Quality In Life – Living Smarter…

The Trans-Canada highway in the lower mainland of BC South of the Fraser river has remained virtually unchanged since the 1960s. As you drive over the 40 year old overpasses, you can see the date of their construction stamped in the concrete. Each overpass following the same 2 lane bidirectional model with few exceptions. In recent years three of these interchanges have been upgraded or replaced. First the 208th street overpass (+2 lanes) in Langley was built to relieve pressure on 200th street, then 200th street (+2 lanes), Vedder Rd (+2 lanes) in Chilliwack, and Mt Lehman (+5 lanes) in Abbotsford. The total increase in lanes crossing the freeway since 1960 appears to be 11 for a distance spanning approximately 85KM. This is in an area where the total number of lanes crossing is now 66 lanes increasing from the 55 provided in the 1960s.

Now the Lower Mainland and Victoria areas of BC account for 9% of the population of Canada. In 1961 the population of BC was 1,629,082 just 20 years earlier it had been half of that. 30 years later it had doubled to 3.2 Million in 1991. At that time there had been no increase in lanes, with the 208th overpass being added some time in the 1990s. In 2006 the population of BC was 4,1 Million. That population increased 2.5 times from 1961 to 2006. In 2006, the combined population of the area south of the Fraser in the lower mainland including Chilliwack, Abbotsford, the Langleys and Surrey was 692,000. We can infer a similar increase in the population of the lower mainland that is accurate enough for this discussion.

The population increases to 250% of 1960 levels, but the overpasses increase of 20% of 1960 levels. Clearly the capacity enjoyed in the 1960s is not enjoyed today and the Federal and Provincial Governments have not paid close attention to maintaining our transportation network.

The 200th street fiasco got delayed for years (6 years?) because as I understand it, the provincial government tried to avoid paying cash for the interchange, and instead managed to trade adjacent land and favourable zoning to the developers. This delay affected thousands of area residents who were forced to queue for years to cross the freeway. Nowhere in the cost savings, was the inconvenience to citizens measured. Eventually the existing 2 lanes crossing the freeway were torn down and replaced with other lanes crossing the freeway, and a big box shopping centre was installed in every adjacent piece of property to the detriment of the traffic.

Now to area residents, it seems that when the Golden Ears Bridge comes in 2009, that the 200th st interchange with its multitudes of traffic lights and single lanes will be completely overwhelmed.  It has been obvious for the last 10 years or so that the only logical location (the empty place in the river where the roads have been aligning) for the Maple Ridge Langley bridge to exist is at 201st street near the water treatment plant on the Fraser river. However, area traffic has been queuing excessively between freeway and big box retail area and industrial area for 15 years. In 2009 when the bridge traffic joins the freeway at 200th we’ll see what happens. Currently, in the mornings, Westbound commuters have found traffic trying to exit Northbound at 200th from the Freeway.  These vehicles are often lined up for 1/2 a mile along the side of the freeway.  Naturally some of these vehicles stick into the Freeway lanes, creating an extreme traffic hazard for the 100 KM/hour traffic.  The exit needs to have double the capacity to carry traffic from Westbound Freeway to North and Southbound 200th.  The Lights at the interchange at 88th North of the freeway need to function so they do not impede the flow of traffic off of the freeway.  Sensors in the roadway on the exit ramp should be linked to these lights, such that when there is a backup of traffic attempting to leave the freeway, the light stays green allowing the traffic to continue to flow North across 88th and off the the Freeway.  It is much more important that a traffic light not impede the flow of the freeway, than that cars are allowed to get onto the freeway. It comes back to our methods for handling intersections and our fascination with traffic lights despite their implicit need to stop “some” traffic at all times. So 200th looks like too little too late, and time will tell us this year whether the engineers and architects planned well or planned poorly

Apart from inadequate overpasses to get local populations across the freeways, truck traffic, has not been given fair treatment on our freeway.  Nowhere except at the East bound truck scales (near 160th) do we find a third lane provided for trucks to gain speed as they climb a hill.  [EDIT: since I started drafting this article, a climbing lane has been added Westbound at Mt-Lehman THANKS]. This “feature is missing in many locations including but not limited to:  200th to 216, 232 to 208,  232 to 264, Mt Lehman, Sumas way to Macallum Road and Peardonville to MtLehman. Since our society seems to have embraced freight bearing trucks and largely dispensed with rail, it is strange to see that government is not adequately supporting the needs of trucks on our roads. Clearly there is much to be said about how freight trucks on our roads interact with other drivers, but that will have to wait for another article.

Interchanges, trucks, another deficiency of the Transcanada highway in the lower mainland that bears mentioning is that we do not find reasonable on-ramps. There does not seem to be a standard for a safe on-ramp despite the pretty illustrations in the Province’s driver’s handbook.  Almost every freeway interchange is designed uniquely and differently from other interchanges. In some cases these on-ramps and off-ramps, and these are becoming increasingly dangerous as the level of traffic congestion increases.  One feature that we sometimes see on the freeways in other cities which is absent in our own is the feature of a lane that links the on-ramp at one interchange with the off-ramp at the next.  By way of example, in Abbotsford Westbound between Sumas and Macallum exits, there is a relatively short distance of about 1 km where such a lane would allow traffic to merge less suddenly, allow traffic leaving the freeway to get out of the flow of traffic earlier, would have a limited cost and would reduce congestion by smoothing the flow of traffic onto and off of the freeway while increasing capacity between interchanges.

As fragile and full as our freeway traffic may be here in the lower mainland on the transcanada highway, another factor that contributes to the overall situation, is that we allow overloading the freeway with spikes of traffic. For example at 232 Eastbound in the afternoon rush, traffic coming in on the on ramp is equal in volume and speed to the traffic in the fast-lane.  The slow-lane has emptied itself of cars at the other side of the interchange as everyone preemptively avoids the merging traffic. Imagine with me, that if the freeway is at 100% capacity before the merge, then it is at 150% after the cars merge on.  They come in bunches.  The bunches overwhelm the freeway’s ability to smoothly absorb the traffic.  There is a bunch and then nothing and then another bunch.  Bunches are equal to the density of traffic in the fastlane.  Other jurisdictions address these spikes in traffic volume by leveling or smoothing the traffic admitted to the freeway. Metering the on-ramp would lower the density of the traffic coming on to the freeway, spreading it out and allowing for a responsible and sustainable merge into the slow-lane from the on-ramp.  This should better allow the freeway to retain its flow (its speed).  When the speed of the freeway drops to a crawl the people who just merged on, can force their way across to the fastlane, further disrupting the flow of traffic. Ideally where there are merge points, there would be some method to reduce lane switching to reduce the “turbulence” created by merging traffic.

If that isn’t bad enough, some commuters, knowing about this issue, choose to exit the freeway and drive in the decelleration lane only to re-enter the freeway at the point of congestion.  They effectively drive around all of the patient drivers who are slowing prior to the congestion, but they compound the problem by further disrupting the flow of traffic at the merge point, perpetuating the situation they “avoided”.

Congestion on this highway is such that it took me 37KM from the 160th exit in Surrey to exit 87 in Abbotsford BC to catch up with a semitrailer hauling large sections of steel pipe.  With uphill sections and that kind of weight, you can appreciate he wouldn’t be the fastest vehicle.   It goes to show you how inefficiently our freeway is working, when a capable vehicle cannot pass a lumbering vehicle , much less catch sight of it. This suggests the need to pro-actively increase the number of lanes to maintain traffic capacity.

I have hear the argument time and time again that if we build better roads, more people will drive their cars. While it is probably true that people who already drive their cars will drive further because they will get there in the same or less time than they currently do. We are currently experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of cars on the road despite no new roads being built. The argument would be fair if there was an alternative that was cost effective, reasonable and efficient. Unlike much of Europe and many major US centers, we do not have an effective rail transportation system unless you live and work within a 1/2 mile of the sky train. Bus service is “spotty” at best especially if you live outside of the Vancouver core. Traveling from Fleetwood in Surrey to BCIT in Burnaby by bus and skytrain takes 1 hour longer per day than making the same trip in a car on the freeway. How a 45 minute trip could take 30 minutes longer by using transit (1:15) highlights the situation that the lower mainland’s transit is in many cases 60% less effective at moving people. So we must have our roads alongside other solutions. If we neglect the roads we neglect the citizens who must travel them to hospitals, to work, to return home, we neglect the freight corridors that bring food to the supermarket etc.

We need to think twice about only doing what is “cost effective” and need to start doing what is “traffic effective”. The whole point of building a transportation infrastructure is not to “save money”, the point is to provide transportation. It is expected to be costly because it is a long term investment which yields continuing dividends in terms that may never appear on the bottom line. Reduced pollution, shorter commute times, higher efficiency, improved commerce, improved health through lowered stress, better safety resulting in fewer injuries and medical costs. It is like the cost of minting a penny. some people object to a penny costing more than 1 cent to mint, thinking that somehow there is a loss, but in reality, a penny allows for commerce, and will be used and re-used many hundreds of times in its lifetime creating a value that far outstrips the cost of minting it.