he says, is that it doesn't address the movement of commercial goods. Doherty's response is goods will move faster if there is better transportation choice, which would alleviate congestion.

"If we can get people out of their cars, that's opening up road space for goods movement and people like the plumber who's not going to be taking a bus because he's got 800 pounds of pipe and tools to carry."

Falcon also has detractors on the other side of the Fraser River. The Fraser Valley Conservation Coalition has 350 members from Mission to Richmond, says its transportation campaigner Donna Passmore.

The coalition, however, has never said it is opposed to the project, but is worried how it will alleviate congestion for years to come, Passmore says.

"People out here aren't thinking long- term solutions," says the former Cloverdale resident who recently moved to White Rock. "People are coming at this from a place of great impatience, great frustration. I understand that, but we need to look at alternatives."

She agrees with Doherty that a massive public transit network has to be implemented-a recommendation she believes Falcon should consider strongly over the current plan.

"Kevin is young enough and smart enough that we could expect more innovation from him. He can be the messiah here, he has the opportunity to do that."

As for Falcon's political opponents, so far Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan and Coquitlam Mayor Maxine Wilson have said publicly they oppose the project.

Surrey Mayor Diane Watts believes the project is long overdue.

And Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, who voted against it in March 2005 when he was a councillor, appears to be waffling.

During the municipal election campaign, Sullivan told the Courier in a debate with Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate Jim Green that he opposed the twinning of the Port Mann.

In an interview last week, Sullivan recalled the comment but says it was made before the government released its report outlining transit, cycling and tolling options.

"I would certainly say that I don't support just twinning the bridge to accommodate more automobile traffic. However, my understanding is the proposal is not just that."

Sullivan says he's "keeping an open mind" on the project.

"I have to recognize [the Trans-Canada] is a provincial road but also a federal road. It is important for goods movement, and is important for connecting us to the rest of the country."

So what's Sullivan's vision?

"Transit. I'd love to see tolls, I'd love to see bike lanes, I'd love to see other transportation demand management and I'd love to see a bigger commitment by the regions for more responsible urban planning so they're not creating sprawling communities."

Paying a $2.50 toll to cross the bridges is what dominated media coverage when Falcon and Premier Gordon Campbell released the Program Definition Report last month.

"I happen to believe it's the right thing to do," says Falcon, noting tolls would pay off the $1.5 billion project in 25 to 30 years. "I don't want to say it's a done deal because I really do want to hear from the public. I think how it's done is not at all a done deal."

Arguing about tolls, however, is a debate Fields and Doherty have been cautioned not to engage in. In an email message sent Feb. 6 to members of the Livable Region Coalition by Karen Wristen, executive director of SPEC, she lays out her concerns.

"While SPEC obviously supports the use of tolls as one measure of demand management, I have to say I think it's not the time to be saying this," Wristen writes in the email obtained by the Courier. "Strategically speaking we have managed to focus attention on the tolling by leaking that report. We've got a lot of people angry about the project because of the tolls, and angry people will sometimes listen to alternatives. It sends an awfully mixed message for us to be saying, 'Oh, no, the tolls are good, it's the project that's bad', when the reverse is what people are feeling."

She concludes: "There are no marks for philosophical or academic integrity in this game. It's all about changing public opinion. If we can avoid talking about tolls, I think we should."

But does all this talk really matter?

Despite what mayors or citizen coalitions on both sides of the Fraser River think of the project, it will go ahead in one form or another.

Provincial highways are the jurisdiction of the government and the project cannot be vetoed, says Falcon, whose government begins community consultations in Langley tomorrow.

The Vancouver meetings are scheduled for March 25 at the Hastings Community Centre and at the Roundhouse Community Centre March 29.

Doherty asks why hold public consultations on the project when it already appears to be a done deal? Does the government just want to know what colour the railings on the new overpasses should be, he says facetiously.

Still, Doherty and Fields say it's important to keep pressuring the government for more details on the project and demanding better transportation choice.

"At the heart of this, and why we're doing it, is that citizens' actions will make a difference," Fields says. "With more people having their say, politicians will have to answer to the people. This isn't over yet."

Falcon wants to hear more alternatives, but they have to be realistic, he says. Doherty's report, he adds, isn't worth the paper it's written on.

"This is one minister who is not prepared to have critics have a free hand without pushing back hard. I'm going to push back very hard because I'm going to demand that they come forward with realistic alternatives."

As he drives up Fir Street to the Courier office 95 minutes and 45 kilometres after he left Cloverdale, Falcon says he guarantees there will be a significant reduction in congestion once the Port Mann/Trans-Canada project is completed by 2013.

More people will be taking transit, more people will be cycling and the economy will be booming.

So... do you believe him?


Try transit, Mr. Transportation Minister

To the editor:

Your Feb. 17 cover story ("Driven to frustration") highlights the arduous two-hour morning drive made by Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon from his constituency office in Langley to the helicopter terminal at the Vancouver waterfront. The minister, apparently "...isn't looking forward to the trip."

Perhaps the minister should get off his lazy, gas-guzzling duff, and use B.C. Transit's trip planner. By taking the No. 320, No. 502 and Expo Line SkyTrain... and walking a whole 270 metres (about one city block) he could make the trip in 1 hour and 16 minutes-during which he would not be driving, could be reading or napping, and not be clogging up the roads. The trip would cost $4.50, quite a bit less, than his parking bill... let alone his gas bill.

Speaking of which, why is he commuting in a "Black Nissan Pathfinder"? Was he expecting to have to do some off-roading on the way, or does he just like putting his SUV-sized gas bill onto his expense account?

If the minister makes such poor decisions with his personal transportation choices, what does it say about his decisions for the province's transportation choices?

Jason Brett, Vancouver

***

To the editor:

Re: "Driven to frustration," Feb. 17. Kevin Falcon has the fortitude to stand up to the politically correct jargon of the region and declare that wasting human lives in traffic is nonsense. Regional planners are all too willing to euphemize traffic congestion by saying they're encouraging transportation choices. As if a mother going grocery shopping has the choice to take roller blades.

It reminds me of one young planner who drove with me to an open house in Surrey and declared with shock, "What's this!" as we approached the southbound line-up to the Alex Fraser. It's the congestion you're encouraging, I responded, and, actually, this is a good day.

Roger Schmidt, Vancouver

***

To the editor:

Re: "Driven to frustration," Feb. 17.

If Kevin Falcon is concerned about movement of goods, how about using off-peak hours for trucking or developing rail or river routes? As [Eric] Doherty notes, better public transit would reduce congestion on the bridge. But if commerce needs transportation, perhaps commercial interests should pay to build the needed infrastructure.

As usual Falcon is pushing his project on the taxpayers without any public consultation-I'm not talking about consultation on the details but consultation on the twinning itself.

I think most of us understand that the twinning is not going to help ease traffic congestion in the long run. Nor will it help improve air quality in the Lower Mainland. Perhaps there is more to this than he is telling us. Perhaps he wants to oblige developers in Surrey and beyond.

Ann Grant, Vancouver

***

To the editor:

Re: "Driven to frustration," Feb. 17.

Please, oh please, do not buy Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon's argument about needing to twin the bridge to accommodate buses. Translink's own plans show a "queue jumper" lane is to be built by 2007. This is a lane that allows buses (or HOVs) to bypass congestion leading up to the bridge. As your reporter noted when travelling Highway 1 with Falcon the other morning, once you're on the bridge the traffic moves right along.

And please do not buy the "we're designing the new bridge to accommodate rapid transit in the future" argument, either. There was supposed to be rapid transit on the Alex Fraser Bridge "in the future" as well. I don't see any yet (it was built in 1986), although they did use the extra space to add a couple of lanes just six months after it first opened.

The main reason Falcon is so gung ho on the twinning is actually very simple: he's from the old school of community development (in the '90s former Surrey Mayor McCallum and Falcon were instrumental in taking over Surrey council for the benefit of developers).

Make no mistake, the bridge twinning has far more to do with pay back to friends and associates building office parks and subdivisions than either congestion relief or goods movement. Heavy trucks make up less than 10 per cent of the vehicles crossing the bridge, and if only a small portion of the single occupancy vehicles clogging the bridge were removed, truckers would be happy.

Pierre Rovtar, Cloverdale

published on 02/24/2006

FYI, Kevin Falcon's 15 MPG gas guzzler.... :no:

http://www.config.nissanusa.com/img/m/config/i/csx_pth_05_or_kh3_lg.jpg


I am beginning to like the Vancouver Courier. As a continuation of my post above...

Falcon flying blind when it comes to commuting

To the editor:

Re: "Driven to frustration," Feb. 17.

According to TransLink's trip planner (www.translink.bc.ca), Kevin Falcon could have saved 24 minutes from his 95-minute Cloverdale constituency office downtown commute if he had taken the 395 bus from his office to the King George station and then the Expo line to Waterfront station (and with a short walk for exercise, he would then be at the Vancouver helipad).

He could have then avoided the frustrating commute, been able to talk to other transit users and saved parking fees (and saved taxpayers money too?).

He would also have understood the level of congestion on the Expo line and why we need more SkyTrain cars/buses.

In response to his comment that, "Most people in Vancouver who are critics of [the Port Mann twinning], I guarantee you one thing-they never drive the bridge," those of us who use transit could say, "Most people who are critics of spending money on transit, I guarantee you one thing-they never use it."

Mike Peel, Vancouver

published on 03/03/2006

Gateway plan way behind the times

To the editor:

Re: "Driven to frustration," Feb. 17.

In response to your timely article on the highway expansion plan: whilst nobody likes to be stuck in a traffic jam, at no point in the article did Kevin Falcon mention the triple threats of peak oil, climate change or loss of prime farmland.

In comparison, Sweden has recently announced that in response to the first two threats, and especially rising oil prices, the country aims to be entirely oil-free by 2020. A government official stated that they intended to be prepared, both mentally and technically, for a world without oil.

In the last 10 years Bangkok has built an elevated heavy rail system, a subway, 150 mph rail link to the airport, and is extensively expanding a rapid bus transit system.

Kevin Falcon's plan already appears outdated, let alone in 2013.

James Lindfield, Vancouver

published on 03/03/2006

[twoNeurons]

Thanks for the addendum... but to tell you the truth... i wasn't sure where the new post was.... and had to read through the whole thing to figure it out!

[queetz@home]

^ Sorry. Given that it was in the previous page, I thought it would be helpful to quote again as a follow up so ppl don't have to go back. The power of reinforcement works to ensure a message comes across.

Just seeing Global tonight and that interview with Keith Baldrey and Kevin Falcon, I dunno why but Kevin Falcon seems to have this extreme hatred towards Translink. This despite RAV already getting built and the agency in general being able to successfully increase transit use (although still not as much as we would like too). I dunno what parorchialism he keeps talking about since the only contentious transportation issue that is in the table right now is the Port Mann Twinning, which would provide a (percieved) benefit Surrey (where Falcon happens to live) and Langley more than anything. It is he who is being parorchial! :rolleyes:

Oh, and the fact that previous Translink Directors that have questionable track records (by some coincidence, including RAV supporters like Doug McCallum, Barbara Sharp and Jon Kingsbury) were voted out of office shows that there is some accountability with the present Translink system. Of course, Kevin Falcon, still reeling from the second RAV vote, is simply too childish to take that into account... :no:

[twoNeurons]

^ Oh!!! That's where I was confused. I had thought that I WAS on the previous page... I thought you had taken the original post and just added to the bottom...

Anyway, Kevin Falcom is a total numnut with a one-track mind... or rather, six-lane mind.

[Jarrod]

kevin falcon is kinda...dumb...isn't he?...

[twoNeurons]

question: how long until there's a chance Falcon is voted out? Maybe whomever takes his place can adjust his plan.

[queetz@home]

^ That's the thing that bugs the hell out of me when it comes to Kevin Falcon's bashing of Translink. Think about it.

The Translink Board consists of elected officials from several key cities within the GVRD. They are ultimately accountable to the cities that they serve (as seen in the recent muni elections). The distribution is based on population size and even to be appointed as a Translink Board member for the At Large position, you also have to be elected by your fellow municipal elected officials. And note that no one Translink Director or one city can solely influence policy. They all have to work together. Essentially, what is good for the region is good for the cities being represented, hence Translink should work at its current form and its biggest constraint really is its ability to raise the necessary dollars to fund their commitments. And note that the RAV details during the first and second votes were so bad to begin with but the third one, which ultimately saved it, was a better deal for ALL the region. So even in that aspect where Falcon claims was a "circus", Translink works.

Kevin Falcon is elected by the people of Cloverdale. Its a small farming neighbourhood in the Southern part of Surrey near the US border. He is accountable solely for those people and no one else. He can screw people from other parts of the province such as West Vancouver with no fear of reprisal from the voters of that area. And yet he alone can make huge bad decisions that can affect the lives of millions and there is nothing the rest of us can do about it unless drastic measures are taken (reminds me of a certain German dictator in the 1940s, don't you think?).

[queetz@home]

My God man!!! Vcr Courier rocks!!!! More cool Letters to the Editor... :D

Saving 10 minutes on commute not worth $1.5 billion

To the editor:

Re: "Driven to frustration", Feb. 17.

The question I would like to ask Kevin Falcon: How long do you expect a commute to take from Cloverdale to the Courier office, by twinning the Port Mann Bridge?

I estimated that under ideal conditions the travel time, assuming the legal speed limit is maintained for the whole trip, would be at the very best about 55 minutes. However, when you factor in congestion on a normal business day and allow for stopping for traffic lights at the major intersections from the First Avenue exit off Highway 1 to the Vancouver Courier office on Sixth Avenue and Fir Street, I estimated, for this commute, about 70 minutes would be a good time.

Your reporter stated the commute took 95 minutes. A seemingly significant difference of 25 minutes! But, during business days, I would be very surprised if a twinned Port Mann Bridge would be able to shave even 10 minutes off the 95-minute time.

If so, to save 10 minutes during the busiest time of the day, the gullible Kevin Falcon and his politically connected friends think spending $1.5 billion dollars is a good investment. Perhaps, I can also interest Mr. Falcon in some prime waterfront property in the Florida Keys too!

The questions that should be answered when large infrastructure projects are being promoted: What are the real benefits in specific commute times, and who profits? Unfortunately, most times the public isn't privy to those little secrets, as the commuters in the blacktop capital of the world, Los Angeles, can surely attest to.

John Pattle, Vancouver

published on 03/08/2006

Falcon's flight plan poorly thought out

To the editor:

I quite enjoyed Jason Brett's suggestion on how Mr. Falcon could cut his commute time and costs by taking transit to the downtown heliport ("Try transit, Mr. Transportation Minister," Feb. 24).

However, if Mr. Falcon insists on driving his car, surely the heliport at the Vancouver International Airport south terminal would be both closer and cheaper with respect to parking.

Or better yet, the Abbotsford Airport has free parking and helijet service to Victoria, this would be even closer to Langley than either Vancouver International or downtown.

If this demonstrates the depth of analysis in transportation choices Mr. Falcon makes, heaven help us all. :lmao:

Matthew Laird, New Westminster

published on 03/08/2006

[Nutterbug]

Try transit, Mr. Transportation Minister

To the editor:

Your Feb. 17 cover story ("Driven to frustration") highlights the arduous two-hour morning drive made by Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon from his constituency office in Langley to the helicopter terminal at the Vancouver waterfront. The minister, apparently "...isn't looking forward to the trip."

Perhaps the minister should get off his lazy, gas-guzzling duff, and use B.C. Transit's trip planner. By taking the No. 320, No. 502 and Expo Line SkyTrain... and walking a whole 270 metres (about one city block) he could make the trip in 1 hour and 16 minutes-during which he would not be driving, could be reading or napping, and not be clogging up the roads. The trip would cost $4.50, quite a bit less, than his parking bill... let alone his gas bill.

Speaking of which, why is he commuting in a "Black Nissan Pathfinder"? Was he expecting to have to do some off-roading on the way, or does he just like putting his SUV-sized gas bill onto his expense account?

If the minister makes such poor decisions with his personal transportation choices, what does it say about his decisions for the province's transportation choices?

Jason Brett, Vancouver
I've heard that name before, and may have known him sometime in the past. I wonder if this is the same Jason Brett who was an engineering student at UBC who was active in student politics back in the late 80's/early 90's.

[Stingray2004]

If so, to save 10 minutes during the busiest time of the day, the gullible Kevin Falcon and his politically connected friends think spending $1.5 billion dollars is a good investment.

I had an appointment yesterday morning in Fraser Heights (east side of Hwy 1 in Surrey) at 9:15 am. In order to just cross Hwy 1 over a short ten block stretch on 160th Street, it took me 20 minutes (should have been 5 minutes at most). Shows you how antiquated the existing 40+year old interchange designs and Hwy 1 footprint are!

Crossing the 160th Street overpass, you can see the existring 4-lane Hwy 1 was a parking lot beyond the horizon. And these guys have to wait another 8 years for improvements?

Only in Greater Vancouver do you see 4-lane freeways (rural type freeways really) compared to most other urban/suburban jurisdictions.

At least, during the 1950's, Vancouver mayor Fred Hume and council were visionary when they rebuilt the Granville St. Bridge to an 8-lane cross-section from the previous outdated crossing. No problems there since.

http://www3.vpl.vancouver.bc.ca/spePhotos/LeonardFrankCollection/02DisplayJPGs/120/13218.jpg
[pic from another thread]

http://www.legacy1.net/swc/granville_st_bridge.01.jpg

[mr.x]

David Suzuki's rant on the Gateway plan, Vancouver Sun:



Vancouver's decision to avoid freeway expansion was not an easy one. It wasn't politically expedient. Many people wanted a freeway to 'ease congestion.'

But planners and politicians made a brave decision not to build a freeway through the city. Today, urban planners come to Vancouver from all over North America to see what we did right and Vancouver is routinely listed as one of the most livable cities in the world. All this history makes the proposed Gateway Project especially strange. The plan proposes to twin the Port Mann Bridge and greatly increase traffic into Vancouver. Essentially, it's an old-school, 1950's style urban planning model plopped into 21st century Greater Vancouver. This isn't a thoughtful decision based on the best available information; it's a politically expedient decision that will trade long-term quality of life for short-term gains.

Cities around the world that have tried the Gateway model have failed, especially American cities such as Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, etc. These communities are entirely dependent on cars and roads that feed into an ever-expanding, perpetially under-construction and overbudget freeway and toll systems. In Houston, you literally have no option but to get in your car and drive to the coffee shop, to the video store, or to the grocery store because there are no sidewalks. Despite Houston's continual freeway expansion, the city still suffers from terrible traffic gonestion and now has smog that rivals, and even surpasses, that of Los Angeles - a city more than twice Houston's size.

And Houston is just one of a few dozen large cities that have become trapped in the cycle of trying to expand freeways to accommodate growth. From a report presented to the U.S. Transportation Research Board: "Widening and building new highways actually causes, not relieves, traffic congestion in Cincinnati and other major U.S. metropolitan areas. The study estimates that up to 43 percent of traffic in Greater Cincinnati is caused just by expanding the area's road network.

More than 40 years ago, building massive freeways through the heart of a city was considered the modern thing to do. It was hoped that these freeways would allow for the easy transportation of goods and people in and out of the community. It didn't work out that way. Today, cities such as San Francisco are tearing down these freeways because they made traffic sprawl worse and led to urban sprawl.

Sydney, Australia's reliance on cars is costing more than $18 billion a year through congestion, accidents, and pollution.....compared to Vancouver's slim $1.5 billion.

As isolated, sprawling suburbs grow, they become harder and more expensive to service with any sort of public transit. This drives more people into their cars, which feeds into more roads, more cars, more gridlock and longer commute. It isn't too late to change. The GVRD's Livable Region Strategic Plan has evolved over 15 years of hard work to develop a strategy that will help keep Greater Vancouver one of the best places in the world to live......Freeway expansion is not part of this plan.

Key to the plan is the availability of commuter options. To give people more transportation options and reduce gridlock. These measures include: developing bus and high-priority vehicle lanes and giving traffic-singal priority to these lanes; developing passenger light rail services and commuter trains to town centres, and increasing the existing bus and SkyTrain fleet size and frequency.

The last point is crucial. If public transit is not conveinient, people will not use it. Getting people out of their cars and onto buses and trains means building a system that works, with quick and convenient ways to get from our homes to our work places.....meaning buses no more than every 10 minutes on major routes. It means express services and room to breathe.

Only then will people leave their cars at home. And when you remove single-occupancy vehicles from the roads, it frees up more space for the movement of freight. By following the LRSP, we could start reducing gridlock in as little as two years (Gateway would take at least seven years and would be followed by more gridlock), and for far less money.

BC Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon is right about one thing: Doing nothing is not an option. We absolutely must develop better ways of moving people and goods around the Lower Mainland. But the Gateway plan will reduce our options for the future by increasing our reliance on cars for commuting.

Fifty years ago, courageous Vancouver city councillors looked ahead and saw what a freeway system through the heart of Vancouver would do to the livability of the city and the quality of life of its residents.

Now we are facing another decision. Let's make one that gives us more transportation options and helps us building healthier, safer communities.

Let's ask ourselves once again: What kind of city do we want to be?

[Rye $ingh]

^ lol, nimby. What else do you expect from him. I can name tons of cities that have freeway systems that are pedestrian friendly cities, and let's not forget Vancouver still won't have a freeway system, it's just a upgrade of the current out of date freeway.

[murman]

David Suzuki's rant on the Gateway plan, Vancouver Sun:

Sydney, Australia's reliance on cars is costing more than $18 billion a year through congestion, accidents, and pollution.....compared to Vancouver's slim $1.5 billion.

I love it when hacks like Suzuki quote statistics as if it were gospel, and yet are completely impossible to measure with any certainty. Show me the data and I'll guarantee I'll be able to rip it to shreds in five seconds.

[fever]

iirc, the $1.5 billion is the figure being used by gateway proponents to argue for the project. I agree it's arbitrary. Implicit in the argument is that this figure will decrease a result of the project. Of course there's no evidence for that either.

[queetz@home]

Yet another cool Letter to the Editor from my fast becoming favourite local paper that is the Vcr Courier... :tup:

Don't buy what Falcon's selling

To the editor:

Re: "Driven to frustration," Feb. 17.

Please, oh please, do not buy Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon's argument about needing to twin the Port Mann Bridge to accommodate buses.

TransLink's own plans show a "queue jumper" lane is to be built by 2007. This is a lane that allows buses (or HOVs) to bypass congestion leading up to the bridge. As your reporter noted, when travelling Highway 1 with Falcon, once you're on the bridge the traffic moves right along.

And please do not buy the "we're designing the new bridge to accommodate rapid transit in the future" argument, either. There was supposed to be rapid transit on the Alex Fraser Bridge "in the future" as well. I don't see any yet (it was built in 1986); although they did use the extra space to add a couple of lanes just six months after it first opened.

Pierre Rovtar, Cloverdale

published on 03/15/2006

[Stingray2004]

TransLink's own plans show a "queue jumper" lane is to be built by 2007.

There's only one or two problems with that statement:

1. Translink does not have any legal or financial jurisdiction regarding the Hwy 1 interchanges/Port Mann Bridge - it's under MoT's bailiwick;

2. Logistically, the statement does not have any merit as you simply can't "queue jump" the Port Mann Bridge;

3. At 2:30 pm this afternoon, I crossed the 160th St. overpass - Hwy 1 traffic westbound was bumper-to-bumper as far as the eye can see;

Not even I had previously realized how bad the situation is.

It gets me to thinkin' that some folk on this board should experience the "infrastructure deficit" that a large portion of the GVRD have to experience in their every day lives.;)

[Stingray2004]

David Suzuki's rant on the Gateway plan, Vancouver Sun:
But planners and politicians made a brave decision not to build a freeway through the city.

The plan proposes to twin the Port Mann Bridge and greatly increase traffic into Vancouver.

More than 40 years ago, building massive freeways through the heart of a city was considered the modern thing to do.

By following the LRSP, we could start reducing gridlock in as little as two years.

Ah yes, David Suzuki. I do admire his accomplishments in the environmental realm but in terms of transportation and logistics? NADA!

There will NOT be *massive freeways through the *heart* of the city.

There will NOT be *greatly* increased traffic to Vancouver. Au contraire. Only around 28% of morning Port Mann traffic heads into Vancouver City proper and that figure is expected to decline over the years.

These days, people travel from everywhere to everywhere at all times of the day. The old suburban to downtown commute does not have much resonance on the westcoast these days.

Finally, following the LRSP will NOT reduce gridlock in as little as "two years". For the most part, the LRSP is being adhered to in terms of high density core development over the past 15 - 20 years, but that still will NOT greatly curtail growth in regions south of the Fraser River, the area for natural extension of development when combined with a greatly expanded population base.

Another David Suzuki type is also on the anti-Gateway platform - his name is Joy Foy of the Western Canadian Wilderness Committee - Remember the spotted owl?

I sincerely believe that these guys should stick to their areas of expertise, which is NOT transportation and logistics.

One can also draw an analogy to the Port Mann Bridge twinning with the new 5-lane Okanagan Lake Bridge, which will replace the current 3-lane lift bridge.

Should that bridge not be built even though extensive residential development continues to occur in Westbank, notwithstanding the congestion that thru traffic has to endure?

[fever]

Infrastructure deficit is another one of those ill-defined terms. It's whatever makes you happy.


It's probably been mentioned several times now. I'm not aware of anyone who claims that Highway 1 isn't congested leading up to the Port Mann Bridge. The disagreement is not about the existence of the problem. That's readily apparent. Most recognize that the highway is horribly congested and most want that to change. The difference of opinion is over how best to fix the problem. There's no evidence that throwing money at highways is going to reduce congestion.

The second narrows is under the MoT as well and it has queue jumpers. The congestion isn't actually on the bridge.

[Bert]

I love it when hacks like Suzuki quote statistics as if it were gospel, and yet are completely impossible to measure with any certainty. Show me the data and I'll guarantee I'll be able to rip it to shreds in five seconds.
Okay, complete accuracy is impossible to achieve, but the numbers aren't meaningless. The method I've seen used in some Translink reports is basically to see how much congestion slows down traffic, then multiply that extra travel time by the average wage in the region (a decent attempt at assigning an opportunity cost). Assuming Sydney uses a similar method, then the numbers are at least somewhat comparable, and a difference of 12 times would be significant enough to tell that Sydney has a greater traffic problem.

[phesto]

Infrastructure deficit is another one of those ill-defined terms. It's whatever makes you happy.

It's probably been mentioned several times now. I'm not aware of anyone who claims that Highway 1 isn't congested leading up to the Port Mann Bridge. The disagreement is not about the existence of the problem. That's readily apparent. Most recognize that the highway is horribly congested and most want that to change. The difference of opinion is over how best to fix the problem. There's no evidence that throwing money at highways is going to reduce congestion.



I don’t know of anyone who would actually claim the Port Mann isn’t congested either, but I think much of the difference in opinion on how to fix the problem lies between those who actually experience the congestion first-hand, and those who don’t need to use the system.

There are people who live on the North shore, Kits, etc. that, quite frankly, have no clue about how bad congestion is out there because they rarely venture past Boundary Road, let alone Surrey.

I don't believe that those who don’t use the Highway on a daily, or at least weekly basis really realize how horribly congested it gets. It is just not something people really care to think about – especially when the solution involves their tax dollars.

[Bus pass]

Ah yes, David Suzuki. I do admire his accomplishments in the environmental realm but in terms of transportation and logistics? NADA!

There will NOT be *massive freeways through the *heart* of the city.

There will NOT be *greatly* increased traffic to Vancouver. Au contraire. Only around 28% of morning Port Mann traffic heads into Vancouver City proper and that figure is expected to decline over the years.

These days, people travel from everywhere to everywhere at all times of the day. The old suburban to downtown commute does not have much resonance on the westcoast these days.

Finally, following the LRSP will NOT reduce gridlock in as little as "two years". For the most part, the LRSP is being adhered to in terms of high density core development over the past 15 - 20 years, but that still will NOT greatly curtail growth in regions south of the Fraser River, the area for natural extension of development when combined with a greatly expanded population base.

Another David Suzuki type is also on the anti-Gateway platform - his name is Joy Foy of the Western Canadian Wilderness Committee - Remember the spotted owl?

I sincerely believe that these guys should stick to their areas of expertise, which is NOT transportation and logistics.

One can also draw an analogy to the Port Mann Bridge twinning with the new 5-lane Okanagan Lake Bridge, which will replace the current 3-lane lift bridge.

Should that bridge not be built even though extensive residential development continues to occur in Westbank, notwithstanding the congestion that thru traffic has to endure?
Do you have any information to back up your statements? because it's NOT really enough to just write NOT and expect people to succumb to your eronius claims.:koko:

[queetz@home]

I don’t know of anyone who would actually claim the Port Mann isn’t congested either, but I think much of the difference in opinion on how to fix the problem lies between those who actually experience the congestion first-hand, and those who don’t need to use the system.

There are people who live on the North shore, Kits, etc. that, quite frankly, have no clue about how bad congestion is out there because they rarely venture past Boundary Road, let alone Surrey.

I don't believe that those who don’t use the Highway on a daily, or at least weekly basis really realize how horribly congested it gets. It is just not something people really care to think about – especially when the solution involves their tax dollars.

I agree wholeheartedly 100% with your points, phesto, and I experience Port Mann congestion from time to time so I know first hand what it is like. However, I think the main problem with those South of Fraser who think building this freeway and Port Mann twin is essential are the ones that love to take their cars whether there is transit options or not. The fact that Falcon thinks the LRT isn't warranted now shows that he is one of them (plus the black Nissan Pathfinder is a dead giveaway as per the Vcr Courier ppl).

But not all South of Fraser ppl are loyal car lovers because when I take the Expo Skytrain, that is often full so obviously, there are those South of Fraser that would take a train if given a chance. Now if they only extend and increase the capacity of the Skytrain to, say Fleetwood so its more centralized (i.e. Langley ppl can easily access it by a short car ride or even a shuttle bus), or not twin the bridge but instead, implement that LRT to connect to Evergreen (and in this case, not just put the tracks in the middle of highway one but actually direct the train to Guilford and Langley Town Centre), people will take it, less space taken up for cars and be replaced by trucks, thus there wouldn't be a need to twin the Port Mann.

[fever]

I'd expect people who have to deal with congestion every day just want something done about it. They want relief now, and what the Minister is offering is that short term solution. Although, I think most people would like something done to reduce congestion, if it doesn't affect them directly they're more likely to look at the problem and assess how well a proposal will work in the long term.

[mattropolis]

The problem that opponents of the Port Mann twinning have, is that they haven't come up with a good alternative plan to deal with the congestion of that crossing. I have read about expanded bus service, a few new Skytrain cars, and a queue jumper lane for the bus as some solutions. Those solutions won't do much to get more people across the Fraser River.

I believe the alternative to a new road bridge is a commuter rail service for south of Fraser communties like the West Coast Express for the North East sector. There are three rail corridors going through Surrey, one along the south shore of the Fraser river, one through Newton and Langley, and one through North Delta, Crescent Beach and White Rock. All of the tracks converge to cross the Fraser River near the SkyBridge and there is a double track rail line through central Burnaby with a connection to the CP track leading to Waterfront Station.

This would require upgrading the tracks to permit high speed operation of trains, and probably some double tracking, stations, etc. The rail bridge at New Westminster, beside the Patullo bridge may require upgrading or replacement, but I believe it is due for replacement soon anyway.

Building a comprehensive commuter rail service for the Fraser Valley on the south side of the river would be a much better expenditure of public funds than another freeway bridge.

Here is a map showing all the railway corridors in the GVRD. It only goes as far as Langley, but it gives an idea of what could be done. The red lines are CN track, black are all other railways.
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8008/cn2000lrg20fn.jpg

[Dorian G.]

Keep in mind, many of those routes aren't deserted—indeed, with growing trade volume and new rail deals, rail traffic must be increasing. Besides, what good would it due to push freight onto the roads for the purpose of commuters? That map is inspiring, but I don't think that useful as a vision for the future.

As for alternatives for twinning the Port Mann bridge—I believe an alternatives report was published (and excerpts from it posted in the forum—either in this thread or another similar one).

[fever]

I think the alternative is a rail system. Commuter rail should extend at least to Abbotsford, either using the rail bridge to between Abbotsford and Mission or the CN line to Scott Road, or both. The Southern Railway is another candidate and there are also Hydro rights-of-way. (Curiously, the highway 1 corridor was studied for commuter rail by the Ministry even though it lacks existing tracks and goes over a series of rolling hills.) However, most people south of the fraser live in North Surrey and North Delta. I think some sort of line down King George Highway and another to Guildford from Whalley would be a good start.

Here's a map showing the whole Fraser Valley but with less detail.

http://www.sryraillink.com/images/SRY_Route_Map.gif

[twoNeurons]

From: http://www.tricitynews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=74&cat=23&id=620304&more=

By Jeff Nagel Black Press
Apr 02 2006

Buses can be run across the Port Mann Bridge without twinning it, opponents of the Gateway program claimed Monday, attacking a key premise of the plan.
Eric Doherty of the Liveable Region Coalition pointed to TransLink’s own plans that call for queue-jumper lanes to help buses bypass congestion on the bridge approaches.
He said transit across the bridge is possible, contrary to past claims of the provincial government that twinning is the only way to restore bus service.
“It’s just not true,” Doherty told 150 people at an opposition-organized forum at the Croatian Cultural Centre in east Vancouver.
Gateway program executive director Mike Proudfoot, in an interview, conceded bus service over the bridge now may be possible without the twinning, but said it wouldn’t be effective.
“Anything can be built, but the return on investment is not one that will afford any appreciable relief,” he said. “It doesn’t solve the problem – you would still have congestion.”
The Liveable Region Coalition wants bus access across the bridge now, along with express busways serving Surrey and Langley, instead of the twinning.
Doherty also argued Gateway’s own maps forecast much worse congestion for motorists near Highway 1 in Surrey and Coquitlam with the twinning than without it.
“The really big increases are in Surrey around Guildford and in Coquitlam around Maillardville,” he said.
Proudfoot called that “an incorrect interpretation” and noted the maps reflect rush hour westbound traffic only.
Vancouver Coun. David Cadman took aim at the 94 per cent of Surrey residents who aren’t regular transit users despite the extension of SkyTrain across the river.
“I think we need to make Surrey and Langley work with public transit,” he said. “We know the cost of oil is going up. And more people are going to be seeking that solution in future.”
Paul Landry of the B.C. Trucking Association said he’s also concerned that the share of transit use in the region hasn’t increased dramatically.
He said he fears increased gridlock for area truckers, but supports better transit and container shipping alternatives – like hauling by sea or river barge – where possible.
He was one of the few defenders of the Gateway program at the meeting.
Transportation minister Kevin Falcon and Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts were both invited but did not attend.
Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan said the bridge twinning was a “purely political decision” hatched by Falcon and former Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum.
“They decided that in trade for the RAV line going out to Richmond they’d get the bridge across the Fraser River,” he said. “The planners had to come in afterwards and find some sort of justification for it.”
Two Vancouver city councillors there said they crossed the Port Mann Bridge as a test last Friday during rush hour and found no congestion.
“I never went under 100 kilometres an hour,” said David Cadman.
His secret – he brought a passenger and used the HOV lane.
“If you get one other person in the vehicle it flows like water,” Cadman said.

[Mininari]

============
Two Vancouver city councillors there said they crossed the Port Mann Bridge as a test last Friday during rush hour and found no congestion.
“I never went under 100 kilometres an hour,” said David Cadman.
His secret – he brought a passenger and used the HOV lane.
“If you get one other person in the vehicle it flows like water,” Cadman said.
============

I'm sorry... I just have one little problem with this.
HE DIDN'T TRY THE SAME TRICK HEADING WESTBOUND IN THE MORNING!!!!!!

There is no HOV land heading westbound... and if there was, it would just jam up at the bridgehead where it merged back into regular traffic, as the eastbound HOV lane at the North end of the Port Mann Bridge did before they completed the 5th lane.

[Glacierfed]

^ Cadman is like a child, its pretty easy to conduct an experiment to yield whatever outcome you want. His stupidity only helps to build an argument for the twinning in my opinion. (going from 5 lanes to 8 isn't really twinning)

Certainly the Port Mann needs to have 3 lanes each way, which I think everyone can agree on. (Except for maybe Cadman) And the Westbound HOV lane wouldn't merge back into regular traffic until Grandview.

Cadman's opposition is convincing me more and more that this gateway project is a good idea. Vancouver's traffic isn't really that bad except for the highway 1 corridor.

[Smooth]

============
Two Vancouver city councillors there said they crossed the Port Mann Bridge as a test last Friday during rush hour and found no congestion.
“I never went under 100 kilometres an hour,” said David Cadman.
His secret – he brought a passenger and used the HOV lane.
“If you get one other person in the vehicle it flows like water,” Cadman said.
============

So if he never went under 100km/hr is he admiting to speeding and breaking the law on the highway? He's talking about this when the VPD just began their spring crackdown on speeders, maybe we should turn him in. ;)

[queetz@home]

^ Cadman is like a child, its pretty easy to conduct an experiment to yield whatever outcome you want. His stupidity only helps to build an argument for the twinning in my opinion. (going from 5 lanes to 8 isn't really twinning)

Certainly the Port Mann needs to have 3 lanes each way, which I think everyone can agree on. (Except for maybe Cadman) And the Westbound HOV lane wouldn't merge back into regular traffic until Grandview.

Cadman's opposition is convincing me more and more that this gateway project is a good idea. Vancouver's traffic isn't really that bad except for the highway 1 corridor.

Why is Cadman a child? The only petulant child here is Kevin Falcon, acting so petty after the second RAV vote didn't go his way (and note that the third RAV vote was MUCH better, unless you have a problem with GVRD residents not being hooked on overruns before the contract was finalized, WHICH HAPPENED!). This is why we have this mess at the first place!

Instead of attacking Cadman's observations, maybe one should see his point that the whole reason why Port Mann is so damn congested is Single Occupancy Vehicles. It works to the single HOV that was there. Put another one on the other direction and it will work as well. So what if its only two lanes heading west, one being HOV? The only people you are punishing are the SOV drivers anyway, which incidentally may include Kevin Falcon in his black Nissan Pathfinder! And THAT ALONE is enough reason why that idea makes sense! Oh, and also make sure commercial vehicles, including trades and sales people also use the HOV lanes. PROBLEM SOLVED! :cool:

[Nutterbug]

Oh, and also make sure commercial vehicles, including trades and sales people also use the HOV lanes. PROBLEM SOLVED! :cool:
How do you distinguish the "trades and sales people" from your needless and wasteful everyday commuters? Do they drive special vehicles? Do we mark their cars in some way? I think we're getting into some ambiguity there.

Charge tolls on the bridge, and necessary commercial vehicles will absorb them as the cost of doing business, while those who do not need to drive will have a little extra disincentive to do so.

[queetz@home]

^ Well, some are obvious as they drive commercial vehicles themselves that are clearly marked. So obviously a carpet cleaner working for a carpet cleaning company would have the company name marked all over his van.
But I think some electronic tracking, similar to how Golden Ears would be tolled, is in order for permission purposes. And such a device would have to be issued by the employer on behalf of the Ministry of Transportation(similar to how the Translink Employer Transit passes are now issued). Enforcement would be done the same way the current HOV lanes are enforced but the tracking devise would give cops a heads up on the incoming permitted single occupant vehicle so they don't stop and ticket them. Its not a perfect solution but it is far better than adhering to the will of the SOV users and Kevin Falcon's pettyness by building this twin at the first place.

[Glacierfed]

I think it would be a good thing to allow commercial vehicles to use HOV lanes, except that it would pretty much jam up the HOV lanes to the same extent as the other lanes are already congested. This takes away the incentive to carpool.

Its also unrealistic to extract a west-bound HOV lane from the current Port Mann configuration. This debate boils down to if its a good idea for 1 non-restricted lane to be added each way accompanied by tolls. This would be the first addition of a non-restricted lane each way to Hwy. 1 ever, I think its impact has been greatly exaggerated by its opponents. Vancouver is not in jeopardy of becoming LA or even Seattle.

[queetz@home]

The only exaggeration here is Kevin Falcon's view that the 1950s Los Angeles style of freeway expansion is the only solution to the Fraser Valley's traffic problems. There are MANY solutions, much cheaper and desirable than adding more road lanes built in the guise of helping commercial traffic and transit access but in reality, would cater mostly to the single occupancy vehicle commuter that is so prevelant in the GVRD. :no:

Also, majority of the congestion is caused by SOVs, not commercial. There isn't that many commercial vehicles plying the route to jam up the HOV lanes. If majority of the commuters would carpool and use that lane, then its possible to jam up. That would only happen if people's behaviour changes (which have to be forced upon if necessary) BUT if majority of commuters do end up carpooling, congestion at the SOV lanes would reduce quite drastically so commercial vehicles can use up the free space too.

[Nicole]

The BC government and the Gateway Program have decided that they know best how to solve the problem of traffic congestion. They haven't asked anyone how we should go about solving this problem. The thing is, we're all responsible for solving the problem together since we're all responsible for causing it. If anyone's interested, go to www.biggerpicturebc.com/forum to talk about how we might do this.

[mattropolis]

I think a good short-term solution would be the installation of a movable median barrier that would allow the HOV lane to be reversed between eastbound and westbound traffic depending on traffic volume.

According to Wikipedia there are three bridges that currently have this setup. Sometimes called a zipper lane.

Reversible lanes with lane controls, physical separation by movable barrier

* Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, PA
* Tappan Zee Bridge in New York
* Theodore Roosevelt Bridge in Washington, D.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_lane

Would this work on the Port Mann? The Ministry of Highways has surely heard of this technology, but what could their reason be for not using it?!

[mattropolis]

I found a picture of a "Barrier Transfer Machine" that came from a report about the zipper lane on a highway in Honolulu.
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/3070/btm7oj.jpg

There you go, problem solved, $1 billion saved! :)

[officedweller]

And the Auckland Harbour Bridge in NZ:

http://www.barriersystemsinc.com/dynamic/docs/success_auckland.pdf

[queetz@home]

GVRD begs to differ on Port Mann twinning
But provincial transportation minister insists bridge project will definitely proceed 'because it is critical'

William Boei
Vancouver Sun

Thursday, April 06, 2006

To listen to story, click link.

LOWER MAINLAND - Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon rejected a regional district report Thursday that offers qualified support for the $3-billion Gateway Program but says the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge clashes with long-term regional growth plans.

The report, written by Greater Vancouver Regional District chief planner Hugh Kellas, recommends the GVRD support the program if the province drops its plan to twin the bridge and agrees to several other conditions.

Falcon said "No," when asked if there was any chance the province will agree to leave out or change any major components of the Gateway Program.

Asked if that means the province will definitely go ahead with the twinning of the Port Mann, he said, "Absolutely. There is no question about it, because that is a critical part."

The government is in the first phase of public consultations about the Gateway Program but has been talking to municipal and regional officials about it for two years, and Falcon said in a telephone interview that the region can't pick and choose among the parts now.

"If we just built the South Fraser Perimeter Road without the twinned Port Mann Bridge, then what we would do is create a traffic calamity on the Pattullo and the Alex Fraser," he said.

"If you try to pull out that portion of it, you create significant challenges for the other portions. And we're not going to do that.

"This is why you have a provincial government, to kind of look at the broader picture to make sure that we make a decision in the broadest interest."

Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, who chairs the GVRD's land use and transportation committee, said Falcon's comments were disappointing.

"It's obvious to me that consultation has never been Kevin Falcon's strong suit," said Corrigan, whose committee will be presented with the Kellas report on Friday.

But he predicted the regional district will stay the course.

"Of course we will," he said. "I think the GVRD will be more inclined to dig in its heels if Kevin Falcon isn't willing to listen to any of the comments we might have about whether or not the Port Mann Bridge twinning fits within our plans, or how it might be made to fit within our plans."

Asked what recourse the GVRD has, Corrigan, said, "Public opinion. I'm expecting that there will be significant public pressure on the government to re-look at its plans once all of the information is out."

The Kellas report says the GVRD can support the overall goals of the Gateway Program, such as improved movement of goods and people, better connections to transit and reduced vehicle emissions.

The program includes the twinning of the bridge, widening the Trans-Canada Highway from Langley to Vancouver, building a new four-lane highway on the south shore of the Fraser River and upgrading a truck route on existing roads on the north shore of the river, including a new Pitt River bridge.

Kellas says the Port Mann twinning, widening the Trans-Canada west of the Port Mann and the new Pitt River bridge clash with regional plans. Those plans call for transportation demand management to be used to create space for goods movement before road capacity is expanded.

bboei@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006

[queetz@home]

OKAY!!!! This is way too much! Of all the places in the world Kevin Falcon goes to study how to reduce congestion, he goes to the heart of the freeway universe.....LOS ANGELES!!! WTF???? For those who deny that those Gateway critics are just bullsh*tting whenever they say Vancouver will become like Los Angeles, LOW AND BEHOLD!!!! AND NOTE that it looks like the congestion charges that Kevin is most interested in is penalizing COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC, not SOVs! GOD!!! This guy simply has to go! :hell:


Minister seeks traffic tips
B.C., California to swap ideas on easing congestion

Darah Hansen
Vancouver Sun

Monday, April 10, 2006

CREDIT: Damian Dovarganes, Associated Press files
While in California, B.C. transportation minister Kevin Falcon wants to find out more about anti-congestion measures in Greater Los Angeles, which has a population of more than 16 million.

B.C.'s transportation minister is in Long Beach, Calif., this week to meet with that city's port officials and politicians and swap tips on how to ease urban traffic congestion. The meetings are part of an effort to increase the West Coast's stronghold as the gateway to North America for goods shipped from Asia.

"I think there's a lot we can learn," Kevin Falcon said Sunday in an interview from Vancouver International Airport as he headed south for the two-day trip. "California [has] had to deal with road pressures way beyond what we've had in B.C. and I'm interested in seeing what innovative measures they've put forward to deal with those pressures."

Falcon's itinerary while in Long Beach includes meetings with the mayor, port commissioners, and railway officials, as well as members of the non-profit organization PierPASS, which works to reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality in the Los Angeles basin.

Falcon said he is particularly interested in learning more about programs aimed at reducing congestion in the greater Los Angeles area, where the urban population numbers more than 16 million. As an example of these programs, Falcon cited a recent initiative where commercial vehicles are charged for road use during peak traffic hours.

"That's something I'm very interested in looking at to see if that's something we can incorporate into our Pacific Gateway [strategy]," he said.

In return, Falcon said Long Beach officials want to learn more about the transportation component of the province's Gateway strategy, which is aimed at unclogging traffic congestion in the Lower Mainland, allowing commercial goods to move with greater ease and speed. Falcon said the current traffic backlog on highways costs the Lower Mainland economy about $1.5 billion a year in lost income.

Falcon said B.C. is under increasing pressure to improve transportation infrastructure in order to be a major player in the lucrative shipping trade coming from China and India.

"B.C. can't stand still," he said. "If we're serious about being competitive, we've got to make sure that we also make the kind of investments that are going to ensure that when the containers arrive [at B.C. ports], we have the ability to . . . make sure they can get to their market effectively."

Ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles already offer an enormous challenge to B.C., and significant port development plans in Mexico and the St. Lawrence Seaway are also under way.

dahansen@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006

[queetz@home]

Here are a couple more....


Falcon in California to investigate truck pass system

April 10, 2006 - 2:20 pm
By: Jim Goddard

BC's Transportation Minister feels more needs to be done to deal with Lower Mainland traffic congestion than just twin the Port Mann Bridge. Kevin Falcon is in California to see if a system there to reduce traffic tie ups could be used here. American port truckers can get a special pass that pays them a bonus to move goods in off peak hours, either late at night or very early in the morning. Louise Yako from the BC Trucking Association calls the idea intriguing. She says it's estimated traffic congestion costs the trucking industry a billion and a half dollars a year. "Well certainly we would be happy to look at anything that would improve current congestion, there's no doubt about that." However stumbling blocks are in the way. Shippers and receivers would have to be willing to work outside usual business hours. Some municipalities also have noise bylaws that don't allow heavy truck traffic when people are trying to sleep.

^ If he were to implement that policy now, commercial traffic wouldn't have any problems even with today's existing infrastructure.... :rolleyes:


Falcon flies to Los Angeles to talk transport & security
Apr, 10 2006 - 2:20 AM

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980) - Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon is hoping that a trip to California will help our province find new ways of easing transportation congestion on BC's highways and shipping ports.

He's left for Los Angeles for a two-day fact finding trip where he will meet with key transportation officials.

While Falcon says he will be promoting BC's Asia-Pacific Gateway program he is confident the discussions will have benefits for our province's infrastructure plans, "But where we can learn something from the Americans is through programs like the Pier Pass program, which is a program they have in California that essentially provides incentives for the shipping community to try and locate their shipping times during non-peak hours, so it gets the trucks operating during times when traffic is not at its peak, like rush hour for example."

Falcon says he is interested in how the Americans deal with issues like congestion, efficient movement of goods and the management of environmental issues.

^ I have nothing against how Americans do things but in terms of dealing with congestion, I'm not sure if they, Los Angelino planners in particular, are the best role models... :eek:

[LeftCoaster]

I dont really mind the port pass idea, it could have some impact on shipping delays... but if it was going to save the shipping industry money to ship at these times dont you think they would already do it??

On another note Falcon is a moron and must be shot... post haste

[officedweller]

One interesting thing is that the Port of Los Angeles constructed a multi-billion dollar grade-separated freight rail connection which completed in 2002 and was for some time underutilized:

http://www.portoflosangeles.org/facilities_Rail.htm#alameda

http://www.acta.org/

http://www.acta.org/images/photogallery/11.JPG
http://www.acta.org/images/photogallery/14.JPG
http://www.acta.org/images/photogallery/17.JPG
http://www.acta.org/images/photogallery/15.JPG

[LeftCoaster]

That seems like the best idea to me... although very expensive. Have a dedicated freight route, either rail or highway, to some transfer station somewhere in the valley, where rail freight could be loaded onto trucks if necessary, or continue onto its destination

[officedweller]

There's one intermodal yard at Pitt Meadows - I think it's the CP yard. Not sure where he CN yard is - could still be on the Burrard Inlet harbour and False Creek Flats with BNSF.
The Grandview Cut can accommodate another rail line (they left enough space after the M-Line was built). Just the at-grade crossing at Venables (and Rupert, Renfrew, Boundary, etc.) that are the big hang-ups. The City has also backed off from its timeline to remove railway uses from the False Creek Flats, since rail traffic is increasing.

[mattropolis]

Not sure where he CN yard is - could still be on the Burrard Inlet harbour. The CN intermodal yard is east of the Port mann bridge, see the map of the rail tracks in the region in post #126.

I am coming to the realization that Kevin Falcon is an arrogant dictatorial prick. His comments on the radio and in the newspapers are insulting. When he talks of "consultation" horns must be popping out the side of his head, because the plans were developed for two years behind closed doors with no public input, and now Falcon is saying that nothing can be changed, the only thing the public can influence is the colour of the lampposts (maybe). Get rid of the guy!!

[officedweller]

Thanks.

The main problem would be linking the two intermodal yards with the ports on Burrard Inlet and at Deltaport with rail - but there will always be demand to move cargo from the ships by truck - depending on where the destination is (i.e. warehouses in Richmond?).

If the goods are destined for places closer in than those yards, it doesn't make sense to transport by rail - and many warehouses are probably closer in than that - a consequence of moving railyards away from the core (ad building condos) I guess.

[Lee_Haber8]

If there is one group that can ruin the future of Vancouver it is the provincial government of British Columbia.

[fever]

The Gateway project is about moving goods from Canada's Pacific coast to the rest of Canada. With bulk goods, this is generally done by rail, and rail will most likely continue to be more efficient with rising fuel costs (i don't have numbers?).

I was under the impression that LA, at least the city and maybe the county, had mostly given up on expanding highway capacity and for the last several years has instead put most of their infrastructure money towards rail (and freeway bus) projects, both freight and rapid transit.

[Nutterbug]

OKAY!!!! This is way too much! Of all the places in the world Kevin Falcon goes to study how to reduce congestion, he goes to the heart of the freeway universe.....LOS ANGELES!!! WTF???? For those who deny that those Gateway critics are just bullsh*tting whenever they say Vancouver will become like Los Angeles, LOW AND BEHOLD!!!! AND NOTE that it looks like the congestion charges that Kevin is most interested in is penalizing COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC, not SOVs! GOD!!! This guy simply has to go! :hell:

This totally goes against the GVRD's plans.

TransLink ties bridge twinning to transit cash

William Boei
Vancouver Sun

Saturday, April 08, 2006

LOWER MAINLAND I TransLink officials said Friday they would back twinning the Port Mann Bridge if the province comes up with another $230 million to build the Evergreen rapid transit line to Coquitlam.

As the debate over the province's $3-billion Gateway Program heated up, some Greater Vancouver Regional District directors called for a compromise to be hammered out by the district, TransLink and the provincial government.

Meanwhile, regional planners and environmental groups warned a joint meeting of TransLink directors and the GVRD's transportation committee that the future of Greater Vancouver as a sustainable region is at stake.

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon has been saying the province will push ahead with the Gateway Program regardless of local and regional objections.

Falcon wants to expand the Trans-Canada Highway from Langley to Vancouver, twin the congested Port Mann Bridge, build a new four-lane highway along the south shore of the Fraser River and improve an existing truck route on the river's north shore, including a new bridge over the Pitt River.

GVRD planning manager Hugh Kellas said the Port Mann twinning does not fit into the region's plans, but the rest of the Gateway Program might fit if the province agrees to a regional transportation management demand strategy, among other conditions.

(The strategy can include tolling, congestion charges, more transit, HOV lanes and other measures to take traffic off the roads without necessarily adding to road capacity.)

Kellas said Gateway amounts to "throwing a whole bunch of pavement at the problem and hoping that will solve it." But he said it will help only in the short term, and if Vancouver wants to remain one of the top 10 cities in the world, it has to do better.

TransLink planning vice-president Glen Leicester said TransLink backs the two Fraser River perimeter roads, and could support the highway expansion and bridge twinning if the province agrees to:

- Tolling the bridge not only to pay for it, but also to manage demand.

- Give transit, high-occupancy vehicles and trucks priority on the highway over single-occupant vehicles.

- Stop promoting the aging, dangerous Pattullo Bridge as an alternative to a tolled Port Mann and agree to a long-term strategy to fix or replace the Pattullo.

- Agree to 50-50 cost-sharing on TransLink's $800-million Evergreen light rail line from Burnaby to Coquitlam. The province has committed $170 million, so would have to provide up to $230 million more.

- Support an express bus route over the Port Mann from Langley and Surrey to Coquitlam Centre.

-- bboei@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006

[Nutterbug]

Here is an example of the kind of boneheadedness that'll earn you an economics professorship at SFU.

Uh...hello. Ever heard of LA's infamous air quality or the problem of fuel consumption, professor?

L.A.-style congestion would not be a bad thing
A pervasive network of super-highways moving people and goods at low cost has enabled the people of Los Angeles to enjoy one of the world's highest living standards

Herbert Grubel
Special to the Sun

Monday, March 27, 2006

'The twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and of the Massey Tunnel will not get rid of traffic congestion because, as experience has shown, traffic will soon again be congested."

This argument is used by opponents to these and other road expansion projects that have recently been announced by British Columbia's Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon to serve the commercial and commuter needs of the Lower Mainland.

This argument is wrong-headed. These projects will not be built to relieve congestion. They are built to facilitate the movement of people and goods. Congestion will always be with us for very good economic reasons.

When the Lions Gate Bridge was under repair and only one, narrow lane of traffic moved south in the morning, the time when it was congested lasted from 7.00 am until 9.00 am. During that period traffic was lined up for about a kilometre on four two-lane feeder roads and it required a car about 30-45 minutes on average to get across the bridge.

Now that two, wider lanes are available in the morning, the congestion lasts from 7:30 am until 8:30 am, the line-up extends a few hundred yards and it takes only 15-20 minutes on average to get across the bridge.

While these data are based only on personal experience and the times tend to vary from day to day, the basic fact is that the dreaded congestion existed before and after the repairs and improvements of the Lions Gate Bridge. Yet, the citizens in the Lower Mainland have gained much through the improvements.

First, they can get into the traffic line-up later in the morning to reach their destination at a desired time. People use the extra available time in ways that suit them best and improve their well being -- longer sleep, reading newspapers, checking emails, working or helping with the kids.

Second, fuel consumption and pollution are reduced.

Third, more people use the bridge because it no longer is necessary to use alternative routes. Some have even stopped the use public transit. Others have taken jobs in town that otherwise would not have been attractive.

These mainly personal benefits occur in the morning and afternoon. They are in addition to important gains in the region's productivity and living standards that arise because of quicker and more reliable transport of people and goods at all times of the day.

In a sense, investments in transportation infrastructure are equivalent to investments made by business and the purchase of homes and cars by individuals. The returns exceed the costs, even though the returns often are not clear and obvious.

The opponents of the new projects tend to argue that new bridges and roads will make the Lower Mainland like Los Angeles. That would not be a bad thing. The pervasive network of super-highways has allowed Los Angeles to achieve one of the highest living standards in the world because people and goods can move quickly and at low cost.

The Los Angeles road system has also had an interesting effect that can easily develop in Vancouver. The downtown area of Los Angeles with its high rise office buildings is small relative to the size of the metropolitan area so that regular commuting traffic is correspondingly lower than in other cities of similar size. The reason is that the roads have permitted the development of commercial activities in all parts of the city. Housing has followed.

As a result of these conditions, two of my children and their spouses living in Los Angeles have about a 10-minute drive from home to work every day without using the nearby freeway. Studies have shown that living near places of work has made the average commuter distance in Los Angeles one of the lowest in the United States. The schools attended by my grand children are a two minute drive from home. Most shopping facilities used by my families are reached on city roads in three minutes.

The Los Angeles freeways are large, intimidating for visitors and often crowded throughout the day, in spite of the relative lack of commuters. They are occupied mainly by people whose work requires them to move between locations -- sales agents, truckers moving goods to stores, gardeners, craftsmen, construction workers, shoppers, people going to the airport or local entertainment attractions and so on. These users of the freeways keep the economy humming at its high level of efficiency.

There are such users also on Lower Mainland roads and bridges, all day long, they are just fewer of them than there are in Los Angeles.

Seemingly inevitable accidents blocking freeways for prolonged periods are a great burden in Los Angeles and Vancouver. But they are less costly for drivers in Los Angeles because the dense network of freeways allows convenient opportunities to use alternative routes.

The opponents of new road facilities in Vancouver argue that public transit should be expanded instead. The experience of London, Paris, New York and Berlin shows that pervasive networks of buses, subways, rail lines and ferries do not eliminate congestion on the freeways, ring roads, bridges and tunnels of these cities. Public transit is a complement to roads and is essential to the prosperity of cities. Both need to be built, as they are in Vancouver and every other city that has grown, expects to grow further and wishes its citizens to be productive and prosperous.

Herbert Grubel is emeritus professor of economics at Simon Fraser University.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006

[hollywoodnorth]

Here is an example of the kind of boneheadedness that'll earn you an economics professorship at SFU.

Uh...hello. Ever heard of LA's infamous air quality or the problem of fuel consumption, professor?

L.A.-style congestion would not be a bad thing
A pervasive network of super-highways moving people and goods at low cost has enabled the people of Los Angeles to enjoy one of the world's highest living standards

Herbert Grubel
Special to the Sun

Monday, March 27, 2006

'The twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and of the Massey Tunnel will not get rid of traffic congestion because, as experience has shown, traffic will soon again be congested."

This argument is used by opponents to these and other road expansion projects that have recently been announced by British Columbia's Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon to serve the commercial and commuter needs of the Lower Mainland.

This argument is wrong-headed. These projects will not be built to relieve congestion. They are built to facilitate the movement of people and goods. Congestion will always be with us for very good economic reasons.

When the Lions Gate Bridge was under repair and only one, narrow lane of traffic moved south in the morning, the time when it was congested lasted from 7.00 am until 9.00 am. During that period traffic was lined up for about a kilometre on four two-lane feeder roads and it required a car about 30-45 minutes on average to get across the bridge.

Now that two, wider lanes are available in the morning, the congestion lasts from 7:30 am until 8:30 am, the line-up extends a few hundred yards and it takes only 15-20 minutes on average to get across the bridge.

While these data are based only on personal experience and the times tend to vary from day to day, the basic fact is that the dreaded congestion existed before and after the repairs and improvements of the Lions Gate Bridge. Yet, the citizens in the Lower Mainland have gained much through the improvements.

First, they can get into the traffic line-up later in the morning to reach their destination at a desired time. People use the extra available time in ways that suit them best and improve their well being -- longer sleep, reading newspapers, checking emails, working or helping with the kids.

Second, fuel consumption and pollution are reduced.

Third, more people use the bridge because it no longer is necessary to use alternative routes. Some have even stopped the use public transit. Others have taken jobs in town that otherwise would not have been attractive.

These mainly personal benefits occur in the morning and afternoon. They are in addition to important gains in the region's productivity and living standards that arise because of quicker and more reliable transport of people and goods at all times of the day.

In a sense, investments in transportation infrastructure are equivalent to investments made by business and the purchase of homes and cars by individuals. The returns exceed the costs, even though the returns often are not clear and obvious.

The opponents of the new projects tend to argue that new bridges and roads will make the Lower Mainland like Los Angeles. That would not be a bad thing. The pervasive network of super-highways has allowed Los Angeles to achieve one of the highest living standards in the world because people and goods can move quickly and at low cost.

The Los Angeles road system has also had an interesting effect that can easily develop in Vancouver. The downtown area of Los Angeles with its high rise office buildings is small relative to the size of the metropolitan area so that regular commuting traffic is correspondingly lower than in other cities of similar size. The reason is that the roads have permitted the development of commercial activities in all parts of the city. Housing has followed.

As a result of these conditions, two of my children and their spouses living in Los Angeles have about a 10-minute drive from home to work every day without using the nearby freeway. Studies have shown that living near places of work has made the average commuter distance in Los Angeles one of the lowest in the United States. The schools attended by my grand children are a two minute drive from home. Most shopping facilities used by my families are reached on city roads in three minutes.

The Los Angeles freeways are large, intimidating for visitors and often crowded throughout the day, in spite of the relative lack of commuters. They are occupied mainly by people whose work requires them to move between locations -- sales agents, truckers moving goods to stores, gardeners, craftsmen, construction workers, shoppers, people going to the airport or local entertainment attractions and so on. These users of the freeways keep the economy humming at its high level of efficiency.

There are such users also on Lower Mainland roads and bridges, all day long, they are just fewer of them than there are in Los Angeles.

Seemingly inevitable accidents blocking freeways for prolonged periods are a great burden in Los Angeles and Vancouver. But they are less costly for drivers in Los Angeles because the dense network of freeways allows convenient opportunities to use alternative routes.

The opponents of new road facilities in Vancouver argue that public transit should be expanded instead. The experience of London, Paris, New York and Berlin shows that pervasive networks of buses, subways, rail lines and ferries do not eliminate congestion on the freeways, ring roads, bridges and tunnels of these cities. Public transit is a complement to roads and is essential to the prosperity of cities. Both need to be built, as they are in Vancouver and every other city that has grown, expects to grow further and wishes its citizens to be productive and prosperous.

Herbert Grubel is emeritus professor of economics at Simon Fraser University.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006


now this guy knows what he is talking about.........the below is the quote to end all quotes....

"The opponents of new road facilities in Vancouver argue that public transit should be expanded instead. The experience of London, Paris, New York and Berlin shows that pervasive networks of buses, subways, rail lines and ferries do not eliminate congestion on the freeways, ring roads, bridges and tunnels of these cities."


if Public Transit is the solution to all....as Mr LRT (aka Queetz) would have us all believe....what is with the above example cities....? do they need to lay more LRT tracks? did they not lay enough LRT tracks? should they convert their freeways/byways to LRT?

[Jared]

now this guy knows what he is talking about.........the below is the quote to end all quotes....

"The opponents of new road facilities in Vancouver argue that public transit should be expanded instead. The experience of London, Paris, New York and Berlin shows that pervasive networks of buses, subways, rail lines and ferries do not eliminate congestion on the freeways, ring roads, bridges and tunnels of these cities."


if Public Transit is the solution to all....as Mr LRT (aka Queetz) would have us all believe....what is with the above example cities....? do they need to lay more LRT tracks? did they not lay enough LRT tracks? should they convert their freeways/byways to LRT?

And what do you think congestion would be like if London, Paris etc. DIDN'T have their extensive transit networks? :koko:

[phesto]

^Just look at NYC's subway strike of last year for an example of what congestion is like in a major city when part of the transit infrastructure isn’t functional.

[Blake]

Comparing Vancouver to places like Paris and London is apples vs. oranges.

A city that we need to consider modelling is Portland. The demographics and social climate are similar, although Portland is a fair bit smaller. They have an adequate system of transit and adequate freeway capacity that provides people with choice.

Perhaps the GVRD needs to look at the Portland urban growth boundary as a viable option to increase density in the Greater Vancouver area. So far the Livable Region strategy has failed in that is has allowed the development of suburban office parks that would not be effectively served by public transit (see Burnaby's Big Bend area), and it has not provided affordable housing for young middle income families.

For these people, if they want anything affordable over 2000 sq/ft, places like Surrey, Langley and Maple Ridge are their only options as the GVRD has failed to stop these cities from implementing low density developments that are not in a accordance with the GVRD plan.

If all jobs were offered within dense areas along transit lines than providing transit in lieu of the Gateway Project would be a much better alternative, but that is just not the case. Until more aggressive measures are taken to ensure successful implementation of the GVRD plan with respect to zoning and development patterns, punishing Valley residents by playing the "widening Hwy 1 goes against the GVRD" card doesn't hold much substance.

[LeftCoaster]

That SFU economics professor is a complete moron, not only is his article absurd, he is single handedly giving his entire department a bad name with his idiocy.

"the citizens in the Lower Mainland have gained much through the improvements.

First, they can get into the traffic line-up later in the morning to reach their destination at a desired time. People use the extra available time in ways that suit them best and improve their well being -- longer sleep, reading newspapers, checking emails, working or helping with the kids.

Second, fuel consumption and pollution are reduced.

Third, more people use the bridge because it no longer is necessary to use alternative routes. Some have even stopped the use public transit. Others have taken jobs in town that otherwise would not have been attractive."

His second point states that fuel consumption and pollution are reduced, then in his third point he claims that more people use the bridge and less people use public transit...WTF!?!? are you kidding me, make a point and stick with it you retard, more cars and less transit users make for more fuel consumption and more pollution! and since when did less transit users become an improvment... this guy wouldn't know common sense it if kicked him in the ass.

And as for his anecdotal arguments about LA, i don't even know where to begin... so your relatives lucked out and got a job close to their house, thats not the case for all residents, and having un-nucleated employment centers is the last thing a city wants, if anything it wants multi-nodal centers based around transit so that commuters have easy access.

And as for his argument with euro cities such as Paris and London, public transit is not meant to reduce congestion, but provide an alternative so that not everyone has to use the perpetually clogged central arteries of a city... history has shown us time and time again that no matter how many lanes are built on a highway (within reason) they will be at capacity within years.

There are so many problems with this article I cant believe it even got published in the Sun... I think we may have found someone stupider than Falcon, although that is still debatable.

[Lee_Haber8]

Here is an example of the kind of boneheadedness that'll earn you an economics professorship at SFU.

Uh...hello. Ever heard of LA's infamous air quality or the problem of fuel consumption, professor?

L.A.-style congestion would not be a bad thing
A pervasive network of super-highways moving people and goods at low cost has enabled the people of Los Angeles to enjoy one of the world's highest living standards

Herbert Grubel
Special to the Sun

Monday, March 27, 2006

'The twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and of the Massey Tunnel will not get rid of traffic congestion because, as experience has shown, traffic will soon again be congested."

This argument is used by opponents to these and other road expansion projects that have recently been announced by British Columbia's Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon to serve the commercial and commuter needs of the Lower Mainland.

This argument is wrong-headed. These projects will not be built to relieve congestion. They are built to facilitate the movement of people and goods. Congestion will always be with us for very good economic reasons.

When the Lions Gate Bridge was under repair and only one, narrow lane of traffic moved south in the morning, the time when it was congested lasted from 7.00 am until 9.00 am. During that period traffic was lined up for about a kilometre on four two-lane feeder roads and it required a car about 30-45 minutes on average to get across the bridge.

Now that two, wider lanes are available in the morning, the congestion lasts from 7:30 am until 8:30 am, the line-up extends a few hundred yards and it takes only 15-20 minutes on average to get across the bridge.

While these data are based only on personal experience and the times tend to vary from day to day, the basic fact is that the dreaded congestion existed before and after the repairs and improvements of the Lions Gate Bridge. Yet, the citizens in the Lower Mainland have gained much through the improvements.

First, they can get into the traffic line-up later in the morning to reach their destination at a desired time. People use the extra available time in ways that suit them best and improve their well being -- longer sleep, reading newspapers, checking emails, working or helping with the kids.

Second, fuel consumption and pollution are reduced.

Third, more people use the bridge because it no longer is necessary to use alternative routes. Some have even stopped the use public transit. Others have taken jobs in town that otherwise would not have been attractive.

These mainly personal benefits occur in the morning and afternoon. They are in addition to important gains in the region's productivity and living standards that arise because of quicker and more reliable transport of people and goods at all times of the day.

In a sense, investments in transportation infrastructure are equivalent to investments made by business and the purchase of homes and cars by individuals. The returns exceed the costs, even though the returns often are not clear and obvious.

The opponents of the new projects tend to argue that new bridges and roads will make the Lower Mainland like Los Angeles. That would not be a bad thing. The pervasive network of super-highways has allowed Los Angeles to achieve one of the highest living standards in the world because people and goods can move quickly and at low cost.

The Los Angeles road system has also had an interesting effect that can easily develop in Vancouver. The downtown area of Los Angeles with its high rise office buildings is small relative to the size of the metropolitan area so that regular commuting traffic is correspondingly lower than in other cities of similar size. The reason is that the roads have permitted the development of commercial activities in all parts of the city. Housing has followed.

As a result of these conditions, two of my children and their spouses living in Los Angeles have about a 10-minute drive from home to work every day without using the nearby freeway. Studies have shown that living near places of work has made the average commuter distance in Los Angeles one of the lowest in the United States. The schools attended by my grand children are a two minute drive from home. Most shopping facilities used by my families are reached on city roads in three minutes.

The Los Angeles freeways are large, intimidating for visitors and often crowded throughout the day, in spite of the relative lack of commuters. They are occupied mainly by people whose work requires them to move between locations -- sales agents, truckers moving goods to stores, gardeners, craftsmen, construction workers, shoppers, people going to the airport or local entertainment attractions and so on. These users of the freeways keep the economy humming at its high level of efficiency.

There are such users also on Lower Mainland roads and bridges, all day long, they are just fewer of them than there are in Los Angeles.

Seemingly inevitable accidents blocking freeways for prolonged periods are a great burden in Los Angeles and Vancouver. But they are less costly for drivers in Los Angeles because the dense network of freeways allows convenient opportunities to use alternative routes.

The opponents of new road facilities in Vancouver argue that public transit should be expanded instead. The experience of London, Paris, New York and Berlin shows that pervasive networks of buses, subways, rail lines and ferries do not eliminate congestion on the freeways, ring roads, bridges and tunnels of these cities. Public transit is a complement to roads and is essential to the prosperity of cities. Both need to be built, as they are in Vancouver and every other city that has grown, expects to grow further and wishes its citizens to be productive and prosperous.

Herbert Grubel is emeritus professor of economics at Simon Fraser University.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006

This is total BS! This guy has no idea what he is talking about!

[Stingray2004]

LOWER MAINLAND I TransLink officials said Friday they would back twinning the Port Mann Bridge if the province comes up with another $230 million to build the Evergreen rapid transit line to Coquitlam.

TransLink planning vice-president Glen Leicester said TransLink backs the two Fraser River perimeter roads, and could support the highway expansion and bridge twinning if the province agrees to:

- Tolling the bridge not only to pay for it, but also to manage demand.

- Give transit, high-occupancy vehicles and trucks priority on the highway over single-occupant vehicles.

- Stop promoting the aging, dangerous Pattullo Bridge as an alternative to a tolled Port Mann and agree to a long-term strategy to fix or replace the Pattullo.

- Agree to 50-50 cost-sharing on TransLink's $800-million Evergreen light rail line from Burnaby to Coquitlam. The province has committed $170 million, so would have to provide up to $230 million more.

- Support an express bus route over the Port Mann from Langley and Surrey to Coquitlam Centre.

Well, as a creature of the GVRD, Translink's transportation planners seem to make some common sense.

A new Pattullo Bridge as envisaged by Translink would also likely be a 6-lane tolled facility. A good chunk of Surrey traffic currently utilizing the Port Mann might also be inclined to utilize such a new Pattullo, although I can't see it being built in the short to medium term.

As for Translink's other new crossing, the 6-lane Golden Ears Bridge & connectors, here's a new rendering from the engineering firm of Buckland & Taylor:

http://www.b-t.com/images/400/goldenears.jpg


Edited to add: Oh, I forgot about that professor Herbert Grubel in the above column. When he was an MP, his nickname was HERR Grubel. :D

[Dorian G.]

L.A.-style congestion would not be a bad thing
Herbert Grubel
Special to the Sun
Monday, March 27, 2006

…As a result of these conditions, two of my children and their spouses living in Los Angeles have about a 10-minute drive from home to work every day without using the nearby freeway…The schools attended by my grand children are a two minute drive from home. Most shopping facilities used by my families are reached on city roads in three minutes.

Herbert Grubel is emeritus professor of economics at Simon Fraser University.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
My god, I think I found the cause of the obesity epidemic. Who drives their kids 2 MINUTES to school? Pathetic. But anyway, I don't think we have anything to fear. "Professor emeritus" (or the reverse) means he's too senile and old to still actually teach. In a word, Depends.

[Nutterbug]

Mostly a repeat of articles already posted thus far, but with a few more points added...

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=e3e68f81-b2a2-48e9-baa7-2d0818b6a321

TransLink VP issues Gateway warning
Growth strategy is needed or new roads, bridges will quickly become congested, report says

William Boei
Vancouver Sun

Friday, April 14, 2006

New roads and bridges proposed in the provincial government's $3-billion Gateway Program could be quickly overwhelmed by car traffic if the program isn't part of a regional growth and economic strategy, a new TransLink report says.

The report, made public Thursday and to be discussed by TransLink directors next week, calls on the province to take part in a major review of regional growth strategies, cough up more money for transit and consider strengthening the district's power to control development, which is now largely in the hands of individual municipalities.

Written by TransLink planning vice-president Glen Leicester, the report warns that without appropriate land-use plans, new road capacity could spur low-density development in the Fraser Valley, generating more traffic and risking a quick return to serious congestion.

The Gateway Program includes twinning the Port Mann Bridge, widening the Trans-Canada Highway between Langley and Vancouver, building a new four-lane highway along the south shore of the Fraser River, and improving a truck route along the north shore, including a new bridge over the Pitt River.

Leicester said the region needs plans "to determine the nature, phasing and location of growth to minimize the risk of the newly expanded system quickly reaching saturation in terms of congestion."

The Greater Vancouver Regional District is already revising its regional growth strategy, and Leicester's report said Gateway planning should be part of that process.

At the same time, the region could draw up "a new economic development strategy . . . that explicitly addresses the needs of industry."

The strategy would not only look at where industry can be located, but also ensure "that the improved movement of goods in the region is not quickly overwhelmed by commuter and other automobile traffic."

If TransLink directors accept the report, they will be joining the GVRD board in offering conditional support for the Gateway Program as long as the provincial government agrees to cooperate with regional goals and policies.

The report recommends a long list of conditions for TransLink's support, among them:

- Region-wide tolling and related measures to manage demand and keep traffic moving.

- Priority for transit, high-occupancy vehicles and goods movement ahead of single-occupant vehicles.

- A long-term strategy for the Pattullo Bridge including possibly replacing it, and not promoting the Pattullo as an un-tolled alternative to a tolled Port Mann Bridge.

- The province pays for half the cost of the Evergreen rapid transit line to Coquitlam, which is currently $230 million short, and half the cost of a new fast-bus service linking Langley, Surrey and Coquitlam.

- The province, the federal government and the region look at using more rail and marine transportation to move goods through the region.

- The province consult with the GVRD "to ensure that the GVRD has adequate powers" to control development.

bboei@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006

[raggedy13]

^Sound like some good points.

I must agree with everybody else on that previous article by the SFU prof. As soon as he said...

"Third, more people use the bridge because it no longer is necessary to use alternative routes. Some have even stopped the use public transit."

... I couldn't believe what I was reading. That couldn't be anymore contradictory to his argument. How in the hell is more people using the bridge and less people using transit a good thing? Right there he basically comfirmed all the critics worst fears. Any credibility on his part just flew out the window.

[LeftCoaster]

I am a great opponent of freeway orientated development, I think that the greatest thing vancouver ever did was keep freeways out of its core... long live the NIMBYS for that one!! :jester: Yet part of me thinks that vancouver does need an increase in freeway capacity, but it needs it for commerical reasons, not for commuters too lazy to get out of their cars (or in some cases with no viable alternative options). If the freeways are increased, yet development is highly regulated and adequate mass transport is provided i think it could be benifical to the city and province.

I honestly wouldnt be against a complete tolling of Vancouver freeways, albeit a small but constant tolling, with all proceeds going towards inprovment of mass transit.

I still say we sack Falcon and throw him in the fraser though!

[j4893k]

I am a great opponent of freeway orientated development, I think that the greatest thing vancouver ever did was keep freeways out of its core... long live the NIMBYS for that one!! :jester: Yet part of me thinks that vancouver does need an increase in freeway capacity, but it needs it for commerical reasons, not for commuters too lazy to get out of their cars (or in some cases with no viable alternative options). If the freeways are increased, yet development is highly regulated and adequate mass transport is provided i think it could be benifical to the city and province.

I honestly wouldnt be against a complete tolling of Vancouver freeways, albeit a small but constant tolling, with all proceeds going towards inprovment of mass transit.

I agree... I think freeways can definately be our friends if all other aspects of transportation and development are managed well.

Unfortunately, I just don't see the gateway project properly co-existing with the GRVD. With Surrey's single family housing craze, the lack of a true public transportation system visioned/planned in the area, the lack of controlled development etc etc, this project could soon turn ugly if it were to be built.

I still say we sack Falcon and throw him in the fraser though!

Meet you at the Surrey docks at 8.

[queetz@home]

Ugh! Another reason to sack Kevin Falcon!!! The GVRDs transportation system is so f*cked up while he is around... :rant:

Instituting regional tolls is political suicide: Falcon

By Jeff NagelBlack Press
Apr 12 2006

All politicians in favour of tolling every bridge in the Lower Mainland, please speak up.

Surrey Coun. Marvin Hunt expects deafening silence if that question is ever directly put to local mayors and councillors.

The Greater Vancouver Regional District’s analysis of the Gateway program concludes either regional tolling or a congestion road pricing scheme be adopted to control traffic – instead of twinning the Port Mann Bridge.

Hunt says he has “real trepidation” at tackling that idea, noting how much resistance TransLink faced in its efforts to bring in a vehicle levy or its new parking stall tax.

“These things sound really good on paper but the political reality of it is extremely painful for the politicians who are involved in it,” he said.
More transit options are needed south of the Fraser River before any such scheme could work, he noted.

“The problem is nobody wants to pay for it,” Hunt said. “Nobody wants to pay the parking stall tax, but everybody wants to send buses somewhere.”

The other problem is Victoria, not TransLink, controls most of the region’s bridges and whether they’re tolled.

And Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon says the Livable Region Strategic Plan’s call for eventual tolling for all bridges is a non-starter.

“We won’t do it,” Falcon said in an interview.

He doubts local politicians have the stomach for the increased transportation demand controls the GVRD report urges.

“I’m not going to hold my breath to see which of the politicians is going to have the courage to stand up and say they’re going to put tolling in place where there is no new infrastructure,” Falcon said.

“If you think the parking stall tax created a firestorm, you’ve seen nothing yet.”

He said he won’t back away from the Port Mann twinning, either.
“Eliminating the twinning of the Port Mann would drive a huge amount of traffic on the South Fraser Perimeter Road and create a traffic calamity for the Pattullo and the Alex Fraser,” Falcon said.

And he held up the proposed toll for the Port Mann as a mechanism that will help control traffic and channel commuters toward transit.

Falcon said the Gateway program is indivisible and won’t work if “you try to cherry pick what pieces you want and don’t want.”

The GVRD report calls for further study of Gateway program impacts.
It says they range from air quality and greenhouse gas implications to water-front accessibility impacts of the South Fraser Perimeter Road, to reduced access to regional parks.

The report suggests the South Fraser Perimeter Road may impact Burns Bog, eliminate up to 80 hectares of farm land, and limit access to Deas Island and Tynehead regional parks.

The Highway 1 widen-ing could likewise impact Burnaby Lake and Colony Farm regional parks, it said, as well as other wetlands and habitat areas near the Pitt River.

[Stingray2004]

Gateway the Way, Says One LRSP Architect

By Jeff Nagel Black Press

May 17, 2006

A veteran transportation planner, who helped craft the region's land-use master plan, is backing the province's $3 billion Gateway Program and controversial Port Mann Bridge twinning.

"From what I've seen, it looks reasonable", said Karoly Krajczar in an interview. "I like the fact that the bridge is tolled. If the facility wasn't going to be tolled, I wouldn't be thrilled about it."

Krajczar's assessment carries added weight because he was part ot the team that in the 1990s developed both Greater Vancouver's Transport 2021 strategy and its Liveable Region Strategic Plan.

Twinning opponents often brandish the LRSP, saying its vision of concentrated growth areas must be defended.

But Krajczar says both plans were intended to evolve, adding updates haven't come as quickly as hoped.

"When we did Transport 2021, we didn't envision twinning the Port Mann Bridge", he said. "The reason for that was what we had assumed back then was different than what has evolved."

Much of the growth of homes and jobs spilled outside of regional town centres, leading to a dispersed commuting pattern that's hard to serve with transit.

"When you do these strategic plans, nobody says we're going to do this and we're going to stick to it for the next 25 years", Krajczar added. "That's not what a strategic plan is about."

One plank of Transport 2021 Krajczar hopes does advance soon is the tolling of all major bridges and tunnels in the region.

Planned tolls on the Port Mann and the new Golden Ears Bridge open the door to that debate, he said.

"Road pricing is something that really needs to get a serious look".

The Greater Vancouver Regional District is now working on a new set of growth management plans intended to replace the LRSP.

[hollywoodnorth]

Gateway the Way, Says One LRSP Architect

By Jeff Nagel Black Press

May 17, 2006

A veteran transportation planner, who helped craft the region's land-use master plan, is backing the province's $3 billion Gateway Program and controversial Port Mann Bridge twinning.

"From what I've seen, it looks reasonable", said Karoly Krajczar in an interview. "I like the fact that the bridge is tolled. If the facility wasn't going to be tolled, I wouldn't be thrilled about it."

Krajczar's assessment carries added weight because he was part ot the team that in the 1990s developed both Greater Vancouver's Transport 2021 strategy and its Liveable Region Strategic Plan.

Twinning opponents often brandish the LRSP, saying its vision of concentrated growth areas must be defended.

But Krajczar says both plans were intended to evolve, adding updates haven't come as quickly as hoped.

"When we did Transport 2021, we didn't envision twinning the Port Mann Bridge", he said. "The reason for that was what we had assumed back then was different than what has evolved."

Much of the growth of homes and jobs spilled outside of regional town centres, leading to a dispersed commuting pattern that's hard to serve with transit.

"When you do these strategic plans, nobody says we're going to do this and we're going to stick to it for the next 25 years", Krajczar added. "That's not what a strategic plan is about."

One plank of Transport 2021 Krajczar hopes does advance soon is the tolling of all major bridges and tunnels in the region.

Planned tolls on the Port Mann and the new Golden Ears Bridge open the door to that debate, he said.

"Road pricing is something that really needs to get a serious look".

The Greater Vancouver Regional District is now working on a new set of growth management plans intended to replace the LRSP.


Hey Queetz......do you like Bananas?

WELL HOW YOU LIKE THEM BANANAS YOU FOOL...........the person who created your precious little plan that you rant and rave over is BACKING THE GATEWAY PLAN..........and you know why? because he used a thing called a "BRAIN" and that "BRAIN" put 2 and 2 together and it made 4........:notacrook:


maybe you can change your sig now HAHAHAHAAHA as its not relevant any more :)
"The only good Liberal is a BC Liberal....except Transport Minister Kevin Falcon. He is a disgrace to the BC Liberal Party and the transportation profession! Click and see the link below for more information as to why....http://www.livableregion.ca/index.html

Kevin Falcon = Wendell Cox "

[officedweller]

GVTA report comparing GVTA and GVRD views on Gateway:

http://www.translink.bc.ca/files/board_files/meet_agenda_min/2006/05_24_06/4.12report.pdf

GVTA report on regional traffic patterns:

http://www.translink.bc.ca/files/board_files/meet_agenda_min/2006/05_24_06/4.15report.pdf

[Stingray2004]

GVTA report comparing GVTA and GVRD views on Gateway:

http://www.translink.bc.ca/files/board_files/meet_agenda_min/2006/05_24_06/4.12report.pdf

GVTA report on regional traffic patterns:

http://www.translink.bc.ca/files/board_files/meet_agenda_min/2006/05_24_06/4.15report.pdf

Thanks. Interesting stats but no real big surprises. Some tidbits:

1. Vancouver/ North Shore/ Burnaby/ New Westminster (north of Fraser River) only had 1/3 of region's population growth between 1996 and 2004;

2. The screenline growth of the 24 hour commute toward Vancouver's downtown peninsula has decreased ~5% between 1996 and 2004;

3. Outbound peak hour traffic growth radiating from downtown Vancouver and neighbouring municipalities grew at twice the rate of inbound traffic growth, generally reflecting the employment growth generated south of the Fraser River;

4. "Overall traffic conditions and congestion at the Port Mann Bridge are some of the most chronic in the region";

[Jared]

Hey Queetz......do you like Bananas?

WELL HOW YOU LIKE THEM BANANAS YOU FOOL...........the person who created your precious little plan that you rant and rave over is BACKING THE GATEWAY PLAN..........and you know why? because he used a thing called a "BRAIN" and that "BRAIN" put 2 and 2 together and it made 4........:notacrook:


maybe you can change your sig now HAHAHAHAAHA as its not relevant any more :)
"The only good Liberal is a BC Liberal....except Transport Minister Kevin Falcon. He is a disgrace to the BC Liberal Party and the transportation profession! Click and see the link below for more information as to why....http://www.livableregion.ca/index.html

Kevin Falcon = Wendell Cox "

interesting to note the fact that your are ignoring that this is only ONE OF MANY people who helped craft the LRSP. what i see is a single individual speaking his mind, not unanimous support for Gateway from the creators of the plan.

[queetz@home]

:previous: Indeed, Jared! Some people are just beyond stupidity... :lmao:

[officedweller]

I think that the major point to be taken from the article posted by Stingray is that the LRSP is meant to evolve and respond to current and changing conditions, and not be detrimental to the region by remaining inflexible and static. Part of that response is to address unanticipated population growth south of the Fraser River and the failure of the Regional Town Centres to absorb jobs.

[queetz@home]

Leaders unable to agree on Gateway
Project 'well underway' as politicians debate its merits

William Boei
Vancouver Sun

Monday, May 29, 2006

Greater Vancouver I Some politicians cheered on the province's controversial $3-billion Gateway Program Saturday, while others worried it would overrun their cities with traffic or threaten rapid transit to their area.

But whether they attacked it or praised it, the Gateway Program's executive director told them work on the project is "well underway," and a tendering process for the first phase -- a new bridge over the Pitt River -- will likely begin in the fall.

Mike Proudfoot said the region faces serious congestion, especially at the key Port Mann river crossing, and it will only get worse if nothing is done.

The discussion over the massive road- and bridge-building program came at an unusual gathering of Greater Vancouver politicians.

About 200 people -- including 120 municipal council members from the region, MLAs and MPs, planners and observers -- met in Langley to begin to develop a regional position on the controversial project.

But opinions were sharply divided, with politicians from the southeastern suburbs in support, the western cities warning they could be overrun by traffic and northeastern municipalities demanding the Evergreen rapid transit line be funded before Gateway goes ahead.

New Westminster Mayor Wayne Wright, whose city sits at the crossroads of the region, said up to 300 trucks an hour already rumble through its downtown, and the North Fraser road will bring many more.

The city is largely cut off from the Fraser River waterfront by the existing truck route and the SkyTrain rapid transit line, he said, and much of the waterfront is rapidly becoming derelict.

New Westminster already has "the worst air quality and noise levels in the region," Wright added, suggesting that those problems must be solved for the North Fraser Road to succeed.

"If it's not done, nothing else works," he said.

TransLink chairman and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie and several northeast politicians argued the Evergreen rapid transit line to the northeast has to be funded before Gateway goes ahead. TransLink staff say that should be a condition for its support.

Coquitlam Coun. Fin Donnelly said the northeast has been waiting patiently for rapid transit for 20 years and it is due now.

Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, arguing against the bridge twinning and highway expansion, said it is "not sustainable to keep bringing cars into the Burrard Peninsula."

Corrigan, who is also a TransLink director and chairs the GVRD's land use and transportation committee, said the City of Vancouver had become the world's most livable city by refusing to have freeways built through its downtown.

"We have to do what Vancouver did, which is to say, 'No more,' " he said.

On the other side, Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender said south-of-the-Fraser communities care about the region, but urgently need the Port Mann Bridge expansion.

"We have seen this choke point for too many years," he said. "We can't afford to wait."

"We support the Gateway Program, make no mistake about it," Surrey Coun. Judy Higginbotham added.

Several politicians complained the government had made a political decision to go ahead with the project before local consultations began.

TransLink and the GVRD have published staff reports offering conditional support for parts of the Gateway Program. Both want the province to kick in more money for the Evergreen Line and to cooperate with region-wide transportation demand management measures, such as tolls, other forms of road pricing and more high-occupancy-vehicle lanes.

The TransLink and GVRD boards have asked for municipal input on those reports before they adopt official positions to take to the province.

"Transportation as an issue is on top of all of our lists," Brodie said, "and it's important that we get some feedback from the various parties so that we can formulate a position and we can give that kind of feedback to the province."

GVRD vice-chairman and Vancouver Coun. Peter Ladner said the Langley meeting got that process started "and takes us a step closer to consultation, which is the missing link here."

He acknowledged that there is not likely to be a full regional consensus.

"On the more contentious items, we're going to have to agree to disagree, or come up with some position that recognizes differences," Ladner said.

He was also concerned that the province appears to be speeding ahead before the region, whose future shape is at stake, has said its piece.

"They are definitely on the road to completion, and we are trying to keep up with them and let them know there's somebody else in the next lane and we're all on the same highway," Ladner said.

-- bboei@png.canwest.com

GATEWAY PRIMER

The Gateway Program includes:

- Twinning the Port Mann Bridge and widening the Trans-Canada Highway from Langley to Vancouver.

- The North Fraser Perimeter Highway -- improving an existing truck route along the north shore of the Fraser River. It includes the new Pitt River bridge.

- A new South Fraser Perimeter Highway to connect Deltaport and other industrial areas south of the river to the Trans-Canada Highway east of the Port Mann Bridge.

Ran with fact box "Gateway Primer", which has been appended to the end of the story.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006

[Stingray2004]

New Westminster Mayor Wayne Wright, whose city sits at the crossroads of the region, said up to 300 trucks an hour already rumble through its downtown, and the North Fraser road will bring many more.

The city is largely cut off from the Fraser River waterfront by the existing truck route and the SkyTrain rapid transit line, he said, and much of the waterfront is rapidly becoming derelict.

New Westminster already has "the worst air quality and noise levels in the region," Wright added, suggesting that those problems must be solved for the North Fraser Road to succeed.

I suggest that solutions do exist for the existing conditions in New Westminster's downtown Columbia/ Front Street area that can overcome this issue and concurrently revitalize the area.

Currently through traffic (both truck and vehicular) leaves the Queensborough bridgehead and continues along Stewardson Way/ Columbia St./Front St/ Brunnette Ave to connect with Hwy 1 and the northeast sector.

If the funds were readily available (which they aren't), I would propose either a bored or cut and cover tunnel from the Queensborough bridgehead to at least Brunette Ave (if not Hwy 1) to remove all of the through traffic - both truck and vehicular. Very pricey though - could be in the neighbourhood of $1 billion - but an out of site, out of mind solution.

Once that has been accomplished, remove the elevated parking garage along Front Street and redevelop the waterfront with high density tower nodes and parks. Building footprints can be accomodated with extension piers into the river akin to that of the waterfront hotel.

Once the increasing critical population mass exists in that area, the somewhat seedy commercial Columbia St, corridor would also undergo revitalization, an area which had its last heyday during the '50's.

Maybe I'm just deamin'.;)

[officedweller]

The South Fraser Perimeter Road should take some of that truck traffic away from New West - from the Pitt Meadows intermodal facility via Golden Ears - even with a toll, it would probably be faster, given that the North Fraser Perimeter Road is really just upgrades to the existing network.

[Mininari]

Looks like Poco wants a wider Mary Hill Bypass and some interchanges NOW.
I don't blame em... the Kingsway intersection will get pretty bad when the Pitt River Bridge and new Interchange open. Currently, the traffic coming off the bridge is held by the lights at the west end of the bridge. Make it freeflow, and the Kingsway intersection will be bad.

City wants funding for bypass

By Angela MacKenzie - Staff Reporter

The City of Port Coquitlam plans to lobby the province to set aside funding for and speed up the process of widening the Mary Hill Bypass as part of its Gateway Program.

Council supported city staff recommendations made on the Gateway Program at its meeting Tuesday.

Council plans to write to Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon to ask that the ministry also include cycling facilities along the bypass and improve intersections along the corridor (particularly Shaughnessy Street, Pitt River Road and Kingsway Avenue) during construction of the new Pitt River Bridge, to ensure the bottle neck of traffic is not just moved westward.

The city also wants improvements to the intersection of Mary Hill Bypass and Broadway Street made before 2009 and ahead of the Coast Meridian Overpass opening.

In a report to council, Francis Cheung, engineering and operations director, wrote that staff "does not support the conclusion that the Mary Hill Bypass will continue to function efficiently through to 2031 with the existing four-lane configuration."

Council will also request that Falcon provide a technical analysis that proves the current four lanes would be able to function efficiently past 2031.

The province's controversial Gateway Program includes several transportation projects that it says will "improve the movement of people, goods and transit throughout Greater Vancouver."

The Gateway Program includes plans to twin the Port Mann Bridge and expand Highway 1 at a cost of $1.5 billion, and improve existing roads to create a continuous route from New Westminster to Maple Ridge - the North Fraser Perimeter Road (NFPR).

TransLink is responsible for the section through New Westminster, and the provincial transportation ministry is responsible for the section from King Edward Avenue in Coquitlam to Maple Ridge, including a new Pitt River Bridge to replace the current swing bridges.

Port Coquitlam wants the road improvements to the NFPR, including shoulder cycling facilities, completed by 2012.

The current estimated cost of the Pitt River/Mary Hill Interchange project is $400 million, slated to be completed in 2009.

PoCo council is also planning to write to Delta Mayor Lois Jackson, Greater Vancouver Regional District chair, to express support of GVRD staff recommendations asking the province to develop strategies to address impacts to green zone, agricultural land and regional utilities and work with TransLink on regional transport pricing and tolling strategies.

published on 05/26/2006

[Bus pass]

Mega-projects to boost land values
Shorter commuting time drives demand and fuels higher prices, real estate consultants say...


Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Highway improvements and new rapid transit lines will increase property values by 10 to 20 per cent in six areas of the Lower Mainland, says a report by the Real Estate Investment Network, a consulting and research firm.

Don Campbell, REIN's president, called it the "Gateway effect" -- a reference to the $3-billion program to widen Highway 1 and build new truck routes.

"In a nutshell, [it] is about accessibility and demand," Campbell said in an interview.

Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, North Langley-Abbotsford, Port Moody-Coquitlam, Surrey-Delta, Mission-Chilliwack and areas of Richmond and Vancouver will see real estate values rise as the communities become easier for commuters to reach, Campbell and co-author Russell Westcott said in a report to be released today.

Campbell said people measure commuting distance in minutes, not in kilometres. "So as soon as you open up accessibility to a region, demand [among] people wanting to live there skyrockets."

The $1.9-billion Canada Line SkyTrain route will make it easier for commuters to get from Richmond and south Vancouver to downtown Vancouver. The Evergreen Line will help improve downtown access for people in Port Moody and Coquitlam.

The Gateway program includes twinning the Port Mann Bridge, widening Highway 1 and building perimeter highways on the north and south sides of the Fraser River. The aim is to reduce congestion, speeding the flow of commuters and trucks.

Property values, Campbell said, should increase 10 to 20 per cent on top of whatever the average appreciation rate is in areas of those communities.

If property values fall, the report says, real estate that has the "Gateway effect" advantage, should retain 10 to 20 per cent more of its worth.

Campbell, an adviser to real estate investors and an investor himself, factored the experiences of other North American cities with major transportation improvements into the assessment.

He said property values near commuter routes, such as San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit and Toronto's Go Trains, experienced increases of 10 per cent within about 500 metres of the major stations.

Campbell added highway improvements he studied increased property values up to 20 per cent for commercial property within a kilometre of highway exits and more than one kilometre for residential property.

And while Campbell said some of the Gateway "premium" might already be in the real estate market due to speculative purchasers, he does not expect the full increase to be reached until after new routes or improvements are complete.

"Once the work is done, then the [improved accessibility] occurs and people start to make it real in their heads," Campbell said. "The general population doesn't make its move until the project is complete."

[queetz@home]

:previous:

Ugh! What is it with the Vcr Sun? Talk about putting salt in your wounds after they reported that Kevin Falcon practically cancelled the Evergreen Line. I am so tempted to cancel my subscription! :rant:

[Dorian G.]

They're just pointing out the fact—that I pointed out ages ago—that new infrastructure drives up land values. Since the land close to the new bridges and roads will be more valuable now, people looking for cheap housing will have to look further and further out. Sprawl begets sprawl. Helps make a convincing argument that suburban developers are bankrolling Falcon's reign of terror. From the Story:

Dave Keenan, CEO of Genstar Development, has worked on developments in Pitt Meadows and said he believes the premium could already be 15 per cent or higher.
The Gateway project, he added, helps create a whole new "locus of activity," centred on Abbotsford, for regional industry.
"All of a sudden there's this . . . different set of economic opportunities that are emerging in the Valley as opposed to the downtown core of Vancouver, or the Burnaby-Coquitlam sector," Keenan said.

"The Gateway Effect" (http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ea6f6ea8-f797-4dee-8f1c-99fad0a05fe3)
"Suburbs to see rise…" (http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=d19e8031-e36e-497f-a0aa-e9c04db188d6&k=66143)

[Bert]

Would have been more fun if they ran with "Mega-projects to relatively decrease land values in Vancouver".

[Nutterbug]

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=8ad7a148-e887-456c-92aa-a7a36d1d252b&k=58289&p=2

Vancouver not interested in extra Gateway traffic

William Boei
Vancouver Sun

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Vancouver can't absorb the extra traffic that will head into the city if the provincial government twins the Port Mann Bridge and widens the Trans-Canada Highway, city officials said Wednesday.

"What are we going to do, build a freeway down First Avenue?" said Vancouver Coun. Peter Ladner, who is also vice-chairman of the regional district and a director of TransLink.

"We can't accept more traffic into the city because we have nowhere to put it," Ladner said. "We're at capacity now. We have no option."

Vancouver city council has called a special meeting for next Tuesday to consider its response to the Gateway Program, the $3-billion provincial plan to build truck routes on both shores of the Fraser River, twin the bridge and expand the highway.

Asked if Vancouver's "no more traffic" policy means the city is planning a passive resistance campaign against the bridge-and-highway expansion, Ladner said, "I would prefer to say that we would put the priority on other measures in the Gateway Program, and leave that one to the end."

A staff report prepared for the Vancouver council meeting says the city is reminding the Transportation Ministry and the Gateway Program that "Vancouver will not be increasing general purpose vehicle capacity within the city to match any increases resulting from the Gateway Program's plans for the highway corridor." The report was written by Don Klimchuk, general manager of engineering services.

Ladner said he doesn't want to get into a big fight with the province, and suggested the two truck routes, on which there is broad agreement, could be built first, leaving the contentious bridge-and-highway plan to be sorted out later.

But Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon isn't budging.

Falcon said he won't put up with "cherry-picking" parts of the program and leaving others out.

"At some point you need to have a level of government that can stand above it all, look at the broader picture ... and come forward with a regional solution," Falcon said. "And that's what we've done."

It would "highly irresponsible" to build the perimeter roads without doing the Port Mann Bridge, he said. "The traffic studies have told us that would drive enormous amounts of traffic onto the Alex Fraser and Pattullo bridges and would create a catastrophic traffic situation there."

Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan said his city is in the same bind as Vancouver.

"Our infrastructure, like Vancouver's, won't take the additional traffic that will be coming off a widened highway," Corrigan said.

Falcon said such fears are based on misunderstandings. He said studies show only 27 per cent of Port Mann Bridge traffic now goes all the way to Vancouver, and that will decline to 22 per cent over the next quarter century.

"There is going to be minimal actual total increase in traffic into Vancouver, and that doesn't change whether that bridge is twinned or not," he said.

Ladner countered that even if only 20 per cent of bridge traffic heads to Vancouver, "when you increase the capacity, that 20 per cent will be a bigger number. There will be more people trying to get into Vancouver."

Burnaby will consider its Gateway response in mid-June, but Corrigan said he expects Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster to line up against the plan. He also expects support from North Shore communities that are not directly affected by the plan but support the regional growth strategy.

"That's not to say that all of us don't appreciate issues surrounding the movement of goods and services," he said. "We're quite prepared to talk about those issues and about long-term solutions. But we haven't really been consulted on that area."

Corrigan said Falcon has been "entirely bloody-minded about this. He is not consulting or listening in any sort of meaningful way to the cities, the region or TransLink."

But, he added, "We are all willing to sit down and talk about those issues and maybe arrive at a solution that both of us would find as a win-win, and that would require compromise by everybody."

Falcon said he was pleased that all regional and municipal responses so far have expressed general support for the goals of the Gateway Program.

But he said B.C. is becoming a "critical gateway" for Asian trade with North America, and the provincial government is trying to plan 25 years ahead.

Falcon said he and Premier Gordon Campbell share the view that "though every piece of [the plan] won't completely satisfy every single municipality in the region, what we hope to do is satisfy most of them."

bboei@png.canwest.com

NOT ONE MORE INCH

City of Vancouver transportation policies include the following:

- Changes to the road network would be designed so as not to increase road capacity.

- Maintain peak road capacity from the region at no more than the present level.

- Accommodate demand by improving alternatives to the car, primarily transit, but also walking and cycling.

- The City supports a minimum of three new rapid transit lines, including a Broadway line to Granville and eventually to UBC.

Source: city.vancouver.bc.ca

Ran with fact box "Not one more inch", which has been appended to the end of the story.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006

[murman]

NOT ONE MORE INCH

City of Vancouver transportation policies include the following:

- Changes to the road network would be designed so as not to increase road capacity.

- Maintain peak road capacity from the region at no more than the present level.



In common parlance, these would be known as recipes for economic disaster.

The CoV can just go f*ck itself. Can it honestly believe that these are even vaguely viable platforms? Why not just shut the city down, and close all the businesses while you're at it. :hell:

[Nutterbug]

I say they should just toll the new bridge to thin out the traffic on it, while necessary traffic will continue to flow through. Heck, they should start slapping on the tolls now, even before construction and upgrading begin.

[cab]

Yes, Increased road capacity in Downtown is the world standard for cities. Give me a break. Vancouver is right on target. Maybe you didn't notice but CoV is a city, it doesn't need to rely on suburban car traffic. Falcon is trying to push a very old, suburban, model on a modern healthy city. A real recipes for economic disaster.

[fever]

Here's a really good article that explains many of the problems with Gateway...

http://www.bcbusinessmagazine.com/displayArticle.php?artId=473

Collision Course

Is Kevin Falcon’s Gateway Program full of wrong turns?

Charles Montgomery

From the June 2006 issue
Perry Zavitz


It’s a late winter morning in Surrey. Kevin Falcon has got the wheel of his black Pathfinder in one hand, a cup of Starbucks in the other and a journalist in the passenger seat. Everything is going to plan: we are inching, inching over Highway No. 1 on the 176th Street overpass, heading for the Port Mann Bridge and the epicentre of a crisis B.C.’s transportation minister insists can only be solved with a thorough dose of asphalt and concrete.

The situation may be dire, but Falcon is pleased as punch to be caught in the rush hour mire this morning. “Look at this: it’s 7:18 a.m. and we have to wait to get onto the highway,” he says, nodding at the lanes below where headlights are strung like Christmas decorations off toward Langley. “It’s a parking lot. Look at those trucks. That’s our economy sitting idle.”

This isn’t the first time Falcon has led a journalist on a rush-hour demonstration of Surrey’s Achilles heel. He’s confident that the crawl across the Port Mann is proof enough for anyone that the bridge needs to be twinned. It’s not just a matter of getting Mr. and Mrs. Jones to work sooner – the economy is being strangled to the tune of $1.5 billion a year because of delays to truck traffic in the Lower Mainland. And with Chinese trade in overdrive, Falcon says the need for infrastructure improvements is urgent. “We need to ensure that we are ready to handle the 300-per-cent growth in container traffic forecast to be coming to North America in the next 15 years. We are just woefully unprepared. Tens of thousands of jobs are at stake here.”

The Gateway Program, the province’s $3-billion prescription, plans for an improved road along part of the north edge of the Fraser River, a new four-lane highway along the south shore and, more contentiously, the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and widening of Highway No. 1, all the way from Langley to Vancouver proper.

Falcon speaks about the project like a protective father. He says Gateway was his idea, proposed to a receptive Premier Gordon Campbell more than two years ago. He likens it to the great works of the late W.A.C. Bennett – in fact, he invokes the former premier’s name three times before we roll into Vancouver. Although public consultation about Gateway began barely two weeks before this rush-hour commute, Falcon’s resolve is unshakable: “It’s going ahead. Absolutely. The whole program.”

With container traffic between Asia and North America growing at the rate of one Port of Vancouver every year, the Pacific Gateway has become an issue of national urgency, as evidenced by the federal government’s own Pacific Gateway Strategy announced last fall. The cost of getting the solution wrong will be orders of magnitude above the price tag of Falcon’s new highways. As the minister noses into the bridge traffic, what is most certain is that he is staking his reputation on this plan.

This isn’t surprising, given that Falcon is the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, where an acute lack of transit has rendered most residents entirely dependent on their cars for commuting.

Nor is it surprising that the project has prompted a collective wail of protest from environmental groups and drawbridge-raisers on the north side of the Fraser River, who have been gathering at heated rallies to demand that carbon-spewing suburbanites ride the bus, dammit. Not surprising, either, is the support the Gateway Program has received from truckers, port operators and many shippers, whose own Greater Vancouver Gateway Council has been begging for any investment to ease the bottlenecking in the region’s transportation system. Paul Landry, president of the BC Trucking Association, explains that truck owners have simply given up on promises of better transit for the region. While the association would be thrilled to see dedicated lanes for commercial traffic, none have been explicitly included in Falcon’s plan. Truck owners, he says, will take whatever they can get when it comes to road capacity.

What is surprising though – and disturbing – is that a broad range of urban design experts, local municipal leaders, engineers and transportation planners say that Falcon settled on his $3-billion solution long before he bothered to ask them if it was the right thing to do. This is remarkable, considering that the Lower Mainland is home to some of the continent’s most respected thinkers in urban design and transportation

Some argue that Falcon is shoveling money in entirely the wrong direction – that goods and people can be moved more efficiently while spending less money. Others say that the Port Mann/Highway No. 1 component of the plan will exacerbate the very problems it is meant to solve. They wish that the minister of transportation had simply asked for advice before charging ahead on B.C.’s latest mega-project.

This frustration is fueling a backlash that goes far beyond the parochialism that sometimes infuses politics in Greater Vancouver. Some senior municipal planners – despite their inherent fear of ruffling feathers in Victoria – have pointed out that the Gateway team consulted their departments about the minor details of the project, but never the big picture. At the time this story was written, the board of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, which represents most municipalities affected by Gateway, was still waiting for the meeting the GVRD had requested with Falcon more than a year previously. Like municipal planning departments, the GVRD has a list of unanswered questions about the program’s projected costs and benefits. The whopper: Based on what evidence will twinning the Port Mann Bridge and widening Highway No. 1 solve the congestion problem?

Gordon Price, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, says that the ministry hasn’t answered that question, nor has it proved that the Highway No. 1 expansion will serve shippers’ needs. “The plan for the Port Mann and Highway No. 1 is just inconceivable. It’s not going to help the ports; it’s going to hurt them,” Price argues. “These through-roads that are meant to serve goods-movement capacity, they will become the main streets of suburbia. They will be congested. They will continue to frustrate the shippers who thought they were going to get access to additional asphalt for the purpose of getting through the region – unless, of course, you designate all those new lanes for trucks only. And if you are going to do that, you had better tell the people in the suburbs that those highways will not get them to work faster.”

Along with Falcon’s boss, former Vancouver mayor Gordon Campbell, Price was part of a broad consensus of politicians, citizens and planners who spearheaded the Livable Region Strategic Plan back in 1986. The LRSP advocated a Lower Mainland of dense town centres well served by transit, and it specifically rejected the idea of adding new cross-river capacity.

The LRSP acknowledged what countless studies have shown: that highway expansion never, ever, extinguishes congestion. What new lanes do, if they are not restricted to commercial traffic, is encourage low-density sprawl tens of kilometres away from jobs, groceries and rapid transit. Such sprawl is, as urbanist James Howard Kunstler wrote in The Geography of Nowhere, the most expensive and inefficient way to organize human settlement.

Falcon says the sustainability crowd shouldn’t blame him or his highways for suburban sprawl: “I think we do need better land zoning,” he says. “But zoning is a municipal government issue. It’s in their control, not mine.”

He’s right, technically, but here’s the big, squirming fly in the Gateway ointment: study after study has shown that there is an inherent relationship between transportation planning and land use. New highways fuel urban sprawl. Sprawl always generates traffic, which creates an even more urgent need for road lanes. And the wheels continue to spin.

Mark Holland, a sustainability consultant who has advised the provincial government on town planning in the past, says the province has apparently made “no formal effort” to engage the community of sustainable development experts on Gateway. “It is a fatal mistake in their investment strategy if they think that this is going to solve anything,” says Holland, who is not against the expansion per se, but is concerned that the government has not bothered to consider the bigger picture. “They are not addressing the most important part of the discussion: Where are people sitting when they are on those extra lanes? If we are going to move people around the region by road, we will certainly need more road capacity, but the problem is that the province is not investing in the required bus infrastructure first. If they don’t do that, then that new double bridge and expanded highway is going to be clogged in a decade, and we will be right back where we are now.”

And others have doubts. In fact, one of the project’s first proponents has expressed concerns about the Highway No. 1 expansion – or at least the way the ministry is going about it. In 2004, Michael Goldberg, then professor of urban land policy at UBC’s Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, wrote a report for the BC Progress Board urging the province to use transportation as an economic growth engine. Two years after endorsing the expansion, Goldberg qualified his support this spring: “I do think it is important that we explore ways to manage demand and our existing supply better before we embark on huge investments in transportation infrastructure such as the proposed Port Mann/Hwy No. 1 investments,” Goldberg, who now lives in Singapore, wrote in an email. “This is particularly true for road/bridge/tunnel investments since the evidence to date is that they help to create additional traffic by stimulating additional land use in their path, which in turn stimulates more traffic.”

This relationship between roads and land use points to a critical problem with Gateway’s cost/benefit estimates. The Gateway Program Definition Report asserts that by 2031, the program will deliver $900 billion in vehicle operating cost savings every year. Stuart Ramsey, a transportation engineer with 20 years of experience in the public and private sectors, charges that these (and other projections in the report) overestimate both the benefits of building and the costs of not building infrastructure.

“We assume that development will happen exactly the same way, no matter how we plan and build roads and transit projects,” says Ramsey. “In the real world, if that distant land isn’t accessible, then it simply won’t be marketable.” In other words, more people are likely to move east and away from the dense town centres if the highway is widened. And fewer will do so if it is not. The Gateway models simply don’t take this into account.

Still, anyone who joins Falcon on that morning crawl across the Port Mann amid the idling container trucks will agree with the minister that doing nothing is not an option, particularly when it comes to goods movement. The Chinese will not wait for our bottlenecks to ease. They will simply choose other gateways to the continent.

But is building more road capacity the only solution?

“We have only seen one solution offered here,” says Larry Frank, Bombardier Chair in Sustainable Urban Transportation at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning. “My concern is: Does the government have a clear understanding of what the problem is?” He also wonders if the government has adequately considered any measurable alternatives.

The answer – no, according to Frank – indicates a gulf between decision makers and the world-class thinkers and planners we have attracted to universities in the region.

So, on a soggy day last December, 100-odd students and land-use wonks gathered in the bunker-like auditorium of UBC’s Woodward Building. Cement walls echoed with microphone hum and scratch. Aisles buzzed with the energy particular to the halls of academia: the optimism of people who believe that creative thinking and rigorously debated ideas can trump parochial politics. If you are into that sort of earnest chatter, then the air was positively intoxicating.

A few months before the gathering, Frank handed his master’s students this familiar conundrum:

Consider a prosperous metropolitan region. Throw in port facilities crucial to the national interest. Add an era of explosive growth in trade, a dollop of suburban sprawl and an inconveniently placed river. Imagine it wrapped in tangles of costly and polluting traffic congestion, with big knots at either end of the 40-year-old bridge in the middle of it all. Now think outside the box and get that region ready for even more traffic, even more people and a hell of a lot more trade.

The students’ real-world model was, of course, the Lower Mainland. Their prescriptions for the region’s transportation woes were remarkably pragmatic, but they couldn’t have been farther from Kevin Falcon’s plan. These proposals may not be sexy, but pay attention, class: they synthesize the ideas of dozens of experts, and they could save the region from paving itself into a corner.

Two students considered the problems facing the regular commuters, who make up 90 per cent of vehicle traffic on the Port Mann. They found that folk living south of the Fraser River simply never got the decent transit they were promised years ago. The region has just two-thirds the bus fleet that GVRD plans called for back in 1994, and not a single bus on the Port Mann. Solution: more buses, more SkyTrain cars and rapid-bus routes with transit priority, including a link from Central Surrey, over the Port Mann, to Coquitlam. That rapid-bus plan would require extensive queue-jumper lanes to enable buses to slip past the bridge-entrance bottlenecks, but it would be vastly cheaper than building a new bridge.

This leaves the Field of Dreams conundrum: if you build it, they will come. As long as there are free road lanes to fill, cars will pour into them and trucks will continue to be swamped. The students’ solution was – cue the horror film soundtrack – road tolling. Logic has it that if you charge drivers for using freeways, particularly at peak hours, they’ll think twice about hitting the on-ramp. Tolling revenues could then be pumped into transit improvements, giving residents a chance to choose how to get around.

This is one alternative the transportation minister has considered with enthusiasm, though he says the political cost of tolling existing roads without building new ones would be mortal. (Ironically, the GVRD’s Livable Region Strategic Plan already calls for the eventual tolling of every single bridge to the Burrard Peninsula. The first crossing to see tolls will be the new Golden Ears Bridge, east of the Port Mann.) Still, none of the above fully addresses Falcon’s most urgent Gateway concern: the emerging crisis in goods movement. Falcon isn’t exaggerating the expected explosion in Asian trade: China is constructing more than 100 new container loading berths in the next five years, compared to just a handful planned for the west coast of North America.

It was “big idea” time in the Woodward auditorium. Students Pete Giles and Eric Grant traded the mic back and forth nervously, and then launched into the goods- movement dilemma. They pointed out that while a new South Fraser Perimeter Road would improve access to Deltaport, it would take much more than asphalt to open the West Coast bottleneck. The problem is that most of the container traffic entering local ports isn’t even bound for the Lower Mainland, yet it gets forced onto urban highways before heading off for the rest of the continent.

Those containers shouldn’t be competing with minivans for road space in the first place, said Giles. They should go directly from ship to rail, and get sorted at a new multi-modal terminal at an inland transportation nexus. Kamloops, Prince George and Edmonton have all been suggested. The first challenge? Diverting some of that federal and provincial Gateway cash toward new rail bridges to ease the chronic rail congestion in the Fraser Valley.

Add to that a temporal shift – both at the Port of Vancouver, currently only open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and at local shippers and receivers – and we would see some relief for goods movement.

But Grant and Giles realized in their research that these initiatives still wouldn’t give the region the ability to handle the coming cargo tsunami. What Canada needs is more and bigger port capacity on the West Coast, and open rail lines to handle the containers. The answer lies not in the Lower Mainland, but at the deepest ice-free port on the continent. Prince Rupert is the shortest link between Shanghai and Chicago (a full day-and-a-half sail shorter than Vancouver). It’s also the terminus of an under-utilized rail network.

The province, the feds and private partners are already working on a new container terminal for Prince Rupert, which should handle 500,000 TEUs, a third of Vancouver’s throughput, by 2007. But this is a drop in the bucket, according to supply-chain guru George Stalk, senior VP with the Boston Consulting Group. Stalk has been hired by a coalition of shippers, retailers and liner companies deeply anxious about North America’s ports squeeze. He applauds the UBC students’ goods-movement proposals, but insists we should go even further: Prince Rupert could, and should, handle four times the container traffic.

Stalk argues that by focusing on local roads, the federal and provincial governments have shown they don’t understand the scope of the ports challenge. “These roads are going to add one- or two-per-cent capacity. It’s an insignificant contribution. It’s nothing,” he says in exasperation. “And the variable cost of moving freight by rail is one-tenth of the cost of moving it by truck.

“What we need are brand new ports and brand new railroads.”

The students who gathered at UBC that December day were no starry-eyed tree-huggers. Their passions seemed reserved for systems, for computer modeling, for the mathematics of policy. Though none of these have proven particularly potent in the last few decades of provincial megaproject politics, the students were optimistic that the minister of transportation could be compelled to take his eye off the road for a moment and consider his options, especially at a time when so many stakeholders are keen to talk.

“Now’s the time to consider these solutions,” said Giles a few weeks later. “It will be many years before we get all levels of government back to the table.” (Federal Minister of International Trade and the Pacific Gateway, David Emerson – who is still dodging criticism over his crossing the floor to the Conservative Party in February – refused to be interviewed for this story. But the recent federal budget included $591 million for the Pacific Gateway initiative.)

The problem is complex. The options are many. The price tag of getting the Pacific Gateway solution wrong will run into the tens of billions of dollars. That much is clear to the folks who spend their lives thinking about transportation and land-use planning.

But here’s the problem with academia: Its members always underestimate the gulf between the nuanced world of ideas and the heated landscape of politics. Crossing that divide appears to be much harder than crossing the Fraser River on the Port Mann Bridge.

The aggravation of a driver facing an extended rush hour and the sheer obviousness of the most immediate solution – more lanes! – are more potent than 1,000 transportation studies. As he cruises off the Port Mann and into a westbound HOV lane, the MLA from Surrey-Cloverdale finally loosens his grip on the wheel. This drive has been no fun at all, and Falcon swears there will be no putting the brakes on his plan. n

Sidebar:

Unlatching the Gate

The Gateway Program may have been given the green light by Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon but, like the commuters it purports to be helping, it still has plenty of obstacles and wait times to clear before it can move forward.

The $3-billion program is divided into three main projects: the $400-million North Fraser Perimeter Road, which includes the $180-million Pitt River Bridge/Mary Hill Interchange; the $800-million South Fraser Perimeter Road; and the $1.5-billion Port Mann/Highway No. 1 project that includes the controversial twinning of the bridge (there is a program contingency of $300 million).

The public pre-design consultation of the Pitt River Bridge/Mary Hill Interchange section has been completed; the environment assessment is wrapping up. Procurement has now begun, with a request for qualifications. Pam Ryan, the Gateway Program’s director of program development, says design and construction of this section is anticipated to last from the end of 2006 through to 2009. The rest of the North Fraser Perimeter Road project is still in the planning stages, with no timeline currently set.

The first stage of pre-design consultation for the South Fraser Perimeter Road, which spans the south side of the Fraser River, has been completed, with the environmental assessment review planned for completion by the end of this year. Design and construction is expected to take place between 2007 and 2012.

Pre-design consultations for the contentious Port Mann/Highway No. 1 section wrapped up in May; a report will be posted on the Gateway Program website (gatewayprogram.bc.ca) in the coming months, with the environmental assessment to last from late this year until early next. Design and construction is planned from 2008 to 2013.

[cab]

Falcon's aggressive ignorance is going to do a LOT of damage to Vancouver.

[Bert]

Excellent article!

he says the political cost of tolling existing roads without building new ones would be mortalIt's *almost* (but not quite) as if Falcon actually realizes his plan isn't going to work that well, yet he's just interested in putting his political career above the future health of the region. I have the feeling that's going to backfire on him.

[Stingray2004]

Vancouver Sun - Vancouver can't absorb the extra traffic that will head into the city if the provincial government twins the Port Mann Bridge and widens the Trans-Canada Highway, city officials said Wednesday.


IIRC, Port Mann traffic modelling depicts that morning peak hour traffic heading to Vancouver (currently at around 27%) is forecast to decrease to around 22%.

It does make sense, in one way, considering that traffic to the downtown Vancouver peninsula (and Vancouver proper in general) is decreasing during peak periods, while traffic outflow from Vancouver proper is concurrently increasing.

Conversion of a few downtown Vancouver office buildings to condominiums, relatively slow Vancouver CBD office space growth, industrial re-location compounded by some Vancouver CBD offices moving south of the Fraser River (due to daily travel time savings and easier regional access) does not add up to more vehicles heading to Vancouver proper.

The only major Vancouver traffic increase I can foresee would be derived from container truck traffic eminating from Canterm/Vanterm.

There is another trend, however, and that is "all day" or "non-peak" Vancouver proper traffic, which generally seems to increase due to daily intra-regional business trips, growing retiree segment, etc.



City of Vancouver transportation policies include the following:

- Maintain peak road capacity from the region at no more than the present level.



I guess that means the city will oppose future potential expansion for the Arthur Laing Bridge (YVR/Richmond), Oak Street Bridge (regional), Knight Street Bridge (commercial/regional), which are simple 4-lane structures - with "past due" dates. Then there's also the IWM 2nd Narrows bridge...

The SF Bay area has many more and higher capacity structures, all with road pricing mechanisms in place - something that should be looked at in the congested Lower Mainland from a regional perspective - not a parochial perspective.

I'm still of the opinion that Lower Mainland highway/transit infrastructure is ~20 years behind what is required.

[Lee_Haber8]

I hope cooler heads prevail. Great article!

[Fiat Lux]

The difference of opinion is over how best to fix the problem. There's no evidence that throwing money at highways is going to reduce congestion.


You have used this canard plenty throughout the thread, enough, it is a bogus argument. The whole point is to add capacity, bridges are choke points!. Everytime I crossed the Port Mann bridge, it was to go past Vancouver, not to it. It is part of the Canadian Freaking National Highway.

[fever]

The effectiveness of the transportation system is a function of how much time it takes to get between A and B. Wider congested bridges and highways would only indicate that the region has invested more in greater road capacity, and as a result, has become more spread out and more auto dependent. The point is to reduce wasted time.

OTOH, capacity does need to be increased for the ports. Rail provides this with higher capacities and lower costs than freeways. Gateway improvements should be improving the efficiency of the rail system

[hollywoodnorth]

I'm still of the opinion that Lower Mainland highway/transit infrastructure is ~20 years behind what is required.

I agree......I think more like 25 years behind in Highway/Good Movement Department.

For Transit I think we are about 10-15 years behind.

[cab]

One could argue that the reason Vancouver is consistantly rated number one in livablity is because its Highway infrastructure is 25years behind. You didn't put up abominations like the alaskan viaduct in Seattle or destroy inner city neighborhood to build roads to nowhere.

[The_Henry_Man]

One could argue that the reason Vancouver is consistantly rated number one in livablity is because its Highway infrastructure is 25years behind. You didn't put up abominations like the alaskan viaduct in Seattle or destroy inner city neighborhood to build roads to nowhere.

I think your argument is definitely legitimate and correct. However, did our regional government ever talked seriously and in detail about an alternative to the private car, such as an effective commuter rail link to the Fraser Valley? or more investment in moving goods by rail? The lack of an adequate highway infrastructure must be counteracted by an effective commuter and commerical rail link (or any other sort of effective and convenient) public transit system, in order to for people to get to places of work and play quickly. In my opinion, this is definitely not the case. There is currently no effective rapid transit link (not even effective normal bus route) connecting to places like Cloverdale, South Surrey, Langley, Aldergrove and Abbotsford and I have not heard of any governmental initiative avocating for an electrified commuter link to the Fraser Valley in particular (where the Gateway project have the most effect) for past decades. Therefore, if the GVRD, Translink, or other municipal governments have not advocated any effective rapid public transit solutions to present an adequate transportation alternative to the private car in addition to standing against the Gateway Program, I will continue to support the Gateway Program, as highway capacity in Vancouver should and must be expanded in order to meet the immediate increasing needs of commercial and economic flow in our region, in order to improve the flow of goods and people, when there is obviously a lack of effective rapid transit. However, I will be against the Gateway Program IF a rapid transit link already exists in the Fraser Valley.

Don't forget that the Gateway Program also caters to the moving of industrial and retail goods, as well as moving of people. This will greatly boost our economic performance. Transportation should be well balanced by both effective public transit and highway systems.

[Stingray2004]

One could argue that the reason Vancouver is consistantly rated number one in livablity is because its Highway infrastructure is 25years behind. You didn't put up abominations like the alaskan viaduct in Seattle or destroy inner city neighborhood to build roads to nowhere.


I notice that you are from Portland, which I have always opined to be a great functional city in all regards, and I wholly appreciate your input.

What I always find to be a common mistake (which I am sometimes also guilty of particularly when it comes to either Toronto or Seattle) is lumping in a "city proper" with the adjacent metro region. In the City of Vancouver's case, it encompasses only around 1/3 of the population of the metro region.

Aside from considerable condominium development in Vancouver's inner city area, most population growth continues outside of its boundaries, akin to the general North American trends.;)

[Lee_Haber8]

The thing is Vancouver is facing a huge crunch in infrastructure in all respects. It's not just the south fraser valley that needs rapid transit and effective regional rail, the north shore is also going to need effective transit and rail links to Vancouver. This all means that current methods of funding are insufficient to cope with this demand. We can't have just one or two projects ever five years - a lot of these projects are needed right now. This means that begging to the province isn't good enough, the region will need to find creative ways to fund these expensive but desperately needed projects.

BTW, Gateway is junk!

[Stingray2004]

It's not just the south fraser valley that needs rapid transit and effective regional rail...This all means that current methods of funding are insufficient to cope with this demand.

This means that begging to the province isn't good enough, the region will need to find creative ways to fund these expensive but desperately needed projects.

Interesting to note that at yesterday's launching of the first pontoon for Kelowna's new 5-lane floating bridge, BC's premier stated that the province will make significant transit investments in the future.

Speculating on that statement is difficult, but perhaps additional financial commitment to the Evergreen Line?, a Broadway line perhaps?, or perhaps an LRT system in the Victoria region?

[Bert]

Here's an article from the Sun today:

B.C. to make 'significant' transit investments
KELOWNA I Premier Gordon Campbell promised more money for transit on Friday at the launch of the first pontoon for a new bridge over Okanagan Lake in Kelowna.

Campbell said there will be "significant" investments in transit across B.C., but didn't say when the money might come or how much it will be.

As for the new William Bennett Bridge, Campbell said the span will be important to both the region and the province when it opens in 2008 because Kelowna is the fastest-growing area in B.C.

Former premier Bill Bennett said witnessing the launch of the pontoon is part of a dream.

Campbell, asked about calls for a second span to provide an alternative route to the Bennett Bridge, said the federal government would have to be involved in any such discussions.