Quote:
Originally Posted by trofirhen
does it really go far enough? Will it really help smooth through-traffic at this intersection?
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Nothing will. One must simply accept that traffic there will never again be smooth. To me, that's simply part of city life. Improve the road and vehicles will appear to fill it up. The only limit will be the willingness of drivers to put up with it: it will only stop getting worse when driving is so bad that it's not worth doing.
I find the tunnel idea preposterous. Where would the intersections go? I presume you would end up with two levels of road - one for the intersections, one for through traffic. So where do you build the massively wide road needed for the tunnel portals? What about the barrier created by the trench as the road descends underground? What about existing infrastructure, such as the rail tunnel or the foundation of the Skytrain guideway? Is a tunnel to help some traffic through a couple of intersections really a good use of money compared to investing in transit, bike routes or walkable urbanism?
Reducing traffic should never be the goal. It's a futile one. Instead, we should reduce the time we spend in traffic: by providing alternatives, as Large Cat suggests.
Traffic around here has worsened dramatically over the past decade and a half that I've been in the area. But, year by year, I spend less time in it. As new shops and services open up, as transit improves, my car trips get shorter and shorter. I no longer use Highway #1. Driving to Metrotown is an unusually long and congested trip. With the completion of the mall and the Willingdon greenway I will have even fewer reasons to get in the car in the first place.