[westmanguy]

I've only experienced Winnipeg & Vancouver in rush hours.

Vancouver is not good. The issue is the BANANAs - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything - & NIMBYs - Not In My Back Yard - as well as environmentalists of Metro Vancouver have produced a culture where development is quite difficult.

in the 60s/70s/80s they refused to build any sense of a freeway system in Vancouver proper and a have North-South corridor for traffic. So therefore, we're seeing traffic concerns addressed South of the Fraser (Fraser Perimeter Road between Deltaport/Surrey/Richmond/Langley to the #1; George Massey Tunnel bridge replacement; the new Port Mann Bridge) but it just bottlenecks the traffic chaos further down the line to Vancouver proper.

The traffic can get to Vancouver relatively fast and then it all chokes once it gets to the, Lion's Gate Bridge (West Van/Downtown Van), Iron Worker's Memorial Bridge (North Van-Capilano/East Van) Patella Bridge (New Westminster/Surrey), Knight Bridge (South Van/Richmond) and Oak Street Bridge (South Van/Richmond).

That's because the 99/91 freeway system turns into city lights regular traffic come Vancouver on Oak/Granville Street and Marine Way (Burnaby)/SE Marine Drive (Vancouver).

The policy makers here are all sheltered professional university alumnus who think the populace will blindly adopt bike lanes and bus passes. While they have no clue that immigrants, perhaps more than white 5th generation Canadians, are very pro-car as its part of the "dream" of North American they hope to achieve.

The biggest car enthusiasts in this region are the BMW, Lexus and Audi drivers from Richmond and Surrey.

Anyways, its too late for a North/South freeway corridor for the 99 at this point in the city's development. So the only real solution is to catch up/develop the 'burbs south of the Fraser (Richmond/Surrey/Langley/Delta) to be well functioning car-friendly areas and have Vancouver further integrate its SkyTrain system to have a UBC Line (connecting VCC-Clark on the Expo Line to Broadway-City Hall on the Canada Line and out to UBC) and Surrey extension of the Expo Line.

The only hope is to have massive "park 'n go" facilities on the end-of-the-line suburban SkyTrain entries where people drive their car, leave it there and take the train the rest of the way into the downtown core.

Bridgeport in Richmond is an effective example of where this already happens.

[martin14]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

In Afghanistan, in order to prepare for the chaos on the roads in Kabul they would ask the potential drivers if they've ever driven in Rome. Apparently that was the only thing that could compare.

That should have been the Italian contribution:

Drivers, not soldiers.

[N_Fiddledog]

I haven't been over the bridge into Vancouver in ten years. Who'd want to? I hear that's where the hipsters hang out.

They should have a hit a hipster day. Then you'd see some congestion I tell you.

[xerxes]

That's only Yaletown.

[Hyack]

westmanguy westmanguy:

The traffic can get to Vancouver relatively fast and then it all chokes once it gets to the, Lion's Gate Bridge (West Van/Downtown Van), Iron Worker's Memorial Bridge (North Van-Capilano/East Van) Patella Bridge (New Westminster/Surrey), Knight Bridge (South Van/Richmond) and Oak Street Bridge (South Van/Richmond).

If you're going to post facts about BC, try to get your information straight, it's got nothing to do with a kneecap, it's the Pattullo bridge, named in honour of Thomas Dufferin Pattullo, former premier of British Columbia.

[Freakinoldguy]

I`ve driven in Vancouver and I`ve driven in LA and let me tell you that Vancouver has nothing on LA for congestion, traffic jams, road rage, and idiots.

Now granted, I haven`t driven in LA lately but unless they upgraded those parking lots they call freeways my guess it`s still alot worse than Vancouver and this report is just sour grapes because Vancouver has been named the most liveable city a couple of times and LA only ever gets mentions for their piss poor traffic and unending gang violence.

[DrCaleb]

Xort Xort:

Know what Vancouver needs? More HOV lanes no one can legally use.

Gee, lets take crowded roads, remove one lane of traffic for everybody so that the 1/20 of vehicles containing families that are all together in a car can get to where they are going 3 minutes faster.

How will that do anything to fix the problem?

[jj2424]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Xort Xort:

Know what Vancouver needs? More HOV lanes no one can legally use.

Gee, lets take crowded roads, remove one lane of traffic for everybody so that the 1/20 of vehicles containing families that are all together in a car can get to where they are going 3 minutes faster.

How will that do anything to fix the problem?

That's exactly what REDfraud wants to do in Alberta. Sounds even worse as she calls them "car pool" lanes. Four people in a vehicle I suppose.

[ShepherdsDog]

$1:

Nothing, and I do mean nothing, compares to the idiocy in Italia.

As bootlegga said, try some Asian destinations. The Chinese are apeshit and the Indians make them look good....even Israel could get hairy in places. The parts of Africa I was in....not enough cars to make it too dangerous, but the livestock and pedestrian traffic was insane. We also travelled in large armed convoys of large vehicles