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

[cganuelas1995]

Honestly they should do a separate longer but gentler tunnel for bikes and even pedestrians if they wanna walk through that, maybe start it more in the south of Deas island

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by Sheba

I disagree. For a long time bike infrastructure kept getting pushed to the back of the 'to do' list. Now they're trying to catch up and adding pedestrian / bike lanes everywhere. It's not like adding it is going to add much to the final price tag of this project.

IIRC the bike and pedestrian tunnel is basically a beefed-up version of the emergency exit tunnel that would have been necessary anyways, so likely not a lot of extra cost was added.

And yes, this tunnel probably won't be used by a lot of daily commuters (unless you live in Ladner and work at Richmond CC or something) but bike packing trips to the island via Tsawwassen are pretty popular and this tunnel will eliminate the biggest headache for people making that trip. Plus, it just feels old fashioned to not accommodate bikes and pedestrians when it has no negative impact on other road users and the cost is a rounding error.

Originally Posted by ecbin

Depends - this bridge would have been relatively steep for most riders so it would discourage a lot of people from using it. The folks who could do the climb would definitely prefer the views over the tunnel though but I'd guess you'll get way more bike volume with the tunnel over the bridge. An eBike would help in either case though.

I don't think the grade of the bridge would have been an issue. Not a lot of casual cyclists will find themselves all the way down in Ladner, so most of the people climbing the bridge probably would have been strong enough riders that a five or six percent climb over a few hundred meters would be NBD.

As for safety concerns, I am not sure a bridge would have been much better. If the walkway was put next to the vehicle deck a new group of safety concerns would have been introduced such as debris being flung from tires or cargo coming loose and hitting cyclists and pedestrians. Those incidents aren't common, but they have happened on our other bridges. And even if someone was being mugged, do we think a bunch of motorists travelling at 100 kph would be able to do anything about that? And if the bike and pedestrian paths were suspended under the bridge you would still have the same lack of visibility.

Maybe I am an optimist, but I don't foresee a bunch of hooligans travelling all the way to this tunnel just to wait for a chance to jump a cyclist or pedestrian. That just doesn't sound like an opportune crime to me

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

I don't think the grade of the bridge would have been an issue.

it would not have been. its a straw-mans argument.

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

As for safety concerns, I am not sure a bridge would have been much better.

it would have been. it is safer to be out in the open, than in a multi-km long tunnel. even if statistically isnt safer, it *feels* safer to people. the feeling of less safety is what will stop people from using the tunnel.

is it safer that stadium station downtown got rid of the UG walkway? and that was a much much shorter tunnel.

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Maybe I am an optimist, but I don't foresee a bunch of hooligans travelling all the way to this tunnel just to wait for a chance to jump a cyclist or pedestrian. That just doesn't sound like an opportune crime to me

i dont think people will travel to the tunnel to jump people. thats dumb. what i do think will happen is it will end up an encampment. theres a farm not a long walk away to steal food/water from, itll be dry, quiet, away from prying eyes, its long.

do you really think that is not possible? it seems like an ideal place to set up an encampment. then the question becomes, how do you get them out? doubt you can bring in a truck to throw their crap out. so now youre in a tunnel/confinement, dealing with unstable drugged up people. seems like a recipe for disaster.

encampments dont show up on bridges.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

....do you really think that is not possible? it seems like an ideal place to set up an encampment. then the question becomes, how do you get them out? doubt you can bring in a truck to throw their crap out. so now youre in a tunnel/confinement, dealing with unstable drugged up people. seems like a recipe for disaster....

Even if someone does decide to settle there, the relatively remote location there's not likely to be anywhere near as many people as there would be in a more urban setting. Plus, it's not as if the only option for clearout are the ends of the tunnel. There will have to be safety doors along the way. While what you say is possible, I doubt that it is as dire as presented.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

it seems like an ideal place to set up an encampment.

Really? Way out there in the middle of nowhere? That seems like a real stretch to me.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

i dont think people will travel to the tunnel to jump people. thats dumb. what i do think will happen is it will end up an encampment. theres a farm not a long walk away to steal food/water from, itll be dry, quiet, away from prying eyes, its long.

do you really think that is not possible? it seems like an ideal place to set up an encampment. then the question becomes, how do you get them out? doubt you can bring in a truck to throw their crap out. so now youre in a tunnel/confinement, dealing with unstable drugged up people. seems like a recipe for disaster.

encampments dont show up on bridges.

I guess it's possible but I don't think it is likely. I think drug users like proximity to their supply, and this tunnel will be a long way from any of our major city centers. And in general, the unhoused tend to cluster where services are. There is a reason camps pop up close to supervised injection sites, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc.

If we had a long tunnel like this close to DT Vancouver and it didn't see a lot of foot traffic, I could certainly see someone setting up camp. Even the pedestrian underpass near Lost Lagoon regularly has someone camping out. But a tunnel almost 20 kilometers away from DT Vancouver seems too far out of the way. I guess time will tell though.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

its a straw-mans argument.

Saying people won't want to use it due to lack of sight lines isn't?

[s211]

This might have already been discussed to death, but has the Province mentioned how it would address the horrific sound levels that pedestrians would be exposed to in the tunnel?

[madog222]

Originally Posted by s211

This might have already been discussed to death, but has the Province mentioned how it would address the horrific sound levels that pedestrians would be exposed to in the tunnel?

The MUP will be completely separated from the vehicle sections.

[fredinno]

I don't get why they didn't keep the River Road exit (and make it dual-directional).

River Road connects directly to the center of Ladner, which would be beneficial for any transit system that wants to connect in that direction.

Re-rounding the buses that use 17 and connect to Ladner down River Road instead of using Ladner Park and Ride would improve access there quite a bit.

Does the space/provisions at least still exist in the plans to build it in the future?
---

Also, side note, but I just found out something semi-related to this project you might want to learn about:


There appears to be a 'ghost rail spur' where the Province and BNSF was originally intending on converting the much of the rest of the area north of Hwy 99 into industrial land (including Deas Island)- but the plan was abandoned and simply remained ALR.
This is also in The Official Regional Plan for the Lower Mainland from the 60s (right before the ALR was established), so I guess that was the original plan for Deas Island- to be Tilbury 2.0.

It's a very strange thing to imagine the Deas Island area and everything there almost having been industrial like Tilbury.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by madog222

Saying people won't want to use it due to lack of sight lines isn't?

its a proven fact that when people feel unsafe in a situation, they avoid that sitauation. its also a proven fact that confined spaces, with lack of eyes/sight lines make people feel more unsafe.

it isnt a stretch to see how the societal issues facing the GVRD could make tunnels unappealing. its a long long tunnel with really no where to go other than into traffic or out each end.

i dont see how its at all an inviting environment. there is a reason why pedestrian tunnels fell out of favour decades ago.

[s211]

Originally Posted by madog222

The MUP will be completely separated from the vehicle sections.

Ah. If that's the case, then pedestrians will no doubt enjoy the instantaneous and continuous graffiti paint fumes.

This has got to be the most PollyAnnish farce I've heard about in some time.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by s211

Ah. If that's the case, then pedestrians will no doubt enjoy the instantaneous and continuous graffiti paint fumes.

This has got to be the most PollyAnnish farce I've heard about in some time.

The pedestrian lanes are probably there because they have the space in what is also the emergency tunnel that has to be built anyways. I'd guess that MoT is expecting that the majority of the traffic will be bikes, especially if more people are using e-bikes to commute. It's better than waiting for an infrequent shuttle or bus. If someone wants to walk, they can, if they don't, it's not wasted space because it has to be there.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

its a proven fact that when people feel unsafe in a situation, they avoid that sitauation.

Sure, but they can only avoid it if they have an alternative. The real question is whether the tunnel is so unappealing that people would, for example, pay for a cab or an Uber instead of walking through it.

The answer, of course, is that it depends on the person. Some percentage will avoid, some will put up with it.

But the whole discussion seems moot to me because it seems obvious that there aren't very many people who would want to even walk across a bridge in the middle of nowhere. How many people have you seen walking across the Port Mann or Golden Ears bridges?

Half of a few is an even smaller few, is it really worth the time to argue the merits of bridge vs. tunnel on the subjective experience of a handful of people?

[ecbin]

Underground bike tunnels are generally rare but they do exist and more are being proposed and now that I've looked they seem pretty nice:

https://copenhagenize.com/2009/08/worlds-longest-bicycle-tunnel-opens.html
https://newatlas.com/bike-park-utrecht-centraal-ector-hoogstad/60512/ (technically a bike garage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saLAZssuD2o
https://www.thewashcycle.com/2018/05/jerusalem-opens-a-bike-path-in-a-sewage-tunnel.html

The drawings of the Massey bike lanes suggest something bigger than the examples I've listed so I'd hazard a guess that it will not be a haven for crime or homeless but rather something somewhat appealing to many cyclists.

[cganuelas1995]

Something tells me that MUP might be a provision for RRT in disguise

[xsoccerplayer18x]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

Something tells me that MUP might be a provision for RRT in disguise

It's not. The technical reports have been clear on this. The tunnel is not designed to accommodate RRT. In order to do so, the "cells" that make up the tunnel would have to be larger. It's already pushing it with the two, 4-lane cells plus the MUP. The other issue is the interchanges. The ideal situation would have been to have RRT/BRT running down the center median, but Richmond was dead-set against the visual impacts of the stack interchanges because aesthetics matter so much to them . Running on the side of the highway means you'd need flyovers or grade separation for the on/off ramps, which wasn't something the province was willing to entertain, and I'm guessing Richmond would kick and scream because they'd still be fairly tall structures.

I think it also said somewhere in a transit study that the shoulder bus lanes could handle 3x their current volume and that RRT would never be justified.

[flipper316]

https://biv.com/article/2023/06/bc-starts-bid-process-41b-massey-traffic-tunnel

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by flipper316

https://biv.com/article/2023/06/bc-starts-bid-process-41b-massey-traffic-tunnel

B.C. starts bid process for $4.1B Massey traffic tunnel

The B.C. government has issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) to replace the six-decade-old George Massey Tunnel with a new $4.15 billion eight-lane, toll-free immersed “tube tunnel” under the Fraser River.

[Metro-One]

I still fail to see how it made any financial sense to stop the bridge project, just to proceed with a less expansive more expensive version a decade later…