From an article in the Portland Daily Journal of Commerce:
Small bridge, livable downtown
The comparison between the Portland and Vancouver, B.C., metro areas goes only so far, officials from both areas are quick to point out. A transportation decision that’s good for one region won’t necessarily be good for the other.
That said, Gordon Price, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University and a former longtime Vancouver, B.C., city councilor, is glad to have a narrow, three-lane Lions Gate Bridge. “The conclusion I’ve drawn from looking at the history is that it’s one of the reasons we are one of the most livable cities in the world,” Price said, “on both sides of the inlet.”
Vancouver and its northern suburbs had a chance to see whether maintaining the size of the crossing would lead to increased congestion and a worse economy. “The answer, apparently, is no,” Price said. “If it were true that congestion would lead to an economic decline, you wouldn’t have the affluent area on one side and a vibrant urban area on the other.”
In any community, Price said, residents need clarity on transportation-planning decisions that determine where people live, where they work and how they commute. In Vancouver, people know there won’t be a new Burrard Inlet crossing.
“We said, ‘That’s OK; we will live with the existing capacity,’ ” Price said. “Once it became clear that wouldn’t change (and) we wouldn’t be overruled by the provincial and federal governments, then we took the other (transportation) options seriously and started to design cities to be walkable, to have more transit, and to be more bicycle friendly.”
When people have the opposite understanding that freeways and bridges will keep expanding as metro areas sprawl, they’ll count on that as well, Price said. “When it comes time to decide where they’re going to live and work, they’ll live farther away.
“And then the government comes along and builds them a wider road,” he said. “Because the government has done such a great job of delivering that for three generations, people expect that will continue forever.”
Complete story here.
