Further to the post immediately below, here’s an interesting set of maps that nicely illustrate the difference between transit and the car when it comes to accessbility, determined by the time it takes to get places (transit on the left, auto on the right). The starting point is New Westminster, nicely located in the centre of the region.
It’s the difference between the part of the region in the west that was built along the streetcar and interurban lines prior to the dominance of the automobile. The deep green part to the east, largely south of the Fraser is Motordom, where the region expanded in the 1960s – and the transportation system was almost entirely about moving cars and trucks.
The parts of the region that exhibited a competitive advantage with respect to transit accessibility were those along major rapid transit infrastructure or close to corridors and nodes that were well-serviced by transit. These areas appear in dark green on the map, with zones that exhibited increasing travel times progressing through the colour gradient from dark green to yellow and further to red.
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You can see the maps more clearly (page 18), along with a wealth of supporting data, in this report, produced by Andrew Ramlo for Urban Futures: Demographic & Economic Outlook, The Lower Mainland & the New West Trade Area.
