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

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Saying 15 years and putting the Millennium line in there is a bit of a stretch. And I'm pretty sure those road projects add up to more than $3.8B. You also forgot the Sea to Sky upgrades. But I'd love to see the math either way.

What does the Sea to Sky upgrade have to do with Metro Vancouver? Want me to throw in the new bridge in Kelowna too? Or Kicking Horse Pass? Seriously.

And the money is based on what has been published by the government to date. If you don't believe it then ok. I also don't think 15 years is unreasonable given it takes upwards of 7-10 years for a major project to start the planning stage through to completion. As I said if you push forward the trend doesn't change. Add in upcoming GMB and Patullo, then you'll need to add in eventual Broadway Subway and Expo extension. etc. etc. For every new bridge there has been relatively equal transit investments relatively speaking. It doesn't happen all at once and tends to flip back and fourth aka a bunch of investment in road infrastructure followed by transit then back to roads. But it still tends to even out over time.

My issue is that people make it out as if the Province has spent $100 billion on roads and $75 on transit and there is this massive underfunded in public transit when that is just frankly wrong.

I picked 15 years because that is more or less measuring from when I graduated high school to the birth of my daughter so 1 generation. So I don't think my point or numbers are invalid. Ultimately we are a region that is growing and both roads and transit need to be invested in and they are being invested in. Maybe not the speed people want or exactly what priorities people think we should focus on, but it is being done.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by Aroundtheworld

Every transit user pays a 'toll' when they pay a fare. I think this is something that gets lost in all this.

True to a point. The only issue in calling it a toll is that tolls are meant to pay off infrastructure. Transit fair would never pay off the infrastructure and they also don't fully support operation of all the infrastructure.

Compared to a toll on a major bridge which will pay it off by the end of the term. That said I don't have an issue with tolls quite frankly, I think new infrastructure should have tolls. I also don't have an issue with tolling only new infrastructure between SoF and NoF because again it is new infrastructure and ultimately while punitive to those that need to cross the bridge, it is ultimately going to help drive business OUT of Vancouver/Burnaby and into Surrey/Langley.

Tolls on major infrastructure encourage businesses to relocate to where the majority of their work force live. So if the majority of your work force live NoF you'll locate there. If the majority are SoF you'll try to locate there.

I gladly pay my toll each time I cross the PMB or GEB because (1) I don't need to cross often I have pretty much everything I need SoF, and (2) I am willing to pay my fair share when I use infrastructure.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Only it doesn't free up any space as we've seen with the Burrard reconstruction. Gregor just takes a traffic lane unannounced and plops what is sure to be a little used bike lane on it.

Well a large part of the reason that he was able to do that is because the number of cars going into downtown Vancouver has been steadily decreasing over the past couple of decades. And that's because people are finding other ways to go downtown - mostly via transit, some via bike, and some by simply moving downtown so they can walk to work.

And by the way, those "little used" bike lanes on the Burrard bridge are actually the most heavily cycled of all the bike routes in Vancouver. They get well over a million cycle trips every year, and that number continues to climb as the cycling infrastructure on both sides of the bridge improves.

Bridge replacement is part of the equation, but it's not the entire equation. And IMHO we could get a lot of benefits by spending a little more money on those other parts of the equation.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

Sue would be nice to open up this thread to find actual info about this project versus an endless debate that just goes around in circles.

Some want to have the government fund public transit over this project and others don't. Done. Can you all move on. Every transit thread turns into this shit

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Yes, look out your window right now and ask how many people would be willing to bike 4km in this weather? Cyclists incorrectly assume the rest of the population shares in their zealotry.

Exactly, only we don't even charge them any sort of license fee so we can hold them accountable for substituting sidewalks for bike lanes. Another thing, alot of them lose their zeal for biking as soon as it gets cold and starts raining then we just have a bunch of empty under utilized lanes where cars could move more efficiently when they put the bike away and drive or take transit.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by jhausner

What does the Sea to Sky upgrade have to do with Metro Vancouver? Want me to throw in the new bridge in Kelowna too? Or Kicking Horse Pass? Seriously.

Metro Vancouver includes the initial stretch of the Sea to Sky until just past Lions Bay, including its connection to Highway 1.

[moosejaw]

Yawn........

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jhausner

And the money is based on what has been published by the government to date. If you don't believe it then ok.

I believe SFUVancouver who posted detailed stats.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by mukmuk64

I dunno why I'm even responding to such a lame attack, but I actually own two cars.

Regardless of my car ownership status I'm going to commute to work today by transit because it's way cheaper and faster than driving.

Please do not feed the troll.

Originally Posted by mukmuk64

You seem overly concerned with automobile traffic and not recognizing the massive amounts of people that are being moved here on the Broadway corridor.

I take the 99 and other buses days a week, thank you very much. I just also realize that the speed of my bus is tied to traffic flow - the faster the drivers' trip is, the faster my trip is.

Originally Posted by mukmuk64

The Broadway B Line has some 55,000+ boardings a day. How wide would Broadway have to be if all those people commuted by car?

This basic geometry is why it is possible to have a smaller Massey Crossing but move more people overall by focusing on transit.

No need to tell me how important the 99 is. Yet high daily ridership in Broadway doesn't necessarily translate into high daily ridership in Delta.

One, the 99 is an anomaly. It serves a high-density corridor with a university on one end and a gap between Skytrain lines on the other. Most riders disembark between Clark and Granville, or otherwise ride all the way to Commercial/Broadway Station or UBC; very few board or alight in the low-density neighbourhoods in-between, which is basically what most of Delta looks like.

Two, any B-Line to Delta is probably going to start at Bridgeport and pass through Ladner and Tsawwassen on the way to the ferry terminal – and 55,000 daily ridership is more than both towns' populations combined!

So you're looking at daily ridership closer to 11,000, like the 97 B-Line in Coquitlam.
Even assuming that all those riders have switched from driving, and that nobody's carpooling, that's... um... only eight less cars per minute on the Massey Bridge. Not nearly enough to justify removing four lanes from the existing bridge - and before you forget, our B-Line (to say nothing of the regular buses that can't use the BRT lanes) needs enough road space to get on and off the bridge. As any driver or passenger knows, most of the gridlock is at the on-ramp.

Originally Posted by mukmuk64

Let's be honest with ourselves here. The vast, vast majority of this traffic is every day commuters driving by themselves to work in their own car. Can we agree on that?

Alas, I have seen the traffic at the border, and so we cannot.

Originally Posted by mukmuk64

Those single commuters take up a lot of space. If you divert a portion of those every day commuters to transit, you free up road space on the road for everyone else that is not commuting and has no other option, such as truck drivers and travellers.

Well, now you're at the same rationale that the Surrey LRT advocates are using.

In theory, it works. In practice, it's the same Catch-22: few people take transit because it's slow, the transit is slow because it's stuck in traffic, and it's stuck in traffic because there's too many people driving instead of taking transit.
In order to break the cycle, you need to build it above, below or beside the road, and you need to make it fast and frequent to coax drivers off said road. "Share the road" transit and bike lanes attempt to force drivers off the road, and so it's more headache-inducing for everybody and hardly effective. Think of it as the Martin Luther King approach vs the Malcolm X one.

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by Aroundtheworld

Every transit user pays a 'toll' when they pay a fare. I think this is something that gets lost in all this.

This toll covers the fuel, operator and vehicle that transports them. Not the infrastructure or its maintenance.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Well a large part of the reason that he was able to do that is because the number of cars going into downtown Vancouver has been steadily decreasing over the past couple of decades. And that's because people are finding other ways to go downtown - mostly via transit, some via bike, and some by simply moving downtown so they can walk to work.

And by the way, those "little used" bike lanes on the Burrard bridge are actually the most heavily cycled of all the bike routes in Vancouver. They get well over a million cycle trips every year, and that number continues to climb as the cycling infrastructure on both sides of the bridge improves.

Bridge replacement is part of the equation, but it's not the entire equation. And IMHO we could get a lot of benefits by spending a little more money on those other parts of the equation.

The Burrard Bridge lane is well used due to summer leisure use. The lanes up Burrard will not be, who is the market?

Besides your original point was biking frees up space for vehicles and all I did was prove it doesn't. Looking at the Nelson Street mess Vision created it's clear they intend to remove a SB traffic lane on the Cambie Street Bridge for a bike lane, yet another example of your false claim.

Since Gregor and Christie and the Feds oversaw the destruction of affordable housing north of the Fraser, they now have to deal with the consequences. And that means more commuters and bigger bridges.

[SOSS]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

Metro Vancouver includes the initial stretch of the Sea to Sky until just past Lions Bay, including its connection to Highway 1.

Sea to Sky has also increased the distance people are willing to commute. Squamish is essentially Abbotsford now, just a different direction.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by whatnext

The Burrard Bridge lane is well used due to summer leisure use.

In January 2016 the Burrard Bridge bike lane had 53,000 trips, and 2,100 daily trips on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays (excluding statutory holidays). It's fairly well used during the winter as well.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by SOSS

Sea to Sky has also increased the distance people are willing to commute. Squamish is essentially Abbotsford now, just a different direction.

I don't know if that's the highways fault. I'd say it's more about housing costs. People getting priced out of the North Shore are more likely to consider Squamish as a suitable replacement that Surrey.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

I don't know if that's the highways fault. I'd say it's more about housing costs. People getting priced out of the North Shore are more likely to consider Squamish as a suitable replacement that Surrey.

The highway is exactly what makes it a realistic option though. Just like the PMB does, and the GMT replacement will for Delta/Tsawassen (tolls notwithstanding).

[Aroundtheworld]

Originally Posted by cornholio

This toll covers the fuel, operator and vehicle that transports them. Not the infrastructure or its maintenance.

Not completely true. A good portion of Translink's budget goes to debt servicing, which means fares are paying a portion of the capital cost, though I do admit it doesn't come close to covering the full cost.

The fact is drivers don't pay for the capital costs of their transportation either and over the last 50 years, the amount spent on road infrastructure has dwarfed public transportation infrastructure. I think a lot of the investment in public transportation is really to make up for decades of neglect.

[SOSS]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

The highway is exactly what makes it a realistic option though. Just like the PMB does, and the GMT replacement will for Delta/Tsawassen (tolls notwithstanding).

Exact reason I like distance based tolls including for the Sea-to-Sky

[Pinion]

Gas tax is a distance toll.

[Aroundtheworld]

Originally Posted by Pinion

Gas tax is a distance toll.

Sort of. It doesn't really work for electric vehicles even though they also damage roads with wear and tear.

The best option is to have some kind of GPS transponder based tolling system where you could also vary prices by location and time in ways that could be used to eliminate recurrent congestion.

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by Aroundtheworld

Sort of. It doesn't really work for electric vehicles even though they also damage roads with wear and tear.

The best option is to have some kind of GPS transponder based tolling system where you could also vary prices by location and time in ways that could be used to eliminate recurrent congestion.

This is a infringement on privacy. Will never happen. Should never happen. Wishful thinking by lower levels of government.

Distance based tolling doesn't make economic or social sense imo. Mobility should be encouraged and people should be free to decide their mode without government interference. Mobility pricing imo is interference.