Expo Line - Surrey Langley Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by GMasterAres

25 years to get rid of that 4 block choke point on a major N/S route??? So yes Surrey does take some blame for sure for crappy road networks I agree there though not all.

My biggest gripe with Surrey is the road network. It's one thing to sprawl, but it's another thing to build a bunch of cul-de-sacs and dead ends so that everyone is filtered onto one or two main streets.

As for transit, obviously mass transit isn't Surrey's decision alone to make. But if Surrey had a better street grid it would be a lot easier to add bus routes and frequency, let alone provide redundancies for private vehicles when construction shuts down one of the main roads.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

My biggest gripe with Surrey is the road network. It's one thing to sprawl, but it's another thing to build a bunch of cul-de-sacs and dead ends so that everyone is filtered onto one or two main streets.

Agreed, redundancy is a good thing.

[mcj]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

My biggest gripe with Surrey is the road network. It's one thing to sprawl, but it's another thing to build a bunch of cul-de-sacs and dead ends so that everyone is filtered onto one or two main streets.

Cul-de-sacs and dead end roads are the epitome of sprawl, and sprawl is the epitome of short-sighted urban planning. Surrey suburbanites want car-dependency but no one wants traffic on their street, resulting in those cul-de-sacs and dead ends. And really who can blame them? Any community that would remove the cul-de-sacs and dead ends would immediately have heavy car & truck traffic right at their doorsteps rendering it significantly less pleasant of a place to live.

[Jimbo604]

Originally Posted by mcj

Gotta love how Doug Elford thinks it's even remotely possible to build a 72nd Ave. connection across ALR land in the next year.

Don't forget his last quote from the end of the article:

“So, I think we really have to look at maybe adding that second east-west connection just to take the heat off 64th,” Elford maintains. “They keep bringing people in, and they gotta get around.”

[mcj]

Originally Posted by Jimbo604

Elford maintains. “They keep bringing people in”

"They" is you Doug! You're a city council member, you are "they"

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by mcj

Any community that would remove the cul-de-sacs and dead ends would immediately have heavy car & truck traffic right at their doorsteps rendering it significantly less pleasant of a place to live.

But most of Vancouver is built on a grid, and you don't see heavy traffic ripping down the neighborhood streets. Street design can do a lot to slow down cars without making the street itself impassable. And if you use a grid and the main drag needs to be shut down for three or four blocks, you can add a temporary detour to one of those side streets instead of pushing all east-west traffic three or four kilometres away to another arterial.

[mcj]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

But most of Vancouver is built on a grid, and you don't see heavy traffic ripping down the neighborhood streets. Street design can do a lot to slow down cars without making the street itself impassable. And if you use a grid and the main drag needs to be shut down for three or four blocks, you can add a temporary detour to one of those side streets instead of pushing all east-west traffic three or four kilometres away to another arterial.

Surrey is also built on a grid, one that just doesn't connect for cars & trucks or transit or pedestrians or cyclists in many locations. However Doug Elford really only seems to be concerned with car & truck traffic, and none of the transportation modes in his comments. He's not advocating for additional bus service during construction or that bike lanes are maintained along Fraser Highway during construction, he's advocating for additional East-West link for car & truck traffic that'll be there long after the Expo Line extension is complete. Should Surrey create additional East-West corridors for car & truck traffic, it would mean that those who live on the dead ends on discontinuous roads like 72nd Ave, or 80 Ave, or 92nd Ave, would end up living on a road with substantial car & truck traffic in those localized communities, compared to what exists now. Hopefully the Expo Line extension, after a few painful years of construction, does enough to alleviate car & truck traffic that Surrey isn't forced to awaken the NIMBYs that lay dormant on their suburban cul-de-sacs and dead ends.

[WarrenC12]

Just one more lane bro!!

[dharper]

I live in Surrey, and I always think that one of the major problems contributing to traffic, is the terrible timing on traffic lights. I know on 88th Ave, and 104th Ave particularly. If you are the first car at a red light, and accelerate normally up to the speed limit, you will be riding a 'red wave' down the road.
Also, it makes sense to have sensors on traffic lights to detect traffic and only change the light if required. But in Surrey, I know of several new light installs that they cheaped out on, and they are on a cycle timer. Nothing like approaching a light and it turns red, and there was no traffic or pedestrians their to trigger the change.

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by mcj

Cul-de-sacs and dead end roads are the epitome of sprawl, and sprawl is the epitome of short-sighted urban planning. Surrey suburbanites want car-dependency but no one wants traffic on their street, resulting in those cul-de-sacs and dead ends. And really who can blame them?

People love to hate the sprawl but let's face it, most people want to live in a house at the end of a cul-de-sac and not in a tiny tower condo next to a major street or a noisy SkyTrain station. Houses are the most expensive housing type because it is the most desirable way of living. People love having space and privacy and we should allow for that. Great on Surrey and Langley for existing and offering this housing option to the hundreds of thousands that desire it.

And when you live in these burbs, car is the only practical way of moving about, especially when you have kids which is why we need to build bigger roads. Fraser Highway and especia 200 Street should both be 3+3 lanes which is impossible for the former but still possible for the latter. The demand has been there long since and SkyTrain is not going to do anything about it.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Great on Surrey and Langley for existing and offering this housing option to the hundreds of thousands that desire it.

...as long as the people who buy into that lifestyle don't complain about the terrible traffic on their commute into town or the poor transit options that are available to them.

Otherwise it's like buying a cheap house next to the airport and then complaining about the noise of the jets taking off.

[Klazu]

More and more people work remotely, so rush hour traffic concerns less and less of the overall population. And with our Metro becoming more and more decentralised, there is less need to travel into town. Already now vast majority of people have no reason to visit Vancouver on any regular basis, if at all. Even in the George Massey Bridge study it was said that most of the northbound traffic never enters Vancouver.

People will still surely complain. Vancouverites will complain about paying ridiculous rents for shitty boxes in the sky, with no way of building any savings or equity and suburban dwellers will surely complain about traffic as no investments are put into road infrastructure.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by Klazu

People love to hate the sprawl but let's face it, most people want to live in a house at the end of a cul-de-sac and not in a tiny tower condo next to a major street or a noisy SkyTrain station. Houses are the most expensive housing type because it is the most desirable way of living. People love having space and privacy and we should allow for that.

i have always thought this was funny. so many people dont see this fact. they seem to think everyone wants that condo with people next to, above, below, and around you at all time. living in the epicenter of noise pollution. paying 3,000k/sqft vs a house at 300/sqft. going to the neighbourhood parks, with everyone else, also with the needles, vagrancy, and the fact it is used as a public bathroom.

its one of the weird things when you talk to these planners. talk to most young people today, they want a SFH. but they cant afford one; big difference. if given the chance, most would take it. they just seem so out of touch with what people truly want.

i once lived in DT vancouver, in a condo. thought that would be wonderful, awesome, amazing. it was mehh. (this was before the DT became the literally crap hole it is now). but man, since ive gotten my own SFH. yeah, there is no comparison to having my own space. to having privacy. i have 12ft of space between the neighbours house and mine. they have their own walls. i have my own walls. i dont hear them. they dont hear me. i dont smell their cooking. i dont smell their cigarette smoke. i dont smell their weed smoke. there is no one above me. there is no one below me. i dont have to wait for an elevator. i get mail into my foyer instead of the lobby. i dont need to go down 31 levels to go to a tiny 8ftx8ftx7ft storage locker with chicken wire overtop of it. i have an attic. a basement. a garage. i can literally lay on a lounger, in the middle of my backyard, and relax in peace and quiet.

there are no strata fees. those are like a 2nd mortgage these days. holy crap. just that alone makes condo living unsustainable in my opinion. look at building insurance. if your condo building cant get insurance, your mortgage could get called. that means you could be forced out of your home, by your bank, because your building cant get insurance for some reason. what if the market is bad and you have to sell? youre screwed. that should scare people.

people think the SFH is dead; it isnt. what is dead is the idea it is attainable. but we will not have a happy population in this city with everyone crammed ontop of eachother. vancouver isnt liked because its a city, its liked because of where it is located. and its location is not about density; its about the opposite thing.


the biggest issue with the GVRD is the fact the planning is so one sided. yes we need transit, yes we need alternative for cars, we need all of that; 100%. BUT, that being said, we cant just bury our heads in the sand and pretend we can make the cars magically go away if we just take away road space. that is unrealistic, and wont happen.


to get back on topic, thank god that god awful LRT plan was killed. this extension to langley centre is great, and i am happy its being done in one phase. i just with UBC was as well. SkyTrain is an amazing system, and we should be using it. there is no place for LRT in the GVRD. buses fill the gap until SkyTrain is needed. re: 99b-line.


well crap, that was a lot longer than i wanted it to be.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by Klazu

People love to hate the sprawl but let's face it, most people want to live in a house at the end of a cul-de-sac and not in a tiny tower condo next to a major street or a noisy SkyTrain station. Houses are the most expensive housing type because it is the most desirable way of living. People love having space and privacy and we should allow for that. Great on Surrey and Langley for existing and offering this housing option to the hundreds of thousands that desire it.

Using price and living area statistics we can see that the benchmark detached home in Vancouver sells for 160% of the benchmark condo. But the median detached home in Vancouver also has 60% more above-grade living area compared to the median condo. Once you throw in a basement and a yard, I wouldn't be surprised if the cost per square foot of living space + property of a detached home is similar to that of a condo. So perhaps there isn't a "lifestyle premium" the way you're suggesting it?

I am not advocating for tiny towers everywhere. You spend enough time on this forum that you should know there are other options, such as missing middle housing types. But even if you want a detached SFH with a yard, there are ways to build that stock in a more dense manner. For example, you can build slightly taller homes on 33' lots instead of squat homes on 60' lots. This means more people get to enjoy the SFH lifestyle and perhaps there will even be enough people in your neighbourhood for a corner store or better schools.

But my main point in this thread is build your city on a damn grid. There are many ways to traffic calm a grid so you don't have people racing down your quiet street, but if you build a system of cul-de-sacs centered around one arterial and that road has to be closed for whatever reason, it would be really nice if you had a grid of local streets that could temporarily serve as a detour.

And yes, I understand Surrey was built on an agricultural grid which is why a lot of the main roads are one mile apart from each other (1 mile squared = 640 acres or a full section, in agricultural parlance), but that grid has been filled in with a hairbrained mess of crescents and deadends. Don't even get me started on naming streets 97, 97a, 97b, etc.

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

people think the SFH is dead; it isnt. what is dead is the idea it is attainable. but we will not have a happy population in this city with everyone crammed ontop of eachother. vancouver isnt liked because its a city, its liked because of where it is located. and its location is not about density; its about the opposite thing.

I don't think anyone has claimed "the SFH is dead". In fact, the demand for SFH is why Phoenix, Calgary, Nashville, and more are growing so quickly. But those cities are slowly getting more expensive and eventually the children of the people who moved there 30 years ago for the SFH dream will have to move somewhere even less desirable else to buy, like Saskatoon or Little Rock or Lethbridge. But SFHs do require a significant amount of a constrained resource. And when all of the land within a reasonable travel distance of the central city is occupied, you start seeing insane prices like we have in Vancouver and cities like Toronto, L.A., and SF. And since (by definition) you can't stack multiple SFHs on top of one piece of land to make more efficient use of that land, building up is the way to go. There will always be SFHs but they'll just get more expensive and farther from the central city over time.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Conversely, other people might be fine with living with a few extra neighbours on a loud arterial... and less fine with taking care of two yards, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a garage with one or more cars all 365 days a year... nor with driving half an hour to restaurants, grocery stores or any other basic amenities.

Personal opinion aside, I'm sure there's upsides to that that kind of lifestyle, but why should 90% of the metro's zoning be biased towards the latter lifestyle and against the former? Even a 10-30% reduction would make everybody happy and help fix housing.

Originally Posted by Klazu

...Houses are the most expensive housing type because it is the most desirable way of living. People love having space and privacy and we should allow for that. Great on Surrey and Langley for existing and offering this housing option to the hundreds of thousands that desire it...

Having only one house shouldering the entire property's land value will always be pricier than several units splitting the cost - that's not ideology, that's basic math.

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

i have always thought this was funny. so many people dont see this fact. they seem to think everyone wants that condo with people next to, above, below, and around you at all time. living in the epicenter of noise pollution. paying 3,000k/sqft vs a house at 300/sqft. going to the neighbourhood parks, with everyone else, also with the needles, vagrancy, and the fact it is used as a public bathroom.

its one of the weird things when you talk to these planners. talk to most young people today, they want a SFH. but they cant afford one; big difference. if given the chance, most would take it. they just seem so out of touch with what people truly want.

Young person here: wild horses couldn't drag me back to the suburbs.

Feel free to link a poll saying that most Vancouverites want a detached house, thus proving that you're not in an echo chamber of your own; TEAM, Coalition and the various neighbourhood associations always seem to think they've got the rest of the city on their side, and always end up getting unpleasantly surprised.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

... But my main point in this thread is build your city on a damn grid. There are many ways to traffic calm a grid so you don't have people racing down your quiet street, but if you build a system of cul-de-sacs centered around one arterial and that road has to be closed for whatever reason, it would be really nice if you had a grid of local streets that could temporarily serve as a detour...

Some folks in Oregon learned that the hard way. A downed tree meant they were effectively cut off from the outside world for two hours... imagine if it were a blizzard or earthquake? A forest fire blocking the road means they can kiss their collective butts goodbye.

Getting us back onto the main conversation, I'm pretty sure most of SoF (and this forum) agrees they need a better grid - the question is where to put it.

[WarrenC12]

The work involved with a SFH doesn't appeal to me. The security (yes, security) of living in a high rise along with the lack of effort and time I have to expend on maintenance is a win.

Retiring to a remote place when I'm not working full time? Maybe. In the mean time I like being in a busy place with a ton of recreational activities close by.

[SFUVancouver]

My two cents on SFHs. Yes, they can be amazing. We were fortunate enough to be able to buy a house in Hamilton and it's my favourite place I've ever lived in. It's old (100+ yrs), barely insulated, wildly overpriced for what it "should" cost, and functionally acts as a detached townhouse in terms of square footage, but I love it so much.

BUT (deep breath) it is impossible for everyone to live in a detached single family home. Impossible for so many reasons. But unless we can all agree that it is impossible, we can't have an honest conversation about density, different forms of housing, and a hundred other topics.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Young person here: wild horses couldn't drag me back to the suburbs.

I grew up on an 80 acre acreage near Saskatoon and my dad has a 2,500 acre grain farm not too far from that city. I grew up with oodles of space and privacy. Aside from the occasional plane overhead or car on the grid road it was peacefully quiet all the time. We raised chickens and cows and had a giant garden. It was a great place to grow up and I learned a lot of valuable life lessons.

But man, when I moved to Kamloops and started taking the bus to work and could walk to a grocery store in 30 minutes, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. If that is how I felt about Kamloops you can imagine what I think about the West End.

My wife and I have committed to always raising our daughter in a walkable place with solid transit. We think urban living is a far more healthy lifestyle than sedentary car-centric living, let alone better for the environment, and we also enjoy living without a car. But kids often grow up to hate their parents, so maybe my daughter will buy VancouverOfTheFuture's house when they downsize in 30 years. To each their own, but we have to make efficient use of land around workplaces and transit stops by building densly.

But to bring this back to Surrey, the city has expanded without a plan for how to deal with congestion. Saying "we'll widen X road to six lanes in the future" is not a plan. Well-planned suburbs expand with transit, walking, and biking in mind so that every additional house doesn't add two or three additional cars to the road network. The pressure on Surrey's road network is something you can't "add another lane" your way out of, so hopefully the Fraser Highway Skytrain extension plus the various planned BRT lines can form the skeleton of the solid transit system Surry desperately needs.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by mcj

Surrey is also built on a grid, one that just doesn't connect for cars & trucks or transit or pedestrians or cyclists in many locations. However Doug Elford really only seems to be concerned with car & truck traffic, and none of the transportation modes in his comments. He's not advocating for additional bus service during construction or that bike lanes are maintained along Fraser Highway during construction, he's advocating for additional East-West link for car & truck traffic that'll be there long after the Expo Line extension is complete. Should Surrey create additional East-West corridors for car & truck traffic, it would mean that those who live on the dead ends on discontinuous roads like 72nd Ave, or 80 Ave, or 92nd Ave, would end up living on a road with substantial car & truck traffic in those localized communities, compared to what exists now. Hopefully the Expo Line extension, after a few painful years of construction, does enough to alleviate car & truck traffic that Surrey isn't forced to awaken the NIMBYs that lay dormant on their suburban cul-de-sacs and dead ends.

I did want to pop this up to add clarity of my opinion on road design in Surrey. As noted above, it is definitely on a grid, no different than Vancouver. The key differences in Surrey (and most suburb cities in metro Vancouver also on grids) are:

1) Distance between blocks
2) Distance between MAJOR arterial roads

The main difference here is that Vancouver simply has far more N/S and E/W arterial roads period. Let's quickly compare similar distances:

Surrey E/W major arterial between Highway 10 and SFPR (rough distance 11.5km):

• 108 Ave (*)
• 105 Ave (**)
• 104 Ave
• 100 Ave (*)
• 96 Ave
• Fraser Highway
• 88 Ave
• 84 Ave (**)
• 72 Ave (*)
• 64 Ave

Roads with * don't cross all of Surrey and can only partially be used. 108th terminates in Guildford and you have to join 104th. 100th terminates at 160th eastbound and joined 104th westbound once you're through Surrey Central. 72nd Ave terminates at 152nd street.

84th with ** is because it is under construction through Bear Creek currently, but too would be a * as it will terminate at Fraser Highway just past 160th. Same with 105 Ave. It still has some spots where they haven't built through so it can be used to get through Surrey Central for example, but at 144th you have to connect up to 104th then rejoin 105th near Guildford.

So true full E/W you have 5 total roads, 3 partial, and 2 kinda-sorta partial.

Now Vancouver for that sameish distance (note, from top to bottom, Vancouver is only 8km...):

• Hastings
• 1st Ave
• Broadway
• 12th Ave
• King Edward (*)
• Knight Street
• 33rd Ave (*)
• 41st Ave
• 49th Ave
• SW Marine Drive

Same thing *s are what I'd count as partial.

So effectively 8 major E/W and 2 partial or effectively 3 additional major E/W over Surrey, and 2 total more for a distance 2.5km less.

To me it isn't as much the effectiveness of the grid system, it is 100% true Vancouver's "grid" is more far reaching overall, but I do think still a major contributing factor is simply not enough major arterials.

That said though, where Surrey gets into trouble is that the "non-grid" sections often force you to finite arterial roads with no real way to get around incidents. That is where the design in Surrey starts to become a problem versus that in Vancouver. For example, if you have an accident on Granville, it is relatively painless to skirt around if you're smart and then come out a bit further along to get back onto Granville or get to an alternate artery.

In Surrey, and many other suburbs let's not kid ourselves (same issues in Maple Ridge, Langley, even Burnaby), your ability to get around incidents is a major issue. You get off 96th avenue for example near Green Timbes and your only choices are either another major artery or you end up in some circular rats maze of dead ends and loop roads that ultimately lead you right back to 96th where you exited.

And finally, absolutely spot on that the design does contribute to transit being challenging and also in some intances ineffective. Buses too have no ability to easily re-route around major accidents on arterial roads so they are stuck sitting in traffic jams just like the cars making Transit less attractive overall.