Sandy James: Road congestion is the same regardless of the context.
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Looks like another example of inadequate road infrastructure to me. The vast majority of people everywhere want to drive. The world should be spending the vast majority of its transportation infrastructure budget on roads. Would be great for the economy, the environment and for our quality of life.
Spending most of our transportation budget on roads. Yes. That is the most revolutionary concept to bless our home world since Irishmen were first put into procession. You have your corndogging finger firmly on the PULSE, sir!
Dan, do you have any idea of how the products you buy get to the stores you shop at? Here’s a big hint for you. It’s not by public transportation and it’s definitely not by bike. An efficient road network is a major requirement for a successful economy. I’d say my finger if firmly on the pulse of reality.
@ Corndogger … if you care to jump a couple web links over to this other thread, you see that traffic numbers for those product purveyors is 2-3% https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2015/11/19/for-comment-what-causes-traffic-congestion-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/ … I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that products are a huge factor in the whole road/successful economy thing. (The numbers in Kenya may be different *slightly*, I will admit), but as one commenter mentioned in that post, they would be the biggest beneficiaries likely of a reduction in the type of traffic which does have lots of alternatives.
You might have your finger firmly somewhere herr Dogger, but it might not be reality.
Also, just an addition, there’s a successful company in Vancouver doing a great business delivering products by bike http://www.shift.coop/ … just saying, crazy things are happening here in reality, you might like it.
Insulting me doesn’t prove you’re right. Name me one product that isn’t at one point delivered by trucks to a warehouse or possibly directly to the store. The link you provided doesn’t disprove what I said at all. The bikes are still using the road network. As for the other thread, who is doing the counting? Even if the 2 to 4% figure is correct what makes you think that is applicable to the entire road network? It clearly isn’t. Why does the anti-car crowd always have to resort to intellectual dishonesty to make their points?
@ Corndogger, I did not insult you, and I did no such thing as intellectual dishonesty.
You’re right, the 2-3% may vary, but it does indicate that the vast majority of traffic has zero to do with products. If you could increase capacity for those users only, great, but you can’t, you increase it for everyone, so to benefit those ~3% of users (or 5, or 10, or 20, still a large minority), you spend on 100%, which isn’t a terribly efficient use of resources.
At least @ Thomas Beyer’s call for traffic pricing can be directed at or away from a specific class of users, spending on roads themselves, can not. A market solution for a market problem.
On those roads for which a vast majority of users are those purveying products (hey, there might be one road somewhere) then yes, maybe it would be useful to toss money at the problem, but elsewhere, not so much.
And it really is irrelevant that ‘all’ products might spend some time in a car, what matters to this sub argument is that the fraction of traffic which is created by your precious product purveyors is small, so you have to do a lot of accommodating of the ‘most people who want to drive’ to create any benefit for those precious purveyors. You’d think these business boffins wouldn’t need such a socialistical road system to survive [vive the automobiliat!], its almost like business can’t solve all problems without needing social assistance, I thought that kind of talk was heretical?
Why does the pro-car crowd insist on claiming intellectual victimization when faced with inconvenient reality? I have fun driving when I need to, its just that I rarely need to. No anti car about it.
See! No bike lane. Not a bus in sight. Not even a decent sidewalk. What do they expect?
It’s mostly trucks so they should put in a train track.
I’m not what the point is that’s being made here. This road is a critical piece of infrastructure to support the movement of goods between the major port in Kenya and its capital. The jam (as reported in the article) is because the road is closed due to damage.
Is the suggestion that this is somehow related to the problem of SOV traffic in Vancouver? The overbuilding of Port Mann? A little disingenuous, I’d say.
Corndogger: “Even if the 2 to 4% figure is correct what makes you think that is applicable to the entire road network? It clearly isn’t. Why does the anti-car crowd always have to resort to intellectual dishonesty to make their points?”
Well, we could claim that the number is 30-40%, as has been done, or we could actually look at the data. The data I quoted in the other thread mentioned is from Translink traffic engineers. I used the screen line count, which covers all of Metro Vancouver. Because we were discussing traffic congestion downtown (the viaducts were mentioned) I used the Central Business District statistic, for which truck traffic is reported to be 2%. I also mentioned that some of the screenlines had higher truck percentages, such as Burrard Inlet, which was at 3%. If you want to use the North Arm of the Fraser, it is 6%. It gets higher when you go out to Deltaport. For all of Metro Vancouver, truck percentages are reported at 6%. The figures are readily available. The last count was for 2011, but note that truck volumes dropped 10% overall from the previous report, and had a similar %.
I don’t know who this anti car crowd is that you speak of. But it is unreasonable to accuse people of intellectual dishonesty out of ignorance of the actual measured numbers, IMO.
Read them yourself: http://www.translink.ca/-/media/Documents/plans_and_projects/trip_diary/2011%20Screenline%20Survey%20Report.pdf
I hadn’t had time to look at all the numbers, thank you for doing so!
It’s good that people like Jeff Leigh bring attention to studies like the TransLink one he’s mentioned a couple of times recently here. Isn’t it wonderful to know that midday bike traffic across the Patullo Bridge averages – 4 bikes. We pay people to find this stuff out for us. How about the importance that we now know that in the mornings, on average, nine (9) pedestrians walk along ‘Pacific Boulevard ‐ East of Carrall Street’. This massive study took two years to write and, we know that just like the other critical studies it took many people and many dollars to produce. It was done in 2011 and not presented and written until 2013.
Vital statistics showing the mass of people moving around our metropolis enable us to plan ahead.
The TransLink staffer that ‘Oversaw TransLink’s mid- to long-range strategy, policy and network development’ and was fired in May of this year. Oh well. Thanks anyway.
The study itself had teams of people trying to count the number of people in “Autos”. The categories jump from “Autos” to “Light trucks (2 axles with dual wheel sets on the rear axle)”. There is no mention of vans or SUVs, many of which have dark windows and it’s impossible to see if passengers are inside. Maybe they just ignored them but I can’t see how a minivan is considered an auto. The study does not clarify this either.
The important lesson from all this is that if you don’t mind being a bit of a dummy, then get a nice cushy job for a government organization in one of those soft areas, like communications or studies. The pay is good. Great benefits. There’s no pressure to do much and if you do feel pressured you can go on stress-leave, many people do and you get full pay.
The Study cited does tell us that just about zero changed from 2008 until 2011. The graph on the final page has two lines that follow each other exactly.
One thing that is important is that it’s just about five years since this study was done. More people have moved into the area and, sadly, some people have been fired, quite a few forced into lavish retirement with more than they could ever spend, so it’s time again for a new study. TransLink will soon be cranking up the team and arranging some meetings to set up some committees, that will set up more meetings so they can start to do it all over again.
I’ve biked the Patullo Bridge … once … and though comfortable biking in prettymuch anywhere, in any city, in any country I’ve visited, I wouldn’t choose to ride into Vancouver on the Patullo ever again. So the fact that there are even 4, or 20 is surprising.
One question @Eric, if your morning commute involved what is to bikes essentially as dangerous as this road is to cars: http://cdn4.list25.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/roads.png would you drive? Because quite honestly, I think I would feel safer on that mountain road than biking headlong at traffic on that bridge.
You mention 5 years as being a long time since the study happened, well 4 years ago this study happened, and it might demonstrate the futility of throwing money at roads:
http://www.sightline.org/2011/12/14/study-more-roads-more-traffic/
You can find the same 20 years ago, in 1994:http://www.transalt.org/sites/default/files/news/magazine/002MayJune/12-13shrinkingroads.html
Shockingly (not) the same thing happens for bikes, if you build it, they will come:
http://www.planetizen.com/node/81540/more-bicycle-infrastructure-equals-more-riders
Which is to say that if you don’t build it, or if what is built is SCARY, then people won’t come. Its entirely possible to design a horrible bike lane that is dangerous, or one which is great, just like it is possible to design a road which is dangerous, and one which isn’t. Most municipalities have designated Black Spots for road infrastructure which is dangerous, and guess what, ICBC does this: http://www.icbc.com/about-icbc/newsroom/Pages/Lower-Mainland-Crash-Map.aspx … the thing is that for cars, being labeled a dangerous place is an inducement for making the road safer. Don’t you think that bikes deserve the same? http://www.icbc.com/about-icbc/newsroom/Pages/Cyclists.aspx … or pedestrians http://www.icbc.com/about-icbc/newsroom/Pages/Pedestrians.aspx … the very fact that the Patullo bridge has such low bike traffic numbers is in itself defacto proof that it is a Black Spot, and deserves an upgrade in safety.
Or would you say that only Drivers’ Lives Matter @Eric? Personally I think that All Lives Matter.
Eric: “Isn’t it wonderful to know that midday bike traffic across the Patullo Bridge averages – 4 bikes.”
Not sure how that relates to a traffic jam in Kenya, the subject of the thread.
But since you are wondering, yes it is good to know. That 4 bikes (it is per hour, by the way) across the Patullo at midday is the lowest count of the lowest ranked screenline for bike volumes. And it is only 20 bikes per hour in the morning rush period on the same screenline. It makes one wonder if the state of the shared bike/pedestrian path across the Patullo is part of the reason for this low volume. One way to check would be to consider an existing bike and pedestrian path across the same river (the North Arm, in this case) at the Canada Line Bridge. Richmond instead of Surrey, but it does provide a point of comparison. There, counts peaked at 900 bikes per day this year, and drop to about half that in the winter. Quite a difference. It illustrates the old adage about not determining the need for a bridge by counting how many people are swimming across a river. If there is appropriate infrastructure, people will choose to use it.
A wonderful lesson indeed.
Agree with that Jeff. As you say appropriate infrastructure must be built. We too are looking forward to the new bridge across the river.
I am quite certain you are misrepresenting what @Jeff L and others consider appropriate.
We are certain he was referring to the new bridge under development but to be careful I’ll quote him verbatim. That should be alright.
” It illustrates the old adage about not determining the need for a bridge by counting how many people are swimming across a river. If there is appropriate infrastructure, people will choose to use it.”
Seems to be appropriate considering the daily bottleneck and resulting congestion.
I wonder how many truckers vs. bicyclists frequent this blog … for some perspective ?
People have to restrict themselves to a single transportation choice? What about those who walk, bike, drive, take transit, and work as a commercial driver?
Eric: “We are certain he was referring to the new bridge under development”
LOL, you would certainly be wrong. But you know that from the context of the previous post.
But the Screenline counts do give us good information on traffic volumes. And what we know is that volumes coming into the city are dropping. So, if the Patullo needs to be replaced due to its age and seismic vulnerability, not to mention the narrow lanes, we know that a replacement bridge should not have any more vehicle lanes than the current one. A sidewalk/bike path on each side would be nice.
If we want to manage the demand during the morning rush, the most appropriate tool would be road pricing, with variable charges.
We have a new bridge across the river. And drivers shifted away from it to the congested Patullo. So many drivers seem to have voted for congestion, not for congestion relief.
“If we want to manage the demand during the morning rush, the most appropriate tool would be road pricing, with variable charges.”
Or of course the previously mentioned improvements to transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructures. I don’t think you want to agree with Thomas too completely 😉
Dear lord we’ve gone a long way from Kenya. I’ll try to bring it back, with a bikes/commerce/commuting trifecta: http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2010/08/03/4347044/0_bikes.jpg