Metro Vancouver Road Infrastructure Discussion

[officedweller]

The Chillon Viaduct is pretty classic.
It was one of the first to use segmental girders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viaduc_de_Chillon

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by officedweller

The Chillon Viaduct is pretty classic.
It was one of the first to use segmental girders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viaduc_de_Chillon

That requires costs and advanced engineering. We simply don't have that in British Columbia. Our approach is to build vital highways on flood plains and hope for the best.

The Coquihalla being built right beside a meandering river was always a questionable idea and looks even more ridiculous now with how many sections have been washed out.

BC has an aversion to viaducts, tunnels and interchanges.

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

That requires costs and advanced engineering. We simply don't have that in British Columbia. Our approach is to build vital highways on flood plains and hope for the best.

The Coquihalla being built right beside a meandering river was always a questionable idea and looks even more ridiculous now with how many sections have been washed out.

BC has an aversion to viaducts, tunnels and interchanges.

I mean, China does that by constructing buildings that aren't designed to last a decade and tend to need repairs right from the opening day. Endless construction projects provide endless construction jobs.

[MIPS]

Given how rushed and overbudget it was when it opened I'm not too upset that it's currently in so many pieces after a major storm. We built it to handle heavy spring runoff and not biblical rainfall, so the fact it lasted 35 years and "paid for itself" before getting utterly ravaged goes off as "good enough" in my books.

I vaguely recall they once proposed to viaduct most of Higway 1 through the canyon to double the roadspace but abandoned that idea because the cost was going to be several times more than driving a new 4-lane highway 115km through Coquihalla Pass.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

That requires costs and advanced engineering. We simply don't have that in British Columbia. Our approach is to build vital highways on flood plains and hope for the best.

The Coquihalla being built right beside a meandering river was always a questionable idea and looks even more ridiculous now with how many sections have been washed out.

BC has an aversion to viaducts, tunnels and interchanges.

I wouldn't go that far. Kicking Horse Canyon is not far from the idea behind that viaduct. That bridge is pretty large by most highway standards, and is going the same thing that the viaduct is doing, skirting a hazardous slope.

I'm not sure a bunch of bridge sections would be desirable on the Coq. They're a lot more prone to ice hazards, and damage from salt and plows than a ground level road. In BC we tend to just blast the highway into the slope if at all possible. You get a lot more bang for your buck with rock cuts than concrete structures.

Road tunnels tend to be avoided because they exclude hazardous good. If there's not a nearby bypass, that means most flammable cargos have to make a long diversion. Our fire codes are much more stringent in North America, which also greatly adds to the costs for tunnels.

[cleowin]

Unpopular opinion:
Vancouver should have built a freeway network as proposed. We live in the stone ages when it comes to infrastructure. Should be 12-16 lanes minimum on TCH-1 through Burnaby to the Port Mann, 10-12 lanes to/from north shore, double deck lions gate bridge, third crossing via burrard inlet, and E/W freeways from UBC to downtown and E/W from downtown to TCH-1. Highway 99 should have been a freeway standard all the way to D/T as well.

8-10 lane standard from south of fraser to hope, elevated viaducts along the sumas prairie

and viaduct the major highways through BC.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by cleowin

Unpopular opinion:
Vancouver should have built a freeway network as proposed. We live in the stone ages when it comes to infrastructure. Should be 12-16 lanes minimum on TCH-1 through Burnaby to the Port Mann, 10-12 lanes to/from north shore, double deck lions gate bridge, third crossing via burrard inlet, and E/W freeways from UBC to downtown and E/W from downtown to TCH-1. Highway 99 should have been a freeway standard all the way to D/T as well.

8-10 lane standard from south of fraser to hope, elevated viaducts along the sumas prairie

and viaduct the major highways through BC.

No, this would be a popular opinion:

"Vancouver should have built a bikelane network as proposed. We live in the stone ages when it comes to bike infrastructure. Should be 12-16 bikelanes minimum on TCH-1 through Burnaby to the Port Mann, 10-12 bikelanes to/from north shore, double deck bikelanes on lions gate bridge, third bike crossing via burrard inlet, and E/W cycleways from UBC to downtown and E/W from downtown to TCBL-1. Highway 99 should have been a bikelane standard all the way to D/T as well."

[cleowin]

Originally Posted by architype

no, this would be a popular opinion:

"vancouver should have built a bikelane network as proposed. We live in the stone ages when it comes to bike infrastructure. Should be 12-16 bikelanes minimum on tch-1 through burnaby to the port mann, 10-12 bikelanes to/from north shore, double deck bikelanes on lions gate bridge, third bike crossing via burrard inlet, and e/w cycleways from ubc to downtown and e/w from downtown to tcbl-1. Highway 99 should have been a bikelane standard all the way to d/t as well."

hahahaha 100%.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by cleowin

Unpopular opinion

Yup.

Originally Posted by cleowin

Should be 12-16 lanes minimum on TCH-1 through Burnaby to the Port Mann

There's just not the traffic to support this.

Originally Posted by cleowin

10-12 lanes to/from north shore, double deck lions gate bridge, third crossing via burrard inlet

That would utterly destroy the character of the North Shore. What sort of density are you expecting to see over here?

Originally Posted by cleowin

E/W freeways from UBC to downtown and E/W from downtown to TCH-1. Highway 99 should have been a freeway standard all the way to D/T as well. 8-10 lane standard from south of fraser to hope, elevated viaducts along the sumas prairie and viaduct the major highways through BC.

Yes, we could benefit from upgrades, perhaps even a new route. This is overkill though.

[Migrant_Coconut]

110% chance that all sixteen lanes would be full and we'd still be complaining about traffic and just-as-long commutes; we probably wouldn't have the SkyTrain network or FTN either. Not worth wrecking downtown and half the metro.

[ecbin]

Originally Posted by cleowin

Unpopular opinion:
Vancouver should have built a freeway network as proposed. We live in the stone ages when it comes to infrastructure. Should be 12-16 lanes minimum on TCH-1 through Burnaby to the Port Mann, 10-12 lanes to/from north shore, double deck lions gate bridge, third crossing via burrard inlet, and E/W freeways from UBC to downtown and E/W from downtown to TCH-1. Highway 99 should have been a freeway standard all the way to D/T as well.

8-10 lane standard from south of fraser to hope, elevated viaducts along the sumas prairie

and viaduct the major highways through BC.

Might I introduce you to induced demand? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

[s211]

Originally Posted by Architype

No, this would be a popular opinion:

"Vancouver should have built a bikelane network as proposed. We live in the stone ages when it comes to bike infrastructure. Should be 12-16 bikelanes minimum on TCH-1 through Burnaby to the Port Mann, 10-12 bikelanes to/from north shore, double deck bikelanes on lions gate bridge, third bike crossing via burrard inlet, and E/W cycleways from UBC to downtown and E/W from downtown to TCBL-1. Highway 99 should have been a bikelane standard all the way to D/T as well."

You forgot to mention that the network should be covered and heated. With free fair-trade coffee stops also.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Then a 12-16 lane highway could get taken out by a single large rock fall. Wouldn't that be great?

BC needs some upgrades, some additional redundancy and some infrastructure hardening to reflect climate change. 4-6 lanes is enough for most of the province though.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

Then a 12-16 lane highway could get taken out by a single large rock fall. Wouldn't that be great?

BC needs some upgrades, some additional redundancy and some infrastructure hardening to reflect climate change. 4-6 lanes is enough for most of the province though.

Seems like any alternate route would have just as much risk unless you tunnel all the way.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Seems like any alternate route would have just as much risk unless you tunnel all the way.

Highways 1, 3, 5, and 99 give us a pretty good range of options from Vancouver to the rest of the province/country.

This weather event blew them all away. Having highway 1 run through the Sumas prairie seems dumb in hindsight, but where else would you build it?

Highway 5 was a great addition in the 80s. I'm not sure what else people are expecting.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Highways 1, 3, 5, and 99 give us a pretty good range of options from Vancouver to the rest of the province/country.

This weather event blew them all away. Having highway 1 run through the Sumas prairie seems dumb in hindsight, but where else would you build it?

Highway 5 was a great addition in the 80s. I'm not sure what else people are expecting.

There's the option for several other routes out of the Lower Mainland.

The most likely to get built is probably up the Harrison/Lillooet River Valley from Harrison Mills to Pemberton. The FN up there want it. The current road is terrible, but the terrain isn't that bad compared to say the 99 between Squamish and Horseshoe Bay.

The Duffey Lake area is still a bit of a challenge, but that addition means any landslides on the 99 between Horseshoe Bay and Pemberton wouldn't require diversion through Lillooet.

There's also road routes up the Capilano Water shed to Brittannia Beach and up Indian Arm to Squamish. They'd have a fair bit of environmental based opposition, but they've already been mostly established as controlled access roads for forestry or gas pipelines.

There's also some options between Tulameen and the Coquihalla Valley, which could bypass Merritt and Hwy 3. There's logging roads there that could be upgraded.

A tunnel connecting the Bridge River Valley and the Seton/Pemberton Valleys might work, or an all weather road on the Hurley Pass to Gold Bridge. These could also improve connectivity from Pemberton North and East.

If you wanted to get really fancy, building a continuous highway up the coast towards Bella Coola might even be possible.

Most of these options are expensive, but $500m/day in lost trade is probably worse. This was only a large rain storm. Imagine we get a big earthquake.

That's just the road options. There's many more rail options since the tunnels can be much longer.

[Dengler Avenue]

I mean, in the event of a big earthquake, Lower Mainland B.C. is pretty much screwed…

[DKaz]

The Coquihalla Hwy has not had any problems that closed the highway for more than a day in the 35 years it's been open. No one plans for a 1 in 200 year rain, it would've drove up costs dramatically.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I mean, in the event of a big earthquake, Lower Mainland B.C. is pretty much screwed…

Certain things yes. Recent critical infrastructure is designed to be repairable after a 1-in-2475 year earthquake, or 1-in-10000 year if it's difficult to repair. When people mention "the big one", it's typically the 1-in-500 year event.

Having many access routes though, means aid is much more likely to make it into the city and repairs can get moving. The key is to get things patched up before disease, starvation, lack of water and whatnot becomes the main problem.

If you have a big quake around Mt. Baker, having good access routes from Horseshoe Bay through Lillooet will save many lives. Same goes for events north of the city, and having a good route south and east.

Having a single hardened piece of infrastructure is much less likely to survive a given extreme event than multiple ones hardened to a lesser degree.

[Airboy]

This event just pushes the point that there needs to be multiple routes out of the lower mainland that can be accessed easily after events like this. More money will be spent and upgrading 7 and maybe better access to 3.

After the McMurray and Slave lake fire they saw the need for more access. even if its not a paved route.

99 cant be used as an alternate truck route. and an alternate route for rail is now necessary.