Highway One Improvements: North Vancouver / Ironworkers Memorial Approach | Completed

[Jimbo604]

Originally Posted by Jimbo604

Photo source: Google Maps

They could have replaced this bridge too and had the third lane join up with the third lane that starts on just the other side of it?

Maybe they can cue up third lane extension now that rest of project is complete. And extending third (eastern-most) lane 400m from top of cut to Lynn Valley road exit: Google Maps

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Jimbo604

Maybe they can cue up third lane extension now that rest of project is complete. And extending third (eastern-most) lane 400m from top of cut to Lynn Valley road exit: Google Maps

That Main Street offramp should get removed and they should extend the 23A exit all the way back to the bridge. They also need to build the additional shoulder lanes up the cut. Really slow trucks still cause problems even with the three lanes. And it should stay three lanes until they can gain some speed past the Lynn Valley exit.

[chowhou]

[madog222]

Originally Posted by Jimbo604

Maybe they can cue up third lane extension now that rest of project is complete. And extending third (eastern-most) lane 400m from top of cut to Lynn Valley road exit: Google Maps

No no no no no no, that would makes it much worse.
Currently during heavy traffic that lane backs up onto the bridge caused by the Main St exit over capacity while the two through lanes are free flowing. Adding the 22A&B traffic to that lane will just cause it to back further and also require a merge for the Dollardton on-ramp.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by madog222

No no no no no no, that would makes it much worse.
Currently during heavy traffic that lane backs up onto the bridge caused by the Main St exit over capacity while the two through lanes are free flowing. Adding the 22A&B traffic to that lane will just cause it to back further and also require a merge for the Dollardton on-ramp.

Yeah with that onramp for Dollarton it would probably make it more dangerous. But most of the North Shore Highway ramps are primitive at best (Look at the Capilano Road onramp) for the people whining about fixing them

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

That Main Street offramp should get removed and they should extend the 23A exit all the way back to the bridge. They also need to build the additional shoulder lanes up the cut. Really slow trucks still cause problems even with the three lanes. And it should stay three lanes until they can gain some speed past the Lynn Valley exit.

The extension to the Lynn Valley off-ramp is one of the relatively easy fixes identified in the recent MoT report on the Upper Levels Highway. Hopefully it will get some sort of priority as that merge at the top of the hill has been problematic for decades.

Originally Posted by jollyburger

...But most of the North Shore Highway ramps are primitive at best (Look at the Capilano Road onramp) for the people whining about fixing them

Hey, leave our Capilano Death Ramp alone! That's a rite of passage when learning to drive...

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

Hey, leave our Capilano Death Ramp alone! That's a rite of passage when learning to drive...

It's definitely true that the Capilano Road exchange is a clusterfuck and the Lloyd Ave. "exchange" is just purely a deathtrap, but safety changes are a lot different than adding lanes.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by chowhou

It's definitely true that the Capilano Road exchange is a clusterfuck and the Lloyd Ave. "exchange" is just purely a deathtrap, but safety changes are a lot different than adding lanes.

Lloyd was especially "fun" back in the day when we could turn east onto the highway or go straight across into Pemberton Heights. (The south side access was closed off long ago.)

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Jimbo604

• Video Link
Project website has the above nice 4k drone fly over video: source

So nice to see that bus slide right onto the bridge with no trouble whatsoever at 4:10 into the video.

[Klazu]

One does come off as a simpleton when posting memes about massive interstate somewhere in Texas. That freeway probably moves 3-5x the traffic our Highway 1 does through North Shore, so it's a completely different beast and sure, overkill for our needs.

But thinking that a 2+2 highway from the 70s is more than enough for the main artery through a metropolitan area of soon 3,000,000 people shows complete lack of comprehension of the matter. It is only topped by fools preaching about the danger of induced demand when the demand already happened 15 years ago.

[Klazu]

North Shore municipalities fighting wider highway tooth and nail to limit access to their backcountry is the worst nimbyism out there. People move here, and we let them, to enjoy the outdoors at our front steps, yet nimby municipalities feel entitled to only having access. It is not very equitable of a situation.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Klazu

One does come off as a simpleton when posting memes about massive interstate somewhere in Texas. That freeway probably moves 3-5x the traffic our Highway 1 does through North Shore, so it's a completely different beast and sure, overkill for our needs.

But thinking that a 2+2 highway from the 70s is more than enough for the main artery through a metropolitan area of soon 3,000,000 people shows complete lack of comprehension of the matter. It is only topped by fools preaching about the danger of induced demand when the demand already happened 15 years ago.

They had traffic light intersections on the "highway" back in the 1980s so it tells you everything about how light the traffic was back then.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

They had traffic light intersections on the "highway" back in the 1980s so it tells you everything about how light the traffic was back then.

Yep - Lonsdale, Westview, and the worst one - Hastings. When they finally decided to build the Cassiar tunnel in the late 1980s (it was opened in 1992) the intersection at Hastings was said to be the busiest in Canada.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Klazu

One does come off as a simpleton when posting memes about massive interstate somewhere in Texas. That freeway probably moves 3-5x the traffic our Highway 1 does through North Shore, so it's a completely different beast and sure, overkill for our needs.

But thinking that a 2+2 highway from the 70s is more than enough for the main artery through a metropolitan area of soon 3,000,000 people shows complete lack of comprehension of the matter. It is only topped by fools preaching about the danger of induced demand when the demand already happened 15 years ago.

"Just one more lane bro, please bro pleaaase!! "

You'll look less silly if they ever replace the Ironworkers with a wider bridge. Until then, keep crying I guess.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by Klazu

One does come off as a simpleton when posting memes about massive interstate somewhere in Texas.

haha yeah that meme was a pretty low effort one. and as if thats at all relevant here. someone must reddit too much.

Originally Posted by Klazu

But thinking that a 2+2 highway from the 70s...

70s? thats being generous. im pretty sure the north shore portion is still mostly 1950s/60s vintage. but thats typical for the GVRD people. ANY road improvement project is seen as if we are building the 401, or the texas freeways up here. even adding 1-2 lanes makes peoples worlds fall apart. pretty funny, yet sad.

[Tvisforme]

For those who are interested, here's an interesting MoTH publication on transportation in British Columbia. I came across it listed as a reference for the Wikipedia article "400-series highways (British Columbia)":

Frontier to Freeway: A short illustrated history of the roads in British Columbia

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

im pretty sure the north shore portion is still mostly 1950s/60s vintage. but thats typical for the GVRD people. ANY road improvement project is seen as if we are building the 401, or the texas freeways up here. even adding 1-2 lanes makes peoples worlds fall apart. pretty funny, yet sad.

The upgrade from intersections with traffic lights at Lonsdale and Westview also added several lanes in that stretch, pretty much completely eliminating all of the bottlenecks associated with those two streets. The recent upgrades from Mountain Highway to the 2nd Narrows Bridge eliminated the bottlenecks associated with the streets in that region. There really isn't any point in any further upgrades right now because the only real remaining bottleneck are the bridges, and they are big ones.

[Vantage]

I think I would see you em if they ever built a 400-series standard highway in BC.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

So nice to see that bus slide right onto the bridge with no trouble whatsoever at 4:10 into the video.

Yup, this is why IMO BRT will only be slightly delayed by not having an exclusive lane on the bridge.

Originally Posted by Klazu

One does come off as a simpleton when posting memes about massive interstate somewhere in Texas. That freeway probably moves 3-5x the traffic our Highway 1 does through North Shore, so it's a completely different beast and sure, overkill for our needs.

But thinking that a 2+2 highway from the 70s is more than enough for the main artery through a metropolitan area of soon 3,000,000 people shows complete lack of comprehension of the matter. It is only topped by fools preaching about the danger of induced demand when the demand already happened 15 years ago.

The same underlying logic applies to highways everywhere. Yes, there is such a thing as logical highway widening or other improvements, but too often highway projects do not solve the underlying issue which is that one or two people travelling in individual vehicles is not an efficient means of transportation. But let's ignore the fact that the highway will almost be as congested in a matter of months after widening the highway and consider if widening the highway is a good investment.

First of all, the cost. Let's say we widen the highway from Horseshoe Bay to Hastings which is 28 kms. Based on the Langley TCH widening cost of $27 million per km that's $743 million. I wouldn't be surprised if that is a low estimate since Langley involves one overpass crossing, one railway overpass, and one interchange while the North Shore has 15 interchanges and 3 overpasses. Even if some of those do not need to be altered because they are already wide enough to fit an additional lane underneath, at least some of them would need to be rebuilt. So let's say $1 billion for highway widening plus road connections on the North Shore.

While we're at it, we will need to replace the IWM. I assume that we would want something like the Port Mann Bridge with one transit lane plus four general traffic lanes in each direction. That bridge cost $800 million but it was built a decade ago so let's assume $1 billion today.

So that's a total of $2 billion to add one travel lane in each direction plus two lanes on the bridge. Based on some US numbers, the capacity of a lane varies between 700 and 2,200 cars per hour, per lane depending on conditions. At the midpoint of 1,450 per hour you really aren't adding that much capacity during a two or three hour afternoon commuting crush, or Saturday morning when everyone is trying to get to get to Whistler at the same time. Compared to Skytrain which can move almost 30k people per hour and yeah, the investment in highway widening looks like throwing good money after bad.

[Tvisforme]

I'm aware this will never happen politically, and the lines on the map are rough without consideration of what's under them, but since we're discussing the highway and traffic flow:



A big part of the problem on the Upper Levels is that it is used as a local road in addition to being a highway. If there were several new local roads across the Capilano and Seymour rivers along with Lynn Creek, it would remove a lot of traffic from the highway.