82 replies to this topic

[Bernard]

The access from the Galloping Goose and Lochside trails to Town and Country is non-existent at the moment. The development is supposed to improve this, but there is an emerging problem, not enough capacity on the Goose.

Regionally we are putting almost no money into building more and better walking/biking options for people.

Our region also needs to look at the road infrastructure, especially in the areas where we are reaching capacity. Most of the problem areas in the region are in Saanich and specifically in areas on the secondary routes. Interurban and Wilkinson is a good example of problems, or some of the areas near to UVic. Saanich is also doing nothing to improve the Tillicum and Highway #1 intersection or the Douglas and Saanich/Boleskine.

Saanich could use parking meters to buy carbon credits and require annual payments for each and every private parking space that could also go towards the same.

I still maintain that there should be no free streetside parking for commercial uses - we do not have roads so that we offer businesses free parking spaces, we have the roads to move traffic.

I am looking forward to the new Town and Country, it is the beginning of Saanich becoming something more than a bunch of unrelated suburbs.

[maniac78]

What specific road improvements would you like to see?

A cloverleaf/overpass at Douglas and Saanich and Saanich at Vernon etc would be a great start. These two intersections are the biggest problem in the area.

As for the galloping goose access I have no idea how anyone can say it's non-existant. You are aware of the ramp on carrey rd aren't you? It's pretty simple actually, you go up the ramp and then you turn into the parking lot. It'd be tough to make it more direct than that. You can even easily access the Save On Foods strip mall via the same route.

[Bernard]

The access from the Carey road ramp to the Town and Country shopping centre sucks - I say this as someone that has used it. If it was better designed for walking and biking, I would do that when I am not going for a major shopping trip.

There is no cross walk to get over Carey Road and no infrastructure at all for pedestrians or cyclists to get into and out of the shopping mall. Vernon and Blanshard are not great either.

Coming from the north, the lack of bike and walking access adds about 500 metres to either Save on Foods or Town and Country. For walking, 500 metres is a major increase. The bike access can not easily follow the same route a pedestrian does from the north.

The development at Town and Country is supposed to offer a new and better access from the trails to the site.

[Baro]

You understand that even a first year civil engineer that's even taken a cursory course in traffic planning will tell you that such improvements like more lanes and huge expensive overpasses only fix the problem for a couple years, and then developers and municipalities allow more suburban development which then pushes the new capacity to its limit? We can't keep up with it, it's imposible. Many areas in the US are finding now that after trying to keep building more roads and overpasses to solve traffic problem all it's done is thin their tax base to the point that they can barely pay for their existing cloverleafs let alone build new ones. The old 50's idea that taffic is like a liquid has been thoroughly debunked, traffic is a gas that will fill all available space given to it (and it stinks!).

[maniac78]

Sounds like a kind of anti-solution. If you can't keep up you just don't do anything and make it worse. It's kind of a new popular idea in liberal circles. If a problem becomes difficult you just give up. Just look at the pro-drug abuse movement for another example.

[gumgum]

^^It's only giving up to you because you don't understand the viable alternatives.

[Caramia]

Giving up? When you are raising a child you encourage the behaviour that is good and discourage what is bad. If your kid's room is too messy, do you build him more space so he has room to move around? No, you tell him to clean it up!

When you raise a city, you do the same thing, work to promote the traits that make it better, not worse. Or you can enable the mess and end up looking more like Atlanta, or LA. They built more roads - and if you have ever been stuck in traffic there you know how that turned out.

[Mike K.]

Best example of infrastructure expansion leading us back to square 1 is the TCH expansion. It happened right here. In little ol' Victoria. A few years ago.

Early '90's, Victorians can barely contain their glee as the TCH is widened to alleviate congestion. Late '90's, Victorians are bewildered by the "Colwood Crawl" said widening was promised to resolve.

Case in point, no matter how much we widen our roads, they'll fill up. People are opportunists and take any opportunity to do what is easier. And for most individuals what's easier is driving in lieu of walking, cycling or taking transit so give individuals the option of driving on a widened road and they'll milk it for what its worth.

[gumgum]

Ask yourself, Maniac, why is it that there is the same, if not less traffic in the core compared to the outskirts?
It isn't because there's more roads, faster roads, with overpasses and ten lane highways. It isn't because the core isn't dense and sparsely populated.
It is because, in the core, people are better able to bike, walk, bus from place to place.
There are more sidewalks, more frequent buses, more bike routes. And because of the density, distances are much shorter from place to place, so there's less need for one to hop in a vehicle as often.

I was in Saanich, dropping my dog at Pet Pampering kennel and on my way back I stopped at that shopping plaza on West Saanich Rd., just north of Quadra to go to the bank, grab something for my daughter to eat, and some beer at the liquor store. I couldn't believe the traffic. The design of that place is effing dreadful that it's impossible to walk from one store to another safely without risking life and limb. No thought was put into creating a pedestrian friendly destination. Not only was it unsafe, the distances between each store was pointless.It would be easy to understand why one would choose to drive from store to store within the plaza. Not to mention the need to drive there.
To each his own, Maniac. If you want to live in the suburbs then fine. But don't kid yourself into thinking that this car oriented lifestyle you lead, what with your Walmart, drivethough, ten lane highway, cloverleafs is the ultimate solution to anybody's problems.
Aside from the farcical nature the 1950s/60/70s urban design, you should remind yourself that our natural resources are finite, our space is finite and our effing waist sizes are finite too. Your version of the idyllic urban lifestyle and landscape is so passe, it's ridiculous.

[Zimquats]

The issue with this is that the city/provincial engineers already understand that more infrastructure is not the solution. However, the city/provincial politicians do not yet understand they need to tap the money they are saving by not increasing infrastructure into alternative transporation means. Ergo, we have a system that is only half functioning as it should.

More importantly, leaving it up to developers to solve (and obviously pay for) isn't the answer. It's not their role. Simply telling them "sorry, you can't build there because we have our heads shoved up our bums too far to see the solution to traffic" is a backwards policy. Telling them to build a cloverleaf or overpass is a backwards solution as well...it's like bringing sand to the beach. The solution is to prepare a comprehensive plan for the region (in this case the CRD), follow through with implementing that plan, then insist the developers site complies with said plan (and if Rob is in the meeting, they'll have to fund some of it too )

[maniac78]

Oh god another bunch of people saying "sustainable" this "sustainable" that. This whole forum is filled with supposed pro growth people who puport to not be nimbies. Except when it comes to solving congestion problems. Then it's all about more walking trails and light rail that won't solve a thing. Transportation infrastructure is part of any successful civilization.
Saying more infrastructure is not a viable solution is bordering on insanity.

As for the TCH I'd say it was a huge success. It helped expand the western communities in a big way. Since when did growth become failure on this forum? Since when did seeing infrastructure being well used become a failure?

[Zimquats]

Oh god another bunch of people saying "sustainable" this "sustainable" that. This whole forum is filled with supposed pro growth people who puport to not be nimbies. Except when it comes to solving congestion problems. Then it's all about more walking trails and light rail that won't solve a thing. Transportation infrastructure is part of any successful civilization.
Saying more infrastructure is not a viable solution is bordering on insanity.

As for the TCH I'd say it was a huge success. It helped expand the western communities in a big way. Since when did growth become failure on this forum? Since when did seeing infrastructure being well used become a failure?

haha, that's the first time I've ever been called a nimby lol. Bro, I drive a SUV, smoke, never take public transit, commute from Bear Mountain (which I approve of), don't own a blue box, don't even recycle paper, and build high rises.

Now, you might not think anyone but yourself knows anything about infrastructure, but I have this little piece of paper that says Bachleor of Science-Civil Engineering and, apparently, the folks who gave that to me seem to think I know at least the basics of it. Those basics are pretty simple...the world isn't still flat and bigger roads don't ease congestion.

Fact is it ain't 1940 anymore. We need alternate forms of transporation to alleviate congestion. In my mind the sooner the better. Not cuz I'm sustainable, nimby, environmental or any of those bad things....simply to get more people off my roads so I can drive my SUV to work faster.

[gumgum]

Oh god another bunch of people saying "sustainable" this "sustainable" that. This whole forum is filled with supposed pro growth people who puport to not be nimbies. Except when it comes to solving congestion problems. Then it's all about more walking trails and light rail that won't solve a thing. Transportation infrastructure is part of any successful civilization.
Saying more infrastructure is not a viable solution is bordering on insanity.

As for the TCH I'd say it was a huge success. It helped expand the western communities in a big way. Since when did growth become failure on this forum? Since when did seeing infrastructure being well used become a failure?

Well fortunately for you, your kind of blind arrogance is the sort of thing that is the driving force behind more and more of this backwards urban planning. We'll see more of this crap until they'll have to build a highway to get to one end of the Walmart parking lot to the other.

[maniac78]

haha, that's the first time I've ever been called a nimby lol. Bro, I drive a SUV, smoke, never take public transit, commute from Bear Mountain (which I approve of), don't own a blue box, don't even recycle paper, and build high rises.

Now, you might not think anyone but yourself knows anything about infrastructure, but I have this little piece of paper that says Bachleor of Science-Civil Engineering and, apparently, the folks who gave that to me seem to think I know at least the basics of it. Those basics are pretty simple...the world isn't still flat and bigger roads don't ease congestion.

Fact is it ain't 1940 anymore. We need alternate forms of transporation to alleviate congestion. In my mind the sooner the better. Not cuz I'm sustainable, nimby, environmental or any of those bad things....simply to get more people off my roads so I can drive my SUV to work faster.

Why are we building new ferries then? Surely that won't solve a damn thing! Clearly we need to instead build kayak docks and provide wet suits free of charge. More ferries is not the answer people! If we build more ferries people will just use them.

We're in serious trouble if urban planners think that building roads is a bad idea. This isn't 1970s Vancouver when they decided to not build freeways. Look at the result of that decision. The traffic is insane and getting worse. Not building freeways solves nothing. Saying that it's pointless to build a road because someone might use it is just strange.

[gumgum]

^What you're not retaining is that it's not a choice between building roads versus doing nothing. There is an a middle ground that requires intelligence and foresight, with a focus on the specific problem. Thinking beyond more than one facet of urban planning. It's about thinking outside the box.

[Mike K.]

Why are we building new ferries then? Surely that won't solve a damn thing! Clearly we need to instead build kayak docks and provide wet suits free of charge. More ferries is not the answer people! If we build more ferries people will just use them.

The new ferries are actually smaller than the existing super ferries. Considering the Spirit vessels can carry 470 vehicles and the new Coastal class vessels carry 370, BC Ferries is betting on bus and walk on passengers (over personal vehicles) as it plans for the future, so your analogy doesn't fly.

[Holden West]

Because urban planners have discovered that construction of highways doesn't really solve traffic issues due to the phenomenon of the volume of traffic increasing to match the capacity of the highway. You can't build your way out of a traffic jam. Vancouver realized this long ago and the planners of Town & Country do too.

Sorry to burst your bubble, maniac78 but you believe in a myth.