A footnote in Taras Grescoe’s great new read, Straphanger:
Transportation scholars use the term “motorization” to describe a nation’s level of vehicle ownership. Mass motorization is said to occur when there are 400 vehicles per 1,000 population. The United States achieved mass motorization in 1958, and Canada would follow in 1972 …
1972!
The year in Vancouver – with Phillips as Mayor, Barrett as Premier, Trudeau as Prime Minister – that the freeway proposal was killed once and for all. Or, perhaps more accurately, suffocated for lack of fiscal oxygen.
At any rate, the year the country mass motorized was the end of the commitment in this city to more room for the single-occupancy vehicle.
Meanwhile, in this region, Surrey wants planning to proceed for another six-lane bridge, the Patullo, before the widest bridge in Canada, the 10-lane Port Mann, is even open. And then expects the region to fund a very expensive light-rail system – after opening up more new road space than any time since, well, at least 1972.
So everyone should be mobilizing in support of New Westminster right now to stop the Mega Patullo!