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

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Two lanes of eastbound will have to merge into one even after the interchange is finished
Heck this is just proving more that trying to fit two lanes into one would only result in inevitable transportation disaster.... it seems to always do. This portion is probably going to remain quite bad even after the construction (for 104th traffic)
Which is why I would've rather 104th EB merge onto the highway like this:

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Than this:

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There always has been a merge, there always will be a merge. Traffic will always have to merge somewhere at some point, otherwise we would need a 20 lane highway at some points.

The way it will be arranged for Gateway is a vast improvement over what it used to be. The merge point where it is planned to be is going to be quite better than the old situation of the right lane suddenly becoming a turning lane, where many people didn't realize that until the last minute when they would try and get out of the right lane.

I really don't understand what you want, it is hard to tell from your drawing. Do you want 2 full lanes of traffic to run onto the freeway?

And while google maps is a good guide to traffic conditions, the little red and green lines aren't the word of God; they should be taken with a grain of salt.

[SpongeG]

we are growing through construction pains now - once it is done things will clear up - a couple years of discomfort will soon be forgotten - driving around lougheed in west coquitlam for the past two years was awful, now a lot of it is done and its great now there is the whole cape horn situation on lougheed which is a pain but it will be done soon enough


guildford held the title of largest in BC for many years before metrotown and eaton centre merged to become metropolis

the old navy's are different - guildford seems to be the only store in the lower mainland to not get a renovation to the new look - maybe they wanna move the store in the mall? and don't wanna waste the money on a reno at the moment?

[xd_1771]

The kind of merge I pointed out would be slightly more efficient, it could improve 104th eastbound movement while not doing much at all to harm Hwy 1 movement. It's similar to the setups east of Hope (Hwy 3 WB/Hwy 5) and before the Alex Fraser (91A SB/91). Why merge the two lanes before the merge onto highway, (causing a mess on the road that has to merge) when it's going to form a new lane on the highway anyway? If the merging road is a major movement it could rather compromise such movement. By extending this so that two lanes merge into one after joining the highway rather than before, you would be giving this merge movement a lot more room and flexibility, and making it a lot easier for the traffic on the merging road - especially useful where capacity is needed - and most of the time, the highway it's joining isn't affected.

driving around lougheed in west coquitlam for the past two years was awful, now a lot of it is done and its great now there is the whole cape horn situation on lougheed which is a pain but it will be done soon enough

You said it, I'm loving the new 3-lane section (perhaps overkill for that area? I don't think it ever saw major gridlock before the upgrade, I definitely never had problems) and left-turn lane to IKEA. I'm at least glad to see that they're providing more than ample road capacity on that section of road to handle the future, even if it isn't even as crucial a connection between city centres and never experienced such cases of gridlock before (considering Hwy 1 is directly to the south and the traffic volumes don't really get as high until the 7 EB splits north towards Coquitlam). That they're trying to reduce capacity where the capacity is actually needed the most (here in Surrey) is very disappointing though.


This is a screenshot taken just now. I know it's just little red and green lines on a map, but I'm pretty sure a lot of you have been there yourselves as I have seen a lot of complaints before about this particular section of the Fraser Highway from various different members here. The green timbers section is currently single lane/direction... and oh boy, look at that gridlock. 104th carries the same if not more volume than this section of the Fraser Highway and I don't see how that could be effectively changed anytime soon. Reducing 104th from the already chronic two lanes to one would be taking this green timbers gridlock and multiplying it by two. The gridlocks could extend onto other local roads, blocking property access and other important local movements, and become a widespread problem for everyone living in that area. Luckily the Fraser Highway in that area doesn't go through much development and there aren't any driveways to block.

[DKaz]

Your main problem is that you live in Surrey. I don't understand what the main rush to Surrey was, Tri Cities and Maple Ridge is way better for the same money. Well maybe back in the days Surrey was cheaper but not anymore.

[twoNeurons]

Rehash, rehash, rehash...

xd... it sounds like 104th doesn't have enough capacity... but when we're talking about capacity... we're talking about how many people it can hold. I'm sure you will agree that an LRT can more efficiently move more people in the same area and faster (during rush periods).

You're not taking away capacity, you're increasing capacity overall and improving 104th at the same time. The highway also is a major source of congestion in and along 104th.

[xd_1771]

The capacity increase is not enough to net a suitable benefit on an LRT system. Such an implementation will result in more large-scale local issues than benefit.

[Whalleyboy]

And how do you know that for sure? Got anything to prove it?

[xd_1771]

Well, I hate to say this and rehash my arguments all over again, but I've pointed it all out. If I have to, I have more reasons to lay on the table.

Among the issues are local traffic issues causing serious traffic delays for short local movements such as home to home or home to school that used to be speedy and reliable, less/lacking business prosperity for the expanded Guildford mall, smaller local roads chocking, clogging and blocking important property access (especially since in most places you don't see traffic control devices i.e. traffic circles like you see in Vancouver - and to add those in would only necessitate additional, supposedly unnecessary, investment), no additional transit changes to help support it by bringing people to it, and the lack of a speed benefit doesn't make it that much more attractive to get to here from the rest of Metro Vancouver. Not to mention, of course, the chronic downfall of a potentially fast and reliable 104th avenue for everyone to use.

I don't see how most of you can't see how this is a bad choice from the start. The end result may not be enough to cause a benefit to the entire community as a whole, and when you add the various local-scale as well as larger-scale problems that can and will be caused by this, many of which you have already seen in other places - some nearby- and complain like mad dogs about; in addition it may not be fully prepared to handle the additional volume of people that will be going to Guildford over the next few years for various reasons including the expanded & attractive Guildford Mall, as well as various new residential developments that add to the already high density of this area. The end result is a useless investment in which the benefits were lost in only a few years time, perhaps less, and a highly dissatisfied community in the end. I speak for my community, and the amount of dissatisfied people in my community as they come to know about this is, as of now, slowly growing in size.

[Whalleyboy]

All you got is predictions no real proof. Well me and others also have predictions that it will work. Basicly we are at a point instead of keep argueing it would be better just to agree to disagree. since this is really getting no where

[xd_1771]

My predictions are as educated as possible and based on where local issues or larger-scale are the most evident as of present, but to say your predictions/outcomes are better would be unfair, as mine are about as equal as your predictions in terms what will happen in the end. Consider too that my predictions are actually providing some discernible proof. I have shown you 104th travel patterns, I have shown you how bad such one-laning is currently turning out everywhere else where it is happening (think Fraser Highway), and I've even used some rather complicated equations in calculating New Flyer bus capacity vs. LRT train capacity. I have given you plenty of real-life examples on how this could affect local travel, including personal situations in my family and those of my friends' and people I otherwise know. However, you're right, unreliable predictions is, as I've stated before, another evident reason we shouldn't build LRT and compromise 104th. There's no knowing of what is going to happen to Guildford travel patterns across the metro, as well as Guildford-Whalley traffic patterns after the completion of the new Port Mann Bridge, the new SFPR, as well as the new Guildford Mall expansion. To build this right away would be taking a huge step into a very, very dark room.

[aberdeen5698]

TwoNeurons has a very good point - a traffic lane dedicated to transit can carry a lot more people per hour than a traffic lane dedicated to mixed traffic. If the objective is to move the most people with the least congestion, that's obviously a better solution.

It's not best for the motorists, of course, but it seems that civic planners all over North America are starting to realize that motorist's appetites can never be satiated...

[paradigm4]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

We've seen that video... no idea if it's actually from the city though

I was at the Mayor's State of the City address. This is the exact video that was presented by her two weeks ago.

[Millennium2002]

I find the debate in here to be quite ironic given the circumstances. Consider also the debate on Broadway. Most of us agree that Broadway is too tightly bounded by buildings on both sides and has horrible surface traffic, and therefore agree that RRT is generally the best solution to add capacity. Yet here, despite the room for expansion along the 104th Street corridor, we're advocating for the complete opposite, saying that despite heavy vehicular traffic from the east via Highway 1 of all major corridors, LRT on a single-laned boulevard is the best approach because people take priority over cars and freight traffic. What? In that case why not bulldoze an LRT line through Broadway?

With these sorts of inconsistencies it's no wonder why some transit debates look outrageous. Yes, local circumstances must be taken into account, but even for a Broadway supporter like me it's not fair and reasonable that some things are being looked at from completely different or biased perspectives. Dianne Watts or Zweisystem can show us or tell us anything they wants us to believe, and it may be all wrong. Maybe they're just telling us a skewed viewpoint for their own benefit. Who knows? If anything I say leave it up to TransLink, the authority who actually manages public transit and roads around here, to do the studying and offer us the proposals.

In addition, I have to ask, does anybody have reliable and concrete quantitative information about who lives along this corridor? Who travels along this corridor? And where do they come from? If you do, show us the numbers, and maybe we can actually quantify some forecasts along what TransLink has done for Broadway. Because at the moment everything said so far is very much hypothetical, qualitative, descriptive, up to opinion and therefore up to debate. In fact some things may never happen. I myself have honestly no idea because I have barely any information whatsoever. Again, who knows?

BTW, I apologize if I sound aggressive; it's just that this discussion has become a cyclic rehashing of past arguments with no resolution in sight, and I felt strongly compelled to straighten things out and play the devil's advocate as a result.

[xd_1771]

Well, let me tell you something, I am looking at this from a perspective of a Guildford resident and as a frequent transit user, so I think I have a pretty big say in supporting or being against what's to happen in my community. What I don't understand is why I'm the one being pushed off, when perhaps I'm one of the few people on SSP that actually do live here and know the area and it's travel/traffic patterns very well. I'm indeed tired of fighting the same arguments, and I do think that it's time to move on to new, more suitable arguments: i.e. the effects of introducing RRT on a Newton-Whalley-Guildford line, which I personally think is the best solution to connect this city between three major centres.

I see 104th westbound backed up from 156th straight onto the highway every single morning, I pass this line of cars every day on my morning commute. If you've actually ever been there, then you can see there is indeed a large sheer volume of people coming into Guildford. In fact what many of you say is right: most of the people coming into Guildford - and Surrey as a whole - come from Highway 1, and that is likely not going to change anytime soon.

[DKaz]

Traffic is bad everywhere. It's bad on 96 and 88 as well. There's no good shortcut east/west. It's bad on Scott. It's bad through New West. It's bad through Vancouver. Mary Hill Bypass, Lougheed east of Coquitlam, everywhere. Deal with it.

[xd_1771]

In that case I would like to see some improvements, in fact none at all would be better than the compromises being planned. The situation is already bad... making it worse is taking this way too far. Even Vancouver is doing a better job of keeping traffic moving (actually well-syncing their lights, unlike Surrey) and I think they're more anti-car than any other city around here.

Arguably the only well-moving east-west route in the metro is Highway 91, but as of recently even that's not always the case.

[Millennium2002]

Originally Posted by DKaz

Traffic is bad everywhere. It's bad on 96 and 88 as well. There's no good shortcut east/west. It's bad on Scott. It's bad through New West. It's bad through Vancouver. Mary Hill Bypass, Lougheed east of Coquitlam, everywhere. Deal with it.

Your "deal with it" attitude can be interpreted in one of two ways:

1) Most likely, the cynical, sarcastic way, in which case, let's just halt Gateway Project and SFPR indefinitely and see how fast this city stops in gridlock!

2) The actual meaning, in which case we build more capacity, but not by removing choice either. That means there should be at least two lanes on 104th each way plus turn lanes + reserved median for LRT. Luckily land is generally inexpensive down there so doing that right now would not be as much as a pain as doing it on Broadway. =O Also agree with xd_1771 about improving transport elsewhere... and there's a long list to go with that. George Massey Tunnel, Oak Street Bridge, maybe upgrade 10 and 15 into freeways, etc etc. Of course all of this will cost money and would have to be phased in gradually within the next 60 years to fit our current budgets. =S

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by allan_kuan

Most of us agree that Broadway is too tightly bounded by buildings on both sides and has horrible surface traffic, and therefore agree that RRT is generally the best solution to add capacity.

The big reason that grade-separated transit is being considered for Broadway is because of proven ridership levels which go a long way toward justifying the additional cost and also suggest that in the future grade separation will be likely required to handle the demand.

[DKaz]

If you look at cities all over North America, freeways always have a negative effect on local traffic around it, especially around the interchanges. City of Vancouver's no freeway strategy is one reason their traffic flows so well.

[Whalleyboy]

well gateway should not be canceled but it should not be a fully relied on. With raising gas prices and transit use becoming a more cheaper way of traveling.We are in a time of Change whats is making it really hard since trying to please both at equal levels is hard. But it should be noted we can not keep pleasing the automobile. Well i dont see cars going any where anytime i still dont see the use in putting them first

also note i am from surrey and travel between central and guildford daily