This headline (and the story inside) could have been run 40 years ago to the day, with a few minor changes.
Why September 15, 1968? Because that’s exactly what the proponents of the freeways for Vancouver had been arguing. Indeed, they predicted that so likely was our fate to be “total gridlock” without more roads that, even if we built the freeways they were proposing, we would have to be widening and double-decking them by the mid 1980s.
So once again, the astroturfers from the Valley predict doom, and call for billions to be spent on a way of life that assumes cheap fossil fuels and takes no account of climate change. But here’s the bizarre part: they believe the Vancouver region should be more like Calgary! That’s their vision: a sprawling prairie city from here to Hope.
Once again I ask: name me an urban region that has successfully solved the congestion problem by building more roads and bridges – and that we should be more like?
I’m still waiting.
regarding Calgary, i don’t believe Calgary has increased road capacity into it’s downtown in 30 years. Instead they had a choice to make about building more roads into downtown or building transit – and they built their LRT. I assume all these numerous bridges in Calgary span the suburbs as the Bow and Elbow rivers do run across the entire city. And the cost of said bridges would be considerably less to cross these small rivers than they would to cross the Fraser, so it isnt too surprising that Calgary has double the bridges and half the population.
By the way, Calgary also has more LRT users than Vancouver has Skytrain users with almost the same track length. Perhaps this group should focus on why Vancouver has twice the population of Calgary but not twice the train track…
This article made my heart sink. Anyone who believes we need more roads and more sprawl is completely ignorant on the issues. These individuals who clearly have no background in the science of city building and urban design need to be educated before they can inflict any harm. Forgive them for they know not what they do! While I’m all for public involvement in the development process, there is a line to be drawn. Would you let a mechanic perform brain surgery?
To provide more context to compare Calgary with Vancouver, the downtown of Calgary is directly on the river, whereas by far most of Metro Vancouver is on one side of the Fraser. To be fair, he should be comparing all the bridges in greater Vancouver, including the Pitt, the second narrows, the Lions Gate, all the bridges on the north arm of the Fraser to Richmond, and while we’re at it the Albion Ferry. Let’s be honest, this is a stacked comparison even if you ignore the obvious lack of attention paid to transit.
J is right. They missed the real question, which is why a city like Calgary has more mass-transit riders and more track and more stations than Vancouver.
Bateman’s report is simplistic in that it includes no cost data. It’s a lot less expensive to build a bridge over the Bow or Assinniboine River than over the main channel of the Fraser, or over Burrard Inlet for that matter.
One might well ask why Seattle as well as Portland wasn’t chosen as part of the comparison base.
Still, the basic point that Greater Vancouver has far less bridge and highway capacity per capita is valid enough, as far as it goes. People who claim there would be no benefit to more crossings are simply doing the Howard Jarvis “Keep my Taxes Down” routine, and then trying to dress it up as some kind of environmental or town planning concern. And of course, there’s always the fear that better highways in the eastern part of Metro will threaten property prices in the western half, and lead to a more decentralized industrial and commercial tax base.
Calgary has high rail ridership because of the strong downtown core, founded on, yes oil company headquarters. The city simply has more large company headquarters than most cities in North America, and since the companies are so large, yet similar, it makes sense for them to be close to one another. The density supports efficient placement of supporting businesses. I would say the same goes for financial companies being in New York and Chicago and to a lesser degree Toronto.
Calgary has very high ridership too on buses heading to downtown during rush-hour. The train frequency and ridership outside those peak hours was very bad (fifteen minutes) until a few years ago.
“Calgary has high rail ridership because of the strong downtown core, founded on, yes oil company headquarters.”
A good point Graeme. Calgary has several thousand more head office jobs than Vancouver, something that wasn’t true ten years ago but is now, according to StatCan figures.
Downtown Calgary is also the centre of almost all office jobs in Calagry – not distributed across the region like around Metro Vancouver. It is much more efficient to serve one hub than the multiple hubs that we have under the LRSP (and non-compliant office parks). The geographic distribution of jobs is the primary factor in the differences in transit ridership.