Quote:
Originally Posted by allan_kuan
It's kind of interesting there's an uproar over destroying viaducts vs the almost unanimous support for shrinking 104th Ave. How do any of the two make sense at all? Even weirder, one has transit paralleling it already (viaducts) so why should we keep it? It's redundant, taking up land, will annoy future residents, and all that traffic can be shoved around somewhere else. Heck, why is SFPR being built, or any other road project for that matter? Can we not promote freight trains and more rapid transit by leaving them crumbling as is?
You might call me ridiculous, but I'm only continuing and elaborating on the same line of thinking. 
Anyway, back to reality... If the road shrinks and all the traffic happens to come from places not well served by transit, and there's no park and ride to deal with them, then it'll be a gong show on 104th for all of the following:
- LRT / BRT, due to drivers making dangerous moves in front of the reserved lanes to get to places on time
- cars and delivery trucks, due to congestion and lack of turning
- pedestrians, due to bad gas fumes from idling and long waits for LRT because of the above
- the environment, due to emissions from idling
So how is this any better? =S
Maybe one thing we can all agree on is finding out how many cars use 104th, where they all come from, and checking whether they are adequately served by transit now and whether they will be better served in the future. Only then will we know whether the shrinking of the road as planned is worth the trade-off.
Also, TransLink may have done the study already since thy came up with their preferred approach but I want it to be double-checked and released to public scrutiny just to make sure that ideology is not the main driving force (aka viaduct removal).
(Please note that I am now in favour of either BRT, LRT, or RRT towards Guildford and have no prejudice towards LRT or BRT options.) |
The 2 situations, Georgia Viaducts and 104 Ave, are two very different situations. First, many times the volume of travelers enter into Downtown than enter into Central Surrey. Downtown also has a more challenging geographical situation than Whalley, as it is surrounded almost 270 degrees by water. Many of the entry points to downtown are over bridges or through built up, busy neighborhoods. Between the TCH and Downtown, there are limited routes (4 by my count as Broadway doesn't link with the freeway directly) and the distance is about 3 or 4km longer depending on where you measure.
There is also a difference between tearing something down and building something up. There was a different sittuation regarding the building of the Expo line, and we were fortunate enough that it existed for us to take advantage of. Downtown we had the Dunsmuir tunnel. If that didn't exist, I'm sure we would be in an entirely different world. Skytrain would be following a different route, or probably would have been built above grade. If, in the 80's it came down to keeping the viaducts or building Skytrain, I'm sure a lot of people on this board would have called for Skytrain. Many people would give up something for something else that's better. But we were lucky to have the situation unfold where we were able to make a cost effective choice to have both. I'm all for, and I believe many people around here are for seeing capacity on other roads into downtown reduced in favor of implementing rapid transit on them, Hastings and Gastown being the most obvious.
We are also comparing vehicle infrastructure to light rail. The benefit of the Viaducts is that they get cars, with the often sloppy and careless drivers off city streets where they interact with pedestrians. In the future, NEFC could easily be one of the best walking neighborhoods because most of the traffic through the area will be above them. Light Rail can also help create walkable and focused neighborhoods. Call me crazy, but when I'm in Portland, the last thing on my mind is being hit by a train (their movement is pretty predictable) whereas you never know when you will be hit in a crosswalk by someone making a right turn on red without stopping. Downtown, I would love to see the viaducts used for cars entering downtown so that surface rail can be put down streets like Quebec and Pacific.
I also think you have to examine the actual traffic. Volume on 104 Ave, while high, isn't higher than any other major east west route through Surrey. I've driven frequently all over Surrey, and I often find there is far more volume on 88 Ave. 72nd Ave also handles a lot of traffic from the 91, but is single lane. While it is horrible during the peak, the rest of the day the street functions just fine. I would also say that with regards to traffic, much more volume gets off the PMB and heads onto SB 152 and heads to where most of the city is (to the south). While many people do turn onto 104 and 108 ave, I find most of the traffic heads South, into Fleetwood.
Quote:
Originally Posted by allan_kuan
Adding to xd's comment the SFPR would actually act as a city bypass rather than a city access route. I think it'd do more relief towards 88th Ave and the other crosstown corridors than 104th.
As for dividing communities, I think BCPhil just used that same argument to justify narrowing 104th Ave. =S Also, I live on Knight Street... with six heavily used lanes each way and trucks roaring up and down all the time... omg! a safety hazard to pedestrians right? and yet I really don't mind about walking across the street at 49th Ave to buy some KFC or take a bus. =S
And just another point: with the completion of the Canada Line, and following the same train of thought of downsizing streets due to replacement capacity elsewhere, one would assume that Vancouver and Richmond would have downsized No 3 Rd and Cambie Street... and yet they retain essentially the same capacity as before.
I could go on and on about Lougheed Highway and Millennium Line and all the other examples that probably exist elsewhere in this world...
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I think you are under rating the SFPR and over rating 104 ave. 104 Ave is currently the most direct route between the TCH and the Pattullo. If you are travelling from the east, and heading towards the major employment centers in south Burnaby (along the river where Best Buy office is) or to Annacis Island in the peak, it is faster to take 104 ave to Pattullo and use Royal-Stewardson-Marine. Almost all vehicle traffic on 104 ave turns at King George BLVD, with most of it turning north in the peak hours (including all trucks on 104 all day).
While Whalley is growing for sure in the number of jobs is holds, it is by no means the destination of even half of 104 ave traffic. That traffic is just using that road because the SFPR doesn't exist yet. (again, that is the reason why I think extending transit as far as possible down the Fraser Hwy will solve a lot more problems than sending it to Guildford). Many trucks even use 108 Ave as a means to get to Scott Road and the Fraser docks. Traffic using 108, 104 and 100 to get THROUGH Surrey will drastically drop after the SFPR (and upgraded PMB) is finished. The city will also soon see capacity increases on 96ave as well as upgrades to some other streets, improving local movement. That will open up a lot of road space for the city to play with on 104.
Again, the Lougheed highway stretches through most of the Burrard peninsula, and is the only major continuous east west road other than the TCH. Having the Lougheed keeps the TCH from being Vancouver's 401.
I also swear that Cambie was 3 lanes each way almost its entire Length before the Canada line, but in many spots, lanes have been removed and have become bike lanes. And even though there are 3 lanes painted through the Cambie village, there aren't any peak hour parking restrictions that I know of, whereas there used to be (unless they've put signs up recently).
And I would say No 3 road, while keeping lanes, is hardly the Richmond through route is used to be. No 3 road is now basically just a local service road used for accessing the businesses and for bus lines. You can try to drive the length of it, but it is hardly the best way to get from suburban Richmond to Vancouver.
All that said though, we have to keep in mind that this is the preliminary concept of Surrey transit, not the final blue prints. I still think space could be saved along 104 ave to keep it 4 lanes (but with vastly reduced turning options and buying up encroaching properties that can be resold as TOD). At the very least, it could easily be made 2 lanes one way and 1 lane the other, allowing it to either handle traffic into Surrey or out of, while other roads handle traffic in the opposite.
But, like me, Translink seems to have come to the conclusion that Skytrain to Guildford is overbuilding and not worth the price. So with that in mind, would you rather have no rail and a 4 lane road, or rail and a 2 lane road (if those turn out to be the actual final options)?
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