Pattullo Bridge Rehabilitation Project

[BCPhil]

No. 4 lanes is inadequate. 6 is barely acceptable.

It really should be 7 lanes. 3 North, 4 South.

The real problem with the bridge, is all the merging down that needs to happen.

Currently, only 1 lane from McBride goes through, which automatically backs it up to 10th. That's not a New West doesn't have enough capacity problem, that's a bridge is too small. To make the bridge actually work at PM peak, they CLOSE one access point. That just makes even MORE people drive through DOWNTOWN New Westmister.

Seriously, what the hell are they thinking? "Oh, I don't like the congestion, so lets keep it exactly the same. PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!"

If you didn't have to close the access point to the bridge from Columbia, then you would have 3 sources merging at peak, a total of 4 lanes of pretty constant traffic (5 if you don't force Royal to merge down). Even a 6 lane bridge is going to have a lot of traffic merging down, clogging up streets in New West.

And in the near future, the tolls will not be a deterrent. Some traffic will divert back to the Port Mann and just pay the toll there, but people will not be able to dodge the toll on the Pattullo as easily because with the tolled GMT-Bridge, the AFB will be overpacked far beyond what it is like on either the Pattullo or AFB is today, so people will settle paying the toll. I think it will pretty much return to pre-PMB toll traffic levels, so down from now, but still seriously busy.

And if more bridges (or all) are road priced (tolled) then the Pattullo will be very popular because it is a single crossing to get from Surrey, unlike a combo of crossing the GMT+Oak/Knight

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

Kindly spare the BS. Knowing your previous comments on this site... you have almost cultist-like attributes.

New West's mayor Cote was only elected for 2 reasons - a hardcore enviro NDP anti-roads type and with CUPE support. Hell, I personally know the prez of an NW CUPE local that heavily supported his campaign.

And Cote has a background in "transportation planning"? Yep. The kind that involves bike lanes ...

Cote opposes the new Pattullo Bridge crossing. In fact, if it goes ahead it will only be "4 lanes" or nothing. And Cote opposes any Stormont Connector concept. And opposes the United Blvd Extension. A total lost cause for the region.

Do your homework/due diligence before ya post your typical crap again on here man.

They've signed an MOU with TransLink and Surrey stating that the rebuilt Pattullo will be four lanes initially and if traffic levels dictate, it can be expanded easily to six lanes. There's nothing about "four lanes or nothing" in anything they've agreed to. Please do your homework.

And Cote's got a degree in urban studies, and his masters thesis was about transit-oriented developments, specifically studying the area around 22nd Street SkyTrain station. While bike lanes may factor into that, they would hardly be a focus of his studies. Please do your homework.

And he was elected because his chief competitor, Wayne Wright, was riding on his past successes (and they were many) without offering any sort of vision for the future of New Westminster. New West's major issue is traffic, and the people of New West are extremely hesitant to allow even more traffic through the city. That's why there's opposition to the Stormont Connector, and that's why there's opposition to the United Boulevard Extension. That opposition doesn't just come from city hall, it comes from the neighbourhoods that would have to deal with all the extra traffic that these large streets would bring into New West.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

...although the Lion's Gate Bridge is an example of a long protracted debate over how to increase capacity that ended in a stalemate.

Wasn't a stalemate at all, the "no cars" side won. Same amount of car lanes, bigger bike/pedestrian lanes.

And now with Squamish becoming a suburb it's even more clear that was a giant mistake. In the last 10 years I've gone from 100% Lions gate usage to 100% Ironworkers (southbound at least) being equidistant from both. Which of course means I have to drive through the entirety of Vancouver proper to get downtown now.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Kisai

I actually have walked across that bridge before on foot.

My point was that the option to retrofit it has always been available, to replace a 4-lane bridge with yet another 4-lane bridge doesn't improve the traffic situation on either side.

If they're really going to build a new bridge that is effectively 6 lanes wide, but painted as 4, fine, that's a solution that can be solved at some point when different city councils can agree to expanding it. But it seems like not solving the rail traffic is going to be a missed opportunity.

Agreed totally. Vancouver, with its rivers, bridges, and harbours and bays, has enough inherent "transportation challenges" as is. Anything to improve the traffic infrastructure is worthwhile.
And another 2-track railway entrance for commuter and/or freight trains is as great a place to start as any. Building to six lanes seems the only way to go.

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

They've signed an MOU with TransLink and Surrey stating that the rebuilt Pattullo will be four lanes initially and if traffic levels dictate, it can be expanded easily to six lanes. There's nothing about "four lanes or nothing" in anything they've agreed to. Please do your homework.

And Cote's got a degree in urban studies, and his masters thesis was about transit-oriented developments, specifically studying the area around 22nd Street SkyTrain station. While bike lanes may factor into that, they would hardly be a focus of his studies. Please do your homework.

And he was elected because his chief competitor, Wayne Wright, was riding on his past successes (and they were many) without offering any sort of vision for the future of New Westminster. New West's major issue is traffic, and the people of New West are extremely hesitant to allow even more traffic through the city. That's why there's opposition to the Stormont Connector, and that's why there's opposition to the United Boulevard Extension. That opposition doesn't just come from city hall, it comes from the neighbourhoods that would have to deal with all the extra traffic that these large streets would bring into New West.

I find that any sort of "Urban Planning" degree from local Metro Vancouver Universities is pretty much a negative in my eyes. People like Jonathan are helping slowly strangle this region. The teachers operating in this region are clearly helping churn out some pretty shitty urban planners. People will look back decades from now and wonder how we let our region become so inefficient.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by cornholio

I find that any sort of "Urban Planning" degree from local Metro Vancouver Universities is pretty much a negative in my eyes. People like Jonathan are helping slowly strangle this region. The teachers operating in this region are clearly helping churn out some pretty shitty urban planners. People will look back decades from now and wonder how we let our region become so inefficient.

Until recently, Vancouver was a relatively small city, even by North American, let alone global standards. As such, that "small town" mentality" lingers.
This is especially true - it seems - in the case of city designers and planners, who nearly always seem to design expressways, bridges, and connecting roads insufficient to take the volume.
Until Vancouver brings in some "big city, big thinking" planners (ex: from Montreal), we'll be stuck with undersized-or-quickly-outdated infrastructure.
Thinking BIG is necessary, but this city just can't -except on rare occasions - think big or plan for a not too distant future when Metro Van passes the 3 million mark. And that's not so far off.

[CoryHolmes]

Has there been any talk of the Pattullo replacement moving upriver and linking into Coquitlam at King Edward / United Blvd? That seems like it would address the New West traffic problem while giving direct access to Lougheed Highway and the Trans-Canada.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by CoryHolmes

Has there been any talk of the Pattullo replacement moving upriver and linking into Coquitlam at King Edward / United Blvd? That seems like it would address the New West traffic problem while giving direct access to Lougheed Highway and the Trans-Canada.

There was talk of moving the bridge but if you move it too far in either direction it gets too close to another bridge (Port Mann and Alex Fraser / Queensborough). Plus moving it over to where you describe means it has to be a much longer (and more expensive) bridge. The Sapperton sandbar might also extend to there and it adds another construction problem.

[Stingray2004]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

New West's major issue is traffic, and the people of New West are extremely hesitant to allow even more traffic through the city. That's why there's opposition to the Stormont Connector

Give it a rest. Any civic engineer specializing in highway planning/design or traffic engineer (worth their grain of salt) looks at problems and identifies solutions. In this instance, a cut-and-cover tunnel near the new northern PB bridgehead under McBride to 10th Ave with the remaining trenched (Stormont Connector) is the obvious solution.

Akin to ridding major traffic problems along Hwy 1 along Van City's Cassiar Street (and local neighbourhoods) with the Cassiar Tunnel back in the early 1990's.

Bingo. Problem solved. A no-brainer. That's what a political leader in NW would/should be advocating for.

But not Cote and his political allies on NW council. Again... all hard-core, anti-roads NDP types along with major CUPE support... the same crowd that is vehemently NIMBY/BANANAS... bows to the vocal minority yet disregards the silent majority... yet have no logical solutions for their own neck of the woods. Period.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

Give it a rest. Any civic engineer specializing in highway planning/design or traffic engineer (worth their grain of salt) looks at problems and identifies solutions. In this instance, a cut-and-cover tunnel near the new northern PB bridgehead under McBride to 10th Ave with the remaining trenched (Stormont Connector) is the obvious solution.

Akin to ridding major traffic problems along Hwy 1 along Van City's Cassiar Street (and local neighbourhoods) with the Cassiar Tunnel back in the early 1990's.

Bingo. Problem solved. A no-brainer. That's what a political leader in NW would/should be advocating for.

But not Cote and his political allies on NW council. Again... all hard-core, anti-roads NDP types along with major CUPE support... the same crowd that is vehemently NIMBY/BANANAS... bows to the vocal minority yet disregards the silent majority... yet have no logical solutions for their own neck of the woods. Period.

There are so many things wrong with post it's difficult to know where to start.

1. If you don't give a traffic engineer a budget they will come up with whatever makes the most sense without any constraints. In that world we'd have a Metro Vancouver wide "big dig" project that would take decades and cost a trillion dollars. That's why they don't make the final decision.

2. New West's city council is democratically elected just like the rest of the region. They have been obstructionist in the past but seem very willing to accept the recent Patullo bridge replacement proposals. Your insults from the Rhodesia of Metro Vancouver are quite hypocritical.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

Give it a rest. Any civic engineer specializing in highway planning/design or traffic engineer (worth their grain of salt) looks at problems and identifies solutions.

To provide a counterpoint: to a traffic engineer the only problem that exists is lack of road capacity and every solution involves increasing that. After the orgy of freeway building in many American cities people are starting to realize that letting traffic engineers have their way over other civic issues is not necessarily a good thing.

I'm not saying that traffic engineers are evil or that all the work they do is bad. I'm just saying that there's more to making a desirable region than providing unlimited mobility for automobiles. Of course there needs to be some push-back against them - that's how society tries to arrive at balanced solutions that don't steamroller one segment of the population for the benefit of another.

And as much as it may irk people who only want to travel past New Westminster as fast as they can, that's what's been happening there.

I don't live in New Westminster, but I can certainly empathize with their point of view.

[urbancanadian]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

Kindly spare the BS. Knowing your previous comments on this site... you have almost cultist-like attributes.

New West's mayor Cote was only elected for 2 reasons - a hardcore enviro NDP anti-roads type and with CUPE support. Hell, I personally know the prez of an NW CUPE local that heavily supported his campaign.

And Cote has a background in "transportation planning"? Yep. The kind that involves bike lanes ...

Cote opposes the new Pattullo Bridge crossing. In fact, if it goes ahead it will only be "4 lanes" or nothing. And Cote opposes any Stormont Connector concept. And opposes the United Blvd Extension. A total lost cause for the region.

Do your homework/due diligence before ya post your typical crap again on here man.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Seriously. You take a simple post and turn it into both a personal and a political attack. Cultist-like attributes? Congrats again. I'd never been called a troll until you; I've also never heard anyone call me anything remotely like this either.

We disagree on many points. Great. You're free to say why you see things the way you do. I generally stay away from ongoing debates because frankly, I don't have the time to engage. But if you interact with me respectfully, I'll be happy to give you a background into my rationale. Hell, when given all the facts I may even be able to persuade you to think differently. I'm certainly open to being challenged - my views are far from set in stone.

But I don't think you're some fascist wacko just because you disagree with me. Do you see how our responses are different? Like I've said to you multiple times before, just because someone disagrees with you doesn't give you the right to make things personal.

I'll finish by saying this. I'm not upset or anything (honest). I don't let these types of comments or people like you bother me. But I'm using the type of language that I am to get the point across that you are crossing the line. This website is meant for thoughtful discussion on urban issues. Your vitriol is better suited for the comments sections of YouTube or the different newspapers. I know you're capable of being respectful - I've seen your twitter. Then again maybe you have no control and it's just the character limit that's holding you back. I hope not.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by Stingray2004

Give it a rest. Any civic engineer specializing in highway planning/design or traffic engineer (worth their grain of salt) looks at problems and identifies solutions. In this instance, a cut-and-cover tunnel near the new northern PB bridgehead under McBride to 10th Ave with the remaining trenched (Stormont Connector) is the obvious solution.

It's a solution to one problem. It's not a solution to the problem that New Westminster has, which is too many cars going through New Westminster.

Traffic engineers look at one thing: traffic. They don't care about traffic's impact upon the community, and the community is what New West council cares about.

But not Cote and his political allies on NW council. Again... all hard-core, anti-roads NDP types along with major CUPE support... the same crowd that is vehemently NIMBY/BANANAS... bows to the vocal minority yet disregards the silent majority... yet have no logical solutions for their own neck of the woods. Period.

I'm pretty sure the silent majority actually democratically elected those people. Or were they put into place? I seem to remember voting for some of them... And I'm assuming that you haven't been to New West recently. There are loads of developments going in all over the city. There are pockets of New West that are pretty NIMBY (Queens Park, lower Sapperton) but all in all there's very little NIMBY going on.

You say they have "no logical solutions for their own neck of the woods". I think that's wrong. The Stormont Connector is not a solution for New Westminster, it's a solution for commuters from Surrey, Delta, and Langley to get to north Burnaby. So when New Westminster council says "we don't want a Stormont Connector" they're actually looking out for New Westminster, which is what the people of New Westminster democratically elected council to do.

[s211]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

The Stormont Connector is not a solution for New Westminster, it's a solution for commuters from Surrey, Delta, and Langley to get to north Burnaby.

Swing and a miss! Truth be told, it would be part of a multi-modal regional transportation network.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by s211

Swing and a miss! Truth be told, it would be part of a multi-modal regional transportation network.

What's the price of this connector? Who's paying?

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by s211

Swing and a miss! Truth be told, it would be part of a multi-modal regional transportation network.

I assume you mean that it would improve bicycle and pedestrian traffic across McBride, because a tunnel in and of itself does nothing for those modes of transportation.

Here are the issues I have with a cut-and-cover tunnel for the Stormont Connector:

- it would have to be about three times wider than the cut-and-cover tunnel for the Canada Line
- most of the New Westminster section wouldn't require bulldozing any buildings, but a lot of the route through Burnaby would
- it would be expensive as hell, $4-5 billion just for the tunnel
- placarded trucks carrying dangerous goods wouldn't be allowed to use it (just as they're not allowed to use the Massey Tunnel
- it solves a problem that doesn't exist

There's no traffic demand for getting from Surrey to north Burnaby via the Pattullo Bridge. That's what the Port Mann and Highway 1 is for.

And the Stormont Connector would require bulldozing and appropriating a lot of land in Burnaby. Don't forget that Corrigan was massively against the expansion of Highway 1 -- what would he think about this project?

The idea of the Stormont Connector is just that: an idea. It'll never come to fruition.

[s211]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

I assume you mean that it would improve bicycle and pedestrian traffic across McBride, because a tunnel in and of itself does nothing for those modes of transportation.

Beg to differ. A tunnel bypass would take thru-traffic off the New West streets, freeing up lots of options for other modes of transport that's internal to New West.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

...
You say they have "no logical solutions for their own neck of the woods". I think that's wrong. The Stormont Connector is not a solution for New Westminster, it's a solution for commuters from Surrey, Delta, and Langley to get to north Burnaby. So when New Westminster council says "we don't want a Stormont Connector" they're actually looking out for New Westminster, which is what the people of New Westminster democratically elected council to do.

Yeah, it's a balancing of interests - local municipal interests and regional interests.

Municipalities are very self-interested for the reason that you mention - local politicians are cater to their electorate (often NIMBYs).

In a conceptual way, local municipal politicians are in a "conflict of interest" when assessing regional projects that impact their own municipality.
(i.e. if a politician owns a parcel of land set to benefit from a municipal decision, he or she would be conflicted out from voting - on a broader basis, you can make an analogy to politicians' interests in being re-elected)

That's why there's a regional level of government - to try to make the municipalities work with each other.
(i.e. to prevent issues like the one-lane Braid St. bridge.)

Wouldn't it be interesting if regional decisions were made at the regional level without the votes of municipalities held "in conflict"?

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by officedweller

That's why there's a regional level of government - to try to make the municipalities work with each other.
(i.e. to prevent issues like the one-lane Braid St. bridge.)

Wouldn't it be interesting if regional decisions were made at the regional level without the votes of municipalities held "in conflict"?

There has been some talk of having Metro Van take over something like Translink.

But to use your last example, small cities like New West could have vast swaths of their space paved with an expressway due to "the needs of the region". It's a difficult balancing act.

[officedweller]

True, but you'd think that they'd be considerate for fear of retaliation the other way.
(i.e. Would the region have approved a North Fraser Perimeter Road (and railway tracks) through a shed on the New Westminster waterfront with pedestrian promenade above (i.e. original Larco proposal, like Waterfront Road in Vancouver), versus just saying "no" and building everything at grade.)