Douglas Todd: The harrowing realities of Metro Vancouver’s increasing traffic jams are revealed in startling new data and commuters’ tales
Travel times on Metro Vancouver’s roads have roughly doubled in recent decades, say fed-up residents.
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Although three levels of government failed this month to provide Postmedia with meaningful numbers on changing transit commuting times over the decades, a private company has provided disturbing transit data.
The average time spent on a transit journey in Greater Vancouver, including waiting for a ride, is 60 minutes.
That means, says Moovit, the typical regular Metro Vancouver passenger will spend one year and eight months riding buses and SkyTrain in their lifetime.
Greater Toronto has the second worst transit trip times in North America, at 55 minutes, according to Moovit. Miami comes in third at 52 minutes.
That leaves us with readers’ own accounts. Here are some of them.
Environmental lawyer Mark Haddock remembers how, in the 1980s, he and colleagues in the B.C. forest service would set aside just 45 minutes to drive on the Trans-Canada from downtown Vancouver to their Chilliwack branch office. Now it often takes almost two hours.
Retiree Deborah Phelan recalls when it used to take her 30 to 45 minutes to get from New Westminster to either Port Moody, White Rock or downtown Vancouver. But now the trip to Vancouver chews up 90 minutes. “I feel terrible for anyone who has to commute in Metro Vancouver.”
David Lloyd, who lives on Vancouver’s west side, said for expeditions to places like the North Shore or South Delta he now plans on 20 to 60 minutes more than he did two decades ago. That’s assuming no accidents.
Stewart Frew is increasingly worried that if he or other residents of West Vancouver have a medical emergency they might not survive the ambulance trip to Lions Gate Hospital, particularly if there is a problem on the frequently backed-up Upper Levels Highway.
The only solution to grim congestion for Camille Corey, a teacher in Coquitlam, has been to live within a few minutes of her school. “I would not give up my proximity to work for any amount of money.”
Then there are the many who are preparing to leave Metro Vancouver for smaller cities in the province — like frustrated Vancouverite Patti Milsom, who compares driving in Metro to being in a “war zone.”
Two years ago, Gord Harskamp moved from Surrey to Courtenay, on Vancouver Island, and is glad he did. “I have nightmares,” he said, “about having to go to the mainland.”
Giles Peatfield also transitioned to the island community eight years ago. One day, he said, “A lady in a store asked if I had been impacted by the traffic in Courtenay, to which my answer was, ‘Ma’am, you don’t have traffic here.’”
That said, Peatfield notices more recently that local traffic jams have been occurring more frequently in his adopted region — as more people are escaping Metro Vancouver’s “traffic congestion,” “densification” and “insufficient public transit.”
What’s to be done about Metro’s commuter chaos?
While provincial and local governments focus on adding rapid transit, expanding highways, creating HOV lanes and improving cycling, Vancouver Sun readers shared some different recommendations.
So-called “congestion pricing,” which charges drivers to travel on certain high-demand routes, was proposed by several readers, including David Lloyd.
“We had the germ of road pricing with the tolls on the new Port Mann Bridge,” said Lloyd. “But of course those got tossed in the heat of the 2017 election campaign,” when the NDP announced it would end the tolls. “Unfortunately,” Lloyd said, “road pricing is a political minefield that no one wants to touch.”
Here’s another idea to ease traffic jams that the city of Vancouver and province show no signs of embracing. That is electrician Todd Stewart’s recommendation to slow down the cavalcade of tower construction in the core of Vancouver, which brings ever more tradespeople and others into the zone, creating gridlock.
Even though the city of Vancouver is already the most dense in Canada, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and his allies are indirectly working to make it more congested, particularly through the Broadway plan. They claim more residential towers, plus subways, will ease astronomical housing and rent prices.
“Not only has the population doubled in Metro Vancouver,” since 1986, said proponent Lee Lockwood, “the rush to Squamish and the eastern Fraser Valley in the futile search for affordable housing and the hope of a home with a few square feet of lawn has led to major chaos on roadways in and out of Metro.”
But while traffic jams expand everywhere, the light rail project is not close to going ahead. Lockwood said Premier David Eby, who is focusing on the much more costly SkyTrain extension to Langley, has not shown much interest in the idea.