Metro Vancouver Road Infrastructure Discussion

[Sheba]

Where would we do something like this on the mainland?

Construction on road access to an elaborate new tourist attraction on Vancouver Island is underway.

That road will lead to a planned 40-metre wooden spiral tower, expected to be standing tall and open to the public by spring 2021 alongside the Malahat Highway, 30 minutes north of Victoria, B.C.

The Malahat Skywalk is a joint venture between the Malahat Nation and A. Spire by Nature, a company led by two people who founded the Sea-to-Sky Gondola in Squamish.

...

[Migrant_Coconut]

Hundred Mile House? Maybe Harrison or the Okanagan?

[ilikeredheads]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Where would we do something like this on the mainland?

LOL $30 a person. Good luck with that.

goto 2:08
• Video Link

[libtard]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I just did a round trip to southern California along the I5 primarily.

WA is the worst, by far. Van-Seattle is arguably worse that Seattle-Portland, but but are bad. Within the city of Seattle is awful.

BC (highway 99) and Oregon are both good, California is great, especially the long stretch from Northern to Southern Cali.

So ya, go do that drive and stop making excuses.

Washington state’s infrastructure is rated 2nd in the US, being beaten only by Oregon. No one takes your posts seriously. Users on this forum know WA states portion of I-5 is in very good condition and is much better than than HWY 99 which includes more than just the short portion between Vancouver and Blaine

The fact that you ranked California the highest is also hilarious

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by libtard

Washington state’s infrastructure is rated 2nd in the US, being beaten only by Oregon. No one takes your posts seriously. Users on this forum know WA states portion of I-5 is in very good condition and is much better than than HWY 99 which includes more than just the short portion between Vancouver and Blaine

The fact that you ranked California the highest is also hilarious

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings

That measures infrastructure as Transportation/Energy/Broadband as your answer to his opinion on the quality of the highway?

Washington road quality 37th
California road quality 48th
Oregon road quality 7th

[red-paladin]

Washington state's highway quality is beyond the scope of this thread.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by flipper316

Wish we had smart lights here. But of course here everything is geared to create as much stress and delays as mush as possible for car drivers .

Coquitlam had the green wave where if you went the speed limit along austin and como lake you would catch all the green lights

[Colin4567]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Coquitlam had the green wave where if you went the speed limit along austin and como lake you would catch all the green lights

Coquitlam also does a poor job accommodating anyone other than drivers and is slow to adopt new road designs with things like protected bike lanes and wider sidewalks (or even sidewalks in many areas - they install a pitiful amount of retrofits into existing areas each year).

[officedweller]

Protesters are blocking the Granville Bridge with a big red banner.

Pic by me.

[Tvisforme]

This might have been posted before, but I hadn't realized that the former TReO bridge toll facility in Coquitlam had been repurposed for the Ministry of Transportation as the Transportation Management Centre of BC:

What is the Transportation Management Centre of BC (TMCBC)? Well, for starters, think of it as the nerve centre for road/weather conditions and traffic information across BC. Based in Coquitlam, the TMCBC is the hub for collecting transportation information and communicating it to the public, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via DriveBC and Twitter.

Your Eyes on the Road

The TMCBC is equipped with more than 200 live-streaming video feeds, and 750 cameras strategically located on highways across the province (you can see these webcams firsthand on DriveBC).

By monitoring the roads and weather so closely, TMCBC employees are able to give travellers and commercial drivers the information they need to plan a safe, efficient trip. Using information provided by ministry staff and maintenance contractors throughout the province, and numerous other sources, staff respond quickly to incidents by alerting travellers and coordinating with emergency response agencies and our maintenance contractors to manage traffic using detour routes, counter-flow lanes and overhead Dynamic Message Signs.

Some situations, like incidents (collisions, usually) are unexpected. Other events -- like road maintenance, construction, parades, or community and athletic happenings -- are planned. And of course, there are road conditions which could affect your travel -- ice, traffic congestion, wildlife migrations, rain accumulation, blowing snow, etc.

An example of a planned event is the Highway 91/17 and Deltaport Way Upgrade Project which is expected to be complete in 2023. It’s a combination of improvements to Highway 91, Highway 17, Highway 91 Connector and Deltaport Way which will improve travel safety and efficiency. TMCBC staff post information about the work and monitor traffic and report congestion, delays, incidents and other events via DriveBC, Twitter and our dynamic message signs.

Sharing information with municipalities and other agencies is a big reason for the TMCBC’s success. Twenty-seven partnerships, including data and fibre-sharing agreements, allow us all to share video images, traffic data and fibre optic cable for the benefit of travellers.

Cutting Edge Technologies

Working alongside our maintenance contractors, the centre manages and operates lighted lane control systems for the Lions Gate Bridge, George Massey Tunnel and Cassiar Tunnel. The direction of traffic can be changed, in one or more lanes to create more efficient traffic flow, based on traffic, visibility and weather conditions.

Besides equipping staff to monitor, communicate and manage traffic flow, the TMCBC’s technology can change speed limits based on weather and other road conditions on three highways. The Variable Speed Limit Sign system sends weather and traffic data to the TMCBC, which operators use to calculate appropriate speed limit adjustments on 47 new overhead variable speed limit signs. That means posted speed limits can better reflect road conditions, as well as congestion ahead caused by traffic volume or incidents.

Emergency Response Headquarters

The TMCBC is a post-disaster building; in other words, it’s a building that’s essential for maintaining services when disaster strikes. If and when a major earthquake hits, the TMCBC will help lead the response as an emergency operations centre, giving emergency service providers timely information about bridges and highways.

How?

Bridges are equipped with seismic monitors tied into, what’s called, the Strong Motion Network. This data, combined with reports from the field, would inform emergency response, Emergency Management BC, supply carriers etc. on the status and safety of our infrastructure.

In fact, during Exercise Coastal Response, which ran June 7-10, 2016, in Port Alberni, the TMCBC practiced its earthquake notification procedure. The centre's tasks included coordinating key ministry operations staff, as well as supporting ministry operations in keeping track of mock incident and damage scenarios rolling out as part of the exercise.

The centre also provides support for all kinds of emergency events, for example, during wildfires and flooding. This involves both immediate response following a disaster and the recovery phase when repairs are being made, and everyday life is starting to resume for people.

The TMCBC is on the cutting edge for providing timely, relevant information for all types of travellers in BC -- from daily commuters, to long haul truckers, emergency responders, vacationers, goods and services delivery people and more.

Apparently the lane controls for, among others, the Lions Gate Bridge and the GMT are controlled from this centre.

(Information quoted from MoT's YouTube channel here.)

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Protesters are blocking the Granville Bridge with a big red banner.
.

Hastings and Clark has been blocked since yesterday.
I can understand a disruption that lasts a few hours (it's Vancouver. Consider it status quo) but when you've already been served an injunction to leave for repeated disruptions to all services what's the point of the traffic police if they won't drag them away in fear of racism and unfounded backlash?
You put any other group of crazies in the middle of an intersection and they would of been cleared out by the morning rush hour.

Edited: Nevermind. Five minutes after posting this they started cleaning the intersection out.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6593710/protests-port-of-vancouver-bc-legislature/

Supporters gathered on the street corners shouted “Shame!” and “This is genocide!” as police led protesters who elected to stay in the street to waiting police vans.

Protesters kept to the side of the intersection, stepping into the road one at a time to be arrested.

At about 1:45 p.m., police reopened the road to traffic.

Sounds like a bunch of professional protesters. Cause a mess, get sent downtown and get released because we can't do anything else to them, only for them to pop up a few hours or days later again causing mischief and 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 everyone off.

[flipper316]

https://www.peacearchnews.com/news/surrey-looking-into-reducing-residential-speed-limits/

[jollyburger]

Until they build the Skytrain...

North Shore bridge crashes getting cleared faster
Brent Richter / North Shore News
FEBRUARY 14, 2020 06:00 AM

According to DriveBC stats, incidents between Lynn Valley Road and the Cassiar tunnel took just over 29 minutes to clear in 2018-2019, on average, 11 minutes faster than in the previous 12 months.

In November 2018, Miller Capilano Highway Services took over the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure’s new towing and maintenance contractor for the Howe Sound corridor, which includes the Lions Gate Bridge and Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing. The new contract requires a higher level of readiness, with more trucks on standby, including at least one flatbed and one heavy wrecker.

Of the 195 incidents on the Ironworkers corridor reported to DriveBC between Nov. 1, 2018 and Oct. 31, 2019, 68 per cent occurred during the hours the new contract specified must have more trucks on standby.


On the Lions Gate Bridge and Stanley Park Causeway, it took crews just under 46 minutes to clear major incidents and 37.5 to clear minor ones in the last year of the old contract, DriveBC’s data shows. Since Miller Capilano took over, those numbers have fallen to 41 minutes and 26.4 minutes, respectively.

“There was a bit of a learning curve at the beginning but now, a year and a half in, we’re very happy with how things are proceeding,” said Steve Drummond, vice-president of Miller Capilano.

Bowinn Ma, NDP MLA for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, requested the data because expedited crash clearing was one of the action items in the Integrated North Shore Transportation Planning Project, which she led in 2018.

“When an incident occurs during peak hours, every minute counts because a stalled truck holding up a lane for even a few minutes can impact traffic for hours afterwards,” Ma said. “The big picture takeaway is that the change in maintenance and towing contract has been producing results for people on the North Shore.”

Drummond agreed.

“It’s huge when you’re seeing volumes of over 60,000 vehicles a day, which equates to 2,000 to 3,000 vehicles an hour. By having an additional 11 minutes or even greater, it’s a huge, huge relief to traffic flow on the bridges, tunnels and throughout everywhere on the North Shore just because we are so restricted with these two crossings,” he said.

There are caveats to the data though, Ma warned. What constitutes a major or minor incident is subject to the interpretation of the staffer who logs it. Factors considered include the time of day, number of lanes that are blocked, types of vehicles involved, and whether or not there are injuries. Minor incidents outside of rush hour likely don’t show up in the logs at all.

If emergency responders are required to attend, the maintenance contract is no longer the prevailing factor in how fast the scene is cleared.

Mitchell Martin, owner of Mitchell’s Towing, which is now a subcontractor of Miller Capilano, said his own towing logs show stalls and crashes are being cleared even faster than DriveBC’s data suggests.

“I would be very hard pressed to say that we are in that situation [where a crash]isn’t being cleared in under 20 minutes,” he said.

In March last year, the province changed the rule requiring police to file reports on every crash that causes more than $1,000 in damage before the wrecks can be moved. The threshold for a mandatory police report now is $10,000.

More recently, the province has made it clear to police agencies and companies with commercial fleets that they cannot wait for their preferred tow company to arrive and must use the first available truck, at least to get them off the bridge, Ma said.

Although the cost of the towing contract fluctuates annually related to weather and infrastructure changes, taxpayers are actually paying less for the higher level of service. The first full year of the new contract came in at $9.9 million, compared to $10.5 million the year before.

Drummond said Miller Capilano is also now experimenting with giving southbound Lions Gate traffic more time with the counterflow lane when Marine Drive and Taylor Way become too congested.

https://www.nsnews.com/news/north-shore-bridge-crashes-getting-cleared-faster-1.24076049

[Tvisforme]

Exit 21 westbound is closed this weekend while work progresses on the diversion around the highway bridge between exits 21 and 22. You can see the progress on the DriveBC webcam:

Mountain Highway - S (Hwy 1 at the Mountain Highway exit, looking south)

EDIT: I drove through the area this afternoon (Monday), and the diversion is now in place for westbound traffic on Highway 1 with a reduced speed of 60 km/h. Eastbound traffic is - as of 5 PM Monday - still using the regular route.

[Tvisforme]

The Highway 1 diversion in North Vancouver is now in place for eastbound travel as well; all vehicle traffic has been temporarily moved to the new bridge to the north. The project website says that the diversion will be in place for 8 to 12 months while the orange bridge is rehabilitated and the new eastbound on-ramp at Exit 21 is built. There's no date yet, but at some point this spring the eastbound off-ramp at exit 22 (Keith/Lillooet) will be permanently closed.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

The project website says that the diversion will be in place for 8 to 12 months while the orange bridge is rehabilitated and the new eastbound on-ramp at Exit 21 is built. There's no date yet, but at some point this spring the eastbound off-ramp at exit 22 (Keith/Lillooet) will be permanently closed.

It will always be Fern Street to me!

I've heard rumours that there have already been a few accidents related to the diversion; Hopefully that clears up once people realise there's been a change and exit their autopilot mode.

[officedweller]

Pic by me today - Georgia St. work:

[cganuelas1995]

If everyone that is working from home right now continued to do so, well, then it really makes you think that the infrastructure projects could be scaled down.

[libtard]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

If everyone that is working from home right now continued to do so, well, then it really makes you think that the infrastructure projects could be scaled down.

Agreed. We can start with the sky train extension down broadway

[Klazu]

Now would be the time to steer billions into infrastructure projects to support employment once the epidemic is over. Build something lasting and beneficial with all those billions government is now prepared to loan.