Quote:
Originally Posted by Metro-One
As many know here I support major roads in urban areas, but I do not support this style of thinking.
Not every highway needs to be 6 / 8 / 10 lanes.
In metro Van only the #1 and the 99 need to be wider than 4 lanes (excluding bridge decks which should be 6 lanes in most cases due to local add / drop traffic).
The SFPR is fine at 4 lanes, the problem is that it should have been built as free flow from the start. No traffic lights, all interchanges.
4 lane highways work fine throughout most urban areas in Japan. The widest extended span of a freeway I have ever seen here is 8 lanes (in cities far larger than Toronto). Of course these highways are complete free flow (all interchanges), but they are also tolled.
IMO the SFPR should have opened as a tolled freeway (maybe free for commercial and transport vehicles, but tolls for everyone else) with only interchanges for its entire length.
I would support all freeways in Metro-Van being tolled (but done so with upgrades, such as replacing the 91/72nd traffic light with an interchange, replacing the GMT and upgrading the 99, making the GEW full freeway from the SFPR to Lougheed (this would only require two intersections upgraded to interchanges), etc..)
My ultimate fantasy with the scenerio above would be a 4 laned tolled highway built along / under / above Knight Street to a new 6 lane bridge accross the Burrard Inlet (with a now closed Lions Gate to general Traffic). Seeing how this would be the most urban route of highway in the city, a design speed no higher than 70km would be used to allow it to be built around the urban fabric better, instead of demolishing too much existing structures.
I think that would complete Vancouvers road system well, without overbuilding and allowing heavy / through traffic freeflow routes off regular streets without encouraging congestion.
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Hwy 91 would most probably be widened to 6 lanes (8 lanes in a few sections in Richmond) first way before Hwy 17 would ever be widened. In fact, of all the driving I've done so far on the 17 ever since it was opened, the only significant traffic jams I've experienced is the infamous 17/91 connector intersection, which should've been an interchange in the first place. Other than that, with conversion to
properly designed interchanges along its entire length, the 17 is good enough with 4 lanes in the foreseeable future, especially when it's not really connecting from city centre to another.
Hwy 91, on the other hand, needs to be at least 6 lanes throughout its entire length ASAP.