| |
Posted Feb 7, 2010, 2:50 AM
|
|
BANNED
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 1,241
|
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by jsbertram
So now we know what traffic is like when the viaducts are out of commission.
Anyone re-thinking their positions on tearing them down?
Get ready for more fun when Cambie Bridge is closed Wed for the Opening Ceremonies Dress Rehearsal & Fri for the Opening Ceremonies.
|
Not sure it is time to panic yet, it really doesn't seem to be that bad even according to reports by dedicated drivers. I, for one, do not underestimate the ability of drivers to successfully adjust to road closures. Have some faith, it will likely all work out and not be really any problem at all in a couple of days.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/traffic-what-traffic/article1458523/
Quote:
Traffic? What traffic?
Patrick Brethour
Port Moody, B.C. — From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published on Saturday, Feb. 06, 2010 12:00AM EST
Last updated on Saturday, Feb. 06, 2010 7:16PM EST
Driving to work is an inherently selfish act. Driving alone to work, doubly so. And driving alone to work while the entire Lower Mainland is being exhorted to park and ride public transit instead is - well, that's just fun.
It's just past 7 a.m. as I cross into Vancouver on my daily commute to the downtown core of the city from my home in outlying Port Moody. The Olympic lanes are in force now, cutting off a third of the capacity of East Hastings Street, the chief conduit for me and tens of thousands of other drivers. Close to the end of my commute is the Dunsmuir Viaduct, a vestigial stump of an expressway that nevertheless hustles motorists into downtown Vancouver. Until yesterday, that is, when the viaduct and its eastbound twin (which flow around the Olympic hockey venue) were closed, the biggest and latest of a series of wide-ranging traffic restrictions put in place for the Games.
After weeks of warnings, I'm expecting a cataclysmic traffic jam all the way in to The Globe and Mail's Vancouver bureau at Robson and Burrard Streets. Instead, I get the easiest drive in three years of commuting. Even with the detour forced by the closing of the viaduct, I make it to my parking spot in 35 minutes, a time I'd normally expect to hit only on a Sunday morning, or in the dead of night.
Until yesterday morning, most commuters had flatly ignored the appeal from VANOC and the city of Vancouver to get out of their cars; just 4 per cent of motorists did so last Friday, woefully short of the 20-per-cent target.
But, this Friday, it seems my fellow drivers are heeding those exhortations, and are leaving their vehicles at home - joining Mark Hume, my colleague and a long-time bus rider, on public transit.
I haven't, not this week, and not in the three years in which I've been commuting the 22 kilometres a day to and from Port Moody. Like any driver with a guilty conscience, I have a finely honed list of reasons why I have avoided public transit. The train schedule doesn't mesh with my work schedule. I need the vehicle during the day. I run errands on the way home, saving on weekend trips. I recycle.
But it all boils down to this: Driving is easier, more pleasant, more convenient and cheaper (unless you dump your car entirely).
The Olympics are going to completely rewrite that equation, however. And yesterday's commute is likely to be the last easy drive for the period of the Games. (Indeed, by mid-morning yesterday, Metro Vancouver's transit authority, TransLink, was reporting significant traffic jams on West Hastings Street.)
But will it be enough of a traffic disaster to pry me, and thousands like me, out of our cars? Anthony Perl, director of urban studies at Simon Fraser University, is itching to find out. "It's a living experiment," he says.
The pain of traffic jams is the single most likely thing to turn me into a public transit user, according to Prof. Perl. The assumption - often no more - that public transit is slower than a private vehicle is one of the biggest barriers to transit use, made worse by the cognitive trick that the minutes I spend creeping along a street goes more quickly than the same time spent waiting at a bus stop.
Nearly as important is the simple factor of being able to get a seat. If I can be assured of being able to sit rather than stand for most of my trips, the likelihood of dumping my car rises dramatically. (I check with TransLink and find out that the first morning westbound West Coast Express commuter train, my best transit option, has relatively few passengers. I'll get a seat.)
And then there is the matter of convenience. Before the Olympics came along, the last West Coast Express headed out of Vancouver just after 6 p.m., often too early for me to catch after work, and definitely too early to allow for any revelry. There was the bus, but that meant a far longer, less pleasant trip.
But with the Olympics, the West Coast Express will run until midnight, part of a wide expansion of transit services across Metro Vancouver during the Games. So, the commuting equation has been radically rewritten for me and countless other drivers: monster traffic jams plus easier access to transit, a seat (and the chance to use my BlackBerry on the way to work) equal one less car on the road.
And if that isn't reason enough, Prof. Perl has one more. Freed of my two-tonne isolation chamber, I'll be happier and chattier - a better, less selfish me. "It can make you a more social person."
|
|
|
|
Prev
I think it will be a gong show.....
Are you hinting at a vacation??? 
If so, I envy you, hehe.
Linear Mode
