inane Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Some more fun info for you (I'm going on the very large assumption you actually click these links to get more informed. Oh how I would love to have you post some links to facts, data, anything other than conjecture to support your positions. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/business-groups-push-for-improved-transit-funding/article4552888/ Business people want transit? The bread and butter of the Liberals? What is this world coming to?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No5Butcher Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 To add to that, perhaps we don't actually need a new tunnel, perhaps we need better or more merge points in and out of South Richmond/Delta. Though I think then the tunnel becomes the choke point rather than the exits so we're back to where we started with also needing a new tunnel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No5Butcher Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Patullo < Tunnel < Lions Gate * 3 big problems IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No5Butcher Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Some more fun info for you (I'm going on the very large assumption you actually click these links to get more informed. Oh how I would love to have you post some links to facts, data, anything other than conjecture to support your positions. http://www.theglobea...article4552888/ Business people want transit? The bread and butter of the Liberals? What is this world coming to?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Some more fun info for you (I'm going on the very large assumption you actually click these links to get more informed. Oh how I would love to have you post some links to facts, data, anything other than conjecture to support your positions. http://www.theglobea...article4552888/ Business people want transit? The bread and butter of the Liberals? What is this world coming to?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 What they are missing is that the reason we have the highest fuel taxes in the country is that transit loses gobs of money. In terms of the development boom mentioned in the article, this is related to Skytrain lines, not transit in general. Running more transit lines out to the current low density areas would just be a money sink. What those in the trucking industry are missing is that they are the a big part of the cause of congestion. Or maybe they aren't missing it and just don't like the other solution options. While overall traffic volumes through the Massey Tunnel may be down, since the expansion of Deltaport, truck volume is up. This is likely what has caused the increase in congestion at the tunnel. If Delta and Richmond were to pass bylaws similar to Vancouver, where truck traffic is prohibitted during peak hours, most of the congestion issues at the tunnel would likely be solved. I do the opposite commute, from Richmond to Delta, and there are two obvious things that come to my mind about the congestion.Truck traffic is one of the big issues. They cause the slinky effect through the tunnel and reduce the average speed by a fair margin. The second is that replacing the tunnel would not just move the choke point. to the Oak St Bridge. Much of the volume through the tunnel peels off at either Steveston or Westminister. In the evening especially. If you are heading downtown in the afternoon rush, from anywhere other than Ladner or Tswassen, it is faster to take the Arthur Lang and cut across the East West Connector to Knight or Oak now. Unfortuneately, Clark is off on her timeline. The replacement of the tunnel is something that may start to get looked at seriously in ten to fifteen years. Right now it's just not on the radar. The tunnels not being in vogue comment really shows she has no idea what she is talking about. I wouldn't expect to see shovels in the ground in the next twenty years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Of course business people want transit! Look at all the development (that is if city councils let them) that gets driven up when a new skytrain line goes in! Don't count on them supporting a hike in business taxes to build it though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 I would say that the timeline is happening and it won't matter who gets elected she's simply blacktop politicking. You can bet MOT has been doing prelim studies on this but you can't really start the studies for real until you see what the effects of the now much larger (but also tolled) port mann do to traffic volumes on the network. It's a safe bet though that with the toll screen line moving west that as the number of free options goes away the congestion on the remaining free options will only rise. With the Putello already being set to be tolled that will leave only the Alex Fraser and Massey to be improved and tolled so that the loop is closed. Putello is already at design and it's reasonable to assume it's construction will start shortly after completion of highway one. Based on the timelines going on we could expect planning and engineering for Massey to go on while Putello is being built. And waaaay off we could be figuring out what to do with the biggest mess of all (Alex Fraser - the bridge that forgot what lane continuity is) which by that time be so congested terrorist groups will be setting up in North Delta with plans to blow it up they will be so pissed off from people short cutting through their community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Well that's the rub isn't it. Everyone wants it, no one wants to pay for it. Some politicians need to sack up and find a sustainable funding solution. The problem now is the provincial government has created all these levels of bureaucracy, downloaded all these things to them, and then cut them off at the knees in terms of funding. The province is the problem here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Region wide price structure and/or tolling. It's not some radical idea, it's being done elsewhere. If not only to pay for transit, but to also pay for all these renovations that are required to all our aging infrastructure. We had it great for 50-60 years, we need to stop pretending this isn't a problem now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 There's a reason you don't see politicians stepping up to come up with funding solutions. Even if they took all the existing gas taxes and put that towards roads/transit it would require other taxes to make up the shortfall to general revenue. Other taxes are simply a poison pill for any politician. Easiest way to have a recall petition would be to sack up and propose a sustainable funding solution. No need to be surprised that this hot potatoe gets thrown around. Even when the money is going directly to fixing the problem (such as the tolls on the new crossing) there's still no shortage of people angry about it and in fact some people (such as the conservatives) are keying in on that and promising to remove the tolls! But don't feel too bad. The conservative are not getting elected and the tolls are here to stay (and new ones are coming). And yes, one day those roads will be just as a congested but now with even more cars. And yes, what will we do then? Well, at least we should have a ton of extra toll revenue to provide a sustainable funding source. That is if it isn't sucked into the soon to be massive black hole that is the provincial budget and it's exploding health care costs (already bad -> soon to be much much worse). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Well, I can't accept that. Accept that we know there's a problem and we know the 'solution' we're pushing for isn't going to work. But we're doing it anyway? That's lunacy. It's idiotic. As an engineer would you support a project knowing it's doomed to failure? There are other options other than taxes. Road pricing, region wide tolls, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Road pricing, region wide tolls, etc. will justifiably be looked at simply as new taxes. Even the tolls on the new Port Mann are view as unfair by many. Do you really expect a new tax/toll/pricing/whateveryouwanttocallit funding strategy to not be noticed by the media and the population? This is a region where even a 1% increase in interest rates is expected to put a significant amount of people into financial crisis where at the same time stresses on government revenue are going to be going way up as more and more people retire from taxpaying and graduate to collecting pensions and spending much more time in health care. Do you really think some additional costs are going to be snuck by the population??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 No, where have I suggested that would be the case? No again, how can you possibly interpret my posts as this? Ron, we have money. You can't tell me we don't have money after spending close to 10 Billion dollars on highway/bridge improvements over the past 5-6 years. It's all about priorities. We need to change our priorities, for the very reason you seem to be agreeing with me about--More roads does not equal less congestion. I do not understand how you can advocate for a project/system you know does not work. That's stupid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Close to half of that (Port Mann and the soon to be much busier Golden ears) will be recouped through new tolls not even the existing revenue. As for the rest it's not even close to eating up the gas tax revenue for five years. I advocate for a system that "doesn't" work because it's the best one available and the only one that has a hope in hell of finding a funding source for transit should they become congested. The only reason building more roads doesn't work is because the population keeps increasing. If the federal government kept immigration at replacement levels building more roads would work. However, they are not doing that, and since the overwhelming majority of the growth (much of it the townhouses and condos) is happening outside the Burrard Peninsula (where every new development has the old money that dominates the area demonstrating in the streets) which happens to be the same area that is already taxed to death while getting very little in return I wouldn't expect things to change any time soon. Hey, I have no problem with putting a congestion charge on downtown (where there are alternatives to get there) and using that money to build skytrain to Langley. Go for it. However, I realize that it's about as likely as happening as putting tolls on existing bridge crossings. Roads and highways are a priority because that's what people use and the majority rules. Democracy is a bitch sometimes eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Don't you think we should find a better system then? I do not understand how you can just basically say 'meh, it's the best we got even though it doesn't work'. Again, that's idiotic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Of course we should find another system but the only one that has a hope in hell of being accepted by the public is my long advocated fixing of the river crossings as well as a 99 to highway 1 connecting road with all of 1, 91, and 99 being at least two lanes plus one HOV with crossings that maintain lane continuity. We pay for those through tolls. If they never get congested no big deal. If they do we use the extra money to increase the effecientcy of the crossing first by using more express buses followed by a move to extend skytrain like service through out the region. Pays for itself. And while creating more density around existing transit and extending at very least express buses (bline service) between all the regional town centres as a way to build up demand until it's replaced by skytrain or better is good too we don't have the money for that. We already have the highest gas prices on the continent and the highest cost of housing to boot relative to income so getting more money out would be like geting blood out of a stone. Of course, if we could find a way to make healthcare more financially effecient (even a 5% reduction in costs directed towards infrastructure would make a world of difference) then of course we would have money but instead the opposite is going to happen and you can expect less money on roads (save those financed by tolls), for schools, for transit, and for pretty much anything else moving forward. LIke it or not were moving into a system where if it's not self financed then you might as well forget it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Lol. The only solution is ron's solution to build an entirely new highway on top of the massive highway construction/expansion we're already doing. Then maybe we'll build transit sometime later on... This isn't the 1950's ron! Did you read any of those links? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inane Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 I have read whole volumes of books on planning, taken transit planning courses, read volumes of links. I understand your position just fine. Density and transit would eliminate the need for more highways. No need to push the point. Problem is people refuse to live like that. P.S. Soon enough it going to be a lot more like the 1930's so don't count on securing more funding for transit anytime soon. In fact count on less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 I agree about density, but I just can not understand how you can advocate for a solution that you know will not work. 'It's the best we got' is bs. Then we get something different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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