Harold Munro's cheap tabloid of corporate trash is reporting that "Prompted by public pressure, TransLink and the city have restored lanes of traffic along much of 104th Avenue as part of the design for the $1.65 billion Surrey light rail transit project, officials said in a technical briefing Thursday. Instead of crimping lanes of traffic down to one in either direction of tram tracks running down the centre of 104th Avenue, TransLink project director Stephan Mehr said there will be two lanes wherever the existing right-of-way will allow, which will be about 70 per cent of the route."
First things first. Translink is now admitting that the original plan for the Surrey LRT would cripple traffic along 104th down to one lane in either direction. Doing that would be completely insane. It would be an infrastructure nightmare. 104th is a main transportation route for traffic. 108th backs up in the afternoon because it is two lanes with no turning lane. People making a left hand turn cause traffic to back up in the afternoons. Reverting 104th to a single lane each way with no left hand turning lanes is completely insane. So is their revised corporate spin.
Their new plan states there will be two lanes wherever the existing right-of-way will allow, which will be about 70 per cent of the route. How insane is that? Let me count the ways. There is no room for two lanes and a LRT on the ground unless they chop off everyone's from yard like they did along 160th and anywhere else they see fit. Having a road go from one lane to two lanes back and forth is virtually useless. It will bottleneck every time it goes to a single lane. This still does not resolve the problem of making a left hand turn on 104th after an LRT is in place. If you want to make a left hand turn and hold up traffic, you have to wait for oncoming traffic then look in your rear view mirror to make sure a train isn't roaring up behind you. It is structurally unsafe as the Skytrain for Surrey videos clearly show.
People who drive cars prefer Skytrain because Skytrain does not impede traffic. Newton will have the exact same problem. Although King George Hwy is much wider that 104th putting an on ground train down the middle of it will dramatically reduce the room available for the current lanes of traffic. There is no way they will be able to maintain 2 lanes of traffic at King George and 72nd Avenue. That will create colossal bottlenecks of traffic all along King George Hwy. This insane plan is not a step forward it is a giant leap back into the dark ages.
In addition to the same structurally dangerous task of making a left hand turn between trains, the other obvious problem is timing all the traffic lights to coordinate with the trains for traffic crossing the system. You think 88th crossing King George backs up now, wait until a LRT is in place. This whole plan is STUPID. Extending Skytrain to Newton would be far simpler, is would cost a lot less money and it wouldn't create the same infrastructure nightmare a LRT would.
The tax and spend mayor's glutton council needs to be replaced because they simply do not listen. Linda Hepner isn't running for Mayor because she knows her approval rating is at the lowest ever. We have them on the run. Now is the time to finish them.
As for Harold Munro's cheap tabloid of corporate propaganda, that isn't even worth lining the bird cage with. Harold Munro has destroyed a generation of credible news reporting. That is his legacy. God Bless Wayne Moriarty. May he Rest in Peace but God damn Harold Munro.
They should just fire all these cats and hire you, how much money would that save..... ;-)
ReplyDeleteA lot but that's not going to happen.
DeletePlus I like the "due to public pressure" bit. These f'ing people are SUPPOSED to be doing what the people who elected them want done, not what THEY want to do in opposition to the will of the electorate. If there was a provision in the law allowing for folks like this to be slapped around in the alley behind their office I'll bet you the stupid stuff would stop pretty quickly. They do not fear the ballot box. "Hey, aren't you so-and-so?" (SMACK)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know....actually, just being confronted in public wherever they go would probably do it, but Canadians are generally too polite for something like that. Plus most people don't even know what these folks look like. Maybe you need to make up some "WANTED" posters, the better to acquaint people with what they look like.....man, I can hear the squawking right now....
the picture of the bus and car is funny. it says so much.
ReplyDeletethank you for the laugh.