Hwy 99 Fraser River Tunnel (George Massey Replacement) | Proposed

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by cornholio

With new driverless technology and navigation systems coming online and a smart integrated road system you will be able to fit double or triple the cars on to the roads without blinking an eye. Currently we are wasting most of our road space because people drive inefficiently and lights are inefficient, among other things.

What does a smart integrated road system look like? I am at a loss to conceive of how our intersections can handle two to three times as many vehicle movements, certainly without affecting safety, limiting pedestrian signal control and crossing times, or increasing the speed at which vehicles travel and take corners. How will parking (off-street and on) accommodate two to three times as many vehicles?

As I said, I'm a huge fan of electric vehicles and I can easily imagine how self-driving cars (part of the Internet of Things) will massively improve the capacity and safety on fast suburban roads and especially on highways. Once you get into dense urban areas, though, it's a fantasy to think that we can accommodate two to three times as many vehicles without negative effects on livability or other road users (transit buses, cyclists, delivery vehicles, goods movement) or that we will have the money to spend on retrofitting and expanding the road network to accommodate those numbers. It's a fantasy to think that electrification and automation will be a panacea for congestion and the unalterable physical space limitations of mature built-up cities.

Anyway, back to the George Massey Tunnel replacement. My office is very eager to learn more about the planned upgrades to the 99/Steveston Hwy interchange. We're located near No.5 and Steveston Highway and most of the office commutes through the Tunnel. Several of my colleagues simply plan to move north of the Fraser to avoid the congestion and construction delays the interchange upgrades and the bridge project will create and, more generally, to avoid the tolls that are pretty likely to be imposed on the new crossing and probably all of the Fraser Crossings in the not too distant future.