The Livable Blog

For any of you who like the line "building freeways to solve congestion is like buying a longer belt to cure obesity", you will not be surprised with the following:

No relief for commuters under Fraser mouth
New ring road won't ease congestion
Brian Lewis, The Province
Published: Tuesday, August 24, 2010

If you commute daily through the George Massey Tunnel and think that the $1.2-billion South Fraser Perimeter Road will ease the 51-year-old crossing's congestion when it opens in 2013, you'd better think again.

A significant portion of the tunnel's daily gridlock is caused by an ever-increasing number of trucks, running to and from Deltaport and B.C. Ferries' nearby Tsawwassen terminal, that merge with commuter traffic from South Delta, White Rock and south Surrey into the tunnel's inadequate four lanes under the Fraser River.

Figures obtained last week by our sister weekly newspaper, the Delta Optimist, show that the B.C. government estimates truck traffic through the Massey Tunnel will hardly decline once the 40-kilometre SFPR is completed sometime in 2013.

[snip]
blewis@theprovince.com
http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=4e36d95f-74d1-40ff-b640-a06937541be8

But really, the quote should be something like "building freeways to solve congestion is like spending a billion dollars on a longer belt to cure obesity"

This is what Metro Vancouver chief administrative officer Johnny Carline said recently:

"We don't think we'll be able to afford full-scale investments in the Evergreen Line, south of the Fraser and UBC all in the life of this plan . . . We can't afford to have investments going out to UBC that take away from investment in the major growth areas."

Read the quote carefully - "full-scale investments" really means Skytrain type light metro, or the kind of light rail highway engineers love, with lots of underground stations and underpasses so road space for cars is not reduced.

The fact is that if the province shifted all the billions they plan to spend on urban freeways and other roadway expansions we could have even this kind of gold plated transit well before 30 years is up (noting that most of the gold goes to serve the automobile rather than the transit rider).

Photo: The consequences of climate crime - floods in Pakistan

But we don't have 30 years. Just think about what global warming is doing already in Pakistan and in Russia.

As I wrote earlier, we don't have to wait as long if the transit is on the surface using existing road space. We need a full network of rapid transit within the next five years, and we can afford it if we put the priority on transit not freeways.

Mark your calendar for 10/10/10 www.dig4justice.org