November 30, 2016

Daily Scot: Motordom in the Fraser Valley

Scot knows PT wants to comment on this story from The Sun:
fraser-valley-motordom
A series of bad crashes and increasing congestion on Highway 1 between Langley and Chilliwack have turned the road into a “nightmare,” in the words of one driver, and have some calling on the government to speed up plans to widen the highway to three lanes in each direction. …
The B.C. government has identified highway widening between Langley and Abbotsford as a priority in its 10-year transportation plan, released in 2015. The project is in the “very early planning states,” said a statement from the Ministry of Transportation, which goes on to say that increasing the lanes from four to six is “critical for safety and congestion relief.”
Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun said he wants to see the widening happen “sooner rather than later.” …
With the population south of the Fraser continuing to increase, Abbotsford is expected to reach 200,000 people in a few years. Rising house prices in Metro Vancouver have sent more families east in search of affordable homes. In a region where public transit is limited, that’s meant more traffic on all roads — but particularly those running east to west, like Highway 1, the Lougheed Highway and Fraser Highway. …
Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce executive director Allan Asaph agreed, saying he hopes the federal government will step up with money as it determines its infrastructure priorities.
“It’s not necessarily the commuter traffic that’s concerning, but the truck traffic,” he explained. “As the Port of Vancouver continues to expand, all those goods have to move from the port to the rest of the country. The primary route for trucks is Highway 1.”
It’s a story with all the earmarks of Motordom:

  • A car-dependent part of the region calls for an expansion of highway capacity to solve a problem created by the expansion of highway capacity and auto-dependent urban design.
  • Goods movement leads the way, combining the two arguments always used by Motordom: safety and the economy.
  • Public transit is dismissed because it’s “limited.”  And it’s limited because we keep expanding Motordom.
  • No matter how often it’s disproved, there’s still an assumption that expanded highways will solve congestion, and hence improve safety.  
  • Roads and bridges are always on the top of ‘shovel-ready’ projects when new infrastructure programs are announced.  Once money is available, it has to be spent. 

But there’s this:
Highway delays and closures are particularly difficult for transport truck drivers who require reliability to meet specific schedules, said Louise Yako, president and CEO of the B.C. Trucking Association.
“The thing that is most problematic is not so much the congestion, because you can plan for that, but the variability,” she said. “If some days it takes one hour and another day it takes three hours — that’s a problem.”
But while the BCTA supports highway widening, there’s a realization that “we won’t be able to build ourselves out of congestion,” said Yako. Earlier this year, the trucking organization called for a regional mobility pricing strategy — essentially a system of tolls to charge people for how much and where they travel.

.

Which do you think will come first: the highway widening or an actual plan for regional mobility pricing?

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  1. Hwy 1 widening indeed is a priority between Langley and Abbotsford as the only major E/W highway.
    We also need widening of, in perceived declining order,
    Lionsgate bridge
    Second Narrows bridge
    Oak Street bridge
    Knight Street bridge
    AND we need a LRT from Surrey to Langley, then to Abbotsford
    AND a subway/LRT to Jericho lands, then UEL’s Block F then to UBC
    AND a subway through E Van to clean that area up with new housing and easier access
    AND a second subway south out of downtown, say under Burrard or Granville to connect to new E/W #UBCLine
    We can’t cram in more and more people and not spend money on people moving infrastructure, both roads/bridges/tunnels as well as RAPID TRANSIT ! #BCpoli needs a reboot !
    At least we approved KinderMorgan to get some tax revenue there !

      1. What are you trying to achieve? One subway line, two SkyTrain lines or four LRT lines? What about commuter rail? Or BRT? “I don’t want” is meaningless.
        Tell us what you’re trying to achieve and the correct technology will become more apparent.

      2. May I suggest that a properly conducted transit plan that places quality of service, land use response, decent site planning and full life-cycle accounting as high as technology and construction cost should be the deciding element regarding mode?

  2. One only need drive the I5 anywhere near Seattle or Portland to see the madness this is leading to. Mobility pricing is the key. Most highways in Tokyo are 2 or 3 lanes only, yet they (mostly) flow freely… the difference is the tolls.
    Seriously, who wants to see 10+ lanes, all packed with standstill traffic, like is often seen on the I5? What kind of idiots would actually decide to emulate that?

        1. Yes we do. We need both. You need to get out more and pretend do be a trucker, a trades person or a person trying to get from Surrey to N Van.
          We need more people & goods carrying arteries in a growing region which is Canada’s only major port region to Asia where all roads, pipelines and railways end !

        2. “Yes we do. We need both [roads and transit.]”
          That is a matter of opinion. To make it unequivocal you’d have to conduct research and provide evidence.

  3. Find alternate (and more affordable) ways to move people instead of cars, and commercial trucking would have clear traveling on the existing highway configuration.
    Building more road lanes is clearly not for commercial vehicles. The evidence dictates it’s for single-occupant suburban commuter vehicles.

    1. How does the evidence dictate that? How does anyone know that the traffic with a vehicle and one occupant is a commuter (someone going to and from work along a regular route)?
      I know of many commercial operators of vehicles from service and professionals to managers, contractors, sales personnel, medical personnel, volunteers, night and shift workers, etc., that need to go to irregular and different destinations alone in their vehicles. This is not a small group.

      1. Start with traffic monitoring. Use license plate registration data to determine origin. Check for the presence of a commercial plate. Analyze vehicle characteristics and number of occupants. Then analyze the data to see the bump in usual peak commuting periods vs off peak hours. Do a deeper analysis on a percentage of the total, for more insights that are statistically significant if sufficient numbers are analyzed. Not perfect, but a good start. This isn’t rocket science.
        What does your data show the percentage is for commercial operators travelling in single occupant passenger vehicles during peak volume periods from the suburbs to work locations, but not commuting to work? If it isn’t a small group, fine, what is a measure of it?

        1. The meme that Alex proposes that traffic is comprised of a substantial number of single-occupancy suburban commuters, is a common one. It’s way too general and an uneducated statement, an incorrect clichė always used to try and lump together drivers of small vehicles that the writers say should be on transit.
          You don’t need a make-work taxpayer funded project to send out a bunch of people to count cars, as is frequently done along the roads. All you have to do is count the number of people employed in those trades, professsions, services, social services and jobs that need to go different places in their work, often carrying tools, equipment and samples, etc. Virtually none of these people need a commercial licence either. The tax departments have this data.
          As I said before, how does the evidence he speaks of say what he suggests?

        2. You’re right. Commuting SOVs have become cliché. So much so the decision makers force society to subsidize them in multiple billions with gargantuan road infrastructure projects.
          Road pricing is probably the best way to determine the exact portion of single-occupant commercial vehicles out there. Anyone with a legit commercial licence should get a discounted rate. However, with the near perfect correlation between great hordes of non-commercial SOV traffic and low density, car-dependent subdivisions, I will not believe the proportion of commercial SO passenger car traffic will be significant until proven with real data.
          Road pricing will also address the great injustice of transit forced to recoup half its operating expenses through the farebox while road users get a free ride on the taxpayer’s dime in perpetuity.

        3. I think you mean in our current world.
          See the data collection used to analyze the traffic for the George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project. Note section 3. Consider also the Translink Screenline Counts done regularly.
          https://engage.gov.bc.ca/masseytunnel/files/2015/12/Traffic-Data-Overview-2015.pdf
          This started with Eric claiming that the single occupant vehicles lining up at the tunnel aren’t substantially commuters, but rather tradespeople and other service workers, not commuting to a place of work or school. That to call them predominantly commuters was a cliché and a meme.
          We are still waiting for him to provide data that supports his claim.

        4. You didn’t either read my post, Jeff. It was Alex that said there was evidence. What evidence?
          I can tell you this. There are social workers, volunteers helping the aged and the infirm get to doctors and get supplies and provisions, there are municipal inspectors for fire systems, building codes, safety monitoring of a wide range of industrial and commercial activity, there are a wide variety of trades people from the roof down to the carpet layers that install and service buildings and construction, etc., etc. None of these people have commercial plates on their vehicles and many of them look just like a commuter in a SOV. Your teams of roving monitors for TransLink camped out counting traffic cannot distinguish between them and commuters.
          Your data collecting is at fault.
          Neither you nor Alex have the data. You’re both guessing and peddling that SOV meme.

        5. “Your data collecting is at fault.”
          That is quite a strong statement. I haven’t provided the links (yet again), because we have discussed them many times. But depending on what you want to study, you can look at the Screenline Counts (specific routes), the Massey Replacement Project study data, or the Translink Trip Diary (pick a year for each of these, look at the trends to gain more insights).
          If you want to understand the current use of the Hwy 99 corridor, look to the GMTRP data on engageBC. Link above. If you want to know about business use vs commuting use, look at the type of ICBC insurance a vehicle has. Unless all those business users aren’t purchasing the correct insurance for their use, which I suggest is unlikely. If you want to look at details of travel, look to the trip diary. It covers details of employment, trip origins and destinations, purpose of trip, length of trip, mode share by location/demographic/etc, and much more. Look at the spike in trips from 7-9 am, and compare the figure to the baseline from 9 am to 1 pm, to see a quick contrast of commuters vs business and other users.
          An important concept here is consilience. Essentially, the agreement between the data sets from different and independent approaches to data collection. Incidentally, it is the same reason that the deniers get it so wrong on climate change when they attack one line of evidence.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience
          Your initial claim was along the lines of “I know a guy….” or in your case, many people.
          You were then asked:
          “What does your data show the percentage is for commercial operators travelling in single occupant passenger vehicles during peak volume periods from the suburbs to work locations, but not commuting to work? If it isn’t a small group, fine, what is a measure of it?”
          That is the question you have not responded to; perhaps you don’t have it and you were just throwing out an opinion without any data to back it up. Maybe you didn’t want to inform, but just to try and muddy the waters. Fine. Just don’t attack others who show you the data. Instead, bring more compelling data.

        6. If you serious;y think that few people sitting along the side of the road in lawn chairs counting vehicles tells you who they are you are really dreaming.
          You are free to jump to your own conclusions and help Alex out using “TransLink Metro Vancouver Regional Screenline Surveys: Data collected at 123 stations along 32 regional screenlines. Vehicle volume, classification, and occupancy were collected.”
          “Classification”. I see. They see a vehicle with a driver, they are not in a big truck, so they mark it down as someone commuting. Zap! Another SOV.
          Anyone can see that this is a massaged stat. Anyone that does commercial business in Vancouver knows that when Vision came in the commercial licence office told everyone that from now on the commercial licence was only good for about a 5 minutes stop, so most people that were doing business in Vancouver said that it’s not worth it. It can only work for couriers. None of the building trades have commercial plates and far less of the services trades. (You can’t fix a refrigeration unit or a copy machine or a computer or an alarm system or a leaking sprinkler broken door hinge in 5 minutes). So all these and the others I’ve mentioned are now classified as SOVs, and as commuters. Along with the inspectors, the surveyors, the appraisers, the insurance agents, the graphic designers, the product reps, etc., etc.
          All now commuters in SOVs.
          I can also tell you that many professionals use ordinary and unmarked trucks, SUVs and cars to keep their valuable equipment hidden, as recommended by the police, to deter theft. More SOVs.
          If your data is really coming from roadside spotters ticking off note-boards then it really is pathetic. A feeble guess. So useless that it really renders any arguments using this data to be utterly worthless.
          My data isn’t the result of some waste of taxpayer funds, it’s simply common sense. Your data may have cost us all lots of money but it is ignoring a massive cohort.

        7. It appears you have never been part of the Translink trip diary reporting process. That is unfortunate.
          You are focusing on the screen line counts, which give us volumes, and ignoring the other, more detailed reports. You are also focusing on the use of commercial plates and ignoring the ICBC insurance classifications such as personal use, drive to work or school, and business use.
          Suggest you review the link on consilience to see why attacking one line of evidence is not an effective rebuttal technique.
          Let’s be clear, you don’t have data or evidence, at least to this point.

        8. Once again we are going around in circles. You suggest Screenline data. I explain that this is faulty and useless. You have tried to produce evidence that Alex said existed because he can’t come up with anything either. I read it. The only remote possibility of all the measurement methods used in the link you provided is utterly worthless. This is all you have, so you are now pushing again for something you haven’t got, from me. I explained to you that it is a faulty device. I clearly explained why.
          Let’s just leave it at that. You don’t have proper data so you’re just trying to peddle an almost unrelated flimsy scrap, within a study from the government that you usually rail against. Are you trying to make the case for the bridge now? Is this what they call pretzel-logic?
          I got it. You don’t like cars, trucks and SUVs, particularly when there are people driving them.

        9. We are going around in circles because you are trying to discredit one study (Screenline) by suggesting it is designed to provide something other than volumes, classification (number of axles), and occupants. Things it does provide. Along with time of day. As posted, if you want more detailed data on trips (vs counts) look to the Trip Diary reports. Use the volume counts to understand where the trips are (Massey Bridge, various screenline sites).
          You continue to conflate SOV with commuter trip. SOV is pretty simple, how many people are in a vehicle that isn’t a truck.
          After you have reviewed the Trip Diary report, come back and show us your data on how many of those SOV trips are not commuters. Your claim is still unsupported.
          As to your claim that you “got it,” you don’t have anything.

      2. The original research on the twinning of the Port Mann (remember that one?) observed that 71% of the vehicles crossing the old bridge were single-occupant vehicles. Granted, a tiny fraction of them may have been commercial delivery outfits and shift workers, but the point at the time was to put the political lie up front that the bridge project was all about commercial traffic. It was complete BS.
        Major improvements to public transit has the proven capacity to take cars off the road by offering a more affordable alternative to driving a car to the most dense job and population centres, with decent transit connections branching out widely from there.
        I think Rail for the Valley has a good idea, that is to run a decent commuter rail out to Chilliwack. Then adding greater connectivity to other transit routes throughout the region is probably the most effective way to deal with commuting up and down the TransCanada corridor and to break apart and diversify the unsustainable car oligopoly in suburbia.

        1. Oh I have. Your logic equates shift worker commuters and other SOVs with commercial vehicles, and you imply the majority comprise the 70+% of SOVs on Port Mann and elsewhere. If they are home care nurses working various shifts, then great. Drive a business or health region-related commercial licence or vehicle.
          If you are only part of the non-commercial Great Single-Occupant Vehicle Schlepp, then tough. There are choices and they’ve made theirs.

        2. If we actually allowed Uber and ride sharing firms like Lyft or UberX we’d have less SOVs. But the socialist mayor and his cab union supported “vision” council chose not to allow it.
          If we allowed Lyft, Uber, UberX etc and tolled roads, bridges or tunnels and in lieu, lowered income taxes and civil servants’ bloated wages & benefits we’d actually could get less traffic and delay road, tunnel or bridge building a decade or 2 AND pay net not any more to our ever growing civil bureaucracies.
          Demand more accountability and performance from your governments, incl. market oriented wages that in many cases need to be lowered 30% or more to account for shorter hours worked, nice benefits and low low risk of layoffs in an ever more fickle employment world !
          Where is Uber ? Where are the road tolls ? Where are the subways to Langley, on N-Shore or to UBC ? Why are there daily bottlenecks on Lionsgate, to Richmond or in N-Van ?

  4. This ‘road is too congested’ story goes under the category of ‘Slow News Day’, but regarding your question, let’s see: Widen the road and be a hero or toll it and be a goat. If I were up for re-election in six months, what noises would I be making?

    1. If you were John Horgan and the leader of the NDP apparently you would promise to widen the highway all the way to Alberta.
      That’s what he has promised. No mention of any toll.

      1. Yes that makes sense as Hwy 1 east of Kamloops is a disgrace. Loads of trucks, commuters and in the summer RVs and tourists.
        Of course toll it. Abolishing the Coquahalla toll was a mistake.
        While Justin is fiddling with Castro our infrastructure needs burn !

      2. Horgan also promised to up the provincial share of transit funding in the Metro to 40%, which is the level of tax revenue it pulls out of the Metro economy. A completely fair policy, that.
        Horgan should consider intercity commuter rail in the interior. It will undoubtedly prove far cheaper and, with freight, very diversified in the long run than asphalt politics.

        1. Horgan like the NDP everywhere will devastate this province economically. More funding for rapid transit is vital, but so is investment into road infrastructure and leaving a fiscally & economically sound province. Just look to ever more bloatet civil servants apparatus and mushrooming debt in AB or in Ontario (with NDP like policies) as the latest provincial examples of what not to do.

        2. By that narrow political definition the devastation of debt created by the BC Liberals can be called “sound fiscal management.” You’ve clearly drank deeply from their punch bowl and are intoxicated by Christy’s obsequious, glue-on smile. The fact is that all politicians and parties have huge, gaping flaws that work against the common good, and here in BC they are polarized, which certainly doesn’t help.
          There are massive social, economic and environmental brick walls approaching that will require neutral, non-partisan long range planning. An ageing population is one of them. Which party or politician has even started to address it? The BC Libs will probably cut from the healthcare end while concurrently spending billions on the megaproject side, all the while calling it sound economics while tragedy mounts in care facilities. The NDP will probably spend injudiciously on both while internal militants stab the party elite in the back over internal party issues that have nothing to do with governing.
          Yes, Thomas, there are a few of us who find it all a tragic comedy and don’t take one side too seriously over the other. All I want is some sanity, courage and enough neutrality to equitably address future challenges.

        3. Bravo Alex “All I want is some sanity, courage and enough neutrality to equitably address future challenges.”
          So do I !
          Left-right is more and more meaningless as states run out of funds for healthcare, roads and education !
          “Cliches of left and right have lost all meaning, and institutions their certainty. Even in France and Italy, European union is falling from grace. A rightwing US president wins an election by appealing to the left. In Britain, Ukip can plausibly claim to be supplanting Labour. A Tory prime minister attacks capitalism, while Labour supports Trident. Small wonder Castro gave up and died.
          Conventional wisdom holds that it is the “centre left” that has lost the plot. The howls that greeted Brexit, Donald Trump and Europe’s new right are those of liberals tossed from the moral high ground they thought they owned. Worse, their evictors were not the familiar bogeys of wealth and privilege, but an oppressed underclass that had the effrontery to refer to a “liberal establishment elite”.”
          More on this here https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/blame-trump-brexit-identity-liberalism

        4. Thomas writes:
          “Horgan like the NDP everywhere will devastate this province economically”
          Thomas, do you have any data to back up this claim? Maybe you should read this piece of research issued by the Sauder School of Business at UBC:
          http://news.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/NDP-vs-Liberal-Performance.pdf
          British Columbia’s Economic and Fiscal Experience 
          under the NDP and BC Liberals 1991-2013
          Here are some of the findings:
          – Relative fiscal management moderately better under the NDP than the BC Liberals
          – Employment growth in BC under both the NDP and the BC Liberals relative to other provinces was fairly similar
          – The BC Liberals spent more as a percent of provincial GDP than did the NDP relative to the spending patterns of the comparison provincial groups.
          Comparison shows that the economic and fiscal experience was pretty much the same under each party with the NDP doing slightly better in some categories. Mike Harcourt’s term stood out as one of the best. Hardly devastation of the provincial economy.
          Federal comparison between Liberals and Conservatives show the Liberals being much better stewards of the economy. In the US, Bush junior spent more money in his two terms than all previous presidents combined! It is a myth that conservative governments have better economic performance.

        5. Beyer is a myopic ideologist. He won’t be able to understand any of this so he’ll just goon repeating his dogma like he always does.

        6. Thanks again Arno. I particularly liked this bit:
          “The Harcourt government was dramatically more fiscally responsible than the subsequent Glen Clark, Miller and Dosanjh governments, and better controlled the provincial debt and expenditures compared to GDP than the (sic) have the BC Liberals. In turn the BC Liberals outperformed the Glen Clark, Miller and Dosanjh NDP governments.
          Higher relative growth in median income under BC Liberals.
          Compared to growth rates in other provinces, real median income grew faster under the BC Liberals than under the NDP.”
          Good old Mike Harcourt. After four and half years he resigned. Bingo (or, if you are old enough and prefer, Bingogate) he was gone. The people just hate it when any organization collects money for a charity and then shoves into their own pocket. Mike didn’t personally benefit but he did the honourable thing and fell on his sword.
          Then nearly twenty years later Mike quit the party. “In a rare rebuke from an ex-premier to his party, Mr. Harcourt cited several grievances, but pointed to the “astonishingly stupid decision” of leader Adrian Dix in mid campaign last spring to change position on a proposed expansion of a Kinder-Morgan pipeline between Alberta and the Lower Mainland.
          What goes around ….

        7. Eric – In spite of all the politics, Harcourt was one of our best premiers. Yes – he resigned, but certainly not because he did anything wrong – quite the contrary.
          You may also have noticed that in recent years, the Provincial Liberal government have racked up considerable debt.
          In any case, the NDP have outperformed the Provincial Liberals on economic Stewardship. As have liberals at the federal level and Democrats in the US.

        8. In terms of debt, the BC Liberals have become masters at creating it, then disguising it in the crown corporations. It’s nearing $65 billion. And with Site C, LNG and, of course, more asphalt than we can possibly justify, it’s fast closing on $100 billion.
          Mike Harcourt got stabbed in the back and Glen Clark was taken out with a backyard deck, but surely the evidence cannot make the “economic devastation” handle stick on them as well it does the Libs.

    1. Not quite .. unlike the Liberal that call anybody not agreeing to their “truth” as deplorables .. as evidenced by far too much bashing negative commentary on this blog’s groupthink crowd !
      Quotes from here http://www.bcbc.com/publications/2012/a-decade-by-decade-review-of-british-columbias-economic-performance .. ”
      Compared to Canada as a whole, economic growth in BC was slower in the 1980s and 1990s but faster than the national average in the 2000s. ..
      On average, it rose by 1.61% per year in the 2000s. Real income per person actually decreased in the 1990s ..
      Measured as a share of GDP, the province posted small operating budget deficits (on average, equal to 0.8% of GDP) in the 1980s and 1990s. From 2001 to 2010, the operating budget moved to a small surplus (on average, equal to +0.35% of GDP).
      ==> In sum, we can say that the 1990s were stronger for economic indicators that are more influenced by population growth while the 2000s were better for fundamental measures of prosperity and well-being that adjust for population growth.
      On Ontario, with NDP like policies: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/ontario-no-longer-a-place-to-prosper.pdf
      QED

      1. You’ll note that BC’s growth remained stable and even grew a bit when Alberta’s, you know, the braggart next door, sank with the price of oil and remains in the basement two years later.
        Here’s to diversification.

  5. More fun with numbers; In the last few weeks Thomas Beyer has received several hundred thumbs down for which no conclusion can be drawn.

    1. Of course. The truth is disliked by many.
      Left-right is more and more meaningless as states run out of funds for healthcare, roads and education !
      “Cliches of left and right have lost all meaning, and institutions their certainty. Even in France and Italy, European union is falling from grace. A rightwing US president wins an election by appealing to the left. In Britain, Ukip can plausibly claim to be supplanting Labour. A Tory prime minister attacks capitalism, while Labour supports Trident. Small wonder Castro gave up and died.
      Conventional wisdom holds that it is the “centre left” that has lost the plot. The howls that greeted Brexit, Donald Trump and Europe’s new right are those of liberals tossed from the moral high ground they thought they owned. Worse, their evictors were not the familiar bogeys of wealth and privilege, but an oppressed underclass that had the effrontery to refer to a “liberal establishment elite”.”
      More on this here https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/blame-trump-brexit-identity-liberalism

  6. The highway should be widened too, but not before mobility pricing and better transit. The highway is not only used by trucks and commuters, but also for long distance travelers to the BC Interior and Alberta. The increase in traffic and congestion on weekends and especially long weekends over the last ten years is remarkable. This section near Abbotsford is usually the most congested when leaving the Lower Mainland.

    1. There used to be passenger rail to the interior. Someone should look into that again. It’s equivalent in land consumption to two road lanes, but has the potential to move a huge amount of freight and passengers at lower cost over the long run.

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