132 replies to this topic

[eseedhouse]

On multiple occasions I've heard individuals waiting at the baggage claim who indicated they would be driving to somewhere in the Cowichan Valley. I don't think half of the passengers at the airport are from points north of the 'hat but I wouldn't surprised if 10% were.

 

At the end of the day if someone is willing to travel to Vancouver to then fly somewhere they'll also be likely to drive to YYJ and catch a direct flight off the island.

 

Anecdots are not evidence.  Saying something is "likely" does not make it so, either.

[Holden West]

this.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=gm0YQ3vuyyY

Edited by Holden West, 06 December 2013 - 11:52 PM.

[Mike K.]

Anecdots are not evidence.  Saying something is "likely" does not make it so, either.

I realize that but when evidence is not available one has to rely on common sense and plausibility.

[eseedhouse]

I realize that but when evidence is not available one has to rely on common sense and plausibility.

 

An excellent idea.  Pity you didn't go with it.

[aastra]

eseedhouse, you do realize that people have been replying to your post below?

 

Cost aside, for which reason alone we will never see it in, my opinion, can someone explain to me how doubling the traffic going up and down the Saanich Penninsula will be anything but substituting one huge bottleneck for two small ones?  You think getting to the airport is hard now?  Just wait until the bridge goes in.

 

You started things off by offering an opinion out of thin air, without any substantiation to support it. There's nothing wrong with that. This is a discussion forum. We're all engaged in casual conversation here. But why are you taking offense when others reply back to you on the same level? Why are you making a big deal re: evidence and verifiable figures if you didn't bother to provide any yourself?

Edited by aastra, 07 December 2013 - 07:36 PM.

[VicBooster]

Apparently eseedhouse holds himself to a lower standard. And based on the evidence presented in this thread that would be a fact.

[eseedhouse]

 

 

 

This is a discussion forum. We're all engaged in casual conversation here. But why are you taking offense when others reply back to you on the same level? Why are you making a big deal re: evidence and verifiable figures if you didn't bother to provide any yourself?

 

I don't remember taking offense and found it surprising that you think I did.  No doubt due to poor wording on my part.  I am old and the old tend to become blunt as they age, and I am not exempt.  Don't confuse bluntness with anger.

 

If someone had asked me for evidence to support my original response I'd have been delighted, actually.  As it was no one did that, so I merely responded to replying messages that they didn't provide any evidence, which I think if you read them carefully, you'll find is true.  It would be nice if someone before now had pointed out the lack of evidence in my original post.  That would have been a much better way of answering me, at least from my point of view.

 

I would think that it should be fairly obvious that diverting some or all the traffic from North of the Hat to the Saanich penninsula would increase the number of cars travelling down the penninsula.  Adding more traffic to a road doesn't seem likely to reduce it's overall volume, at least in the near term.

 

I know from driving the road a decade and a half ago that traffic jams were common then, especially when the ferry unloaded.  I talk to people who drive it daily and complain about the density now, so I suppose things have not changed much.  Whether the increase would or should be acceptable to the people who drive the roads there now is a reasonable question.  My experience is that people don't like change much, and would complain even if the increased traffic level were not unreasonable.  People who are upset about something like that tend to complain to local politicians and are more likely to go out and vote against them.  Politicians don't like that.

 

I would think that if such a proposal came from, say, the Provincial government, and based only on my experience of how politicians of all stripes act, that there would be a real ruckus, such that I would be surprised if the idea would get anywhere.  I have been wrong before, of course. 

[eseedhouse]

Apparently eseedhouse holds himself to a lower standard. And based on the evidence presented in this thread that would be a fact.

 

I didn't demand any evidence from anyone, only pointed out that there was none given.  Now if you think that I myself provided none fair enough, so why didn't you point that out?  If pointing out that someone's claims were evidence free is "holding them to a standard", which standard you think I exempted myself from, then surely I was holding myself to the same standard, not a lower one.  You could claim I was unustly holding others to a higher standard and have, I think, been more reasonable.

 

I have opinions, as do others.  Some of mine, no doubt, are based on insufficient evidence.  If so I am always happy to modify my opinions if presented with evidence that I am mistaken.  I realize that's a big claim and I admit I have no evidence to back it up but, nevertheless, I think it is so.

 

I certainly have no right to demand that others provide evidence.  I don't believe I did that.  I think it is reasonable to inform people that as I like, apparently most other folks, tend to like my current opinions I am going to ask for evidence to change one to agree with theirs.

[sdwright.vic]

OMG... Drama!

[jonny]

Saanich Inlet is over 200 m deep south of the airport.  I think it would be prohibitive to do anything other than a floating bridge.  Even across Satellite Channel is 60 m or so.  For comparison, Lake Washington is 65 m at its deepest, and they went for floating bridges there.  The WR Bennett bridge is apparently a floating bridge for the same reason.  

 

Floating bridges - at least those in Washington State - have been known to sink.  Don't cheap out! 

 

Yeah, I was wondering what impacts the water depth in Saanich Inlet would have. Information on bridges and water depths doesn't appear to be so easy to locate.

[aastra]

We're all good now. I'm inclined to agree that traffic both ways on the peninsula would surely increase because an inlet bridge would seal the deal re: parts north of the Malahat being convenient suburbs of Victoria. But I'm also inclined to agree that some portion (possibly a very small portion) of existing airport/ferry/peninsula traffic is coming all the way down the Malahat and going all the way up the peninsula again.

[eseedhouse]

We're all good now. I'm inclined to agree that traffic both ways on the peninsula would surely increase because an inlet bridge would seal the deal re: parts north of the Malahat being convenient suburbs of Victoria. But I'm also inclined to agree that some portion (possibly a very small portion) of existing airport/ferry/peninsula traffic is coming all the way down the Malahat and going all the way up the peninsula again.

 

I have no argument with that.  However if you are going to build a bridge you surely want there to be a good business case for building it.  The only case I can see is that it would possibly save people money by diverting a lot of traffic on to a more economical route.

 

But that brings in the question of where you are diverting it to.  If you are diverting that traffic to a place that is already nearly at capacity (as I suspect the Peninsula is) then you are going to have to increase that capacity too, and I rather suspect that that's going to make the real total cost of the bridge a lot higher than the mere cost of putting up the span.

[jonny]

I have no argument with that.  However if you are going to build a bridge you surely want there to be a good business case for building it.  The only case I can see is that it would possibly save people money by diverting a lot of traffic on to a more economical route.

 

But that brings in the question of where you are diverting it to.  If you are diverting that traffic to a place that is already nearly at capacity (as I suspect the Peninsula is) then you are going to have to increase that capacity too, and I rather suspect that that's going to make the real total cost of the bridge a lot higher than the mere cost of putting up the span.

 

Not that this will ever happen, but absolutely it would need to make sense. In my experience, the Pat Bay highway does not appear to be at capacity, but improvements would need to be made in terms of eliminating intersections. Obviously, an access route from Highway 17 to the bridge would need to be constructed. This certainly would not be a cheap endeavor. 

 

Off the top of my head, benefits of a Saanich Inlet bridge would include:

1) Eliminating any need to expand the Malahat highway beyond its existing scope. 

2) Improving regional connectivity by eliminating the poor weather impacts of the Malahat, improving access to YYJ and Swartz Bay.

3) Brentwood/Mill Bay ferry and its annual taxpayer subsidy would be eliminated.

4) Victoria to Mill Bay travel distance reduced from 43km to ~36km (not a huge amount but also not negligible).

[Mike K.]

The only thing keeping the Pay Bay from accommodating a massive increase in traffic are, as jonny put it, highway overpasses. There are four lane freeways in LA that handle hundreds of thousands of vehicles on a daily basis. The 17 in Vancouver also handles a significantly higher volume of traffic than the Pat Bay does, and that also includes the rush of ferry traffic from not just Swartz Bay but also Duke Point.

[lanforod]

Either way, thinking long term, a bridge seems to make way more sense than the status quo. It should be cheaper to upgrade Hwy 17 to 6 lanes if necessary* and add flyovers than to widen the Malahat to 4 all the way. The distance is shorter, and there isn't any blasting or bridging required for 17. Very little development in the way currently now. And it would eliminate an expensive ferry run.

 

*I'm not convinced it's at or near capacity anyways, it's not even close when compared to Hwy 1 between Langford and Uptown; even when a ferry is unloading onto it, traffic flows quickly south. Sure it looks busy, but it's moving and disipating fairly quickly and doesn't stall. Driving south from Swartz Bay to Uptown doesn't take more than a couple minutes longer than if there is no ferry traffic.

The only issues going north past Saanich Rd. are a couple of slowdowns due to lights. The Hillside to Saanich road stretch shouldn't increase THAT much (and that is already at capacity and should be dealt with as soon as the colwood crawl is fixed).

 

I think that BC Ferries could fill up bigger ferries easily most trips IF they put the full car cost at under 10 bucks. $24 minimum for just one 'passenger' is nuts. A little cheaper getting prepaid but not enough.

[lanforod]

The only thing keeping the Pay Bay from accommodating a massive increase in traffic is, as jonny put it, are highway overpasses. There are four lane freeways in LA that handle hundreds of thousands of vehicles on a daily basis. The 17 in Vancouver also handles a significantly higher volume of traffic than the Pat Bay does, and that also includes the rush of ferry traffic from not just Swartz Bay but also Duke Point.

 

Agreed!

[VicHockeyFan]

Hmm, Wain Rd. pretty much terminates at a point that is barely more than 2km from the Mill Bay shore.  This might not be that hard.

 

http://goo.gl/maps/FShJN

[jonny]

Either way, thinking long term, a bridge seems to make way more sense than the status quo. It should be cheaper to upgrade Hwy 17 to 6 lanes if necessary* and add flyovers than to widen the Malahat to 4 all the way. The distance is shorter, and there isn't any blasting or bridging required for 17. Very little development in the way currently now. And it would eliminate an expensive ferry run.

 

*I'm not convinced it's at or near capacity anyways, it's not even close when compared to Hwy 1 between Langford and Uptown; even when a ferry is unloading onto it, traffic flows quickly south. Sure it looks busy, but it's moving and disipating fairly quickly and doesn't stall. Driving south from Swartz Bay to Uptown doesn't take more than a couple minutes longer than if there is no ferry traffic.

The only issues going north past Saanich Rd. are a couple of slowdowns due to lights. The Hillside to Saanich road stretch shouldn't increase THAT much (and that is already at capacity and should be dealt with as soon as the colwood crawl is fixed).

 

Good point regarding future potential expansion of 17. 17 could easily be expanded to six lanes if need be, whereas it would be much more difficult to expand the Malahat to six lanes.

 

The only places on 17 where I have noticed consistent congestion is southbound during a ferry rush, and of course at Elk Lake. Creating smoothly flowing traffic with overpasses would solve these issues.

 

One more point: continued expansion of the western communities will further increase the burden placed on the Trans Canada highway south of Langford. Diverting traffic from up island to 17 would certainly help reduce that congestion, and reduce the future urgency of improving that section of highway.

[Mike K.]

The bridge could tie in quite nicely with infrastructure already available at the airport. Obviously the interchange at McTavish would need to be reworked and the roads widened between the highway and the cove, but this isn't a big deal. However, at this location (while great for larger vessels) the bridge would span over six kilometers. Yikes.

Attached Images

• 

[VicHockeyFan]

The bridge could tie in quite nicely with infrastructure already available at the airport. Obviously the interchange at McTavish would need to be reworked and the roads widened between the highway and the cove, but this isn't a big deal. However, at this location (while great for larger vessels) the bridge would span over six kilometers. Yikes.

 

That's why I like Wain better, it has a normal interchange at #17 and then just needs widening to the shore.