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It's really 8 lanes into 1, but by your photo's position the initial merges at Marine/Capilano and Marine/Taylor have already taken place.
It totally sucks, but that's the bridge that we have. It won't get any better anytime soon, as the North Shore doesn't seem to want to prioritize public transit options.
Adding road space for vehicles never solves traffic gridlock. It's induced demand. If you build more lanes, more people will just choose to drive on them.
Called 'traffic evaporation'
https://thecityfix.com/blog/traffic-evaporation-what-really-happens-when-road-space-is-reallocated-from-cars/
https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/reducing-roads-can-cause-traffic-to-evaporate/
see also: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213624X22002085
Agreed!!! I am 100% in favour of a SkyTrain crossing of the inlet! The entire region needs more fast, reliable public transportation options that are independent of regular traffic congestion. SkyTrain, light rail, etc.
I grew on in the NS and I used to work downtown in the late 90s. If I left for work at 8:15 I would be at work by 8:55, if I left for work at 8:50, I would be at work by 9:05
Between 2-6pm you can’t really go anywhere in north van on, or below the highway. If I wasn’t so nuts about mountain sports, there’s no way I’d even think of living here
I went to see a house with my friend in West Van a month ago on a Friday afternoon, the traffic was so bad he told the realtor he wouldn’t consider anything on the North Shore again lol
Public transit. Buses, trains, ferries. That is the solution.
It does mean the city of North Van will have to accept being an actual city, like they should have done decades ago.
Yeah, the real problem with the traffic on this bridge isn't that there's only one through lane, it's that too many different lanes join it all close together. It messes with how the traffic flows having lanes merge before they've had a chance to space back out from the last merge, and makes drivers miserly over space and position.
So build it. Honestly, the best thing we can do to fix traffic on the Lion's Gate is to *eliminate* a lane and replace it with a Skytrain line and biking. You can't build more lanes to fix traffic.
Seriously great idea. Anyone have the stats on throughput of 2 lane roadway vs our skytrain? I bet skytrain wins by like 10 to 1
Edit:
Alright I googled it and found some estimates. Apparently the bridge currently moves [60,000 - 70,000](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_Gate_Bridge) cars per day.
The entire skytrain network has a daily ridership of [526k](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)). This isn’t super relevant imo
However, that same link says peak frequency of the trains is between 2 and 3 minutes and each train holds up to 532 passengers (number varies depending on which train). So let’s say 532x20 trips in an hour = 10k passengers per hour. It would only take 6 hours of peak ridership to match current lions gate numbers. Now spread that out across the whole day and it could be a huge difference. Now take that a step further and leave 1 or 2 lanes of traffic on the bridge PLUS the skytrain.. just doubled your capacity and removed any congestion. People will see the skytrain RIPPING past them every single morning and slowly but surely, they’ll start taking transit into downtown.
If someone has better stats than I do, I’m all ears. This was some quick napkin math lol.
This is the exact thing that blows my mind about the 4-lane each way Massey tunnel replacement. It's just going to bottleneck at the Oak street bridge as most of that traffic is going into Vancouver anyways. At least it would improve the journey home for those coming from the Oak st bridge.
iirc, the reason why the new Massey bridge/tunnel proposals were delayed so much is because the cities north of the Fraser were against it for this reason.
As someone who drives from Seattle to Vancouver fairly often, I'm so excited about the tunnel replacement. Right now if I don't leave before noon, I can't leave until after 7. If I leave after noon, I hit the one lane northbound at the tunnel and sit there forever. If I leave after 3pm I hit northbound Everett traffic and sit longer. I need to sit until at least 7pm to finally make it without sitting still on some freeway.
I know I'm an edge case but it'll be great to have a little bit more flexibility.
Hard disagree. Richmond has 250,000 residents as of 2017. Loads of people exit at Steveston, Westminster, connector and Bridgeport. The connector feeds New West, South Burnaby, and the North Valley. Thinking most of the traffic ends up on Oak is a very Vancouver centric way of thinking
Not my experience. You get through the merge and speed up in the one or two lanes through Stanley park to just pile into more traffic downtown. If the bridge had 50 lanes you’d still pile into the downtown traffic
1. In the short-term there is no alternative. The bridge has three lanes so what are you going to do.
2. In the long-term, we could widen the bridge to four lanes in each direction so there are no zipper merges. But in addition to being ungodly expensive, that would require widening the bottleneck on the DT side, the Stanley Park causeway. Do we really want an eight-lane road in the park?
3. Even if you increase the capacity of the bridge, that would just lead to problems elsewhere. Georgia and Pender would just be jammed with traffic DT. Same with Marine, Capilano, and Taylor on the NS.
4. More capacity would likely be absorbed almost immediately by more vehicles (induced demand). Most lower mainlanders know to avoid Park Royal and the NS in general on weekends, and to get a really early start if you’re headed to Whistler. A lot of new trips would be created with a wider bridge and (perceived) lower congestion, people might shift their route from the IWMB to the LGB, and some people who previously biked or took the bus might start driving themselves.
People are addicted to driving. I remember a few years ago this very sub ridiculed a new rental apartment for not having a 1:1 parking spot supply even though the apartment was next to the sea bus.
Some people also cannot fathom that anyone else wouldn't be so addicted. They're sure that if those buildings are not 1:1 parking, the street parking will be jammed. Because you can't be a working adult without a car? But I've only ever rented in zero-parking pre-50's apartment buildings as an adult and there are maybe 3 in 10 units with private cars. You go into it knowing there's no car option.
Saw recently that a developer posted the interest in their new rental units, 2/3 weren’t interested in a parking spot.
I believe Vancouver now makes about 50% of bedrooms have a parking space.
It's clear from this image that the merging down is NOT the bottleneck. If the merge was the problem, the bridge itself would be empty. But the bridge is backed up as well, meaning that it's ALREADY moving cars faster than downtown can accept them.
Plus, widening the bridge would literally do nothing. The issue is downtown, and you can't make downtown's traffic better because it's limited by intersections, and adding more lanes to those would only make the intersections larger (so bigger to cross and with less space between them), more complicated (so the light cycle is even more complicated and inefficient), and require cars to make more lane changes, increasing accident risk and reducing efficiency.
It was the North Shore residents in the 90's....
- there was a chance to increase the number of lanes in the 90's when the bridge was rebuilt. They threatened Vancouver with a lawsuit if they voted for additional lane options as it meant tolling the Lion's Gate bridge. I still remember a West Van councilor showing up at a planning meeting to say "we are going to sue you". Phillip Owen snapped back "where were you" in the planning sessions. That West Van councilor was likely trying to save his neck for an upcoming municipal election. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCU4v4Cw8E4
- a Lion's Gate toll bridge mean additional traffic funneling over to the already congested Iron Workers. Kinda like what happened to New West and the Pattullo Bridge when the Port Mann was initially tolled.
- tolling the Iron Workers to balance the congestion on the Lion's Gate was not an acceptable option to North Shore residents.
Adding lanes to the Lionsgate Bridge would have been a terrible idea in every way possible. Very simply, there isn't anywhere for that traffic to go on the Vancouver side.
The traffic that you are seeing in that picture is crawling all the way through downtown. If there was two lanes in both directions, the two lanes headed south would be just as backed up.
**West and North Vancouver need to accept a skytrain line** that comes from Vancouver, passes through North Vancouver and then terminates (at least) at Park Royal Mall, if not all the way to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry terminal.
There is nowhere to build another car bridge that wouldn't need MASSIVE additional infrastructure AND wouldn't just create a new congestion problem.
Public Transit or crawl in traffic. Those are your choices.
Planning is well underway, they've narrowed it down to two options, both crossing beside the second narrows. One option is from downtown, the other from metro town.
See https://www.nsnews.com/local-news/all-3-north-shore-municipalities-press-mayors-council-for-rapid-transit-line-5038722
It's a proposal, not yet a plan. It would come after the Surrey and UBC extensions, possibly after Langley and further Evergreen extensions. We'll be lucky if it starts construction in the next 20 years.
Langley is already planned for all at once and starting soon and technical assessments are starting this summer for UBC. North Shore might be sooner than we think. I'd put my money on construction starting before 2035.
Honestly would be cool to see a SkyTrain network that extends out from Port Coquitlam in the Evergreen extension out to Belcarra and across the inlet to Deep Cove and connecting back in a large loop. They could tunnel under the area to avoid damaging the beautiful seascape and Belcarra park. It would be extremely expensive but would definitely be cool to see. Would sure help cut travel time across that narrow belt of water for sure.
Wasn't only that though. West Enders complained of increased traffic, and called a congested bridge a responsible deterrent to North Shore folk.
Also the parks board rejected a 4 lane causeway through Stanley Park because it meant cutting down a few dozen trees.
I was all for hanging a sky train off the bottom of the bridge, but that got booted out too with the cost of getting from the bridge to Waterfront (or intermediate station etc.)
>Also the parks board rejected a 4 lane causeway through Stanley Park because it meant cutting down a few dozen trees.
Eventually those trees were cut down for the bike lane adjacent to the causeway.
City of Vancouver was also very strongly opposed to any options that might increase traffic to Vancouver. And the province limited funding -- meaning the four lane option would only work through a public/private partnership (remember -- this was the 90s) ... hence the toll.
West Van councilors simply don't have that much pull.
Not sure if you linked the right youtube -- it was a great account of the engineering, but I didn't catch the political side of it.
I remember the debate being hugely political from all sides. My recollection was that most of the opposition to increased lane capacity was from this side of the bridge -- though I don't doubt the NS would be the ones arguing against tolls, since they would be most affected by them.
IMHO, the Lions Gate, Ironworkers, Oak, Knight, Patullo, Arthur Lang, Port Mann, Golden Ears, Alex Fraser, Masey Tunnel, and Pitt River bridges should all have a $1.25 toll on them. Start shifting user behaviour.
I know it would shift mine.
Hi from the lady currently doing a lane change :) Not super powerful feeling, just stress from ungodly amounts of southbound traffic, and people on twitter calling me stupid.
You are a beautiful powerful human being and I believe in you and trust your decision making abilities. Now flip that switch 30 times really fast, what’s the worst that could happen?
That was be absolute chaos! Thankfully that's not possible with the lane control system. Things are timed out for safety of travelers. Although I have always wanted to give people "what they want" and leave 2 lanes southbound all afternoon. I've always wondered how far I could back up traffic if I tried!
Somebody did an AMA with that job a couple years back
Here it is
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/48m9i2/i_used_to_run_the_lane_control_system_on_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I remember a few years ago this very sub ridiculed a new rental apartment for not having a 1:1 parking spot supply even though the apartment was next to the sea bus.
People just want everything.
That is why congestion zones are introduced in other cities around the world so that commuters use public transport. Most of the cars are occupied by single travellers. I’m not blaming the public. More efficient public transportation is needed.
Funny story.
I was on the bus once and the traffic was heavy but flowing. A woman next to me was on her phone chatting with someone and I guess she was from somewhere else because was in AWE of the bridge.
"They're just... merging. Nobody is honking, nobody is budging, everybody is just waiting their turn and going onto the bridge."
It's slow, but it works.
I once rode from Broadway and Cambie over the bridge to British Properties. There was an accident on the Lions Gate so only I could pass. When coming back the accident still hadn't been cleared and traffic was still stopped.
Honestly keeping the bridge constantly congested will only make a rail based public transit better. Imagine being able to travel the same distance in a third of the time with the train
I learned pretty early in my driving career that you just don't drive southbound over the LGB even remotely close to rush hour. Sunday's are best avoided as well.
Actually I just avoid it at all costs. What North Shore? That's how bad the traffic jam was on February 9th, 2018, at 4:49 PM.
there is no such thing as "handling today's load." if they made the bridge capacity higher, the traffic would grow commensurately higher almost immediately. in city planning this is called [induced demand](https://www.planetizen.com/definition/induced-demand).
the only solution, if you want to get a whole bunch of people into a dense downtown core, is for most of those people to not be using individual transport.
yeah exactly. the idea is that almost everyone thinks of commute/driving length in terms of time rather than distance. relieve a bottleneck somewhere, that route suddenly takes less time, and then more people suddenly want to live on the other end of that route because the commute just became an acceptable length of time for them...until the induced demand catches up, the traffic gets worse, their commute time gets longer again, and they come on reddit to complain about it.
For some unexplained reason, this is one of the most successful zippers by Vancouver drivers. People almost always get it.
..Then instantly forget how to merge everywhere else at all times.
It isn't the merging. It is the volume of traffic attempting to get into downtown Vancouver. There isn't anywhere for these cars to go once they are across and there never will be.
Is this a joke? You can see that the single lane traffic on the bridge is bumper to bumper... how would a more efficient zipper merge prior to that change the pace?
I live and work on the North Shore, I can’t remember the last time I went slumming over the water, I mean, why would you? Have you seen it over there, it’s scary.
Back in the day when this was constructed it could accommodate traffic. It was a 2 lane bridge and could accommodate traffic volumes quite capably. The bridge was widened to allow pedestrians to cross in a safer way and eventually lane reversal was introduced.
What you experience today is the product of growth and development in the region. There was always talk of another connection from near Deep Cove (it'll never happen of course) and it's a shame that land wasn't protected for a transportation corridor bit oh well.
There are a lot of forces at play to find a solution that can accommodate upwards of 70,000 to 100,000 vehicles that cross Lion's Gate daily.
I used to do this drive to and from work almost daily. I found a way to time it so I could make it across so lane reversal was in my favour.
I feel like everyone is a transportation engineer until you actually realize what goes into planning new roads/bridges or modifying existing infrastructure to meet the heavy traffic volumes and demands in the area.
This isn't a finger pointing exercise. I always reminded myself this
**I'm not in traffic. I am traffic**
But a long term solution will take budget and forward thinking and planning. Think a 100 year plan not the normal 10 to 30 year long range planning.
Actually it’s studied by traffic planners worldwide. They come here to see it, because it’s one of the few places in the world a zipper merge like this works so incredibly well.
Surprisingly I heard a traffic engineer on the radio about 8 years ago and they said that overall traffic / number of cars in downtown hasn't changed since the mid 60's. I doubt it's changed much since I heard the interview.
Hey I totally get how it seems ridiculous but the thing with these sorts of bottlenecks is you're really just choosing where you want the bottleneck to happen. If this bridge had like 6 lanes and all this traffic flew over it no problem, then you'd have all these cars packed in at Cardero or something instead.
It's straight up just too many cars on the road, and they're all gonna end up idling somewhere because at junctions traffic merges or splits into different directions, and either way you end up with congestion when all this "free-flowing" traffic tries to go to the same place. Whether that's an offramp of a highway, the first major intersection, the on-ramp to a highway/bridge, etc.
Realistically given the narrow capacity it possibly would have been better served using a straight up traffic signal rather than having so many lanes merging together, but I think the way they have it set up here is to attempt to avoid bridge traffic from blocking through traffic on Marine.
Here’s the North Shore:
2:30, trade workers are off work and on the road
3:00, kids get out of school
3:15, Ferry from Langdale arrives in Horseshoe Bay
3:20, Ferry from Nanaimo arrives in Horseshoe Bay
4pm, 5pm, (almost) everyone else hits the road
And then it is all a mess!
My friends laughed at me for moving to Langley when the bridge had tolls.
A bunch of them moved to the north shore. Now they constantly complain about traffic coming over the bridges.
When I worked at UBC there was a new professor who moved here from California and was looking for a permanent residence. He thought the North Shore would be great. He was told otherwise!
Funny I was just thinking about this as I tried to make my way through this merging mess today. The way people merge makes this area even worse than it needs to be. If people would all zipper merge properly it would move much more effectively than it does now. What I see is some people zipper merging properly by driving to the end of the lane and alternating, some people merging early, and some people not letting people in. Just drive to the end of the lane, alternate (zipper) merge, and it will move faster. You are not being polite by merging early, you are creating more delays.
https://preview.redd.it/kktgrav81opa1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=d724b3c9072b5a50405dc2b48c89a89faccd0a6d
It's been this way for the better part of a century and continues to work fairly well.
Unless you honestly think Vancouver is going to put a freeway through downtown you're just pissing into the wind, mate.
Barring trains, tunnels, more lanes (which to a tunnel to bypass downtown to the south would be sick but horrendously expensive)… one thing that could improve the flow would be better lane markings and signals to facilitate the merge. Oh yeah train to squamish / Whistler would be sick too.
It is time for the north shore to accept some major transit improvements because that is the only thing that can fix this.
You can only cram so many cars through the downtown.
Do you have a solution, short of building a new bridge, which is a terrible idea, there is no solution that doesn’t involve transit or simply discouraging crossings.
The bridge was built in 1938 and only has three lanes (and only had 2 originally). The road it connects to has four total lanes. The DNV/WV idiots who thought it was sensible to connect 10 lanes to it are the people who fucked up.
The solution is North Van Skytrain.
As a European who has never been to Vancouver, I'm actually really surprised that rarely anyone is talking about public transport in the comments?
Widening roads will just cause more traffic, time to add some bus lanes or a rail tunnel, maybe?
>As a European who has never been to Vancouver, I'm actually really surprised that rarely anyone is talking about public transport in the comments?
I'm constantly talking about the need for rapid transit across the North Shore. There is no reasonable way for people who live on the North Shore to get around without getting stuck in traffic for the bridges they don't plan to cross.
They alternate the counter flow. It has to be switched the other way even during rush hour because when traffic backs up on the downtown side it caused gridlock in the rest of downtown.
Don’t get me started on the set timing for which side gets two lanes. On Sundays it should be two lanes going into the city from 3-7 for all the Whistler traffic.
Which begs the question even further why it’s not two lanes coming from the north shore for extended periods during the winter ski season. There’s not an influx of vehicles headed to the north shore at that hour, but you’ve always got significant delays all the way up taylor way.
The main reasoning is that Georgia and downtown cannot handle the southbound traffic. That is the main bottleneck. The bridge operators can’t let the centre lane get jammed up (in case emergency vehicles need it) so when southbound traffic starts backing up onto the causeway, the centre lane gets switched back to northbound.
Seabus is awesome for getting downtown…..maybe more buses to connect to it, and a couple more sea buses if it gets more busy.
Oh heck make a gondola too!! Lol. Direct from the top of the hilly area neighborhoods 😏😝…..or a zip line if you want to be more adventurous and save money - “adventure city Vancouver” and it’ll really wake you up for work, too….,nothing like some rainy windy whiplash in the face……..imagine it! Business suits and zip lines! Loooool!! “Aaaahh!” 😂 Omg I need a nap….but I need to clean my apartment…..sleep deprivation makes for good ideas sometimes in the artistic rendering—-would you do it? Ride a zip line to work ?
You should try it at night when everyone is going full speed.
I'm used to doing it during stop-and-go, zipper merge daytime. The few times I've gone through it late at night it's like HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT EVERYBODY IS MERGING AAAAAAAA and then we're all flowing again.
One of the great pleasures of getting around in Vancouver in the evening rush hour is boarding a bus at Park Royal and bypassing the entire lineup of cars inching towards the Lions Gate.
At 5pm, it's 20 minutes (!) by bus from Park Royal to Georgia & Granville.
Run a skytrain line from royal park to waterfront over the bridge. Turn one of the bridge lanes into a single track rail alternating directions and hope the skytrain doesn’t breakdown halfway over the bridge. Dream about extending the line to horseshoe bay and along the shore to second narrows back over to burnaby.
This would be the absolute sure proof way to take some cars off the bridge. Since there’s only a single lane left each way for cars lol.
The tunnel would make sense with downtown, airport and highway exits....lions gate should be part of the tourist attraction and closed for traffic only bikes and touristy e shuttles with food trucks and arts and crafts. Voila problem solved!
Are you new here? This isn't new, lol.
Also, it's kind of like 9 lanes merging to one:
From the west, you have two lanes of Taylor Way traffic merging with two lanes of Marine Drive traffic, so four lanes into two. I think I'll add in people from the Park Royal side of Taylor Way as well, so really 5 lanes into two.
From the east, you have two lanes from Cap road merging with two lanes from Marine Drive, so also four lanes to two. (And that's ignoring any traffic trying to turn from Cap road from the south - seems not a lot of people try to do that. I've tried, and it's a little hair-raising).
So now we have 5 lanes from West Van, and 4 lanes from North Van, so it's 9 lanes. From there, the two sets of two merge, and finally, the resulting two lanes merge into one.
The big picture is 9 lanes into one.
It's a soul-sucking experience commuting from the North Shore in the afternoons and it can only get worse.
When the middle lane opens up to southbound, the only way you benefit is if you're already on the bridge deck when it changes. If you're in the back of the line, you think "sweet" as the traffic finally moves, but then you get a nasty surprise when you emerge out onto Georgia St.
No one, this was a gifted bridge in the 50/60s that was meant to be temporary and every time a plan to expand has been put forward it somehow hasn’t moved forward.
Traffic for a growing metropolitan region is something everyone learned of a long time ago- typical Canadian infrastructure plans for population growth = no plans.
Kind of high jacking the post, but while we’re here… can anyone explain to me the lane merging on Georgia going north towards the north shore?
There are the two left-most lanes, then a lane going to Stanley Park, and the HOV/ bus lane. I constantly see people taking the Stanley Park lane and trying to merge into the left-most lanes. I guess there’s technically no rules against it but it seems super rude and unfair. Where do people stand on this?
I dream of them extending the Canada Line East to Second Narrows, crosses to its first stop at Phibbs Exchange, then it goes underground with regular stops and finishes at the Horseshoe Bay Ferry terminal.
I would make it three track lines all the way from the Downtown Vancouver to the Ferries so that it can run expresses (since the ferry would cram the outbound regularly).
Since I am dreaming here, I would extend the other end of the Canada Line to terminate in Delta by River Road where they'd also make a huge park and ride. Then add another track line for expresses at rush hour that meets up with the express track from the Horseshoe Bay Ferry.
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It's really 8 lanes into 1, but by your photo's position the initial merges at Marine/Capilano and Marine/Taylor have already taken place. It totally sucks, but that's the bridge that we have. It won't get any better anytime soon, as the North Shore doesn't seem to want to prioritize public transit options.
Also it will just bottle neck downtown anyways. It already does with one lane.
This is a great point. Adding lanes won't solve for the congestion on Georgia St.
Adding road space for vehicles never solves traffic gridlock. It's induced demand. If you build more lanes, more people will just choose to drive on them.
Only thing I remember from my traffic engineering course: If you build it, they will come.
I learned the same from my porno theatre course.
I'm not sure what's funnier, your joke, or the concept of a porno theatre program.
Me on my way to take the first date to the theatre to see a play. (There is just a bed on stage, I enrolled us as actors.)
So if there are fewer lanes,.does demand decrease?
Yes. In the extreme case we get spots like Granville, with 0 lanes for cars and yet that thing moves a fuckton of humans on a weekend.
Yes.
Called 'traffic evaporation' https://thecityfix.com/blog/traffic-evaporation-what-really-happens-when-road-space-is-reallocated-from-cars/ https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/reducing-roads-can-cause-traffic-to-evaporate/ see also: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213624X22002085
Agreed!!! I am 100% in favour of a SkyTrain crossing of the inlet! The entire region needs more fast, reliable public transportation options that are independent of regular traffic congestion. SkyTrain, light rail, etc.
That traffic is a crawl all the way through most of the downtown core. I doubt that anyone there will exceed 30km/h for most of that journey.
Good? 30kph is plenty fast in densely populated places with lots of pedestrians.
I didn’t think I’ve ever been to the North Shore on an afternoon where there isn’t any traffic, doesn’t matter which day of the week
I grew on in the NS and I used to work downtown in the late 90s. If I left for work at 8:15 I would be at work by 8:55, if I left for work at 8:50, I would be at work by 9:05
Between 2-6pm you can’t really go anywhere in north van on, or below the highway. If I wasn’t so nuts about mountain sports, there’s no way I’d even think of living here
I went to see a house with my friend in West Van a month ago on a Friday afternoon, the traffic was so bad he told the realtor he wouldn’t consider anything on the North Shore again lol
Yes you can go the opposite way of traffic. Basically going west. But good luck trying to come back
Low density suburbs create traffic, that's just how it is.
When I lived in North Van about 20 years ago it was ok some times
[удалено]
Public transit. Buses, trains, ferries. That is the solution. It does mean the city of North Van will have to accept being an actual city, like they should have done decades ago.
Same, it always seems to go faster and more smoothly than I expect it should.
it just means a 3 lane bridge built 100 years ago when cars only became popular was never meant to sustain an urban area of 3 million people
CNV is doing a pretty good job getting people on bikes. There's some actual bike traffic at peak hours. Not the DNV or West Van though.
Yeah, the real problem with the traffic on this bridge isn't that there's only one through lane, it's that too many different lanes join it all close together. It messes with how the traffic flows having lanes merge before they've had a chance to space back out from the last merge, and makes drivers miserly over space and position.
If there were more lanes, traffic would just pile up on the other side of the bridge at the Denman lights.
Absolutely. Nutty how many people think there’s traffic capacity downtown for more of these people
What’you mean “these people”?
Whaddo *you* mean "these people?"
Everyone else but me.
What do you mean "whaddo you mean?"
I mean it in whatever way you can think of that you are most personally offended by
Horseshoe Bay people. The lowest of the low. Total scum.
Just dismantle the roads and build a fucking train on the bridge. Someone needs to do some unthinkable. Fucking horrendous, It is.
Can't build a train on the bridge unless you mean Skytrain
So build it. Honestly, the best thing we can do to fix traffic on the Lion's Gate is to *eliminate* a lane and replace it with a Skytrain line and biking. You can't build more lanes to fix traffic.
Seriously great idea. Anyone have the stats on throughput of 2 lane roadway vs our skytrain? I bet skytrain wins by like 10 to 1 Edit: Alright I googled it and found some estimates. Apparently the bridge currently moves [60,000 - 70,000](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_Gate_Bridge) cars per day. The entire skytrain network has a daily ridership of [526k](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)). This isn’t super relevant imo However, that same link says peak frequency of the trains is between 2 and 3 minutes and each train holds up to 532 passengers (number varies depending on which train). So let’s say 532x20 trips in an hour = 10k passengers per hour. It would only take 6 hours of peak ridership to match current lions gate numbers. Now spread that out across the whole day and it could be a huge difference. Now take that a step further and leave 1 or 2 lanes of traffic on the bridge PLUS the skytrain.. just doubled your capacity and removed any congestion. People will see the skytrain RIPPING past them every single morning and slowly but surely, they’ll start taking transit into downtown. If someone has better stats than I do, I’m all ears. This was some quick napkin math lol.
This is the exact thing that blows my mind about the 4-lane each way Massey tunnel replacement. It's just going to bottleneck at the Oak street bridge as most of that traffic is going into Vancouver anyways. At least it would improve the journey home for those coming from the Oak st bridge.
You can divert to Knight st bridge as well.... But I agree it's just shifting the problem.
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iirc, the reason why the new Massey bridge/tunnel proposals were delayed so much is because the cities north of the Fraser were against it for this reason.
As someone who drives from Seattle to Vancouver fairly often, I'm so excited about the tunnel replacement. Right now if I don't leave before noon, I can't leave until after 7. If I leave after noon, I hit the one lane northbound at the tunnel and sit there forever. If I leave after 3pm I hit northbound Everett traffic and sit longer. I need to sit until at least 7pm to finally make it without sitting still on some freeway. I know I'm an edge case but it'll be great to have a little bit more flexibility.
Hard disagree. Richmond has 250,000 residents as of 2017. Loads of people exit at Steveston, Westminster, connector and Bridgeport. The connector feeds New West, South Burnaby, and the North Valley. Thinking most of the traffic ends up on Oak is a very Vancouver centric way of thinking
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Not my experience. You get through the merge and speed up in the one or two lanes through Stanley park to just pile into more traffic downtown. If the bridge had 50 lanes you’d still pile into the downtown traffic
1. In the short-term there is no alternative. The bridge has three lanes so what are you going to do. 2. In the long-term, we could widen the bridge to four lanes in each direction so there are no zipper merges. But in addition to being ungodly expensive, that would require widening the bottleneck on the DT side, the Stanley Park causeway. Do we really want an eight-lane road in the park? 3. Even if you increase the capacity of the bridge, that would just lead to problems elsewhere. Georgia and Pender would just be jammed with traffic DT. Same with Marine, Capilano, and Taylor on the NS. 4. More capacity would likely be absorbed almost immediately by more vehicles (induced demand). Most lower mainlanders know to avoid Park Royal and the NS in general on weekends, and to get a really early start if you’re headed to Whistler. A lot of new trips would be created with a wider bridge and (perceived) lower congestion, people might shift their route from the IWMB to the LGB, and some people who previously biked or took the bus might start driving themselves.
Long term Answer: more public transit
People are addicted to driving. I remember a few years ago this very sub ridiculed a new rental apartment for not having a 1:1 parking spot supply even though the apartment was next to the sea bus.
Some people also cannot fathom that anyone else wouldn't be so addicted. They're sure that if those buildings are not 1:1 parking, the street parking will be jammed. Because you can't be a working adult without a car? But I've only ever rented in zero-parking pre-50's apartment buildings as an adult and there are maybe 3 in 10 units with private cars. You go into it knowing there's no car option.
Saw recently that a developer posted the interest in their new rental units, 2/3 weren’t interested in a parking spot. I believe Vancouver now makes about 50% of bedrooms have a parking space.
It's clear from this image that the merging down is NOT the bottleneck. If the merge was the problem, the bridge itself would be empty. But the bridge is backed up as well, meaning that it's ALREADY moving cars faster than downtown can accept them. Plus, widening the bridge would literally do nothing. The issue is downtown, and you can't make downtown's traffic better because it's limited by intersections, and adding more lanes to those would only make the intersections larger (so bigger to cross and with less space between them), more complicated (so the light cycle is even more complicated and inefficient), and require cars to make more lane changes, increasing accident risk and reducing efficiency.
You mean like this? https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/transportation-old/model-for-twinning-of-lions-gate-dug-out-of-thrift-store-1934230
It was the North Shore residents in the 90's.... - there was a chance to increase the number of lanes in the 90's when the bridge was rebuilt. They threatened Vancouver with a lawsuit if they voted for additional lane options as it meant tolling the Lion's Gate bridge. I still remember a West Van councilor showing up at a planning meeting to say "we are going to sue you". Phillip Owen snapped back "where were you" in the planning sessions. That West Van councilor was likely trying to save his neck for an upcoming municipal election. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCU4v4Cw8E4 - a Lion's Gate toll bridge mean additional traffic funneling over to the already congested Iron Workers. Kinda like what happened to New West and the Pattullo Bridge when the Port Mann was initially tolled. - tolling the Iron Workers to balance the congestion on the Lion's Gate was not an acceptable option to North Shore residents.
Adding lanes to the Lionsgate Bridge would have been a terrible idea in every way possible. Very simply, there isn't anywhere for that traffic to go on the Vancouver side. The traffic that you are seeing in that picture is crawling all the way through downtown. If there was two lanes in both directions, the two lanes headed south would be just as backed up. **West and North Vancouver need to accept a skytrain line** that comes from Vancouver, passes through North Vancouver and then terminates (at least) at Park Royal Mall, if not all the way to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry terminal. There is nowhere to build another car bridge that wouldn't need MASSIVE additional infrastructure AND wouldn't just create a new congestion problem. Public Transit or crawl in traffic. Those are your choices.
I would love that, as a resident of West Vancouver. Where would be the best place for the skytrain to cross to the north shore? Along second narrows?
Planning is well underway, they've narrowed it down to two options, both crossing beside the second narrows. One option is from downtown, the other from metro town. See https://www.nsnews.com/local-news/all-3-north-shore-municipalities-press-mayors-council-for-rapid-transit-line-5038722
Wait . . . what??? They are actually considering this? Did I fall into a coma and now my public transit fantasies are coming true?
It's a proposal, not yet a plan. It would come after the Surrey and UBC extensions, possibly after Langley and further Evergreen extensions. We'll be lucky if it starts construction in the next 20 years.
Langley is already planned for all at once and starting soon and technical assessments are starting this summer for UBC. North Shore might be sooner than we think. I'd put my money on construction starting before 2035.
It won’t actually be built for 50 years though. Just because they are considering it doesn’t mean there is much planning let alone funding for it
Honestly would be cool to see a SkyTrain network that extends out from Port Coquitlam in the Evergreen extension out to Belcarra and across the inlet to Deep Cove and connecting back in a large loop. They could tunnel under the area to avoid damaging the beautiful seascape and Belcarra park. It would be extremely expensive but would definitely be cool to see. Would sure help cut travel time across that narrow belt of water for sure.
Its surprisingly shallow between Cate's Park and Admiralty Point. Just sayin'
Wasn't only that though. West Enders complained of increased traffic, and called a congested bridge a responsible deterrent to North Shore folk. Also the parks board rejected a 4 lane causeway through Stanley Park because it meant cutting down a few dozen trees. I was all for hanging a sky train off the bottom of the bridge, but that got booted out too with the cost of getting from the bridge to Waterfront (or intermediate station etc.)
>Also the parks board rejected a 4 lane causeway through Stanley Park because it meant cutting down a few dozen trees. Eventually those trees were cut down for the bike lane adjacent to the causeway.
Which is fine
City of Vancouver was also very strongly opposed to any options that might increase traffic to Vancouver. And the province limited funding -- meaning the four lane option would only work through a public/private partnership (remember -- this was the 90s) ... hence the toll. West Van councilors simply don't have that much pull. Not sure if you linked the right youtube -- it was a great account of the engineering, but I didn't catch the political side of it. I remember the debate being hugely political from all sides. My recollection was that most of the opposition to increased lane capacity was from this side of the bridge -- though I don't doubt the NS would be the ones arguing against tolls, since they would be most affected by them.
IMHO, the Lions Gate, Ironworkers, Oak, Knight, Patullo, Arthur Lang, Port Mann, Golden Ears, Alex Fraser, Masey Tunnel, and Pitt River bridges should all have a $1.25 toll on them. Start shifting user behaviour. I know it would shift mine.
My dream job is to be the guy that flips the switch that changes the counter flow, imagine having that much power?
Hi from the lady currently doing a lane change :) Not super powerful feeling, just stress from ungodly amounts of southbound traffic, and people on twitter calling me stupid.
You are a beautiful powerful human being and I believe in you and trust your decision making abilities. Now flip that switch 30 times really fast, what’s the worst that could happen?
That was be absolute chaos! Thankfully that's not possible with the lane control system. Things are timed out for safety of travelers. Although I have always wanted to give people "what they want" and leave 2 lanes southbound all afternoon. I've always wondered how far I could back up traffic if I tried!
Do it……Do it now
I have finally found the one who has cursed me.
I worships your godlike shadow.
Somebody did an AMA with that job a couple years back Here it is https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/48m9i2/i_used_to_run_the_lane_control_system_on_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Thanks for posting. Super interesting thread.
I'm happily surprised that the responses here are not "we need more lanes"
This subreddit has been consistently pro-transit in the past year or so that I've been paying attention. I love it.
I remember a few years ago this very sub ridiculed a new rental apartment for not having a 1:1 parking spot supply even though the apartment was next to the sea bus. People just want everything.
We need more lanes And blackjack! And hookers!
Philipkfry approves of this comment
That is why congestion zones are introduced in other cities around the world so that commuters use public transport. Most of the cars are occupied by single travellers. I’m not blaming the public. More efficient public transportation is needed.
Nothing scares a god-fearing Vancouverite more than the possibility of a congestion zone
Are you new here, OP?
[We just need 1 more lane across, it'll fix traffic, I swear bro](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0dKrUE_O0VE)
This is what I needed
Funny story. I was on the bus once and the traffic was heavy but flowing. A woman next to me was on her phone chatting with someone and I guess she was from somewhere else because was in AWE of the bridge. "They're just... merging. Nobody is honking, nobody is budging, everybody is just waiting their turn and going onto the bridge." It's slow, but it works.
It really freaked out my friends from the UK as well.
Takes the same amount of time every day on my bicycle.
I once rode from Broadway and Cambie over the bridge to British Properties. There was an accident on the Lions Gate so only I could pass. When coming back the accident still hadn't been cleared and traffic was still stopped.
This is the way
This is the way.
Lots more people riding the wrong way as of late. Not sure what's going on.
They don't know what they're doing or how to enter the bridge properly. Don't hesitate to let them know.
The North Van side is honestly really confusing as a cyclist.
Any tips on winter riding? I commute during the summer but bus in the winter.
A single SkyTrain track could take half those cars off the bridge. Just saying...
Honestly keeping the bridge constantly congested will only make a rail based public transit better. Imagine being able to travel the same distance in a third of the time with the train
I learned pretty early in my driving career that you just don't drive southbound over the LGB even remotely close to rush hour. Sunday's are best avoided as well. Actually I just avoid it at all costs. What North Shore? That's how bad the traffic jam was on February 9th, 2018, at 4:49 PM.
It was built in the 1930s and rich assholes do everything in their power to prevent more public transport
It's an extremely old bridge that was initially privately owned then sold to Vancouver not sure what more they can do with it
Busses only
two bus lanes, and a sky train lane!
Are you new here?
This is why we have 8 minute Seabus frequency now and plans for Skytrain to North Shore (albeit next decade)
That’s how it works :P Don’t let it get ya.. it is what it is. Put on some good tunes, chill out and respect the Zipper!!
The bridge was built in the 30's to handle projected traffic for 50 years. It definitely can't handle today's load lol.
there is no such thing as "handling today's load." if they made the bridge capacity higher, the traffic would grow commensurately higher almost immediately. in city planning this is called [induced demand](https://www.planetizen.com/definition/induced-demand). the only solution, if you want to get a whole bunch of people into a dense downtown core, is for most of those people to not be using individual transport.
If you build it, they will come. Lol. Like the current Port Mann, yeah. True enough
yeah exactly. the idea is that almost everyone thinks of commute/driving length in terms of time rather than distance. relieve a bottleneck somewhere, that route suddenly takes less time, and then more people suddenly want to live on the other end of that route because the commute just became an acceptable length of time for them...until the induced demand catches up, the traffic gets worse, their commute time gets longer again, and they come on reddit to complain about it.
😂 Is it your first time on the north shore? 😂
Do the zipper merge and you’ll be fine. It’s people who don’t zipper properly that slow everything down.
For some unexplained reason, this is one of the most successful zippers by Vancouver drivers. People almost always get it. ..Then instantly forget how to merge everywhere else at all times.
There is a HUGE difference between commuters and weekend drivers. Merge on a weekday on your way to work, smooth. Weekend, chaos and me first.
This is true but it’s still 4 lanes of traffic being jammed into 1.
5 if you count the wild card lane.
The amount of people that don't know how to zipper is truly infuriating
It isn't the merging. It is the volume of traffic attempting to get into downtown Vancouver. There isn't anywhere for these cars to go once they are across and there never will be.
Is this a joke? You can see that the single lane traffic on the bridge is bumper to bumper... how would a more efficient zipper merge prior to that change the pace?
The magic zipper merge cures all traffic woes including insufficient downstream capacity!
Was caught there today. I drive a manual. Not fun.
[just one more lane bro](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/417/131/c47.png)
Time to get an ebike.
Too bad all these people need their own 4-seat vehicle…
I live and work on the North Shore, I can’t remember the last time I went slumming over the water, I mean, why would you? Have you seen it over there, it’s scary.
Back in the day when this was constructed it could accommodate traffic. It was a 2 lane bridge and could accommodate traffic volumes quite capably. The bridge was widened to allow pedestrians to cross in a safer way and eventually lane reversal was introduced. What you experience today is the product of growth and development in the region. There was always talk of another connection from near Deep Cove (it'll never happen of course) and it's a shame that land wasn't protected for a transportation corridor bit oh well. There are a lot of forces at play to find a solution that can accommodate upwards of 70,000 to 100,000 vehicles that cross Lion's Gate daily. I used to do this drive to and from work almost daily. I found a way to time it so I could make it across so lane reversal was in my favour. I feel like everyone is a transportation engineer until you actually realize what goes into planning new roads/bridges or modifying existing infrastructure to meet the heavy traffic volumes and demands in the area. This isn't a finger pointing exercise. I always reminded myself this **I'm not in traffic. I am traffic** But a long term solution will take budget and forward thinking and planning. Think a 100 year plan not the normal 10 to 30 year long range planning.
The Guinness family thought it was fine. Which it was 90 years ago.
Been this way since the forties. But back then, they had to pay to cross.
Actually it’s studied by traffic planners worldwide. They come here to see it, because it’s one of the few places in the world a zipper merge like this works so incredibly well.
One time I did this at 5 pm in a 6 speed manual car with a tall first gear. Fuck me I wanted to die.
This is part of why I plan on never getting a car
The person who works from home and doesn’t commute
Surprisingly I heard a traffic engineer on the radio about 8 years ago and they said that overall traffic / number of cars in downtown hasn't changed since the mid 60's. I doubt it's changed much since I heard the interview.
Hey I totally get how it seems ridiculous but the thing with these sorts of bottlenecks is you're really just choosing where you want the bottleneck to happen. If this bridge had like 6 lanes and all this traffic flew over it no problem, then you'd have all these cars packed in at Cardero or something instead. It's straight up just too many cars on the road, and they're all gonna end up idling somewhere because at junctions traffic merges or splits into different directions, and either way you end up with congestion when all this "free-flowing" traffic tries to go to the same place. Whether that's an offramp of a highway, the first major intersection, the on-ramp to a highway/bridge, etc. Realistically given the narrow capacity it possibly would have been better served using a straight up traffic signal rather than having so many lanes merging together, but I think the way they have it set up here is to attempt to avoid bridge traffic from blocking through traffic on Marine.
Here’s the North Shore: 2:30, trade workers are off work and on the road 3:00, kids get out of school 3:15, Ferry from Langdale arrives in Horseshoe Bay 3:20, Ferry from Nanaimo arrives in Horseshoe Bay 4pm, 5pm, (almost) everyone else hits the road And then it is all a mess!
Just wait until all the high rises are done in park royal 😂
Work from home skip the commute
Ride a motorcycle or scooter and skip the lineup
My friends laughed at me for moving to Langley when the bridge had tolls. A bunch of them moved to the north shore. Now they constantly complain about traffic coming over the bridges.
When I worked at UBC there was a new professor who moved here from California and was looking for a permanent residence. He thought the North Shore would be great. He was told otherwise!
You have to live in Langley though.
It’s brutal for sure. “Resurfacing”
Massey Tunnel is 6 into 1 northbound when the afternoon counterflow is in.
I was just about to say this lol. Vancouver sure loves its reversible lanes
Funny I was just thinking about this as I tried to make my way through this merging mess today. The way people merge makes this area even worse than it needs to be. If people would all zipper merge properly it would move much more effectively than it does now. What I see is some people zipper merging properly by driving to the end of the lane and alternating, some people merging early, and some people not letting people in. Just drive to the end of the lane, alternate (zipper) merge, and it will move faster. You are not being polite by merging early, you are creating more delays. https://preview.redd.it/kktgrav81opa1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=d724b3c9072b5a50405dc2b48c89a89faccd0a6d
Between 10am -2pm is the only time to travel to the Shore.
Not to get all nerdy, but the zipper pattern (shown above) has been shown to be the most effective merging style.
Why is everyone in a car?
It's been this way for the better part of a century and continues to work fairly well. Unless you honestly think Vancouver is going to put a freeway through downtown you're just pissing into the wind, mate.
Barring trains, tunnels, more lanes (which to a tunnel to bypass downtown to the south would be sick but horrendously expensive)… one thing that could improve the flow would be better lane markings and signals to facilitate the merge. Oh yeah train to squamish / Whistler would be sick too.
It is time for the north shore to accept some major transit improvements because that is the only thing that can fix this. You can only cram so many cars through the downtown.
Zipper, and go.
Could just take the sea bus. It's fast, consistent and has a decent start/end time. Nothing but good things to say about it!
Do you have a solution, short of building a new bridge, which is a terrible idea, there is no solution that doesn’t involve transit or simply discouraging crossings.
Just one more lane, bro! I swear, just one more lane and I’m good, I promise! Just one more…
The bridge was built in 1938 and only has three lanes (and only had 2 originally). The road it connects to has four total lanes. The DNV/WV idiots who thought it was sensible to connect 10 lanes to it are the people who fucked up. The solution is North Van Skytrain.
Catch the bus and get your own lane
As a European who has never been to Vancouver, I'm actually really surprised that rarely anyone is talking about public transport in the comments? Widening roads will just cause more traffic, time to add some bus lanes or a rail tunnel, maybe?
That’s if they ever want to implement any Rapid Transit across, TransLink has plans but it’s decided in the communities if they want it
>As a European who has never been to Vancouver, I'm actually really surprised that rarely anyone is talking about public transport in the comments? I'm constantly talking about the need for rapid transit across the North Shore. There is no reasonable way for people who live on the North Shore to get around without getting stuck in traffic for the bridges they don't plan to cross.
If only north and west Vancouver invested in better transit options. That’s really the only solution to the mess that is the lions gate bridge.
Don't forget the bridge was built in the late 1930s. I doubt the designers anticipated this much traffic.
They alternate the counter flow. It has to be switched the other way even during rush hour because when traffic backs up on the downtown side it caused gridlock in the rest of downtown.
Bicycle
Don't complain about the traffic, YOU are the traffic!
Don’t get me started on the set timing for which side gets two lanes. On Sundays it should be two lanes going into the city from 3-7 for all the Whistler traffic.
It’s not set. It’s actively managed by a control centre depending on congestion, needs of emergency response vehicles, etc.
Which begs the question even further why it’s not two lanes coming from the north shore for extended periods during the winter ski season. There’s not an influx of vehicles headed to the north shore at that hour, but you’ve always got significant delays all the way up taylor way.
The main reasoning is that Georgia and downtown cannot handle the southbound traffic. That is the main bottleneck. The bridge operators can’t let the centre lane get jammed up (in case emergency vehicles need it) so when southbound traffic starts backing up onto the causeway, the centre lane gets switched back to northbound.
The bridge was built in the 1930s. Cut it some slack!
Zipper merge? Lol
The Guinness family.
Seabus is awesome for getting downtown…..maybe more buses to connect to it, and a couple more sea buses if it gets more busy. Oh heck make a gondola too!! Lol. Direct from the top of the hilly area neighborhoods 😏😝…..or a zip line if you want to be more adventurous and save money - “adventure city Vancouver” and it’ll really wake you up for work, too….,nothing like some rainy windy whiplash in the face……..imagine it! Business suits and zip lines! Loooool!! “Aaaahh!” 😂 Omg I need a nap….but I need to clean my apartment…..sleep deprivation makes for good ideas sometimes in the artistic rendering—-would you do it? Ride a zip line to work ?
This had been happening since this city was invented. You think they're gonna fix it now?
I hate driving through this bridge, regardless of days. I never get smooth traffic through here
You should try it at night when everyone is going full speed. I'm used to doing it during stop-and-go, zipper merge daytime. The few times I've gone through it late at night it's like HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT EVERYBODY IS MERGING AAAAAAAA and then we're all flowing again.
Have they ever thought about turning the counterflow lane into an HOV lane? Would encourage car pooling and switching to EVs.
Get out of your car and take the bus or carpool or ride a bike or walk or….,
One of the great pleasures of getting around in Vancouver in the evening rush hour is boarding a bus at Park Royal and bypassing the entire lineup of cars inching towards the Lions Gate. At 5pm, it's 20 minutes (!) by bus from Park Royal to Georgia & Granville.
Run a skytrain line from royal park to waterfront over the bridge. Turn one of the bridge lanes into a single track rail alternating directions and hope the skytrain doesn’t breakdown halfway over the bridge. Dream about extending the line to horseshoe bay and along the shore to second narrows back over to burnaby. This would be the absolute sure proof way to take some cars off the bridge. Since there’s only a single lane left each way for cars lol.
sorry y'all it was me, my bad.
The tunnel would make sense with downtown, airport and highway exits....lions gate should be part of the tourist attraction and closed for traffic only bikes and touristy e shuttles with food trucks and arts and crafts. Voila problem solved!
Are you new here? This isn't new, lol. Also, it's kind of like 9 lanes merging to one: From the west, you have two lanes of Taylor Way traffic merging with two lanes of Marine Drive traffic, so four lanes into two. I think I'll add in people from the Park Royal side of Taylor Way as well, so really 5 lanes into two. From the east, you have two lanes from Cap road merging with two lanes from Marine Drive, so also four lanes to two. (And that's ignoring any traffic trying to turn from Cap road from the south - seems not a lot of people try to do that. I've tried, and it's a little hair-raising). So now we have 5 lanes from West Van, and 4 lanes from North Van, so it's 9 lanes. From there, the two sets of two merge, and finally, the resulting two lanes merge into one. The big picture is 9 lanes into one. It's a soul-sucking experience commuting from the North Shore in the afternoons and it can only get worse. When the middle lane opens up to southbound, the only way you benefit is if you're already on the bridge deck when it changes. If you're in the back of the line, you think "sweet" as the traffic finally moves, but then you get a nasty surprise when you emerge out onto Georgia St.
No one, this was a gifted bridge in the 50/60s that was meant to be temporary and every time a plan to expand has been put forward it somehow hasn’t moved forward. Traffic for a growing metropolitan region is something everyone learned of a long time ago- typical Canadian infrastructure plans for population growth = no plans.
Kind of high jacking the post, but while we’re here… can anyone explain to me the lane merging on Georgia going north towards the north shore? There are the two left-most lanes, then a lane going to Stanley Park, and the HOV/ bus lane. I constantly see people taking the Stanley Park lane and trying to merge into the left-most lanes. I guess there’s technically no rules against it but it seems super rude and unfair. Where do people stand on this?
Lions gates is three lanes. You can’t add any more lanes without replace it with a new bridge. What do you want traffic engineers to do?!!?
The answer is public mass transit from Downtown to the north shore, but we'll.
Move! Problem solved. (Or take public transportation)
I rather take the Skytrain than dealing with traffic like this everyday.
Ah yes the skytrain line that runs to/from the North Shore
If only it went to the North Shore...
You mean SeaBus?
I dream of them extending the Canada Line East to Second Narrows, crosses to its first stop at Phibbs Exchange, then it goes underground with regular stops and finishes at the Horseshoe Bay Ferry terminal. I would make it three track lines all the way from the Downtown Vancouver to the Ferries so that it can run expresses (since the ferry would cram the outbound regularly). Since I am dreaming here, I would extend the other end of the Canada Line to terminate in Delta by River Road where they'd also make a huge park and ride. Then add another track line for expresses at rush hour that meets up with the express track from the Horseshoe Bay Ferry.
you must be new here/in Vancouver. It has worked perfectly fine for many years….