South Fraser Perimeter Road/Highway 17 Extension | Completed

[officedweller]

Apart from being in the "Driving" section of the Vancouver Sun - which runs to TWO full sections - the most interesting part of the article from an infrastructure perspective were the references to the Border Infrastructure Program, which sort of drive home the fact that light industry has been forced from Vancouver to Surrey and Langley:

"Number 10 Highway is a major truck route and when the improvements are done we'll have four lanes all the way to Langley," he says as the Aston picks up speed and the exhaust note rumbles the cockpit-like cabin.

"And 176th Street, a two-lane road that goes to the fourth busiest border crossing in the country, is going to become a four lane and hook right into the TransCanada [highway]."

WOW! FOUR lanes! That's ONLY TWO LESS than any of Granville, Oak, Cambie, Main or Knight streets!

[Stingray2004]

I bought a '63 Corvette convertible. It was baby blue, but I had it repainted back to its original Riverside Red. It had a 327 with a four-speed and it was just a wonderful car."

Good taste, I have also driven a '64 convertible. Awesome cruise!

...a Ferrari F430 Spider, the newest one. He picked me up and we went for a ride, and it was beautiful. Just beautiful.

Having also been in a Ferrari, I fully concur!

Falcon is the highest profile and most active minister of transportation the province has had in the driver's seat since the legendary Phil Gaglardi paved his way into drivers' hearts during his near two-decade run back in the '50s and '60s.

Yeah, instead of talking and bickering for decades, it's time to have someone in the "driver's seat" to get things done, inclusive of highway projects needed ~20 years ago.

Look forward to the Evergreen Line announcement in 4+ weeks!

[deasine]

uhhh hopefully it will be SkyTrain? =)

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Apart from being in the "Driving" section of the Vancouver Sun - which runs to TWO full sections - the most interesting part of the article from an infrastructure perspective were the references to the Border Infrastructure Program, which sort of drive home the fact that light industry has been forced from Vancouver to Surrey and Langley:



WOW! FOUR lanes! That's ONLY TWO LESS than any of Granville, Oak, Cambie, Main or Knight streets!

yah

its about time it was improved

sometimes going down 176th is a nightmare

they really need an overpassed intersection where the fraser hwy crosses though

[Stingray2004]

For all of you who have suspicions about Kevin Falcon's intentions/motivations:

Hunger to make universe do my bidding overstated: Kevin Falcon

The Province

Published: Sunday, December 30, 2007

B.C. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon has denied speculation that a world map covered in coloured pins found in his TransLink office indicates he has plans to use the transit authority as means towards world conquest.

"That is absolutely untrue," Falcon insisted when confronted by reporters.

"It's the sort of thing that makes me want to take off my helmet with the spike in the top and just throw it.

"Yes, we want to give Lower Mainlanders the most efficient mass transit in the world, and yes, this might mean conquering northern Washington, but right now talk of massing buses at the Russian border is mere speculation." In related news, Transportation Minister Falcon announced a new wrinkle of the RAV Line Cambie corridor.

"The train'll now run at street level and Cambie businesses will be put underground."

[Mininari]

This thread has been kinda slow lately.

It would be interesting to revive discussion of the gateway project with respect to the recently announced transit plan for BC.

If you consider the timeline for the transit plan, and that of the gateway projects... we're going to see a surge in transportation capacity come 2013/2014. In those two years, we SHOULD see the gateway projects all finished, the Evergreen line open (hopefully as skytrain!) and the rapid bus lines appearing all over the map. Then theres the Expo line upgrades, and other intiatives...

$17B in transit AND highway initatives from the Province, over 12 years. Are we finally getting the balanced approach that many of us want to see? How is all of this going to integrate together, and more importantly, will it be enough?

[Bert]

Burnaby is having an open house next Tuesday (March 11, 5PM-8PM) at the Confederation Centre (250 Willingdon Ave.). All the notice in the paper says is it's for a proposed widening between Brentlawn and Hastings - currently, this is a 4-lane section of Willingdon (while the section between the Highway and Brentlawn is 6 lanes).

Right now, I'm actually just speculating that this widening proposal involves adding two traffic lanes to handle the crush of new Gateway traffic, but it's probably a safer guess than widening for a streetcar/bike lanes. I'll see if I can attend and find out for sure.

This could be the beginning of many widenings to come.

Also, I noticed last week that the bus lane signs on Willingdon, north of the Highway, have been taped over... not sure what's going on there.

[lightrail]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

For all of you who have suspicions about Kevin Falcon's intentions/motivations:

Hunger to make universe do my bidding overstated: Kevin Falcon

The Province

Published: Sunday, December 30, 2007

B.C. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon has denied speculation that a world map covered in coloured pins found in his TransLink office indicates he has plans to use the transit authority as means towards world conquest.

"That is absolutely untrue," Falcon insisted when confronted by reporters.

"It's the sort of thing that makes me want to take off my helmet with the spike in the top and just throw it.

"Yes, we want to give Lower Mainlanders the most efficient mass transit in the world, and yes, this might mean conquering northern Washington, but right now talk of massing buses at the Russian border is mere speculation." In related news, Transportation Minister Falcon announced a new wrinkle of the RAV Line Cambie corridor.

"The train'll now run at street level and Cambie businesses will be put underground."

LOL - that's good.

Further announcement from Falcon

Translink will be renamed FalconLinkBC(TM)

Evergreen Line trains will be painted Red, Green and Yellow

Turnstiles will be placed on all Coast Mountain Bus Company buses so the driver doesn't have to bother with fares.

Due to security reasons, during the 2010 Olympics,Skytrain will not stop at Olympic Village Station.

A new offensive is expected into the Fraser Valley following the 2010 Olympics - rumours have it that the Fifth Falcon Division is mobilising in the Abbotsford.

Stay tuned.....

ps PLEASE vote this moron out of office in the next election. I want to move to his riding just to vote him out.

[Dave2]

Bert: I'll see you there.

Regarding the tape on the signs between the Freeway and Lougheed... those are brand new signs, until recently they were just poles.

[Nutterbug]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

"Yes, we want to give Lower Mainlanders the most efficient mass transit in the world, and yes, this might mean conquering northern Washington

Joking aside, what's the likelihood of Whatcom County ever being integrated into the Translink network? What are the pros and cons to it?

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by Bert

Burnaby is having an open house next Tuesday (March 11, 5PM-8PM) at the Confederation Centre (250 Willingdon Ave.). All the notice in the paper says is it's for a proposed widening between Brentlawn and Hastings - currently, this is a 4-lane section of Willingdon (while the section between the Highway and Brentlawn is 6 lanes).

Right now, I'm actually just speculating that this widening proposal involves adding two traffic lanes to handle the crush of new Gateway traffic, but it's probably a safer guess than widening for a streetcar/bike lanes. I'll see if I can attend and find out for sure.

This could be the beginning of many widenings to come.

Also, I noticed last week that the bus lane signs on Willingdon, north of the Highway, have been taped over... not sure what's going on there.

they are doing a lot of sidewalk construction there and have closed them down for a while -a few weeks until things are done i guess

they have installed new staircases on the bridge as well - down to the newly created road

finally there is/will be a continuous sidewalk along both sides of willingdon from BCIT

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by Nutterbug

Joking aside, what's the likelihood of Whatcom County ever being integrated into the Translink network? What are the pros and cons to it?

the border poses a problem

when you take a bus they make all passengers get off and get searched and get back on etc - one slow idiot can foul the whole trip up

the train is nice and much easier so my friend tells me and he hated having to use the bus last month when he went down

but as it is one could walk across the border and catch a bus from blaine all the way to bellingham - the blaine system is connected to ferndale and bellingham

[lightrail]

Originally Posted by Nutterbug

Joking aside, what's the likelihood of Whatcom County ever being integrated into the Translink network? What are the pros and cons to it?

Cavity search at the border.

[lightrail]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

the border poses a problem

when you take a bus they make all passengers get off and get searched and get back on etc - one slow idiot can foul the whole trip up

the train is nice and much easier so my friend tells me and he hated having to use the bus last month when he went down

but as it is one could walk across the border and catch a bus from blaine all the way to bellingham - the blaine system is connected to ferndale and bellingham

Translink could extend some trips of the 321 and/or 375 to the Peace Arch (it's only a mile). Bellingham Transit 55 and 70X run to Blaine - so it wouldn't take much to extend to the Peace Arch and time the trips to connect with Translink (well, allowing for border security checks, etc).

ValleyMax already runs a bus from Abbotsford to Huntingdon close to the Border Crossing and Bellingham Transit runs a bus to Sumas - a connection there is possible too.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by lightrail

LOL - that's good.

Further announcement from Falcon

Translink will be renamed FalconLinkBC(TM)

`Hate to disagree with you but that name was set aside some time ago and the new name is simple Falcon.

When was the last time you rode Falcon?

Why not take Falcon home after a night of drinking?

Hey ladies, free Falcon rides on your birthday!

[Bert]

Originally Posted by Dave2

Bert: I'll see you there.

Did you go, Dave?

Basically, they're adding 2 HOV/bus lanes, putting a median in the road with left-turn lanes, and adding a separated "urban walkway" on the east side of the road. This should add a lot of capacity to the roadway since they go from zero free-flow lanes (the left lane is currently interrupted by left-turners and the right lane is interrupted by buses stopping) to two, but I don't know by how much exactly. I forgot to ask them about that, but I'm not sure the representatives would give me a straight answer, anyway. They denied any relevance of this project to Gateway. And quite worryingly, they said this transportation project was not coordinated in any way with land use policy.

Given that only at the very peak of rush hour is this 4-lane stretch of Willingdon congested much at all, and, even then, only a couple blocks of it near Parker, this project just didn't make sense. Then one of the representatives mentioned it was Burnaby's grand plan to have Willingdon be a 6-lane North-South connector from Hastings to Metrotown. Although, the representatives themselves admitted this would be impossible for a very long time since the stretch from Metrotown to Moscrop has houses too close to the road to allow an extra two lanes. So, this is just one piece in that 50-year vision, I guess, not that I agree with it.

I'm somewhat relieved that at least the bus/HOV lanes are full-time, and it's not 2 general purpose lanes being proposed. But, the collateral road capacity increase will be eaten up quickly, I'm sure. Also, they said that no rail link would ever be dreamed of along this arterial since it would be too expensive, although that hasn't stopped the dreamers here.

[deasine]

I can't wait until the HOV/Bus lane open. I took the 130 the other day from Alaska Street (before the tracks) and Canada Way. Hopefully by 2012, the upgrades (as a result of the Gateway) will relieve the congestion.

[Cypherus]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

yah

its about time it was improved

sometimes going down 176th is a nightmare

they really need an overpassed intersection where the fraser hwy crosses though

I agree. The other day, I had to perform a U-turn because it would've been an hour to move just 1 km.

[crazyjoeda]

Originally Posted by lightrail

ps PLEASE vote this moron out of office in the next election. I want to move to his riding just to vote him out.

Kevin is my MLA, and I wouldn't dream of voting for anyone else.

[Dave2]

Yes, I went.

ctually, there are no left turns at all, the entire median from Brentlawn to Parker is solid, pedestrian crossings only, no left turns off of Willingdon, no left turns onto Willingdon, no crossing Willingdon.

Basically it's going to be a 6 lane divided expressway. (despite the '4 lane arterial' description in the mailout to homeowners). What's the point of 6 laning that stretch if it's still going to be 4 lane north of Parker?

When I entered the centre there was one guy just ranting and raving at the poor people that were passing out the comment forms.... On a positive side, I did meet some neighbors, most of the verbal comments were negative, and once people starting hearing that others felt the same way.... the engineers thought they were ready with answers, "it will only take 1:08 minutes to drive to the church, but had no idea what blocking off access to almost every street in Brentwood Park would do to the traffic counts on the stree that remained open.

And this, coming from a city which is screaming bloody murder about adding a pair of lanes and upgrading our 1960s era freeway. Yet by blocking all the streets off and installing a divider, they're turning Willingdon into a virtual freeway. Think of what Aurora Ave north of the Ship Canal in Seattle is like, that's what Burnbaby is proposing.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Seattle,+W...22.347087&spn=0.001308,0.003986&t=k&z=18