• Vancouver rated second worst city in North America (behind LA) for traffic congestion
    44 replies, posted
[img]http://investmeinmymotley.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/vancouver_traffic_jam-thumb-480xauto-1585.jpg[/img] [quote]Vancouver is the most traffic-congested city in Canada and the second most congested in North America — behind only Los Angeles — says a report by an Amsterdam-based company that produces vehicle-navigation systems. The first quarterly congestion index by TomTom, which covers 26 major North American cities, found that on average, journey times in Vancouver take 30% longer during peak congestion periods than when traffic is flowing freely. Only two other Canadian cities made the top ten for traffic congestion: Toronto (No. 9) and Ottawa (No. 10). The company used data from its navigation-system customers to calculate the increase in time spent in traffic during peak congestion periods. The report found that vehicle commutes in Vancouver take 65% longer during the most congested hour of the evening rush period and 51% longer in the most congested hour of the morning rush period. In Toronto and Ottawa, the study found journey times take 22% longer on average. In Toronto, trips take 47% longer during morning peak and 56% longer during evening peak. In Ottawa, travel times run 55% longer during morning peak and 75% longer during evening peak. Nick Cohn, head of congestion research for TomTom, said the data showed the Vancouver region’s congestion levels are worse on local and arterial roads than on highways. Choke points in Vancouver include entrance roads to bridges such as the Knight Street, Oak and Lions Gate bridges, as well as downtown roads such as Georgia, Dunsmuir and Seymour, he said. Cohn said the data the company collects — available at routes.tomtom.com and used to market its products — can help people plan their commute along less congested routes. “We also hope that it helps city governments understand a little bit about their relative position and see maybe over time whether their efforts to change the mobility situation in their region are really working,” said Cohn. In Los Angeles, journeys take 33% longer during congestion periods on average than when traffic is flowing freely. The commutes take 56-per-cent longer at the morning peak and 77-per-cent longer at the peak of the evening rush hour. Also in the Top 10 were Miami (No. 3), Seattle (No. 4), Tampa (No. 5) and San Francisco (No. 6). New York was ranked 15th. Richard Walton, chair of the Metro Vancouver Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation, said the TomTom report results appear to indicate that Vancouver has a problem similar to that of Seattle and San Francisco, cities where bodies of water create choke points. He cautioned, however, that the data could be skewed if people using the navigation systems are using them because they are on the most congested routes. But the Lower Mainland will continue to have a traffic congestion problem while its population grows and areas south of the Fraser River and east of Langley are underserviced by rapid transit, said Walton, the mayor of North Vancouver. City of Vancouver staff noted the number of vehicle trips into downtown Vancouver in the past 15 years have decreased by 20%. That’s a result of an increase in transit, cycling and walking.[/quote] [url=http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/11/vancouver-traffic-worst-in-canada-study-says/]**I WANT TO GET HOME BEFORE SEVEN, ASSHOLE!**[/url] I can agree. The main reason I never drive downtown is because Burrard is a total clusterfuck.
LA is the most congested city in north america? LAer's represent, whoo.
[QUOTE=The golden;36731456]Holy shit is this 100% true. We have so few major artery roadways that everyone is fucking funneled into monumentally small bottlenecks. That and 3/4 of the city of Vancouver doesn't have any right-hand turn lanes, meaning that 1 person can bring an entire lane to a stand still.[/QUOTE] This is why I [I]love[/I] living in a first-ring suburb of a city.
[QUOTE=The golden;36731456]Holy shit is this 100% true. We have so few major artery roadways that everyone is fucking funneled into monumentally small bottlenecks. That and 3/4 of the city of Vancouver doesn't have any right-hand turn lanes, meaning that 1 person can bring an entire lane to a stand still.[/QUOTE] Do you mean left turn lanes?
The 60 Freeway that connects LA to Riverside is more clogged than a morbidly obese woman's arteries.
[quote]Municipal bylaws and geography have protected Vancouver from the spread of urban freeways, and the only freeway within city limits is Highway 1, which passes through the eastern edge of the city. The reason for the lack of freeways in Vancouver is primarily due to the protests of concerned citizens as the city was being developed. During the late 1950s proposals were made by the City to put a freeway through the heart of Chinatown. The Chinese community joined together with white supporters to prevent the freeway from being implemented and by 1971 Chinatown was declared a historical area. The only sections built were the Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts, which are now low-speed streets.[5][/quote] - [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_Vancouver#Freeways]Wikipedia[/url]
I assume most people would walk/bike in a city of that sorts, looks pretty dense and packed together, i'm probably wrong as I don't live there :v:
I'm going to Vancouver in a week Looks like I'm going to do a lot of walking
[QUOTE=SPESSMEHREN;36731741]- [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_Vancouver#Freeways]Wikipedia[/url][/QUOTE] Bravo. Now the city is a congested nightmare. Oh sure it looks nice but who cares when you're stuck in a car trying to get somewhere.
Ottawa at 10 doesn't surprise me. Maybe if city council could get their shit together and get light rail built, we wouldn't have such a problem.
Yup L.A is pretty bad though especially when there's Dodger/Laker games so you got traffic both in and out of L.A.
[QUOTE=SpaceGhost;36732633]I assume most people would walk/bike in a city of that sorts, looks pretty dense and packed together, i'm probably wrong as I don't live there :v:[/QUOTE] we would if it didn't rain 364 days a year
[QUOTE=No_Excuses;36733440]Bravo. Now the city is a congested nightmare. Oh sure it looks nice but who cares when you're stuck in a car trying to get somewhere.[/QUOTE]So would you rather have it be like LA like highways going everywhere yet still being stuck with horrible traffic? Could easily spend that money on expanding the Skytrain, something that has limited ROW (right of way) impacts unlike a new highway and if the traffic is really as bad as they say could get you there faster.
My mom told me this and that this is why she wants to move up to our summerhome. I like it in North Vancouver.
[QUOTE=FreakySoup;36733402]I'm going to Vancouver in a week Looks like I'm going to do a lot of walking[/QUOTE] To be honest the article makes it seem a lot worst than it is, unless you're in metro vancouver you won't even notice. The highways cover most of the city pretty well and traffic only really gets nasty at like 8AM and 6PM
Lived downtown for two years, it's better to just walk around everywhere.
[QUOTE=Political Gamer;36733566]So would you rather have it be like LA like highways going everywhere yet still being stuck with horrible traffic? Could easily spend that money on expanding the Skytrain, something that has limited ROW (right of way) impacts unlike a new highway and if the traffic is really as bad as they say could get you there faster.[/QUOTE] LA has traffic problems because of how sprawling and populated it is. LA is a civil engineer's worst nightmare. Seattle has various freeways and viaducts going through it, and traffic through the city is relatively good, although the interstate will get clogged up at various points in the day. Why not do more than one solution? Expand public transportation and private transportation options at the same time. Build a freeway and get some new skytrain rails up.
Montreal is much worse. I visited there once and it took us 2 and a half hours just to get through the city. But yeah, Van's got some pretty busy traffic. It's a pain to get anywhere by car
[QUOTE=DhoomLord;36734099]Montreal is much worse. I visited there once and it took us 2 and a half hours just to get through the city. But yeah, Van's got some pretty busy traffic. It's a pain to get anywhere by car[/QUOTE] Especially when hobos run onto the fucking street yelling jibberish as you are driving.
True story, I was stuck in traffic on the 110 the other day.
This is why I got a jeep, so i can drive around traffic on the sidewalk.
[QUOTE=yawmwen;36734091]LA has traffic problems because of how sprawling and populated it is. LA is a civil engineer's worst nightmare. Seattle has various freeways and viaducts going through it, and traffic through the city is relatively good, although the interstate will get clogged up at various points in the day. Why not do more than one solution? Expand public transportation and private transportation options at the same time. Build a freeway and get some new skytrain rails up.[/QUOTE]Considering the historic president you would have a much harder time building it now then back in the day. The only possible highway I could see built is some kind of link from downtown to Highway 1 built over the the railroad tracks but beyond that homes would have to come down.
[QUOTE=Political Gamer;36733566]So would you rather have it be like LA like highways going everywhere yet still being stuck with horrible traffic? Could easily spend that money on expanding the Skytrain, something that has limited ROW (right of way) impacts unlike a new highway and if the traffic is really as bad as they say could get you there faster.[/QUOTE] LA has a ridiculous amount of cars on the road. Vancouver doesn't because it's a pretty normal sized city. If they had just built some freeways like every other reasonably sized city they wouldn't be having these problems now.
To get to any other part of Canada or hell, North America, I have to go through Vancouver. Holy shit this article could not be any more spot on.
[QUOTE=No_Excuses;36739200]LA has a ridiculous amount of cars on the road. Vancouver doesn't because it's a pretty normal sized city. If they had just built some freeways like every other reasonably sized city they wouldn't be having these problems now.[/QUOTE]Not necessarily true, lets take a look at a similar sized US city with a decent highway network say [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore]Baltimore[/url] that has a very close City/Metro population as well as a a transit system in need of expansion. According to [url=http://www.tomtom.com/lib/doc/congestionindex/2012-0704-TomTom-Congestion-index-2012Q1namerica-km.pdf]TomTom's research[/url] Baltimore is at #20 with about 15% congestion overall with about a 20min delay vs. Vancouver at #2 with about 30% congestion overall with about a 34min delay. But if you dig a little deeper you can see that Baltimore jumped about 5 places up the chain where as Vancouver stayed where it is. Could Vancouver have extended the Blaine Highway and the 91A all the way to downtown, yes but they didn't. Would traffic be better today, possibly. But in some ways this argument is moot because building them now is going to be much harder because of how built up everything is leaving few corridors that won't mean knocking down parks, schools, hospitals, let alone all the homes. Unless someone can convince knocking down these things or building a massively expensive tunnel is worth it no highways are going in. So that leaves us with 2 solutions, existing road improvements and Skytrain expansion. According to The golden the city has lack of left turn lanes so fixing those should be one of the cities top priorities. Whether its just adding some markings, making the street right turn only, or even sacrificing a lane to put in a median/left turn lane traffic flow would improve thus reducing congestion. Reworking stop light timing can also go a long way in improving flow. As for Skytrain expansions on top of the soon to be built Evergreen Line should be tracks going out to Simon Fraser University (with a major stop at Hastings Park), Expo line extension all the way to Langley, University of BC going up Broadway, using the abandon ROW that runs along West Blvd, even running a line over to West/North Vancouver could improve things. The city could also build parking garages next to popular stations to promote the use of Skytrain as well as adding more Bus Terminals at said stations. Also adding new lines to the current single line commuter rail as well as growing the Tram would be both good ideas. My point is that there are plenty of good road and rail based alternatives that cost about the same (or in some cases less) and are less intrusive as building a new highway.
Montreal #12 represent! Fucking traffic, might as well take the bus, oh its stuck in traffic... The amount of construction that's here is insane, every major road has construction up and down it
Thought they meant the other Vancouver in north America for a second.
[QUOTE=yawmwen;36734091]LA has traffic problems because of how sprawling and populated it is. LA is a civil engineer's worst nightmare. Seattle has various freeways and viaducts going through it, and traffic through the city is relatively good, although the interstate will get clogged up at various points in the day. Why not do more than one solution? Expand public transportation and private transportation options at the same time. Build a freeway and get some new skytrain rails up.[/QUOTE] Recently I've been learning about the history of vancouver and it's "urban sprawl" that it's adopted years and years ago, back before we started our boom. It's terribly interesting to read about and learn about but looking at it, it really breaks down into Jane Jacobs versus Sullivanism. It's interesting because we've gotten this far and done so well because of Jane Jacobs style of city planning which lead to "Vancouverism". We're an incredibly livable city, but the way we've begun our sprawl has ended us here, with sky high real estate prices too high for any ordinary person to reasonably afford. But there's a serious argument amongst the city and citizens as to what Sullivanism might have done for us. Sullivanism was the idea of high rises, sky scrapers and a serious sky line for the city of Vancouver, none of this urban sprawl of thousands of cookie cutter houses, but building up, and up. Now we're really pressed for options, and going up seems like a good idea, but the city is pretty strict on what heights it'll allow. It's just crazy how pressed for space we really are in the West End and in the heart of Vancouver.
yeah la makes sense for worst traffic hell when even the weather hates you in la
[QUOTE=Scottismelol;36740574]Montreal #12 represent! Fucking traffic, might as well take the bus, oh its stuck in traffic... The amount of construction that's here is insane, every major road has construction up and down it[/QUOTE] Doesn't help that people in Montreal drive like fucking mad. At least Ottawa's got the Transitway. It's not a perfect service, but we'd be much worse without it.
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