Quote:
Originally Posted by WarrenC12
What's the price of this connector? Who's paying?
|
Burnaby would for the most part in conjunction with Translink.
They have been planning on it for such a long time they own all the properties necessary to widen the Newcomb street ROW (for either a wider major road or to do cut and cover).
Quote:
Originally Posted by CanSpice
I assume you mean that it would improve bicycle and pedestrian traffic across McBride, because a tunnel in and of itself does nothing for those modes of transportation.
Here are the issues I have with a cut-and-cover tunnel for the Stormont Connector:
- it would have to be about three times wider than the cut-and-cover tunnel for the Canada Line
- most of the New Westminster section wouldn't require bulldozing any buildings, but a lot of the route through Burnaby would
- it would be expensive as hell, $4-5 billion just for the tunnel
- placarded trucks carrying dangerous goods wouldn't be allowed to use it (just as they're not allowed to use the Massey Tunnel
- it solves a problem that doesn't exist
There's no traffic demand for getting from Surrey to north Burnaby via the Pattullo Bridge. That's what the Port Mann and Highway 1 is for.
And the Stormont Connector would require bulldozing and appropriating a lot of land in Burnaby. Don't forget that Corrigan was massively against the expansion of Highway 1 -- what would he think about this project?
The idea of the Stormont Connector is just that: an idea. It'll never come to fruition. |
It's not just an idea, it is pretty much the only part of Burnaby's transportation plan from the late 70's early 80's that hasn't come to fruition. Willingdon, Kensington, Royal Oak, Southridge, Griffiths, Lougheed Highway, Barnette Highway, Gaglardi Way, are all relatively new roads in their current incarnation.
When the TCH was built, what is today the Gaglardi exit was for a long time the Caribou exit. Gaglardi Way wasn't built until 1979 (15 years after the 401 opened). Could you imagine what the landscape would be like if we said, "oh no, that's too expensive, building those overpasses, lets just let every one keep driving on local residential streets."
I don't know if you need to cut and cover the McBride section. It passes along a park for a long section and it's existence has been planned around for decades. There are only 2 real intersections at 6th and 8th (and 8th is only bad because New West has timed the lights to favor local traffic on 8th).
In the PM peak, McBride is only congested because of the bridge configuration. Everyone moves over to the left lane starting before 8th. If McBride didn't split lanes at the Bridge (1 lane onto the bride, 1 lane onto Royal), traffic would flow much easier.
Basically half the capacity of the road space is wasted because everyone has to get into the 1 lane pretty early. If both lanes went onto the bridge, then the congestion would be located much closer to the bridge and not interfere with local traffic at 8th and 6th at all.
But cut and cover of the Stormont connector has been the official plan since 1980. The main reason being to keep the traffic segregated from neighborhood traffic, which is already established. But if you look at the development at the end of Cumberland Street (the old George Derby hospital plans) the edge is curved to allow the Stormont connector to be built.
https://www.burnaby.ca/Assets/Land+U...ital+Lands.pdf
They have been buying up the properties along Newcombe and own the ones they need to sufficiently widen the Newcombe ROW for either a surface street or to perform cut and cover construction.
The main thing holding them back is getting an agreement in place with New Westminster on re-configuring the 10th Ave intersection.
New Westminster took the Stormont connector out of their official community plan. An act Burnaby was very much against and there are official letters to New West stating as much.
https://burnaby.civicweb.net/document/6040
Prev
Linear Mode
