An occasional update on items from Motordom – the world of auto dominance..
LANE COUNTER
Tim updates my lane count from “The message couldn’t be clearer: transit is not to be taken seriously …”
Before the Golden Ears there were 19 lanes:
4 – George Massey
6 – Alex Fraser
4 – Patullo
5 – Port Mann
Recently and near future:
+ Golden Ears – 6
+ Port Mann – 5
= 30 Lanes
Potentially
+ Patullo – 2
= 32 Lanes
What I find frustrating is why isn’t there tolling all along the Highway 1? There is so much improvement besides just the bridge. Why not toll those that are going from Coquitlam to Vancouver, or New West to North Van etc?
AN OLD FART’S LAMENT
David Grainger in today’s Sun:
I guess the magic of cars and getting your licence has gone, replaced by bureaucratic red tape, driving schools, Draconian insurance policies and police unforgiving of even the slightest kid-style misdemeanour. …
And the car as an icon? It may well be that the generation after this Game Boy generation will see the automobile only as the root cause of Earth’s disastrous problems – problems that may be, in consequence, perhaps even more dire than the once imminent threat of nuclear obliteration.
Sadly, they will never have icons such as the ’57 Chevy. I’m glad I am almost an old fart.
And then there’s this:
I am very glad I grew up in a simpler, less complex and more forgiving time. I may have grown up with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over my head, but if the mushroom clouds had blossomed, at least I would have gone out as a man.
” … as a man.” Really? That may explain the difference more than Draconian insurance policies.
Pay attention to the fast-advancing world of driverless vehicles:
Called vehicle-to-vehicle communication, or V2V, more advanced versions of the systems can take control of a car to prevent an accident by applying brakes when the driver reacts too slowly to a warning.
Sooner than people realize, we will be confronted with a dilemma: should we let human drivers control a car when it is so manifestly unsafe, when lives will be lost that could have been saved, including the driver’s, if technology was in charge?
Tim, you ask: “why isn’t there tolling all along the Highway 1? There is so much improvement besides just the bridge. Why not toll those that are going from Coquitlam to Vancouver, or New West to North Van etc?”
Have you ever heard of the concept of political suicide?