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Langford as a core municipality


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#101 On the Level

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 11:35 AM

Exactly. Living in Rotterdam for a year without a car gave me a real experience of the alternatives.


I'd love to see the type of infrastructure for transit that the Netherlands has, but we all know it can't happen here. Why? Size. You could almost fit the Netherlands on Vancouver Island for crying out loud.

Same goes for the great high speed train systems in places like Japan. If Canada was only 377 thousand sq km instead of the near 10m sq km, we could probably manage something too.

There is the rub....our obligations go to all our citizens, just as they do for the Netherlands but the Netherlands is not faced with large expanses of infrastructure. Comparing the two isn't much of a comparison.

#102 On the Level

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 11:47 AM

Oh....and for all of the posts about biking and walking around home depot.....don't tell anyone about the bike lane. Also don't tell anyone about the crosswalk and sidewalks.

Yes, that's it. Stay downtown. Costco is built on top of a mountain surrounded by vicious devil cars the likes not seen since Mad Max. Stu is commonly seen chained to the front of a flat black pickup shooting streams of fire from a large flame thrower at all of the god loving bicyclists.

#103 dasmo

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 11:51 AM

^oh c'mon, man ;)

 

The primary goal for that corridor is to move traffic as quickly and expediently as possible, not to create a walking paradise or a cycling network for ...whom, exactly? The tradesman? Or someone's mom buying 50 rolls of TP? 

Exactly those people. This is what makes downtown an international draw, It has walkable streets. 

After I drop off my stuff into my truck from home depot I could walk to Tim's instead of driving. If I lived in the condos behind the pub I might walk to Tim's instead of driving. Making this area pedestrian friendly absolutely would reduce congestion here. 

This aint fantasy stuff. It's simple planning. I've seen it done all around the world and it works. This strip mall style doesn't. It makes crappy places.... 


Edited by dasmo, 12 January 2017 - 11:51 AM.

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#104 nagel

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 12:24 PM

Oh....and for all of the posts about biking and walking around home depot.....don't tell anyone about the bike lane. Also don't tell anyone about the crosswalk and sidewalks.

Yes, that's it. Stay downtown. Costco is built on top of a mountain surrounded by vicious devil cars the likes not seen since Mad Max. Stu is commonly seen chained to the front of a flat black pickup shooting streams of fire from a large flame thrower at all of the god loving bicyclists.

You should try using those bike and walk facilities before glorifying them.  A 3 side-only crosswalk between 4 major centres.  Major detours required for pedestrians at at least 2 of the complexes.  Bike lanes that appear and disappear randomly, on roads that average well over 50 kph.

 

I wouldn't say Langford is anti-bike, but they certainly do not listen to any suggestions for improvement.  Thankfully most municipalities are actually open to ideas from users.


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#105 http

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 12:44 PM

i disagree, by that logic we should still have just the old island highway two lane all the way to nanaimo? why expand any road if capacity is pointless. the fact that this is even a discussion is indicative of our problem. a more serious city with leadership that had a clue would have acknowledged the situation decades ago and would be working together to solve our congestion. cities build roads. thats pretty much their raison d'etre

 

I direct you to Joel Cohen's classic, "The Counterintuitive in Conflict and Cooperation" - a short essay that illustrates, with grade school math, that increasing the "capacity" of a network can make getting through it more difficult (page 5 of the pdf if you want to skip the good stuff). Cohen points out a few other simple systems that have mind-bogglingly unexpected results when toyed with. Real traffic situations (and more representative models) are more complex, but encounter identical issues. The converse, that removing a section of a network can speed things up, has been observed in the real world also - a construction project in New York City comes to mind, I can't remember the details, but I'm sure CoreyBurger would know a few more examples off the top of his head. Corey?

 

Expanding road capacity blindly, building roads, does not automagically improve things.

 

Grade school math.

 

--

* This must be like the fifth time I've referenced this article in the past decade on the forum. Or maybe the twentieth.


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#106 On the Level

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 01:37 PM

You should try using those bike and walk facilities before glorifying them. A 3 side-only crosswalk between 4 major centres. Major detours required for pedestrians at at least 2 of the complexes. Bike lanes that appear and disappear randomly, on roads that average well over 50 kph.

I wouldn't say Langford is anti-bike, but they certainly do not listen to any suggestions for improvement. Thankfully most municipalities are actually open to ideas from users.


I have used them and while they are not perfect, they are perfectly usable.

Most of the traffic issues beyond the bottleneck to get past McKenzie are caused by 2 issues;

1) Those that don't live in the Westshore trying to get back onto the highway to head back into town.

2) Idiotic Min of Hwy traffic calming.....specifically keeping the 3 lights on Veterans out of sync so you get a green light to see the next light change to yellow a few meters up the road. Genius.

#107 nagel

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 03:16 PM

Catherine Holt from the Chamber on CFAX right now calling for everything I've stumped for.  BRT lanes to westshore and a regional transportation service.  Changes in behaviour from driving to transit.

 

Bike lanes - pain in the butt short term but a modernizing strategy for the long term.  Would be better if the bike lanes were regional as well.  Need more bike lanes and more bike parking.  Bike lanes bearing an unfair burden of criticism regarding parking lost downtown.

 

Modern cities limit the use of cars downtown.

 

Holy s*** I think I'm in love.


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#108 dasmo

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 03:20 PM

This isn't new...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S44ypkneFQ&feature=youtu.be


Edited by dasmo, 12 January 2017 - 03:20 PM.


#109 LJ

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 07:43 PM

Nope. It's purely a planning cluster f*k. If it was me, I would have mandated strata parking for the area so no place can block the flow of people. I would also have forced better pedestrian movement between and within these complexes. This would potentially stop someone from driving from Home Depot, to Tim's to the market. Right now this is what one would do because you will risk your life otherwise.  There was no planning there. It was simply opened up as a free for all. 

 

What's wrong with the existing crosswalks that connect HD to Tims to the Market? I see people using them all the time and I don't see dead bodies everywhere.


Life's a journey......so roll down the window and enjoy the breeze.

#110 Coreyburger

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 09:42 PM

Catherine Holt from the Chamber on CFAX right now calling for everything I've stumped for.  BRT lanes to westshore and a regional transportation service.  Changes in behaviour from driving to transit.

 

Bike lanes - pain in the butt short term but a modernizing strategy for the long term.  Would be better if the bike lanes were regional as well.  Need more bike lanes and more bike parking.  Bike lanes bearing an unfair burden of criticism regarding parking lost downtown.

 

Modern cities limit the use of cars downtown.

 

Holy s*** I think I'm in love.

 

The Chamber's recent comment in their newsletter echoed this - great to hear from business leaders



#111 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 12 January 2017 - 09:50 PM

What measured metric suggests we will all move to bikes?  Self-driving cars does not suggest that.  An older population does not suggest that.  The CRD destination movement count says we have not changed our habits in 20 years.


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#112 nagel

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Posted 13 January 2017 - 07:27 AM

What measured metric suggests we will all move to bikes?  Self-driving cars does not suggest that.  An older population does not suggest that.  The CRD destination movement count says we have not changed our habits in 20 years.

I'll try and be brief so we don't hijack the thread w/ off topic stuff.  I don't think anyone has suggested "all" but a doubling of mode share is quite doable if we just provide safe routes.  We haven't provided safe routes in those 20 years.  Vancouver has and my understanding is they saw a doubling of one of their top two metrics (% of trips or commuter mode share, I forgot which one).


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#113 gkz

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Posted 06 January 2020 - 08:28 PM

I think it's time to revive this thread now that the impact of the McKenzie Interchange is being felt.

 

The thesis is:

These significant transportation network improvements will drastically reduce travel times to and from Langford, and I believe will change its perception from being a peripheral municipality, to being a core municipality of Victoria.

How do you think the perception and development of Langford (and the Western Communities in general) will change with these large reductions in travel time to Victoria proper?


Edited by gkz, 06 January 2020 - 08:29 PM.


#114 Mike K.

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Posted 07 January 2020 - 05:37 AM

Real-estate values dictate everything, and we’re going to see a spike in valuation with the completion of the interchange.

There are two key things going for Langford:
- land to build on
- huge demand for government offices

Watch for some interesting things to materialize out there, on the Westshore collectively.

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#115 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 07 January 2020 - 05:47 AM

it would be interesting to see a map of property available for subdivisions.  does such a thing exist?

 

in here is a map of the urban containment boundary:  https://www.crd.bc.c...-2016-03-11.pdf  it seems fairly arbitrary to me.

 

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Edited by Victoria Watcher, 07 January 2020 - 05:54 AM.


#116 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 07 January 2020 - 06:20 AM

this interchange is also good news for royal bay sales.



#117 Mike K.

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Posted 07 January 2020 - 06:33 AM

For Sooke, too, and they have their own highway improvement starting this year.

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#118 spanky123

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Posted 18 April 2020 - 02:27 PM

According to media reports, Langford spent $100,000 on its Covid website and testing of 30 residents.

 

https://covidlangford.com/

 

https://www.sookenew...demic-response/



#119 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 18 April 2020 - 02:42 PM

but if it saves just one life it’s worth it.

#120 spanky123

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Posted 18 April 2020 - 02:44 PM

but if it saves just one life it’s worth it.

 

Looks like I may have misread the release, the website alone cost $100K?!



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