3745 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

What do you think about this as a solution to the traffic woes between the core and the West Shore?

 

Effectively this would divert West Shore-bound traffic via Esquimalt Road, then onto Admirals Road which would connect with the bridge. On the West Shore side the bridge would connect with Old Island Highway/Wale Road/Ocean Boulevard.

 

[sdwright.vic]

^ I think you been smoking way to much pot! 🤗

[nagel]

No thank you.  $$$ to transit, please, not bridges that induce demand.

[Coreyburger]

What do you think about this as a solution to the traffic woes between the core and the West Shore?

 

Effectively this would divert West Shore-bound traffic via Esquimalt Road, then onto Admirals Road which would connect with the bridge. On the West Shore side the bridge would connect with Old Island Highway/Wale Road/Ocean Boulevard.

 

Esquimalt-Harbour-Bridge.jpg

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

Good one. Never going to happen

[RFS]

Speaking as someone who currently commutes admirals/old island highway daily, I would love this and have thought about it myself on occasion when stuck in traffic

[Mattjvd]

Pretty cool idea, I don't think the opportunity cost is worth it though.

Costs aside, if there was a proper interchange where it connects to the Old Island Hwy and Admirals was 4-laned from the bridge to the TCH connection; we'd have some serious capacity for growth in the Westshore for a few decades.

Edited by Mattjvd, 23 November 2017 - 02:47 PM.

[blaclark]

Adding more car-centric infrastructure is an old idea that unfortunately is still being applied.

 

Comfortable and efficient transit solutions aren't rocket science - they just require transit planners and municipalities to work together and use a bit of foresight. Curious what a regional transit authority could accomplish that BC Transit hasn't been able to.

[exc911ence]

Yes please. Anything to relieve the bottleneck of only having one major thoroughfare between the growing Westshore and the rest of Greater Victoria would be most welcome.

[rjag]

Any other jurisdiction but here it would be seriously considered....just imagine if that bridge was a corridor for LRT....but we arent very good at building bridges (theres a double entendre there)

[G-Man]

What do you think about this as a solution to the traffic woes between the core and the West Shore?

Effectively this would divert West Shore-bound traffic via Esquimalt Road, then onto Admirals Road which would connect with the bridge. On the West Shore side the bridge would connect with Old Island Highway/Wale Road/Ocean Boulevard.

Esquimalt-Harbour-Bridge.jpg

I have been saying this makes sense for years.

[manuel]

How about increasing taxes on those who make a choice to commute longer distances by cars so the rest of us don't have to subsidize their low house costs by paying for their road infrastructure and demands to reduce urban quality of life by increasing car density.

I walk everywhere and if not then bike. I'd rather have safe crosswalks on cook, hillside and government than highways of cars.

[Mike K.]

Let’s just wall off Victoria while we’re at it. It’s completely self-sufficient and all of its goods that magically appear at a giant distribution centre in Fernwood are transported by pedestrians and cyclists to stores throughout the municipality. If only every other municipality were as progressive and self-reliant as Victoria we wouldn’t need highways at all!

But to answer your tax question, those folks already pay an increased tax called the road tax via fuel purchases. Unfortunately for them, their tax dollars go towards building Victoria’s bike lanes and beautifying sidewalks instead of maintaining roadways or expanding capacity.

[nagel]

How about increasing taxes on those who make a choice to commute longer distances by cars so the rest of us don't have to subsidize their low house costs by paying for their road infrastructure and demands to reduce urban quality of life by increasing car density.

I walk everywhere and if not then bike. I'd rather have safe crosswalks on cook, hillside and government than highways of cars.

This is coming, in some form, in Vancouver with road pricing.  Will probably just be tolling every bridge but that's a good start.

[lanforod]

This is coming, in some form, in Vancouver with road pricing.  Will probably just be tolling every bridge but that's a good start.

 

Right, so after cancelling the two tolls in the region, they'll add a toll to every bridge? I highly doubt it. They'll just jack gas taxes more.

[rjag]

Right, so after cancelling the two tolls in the region, they'll add a toll to every bridge? I highly doubt it. They'll just jack gas taxes more.

Or mileage charges on your insurance....Not an issue for those fine folks whose world is pretty small where 95% of their needs are met within a 1-2 Km radius. 

 

But dont worry, the Chair of the group looking at this is that great authority of transportation planning, Joy McPhail. She'll make sure you'll never want to drive again....then its problem solved

Edited by rjag, 24 November 2017 - 08:22 AM.

[manuel]

Ill admit i was trolling a bit there.

Income taxes, both provincial and federal subsidize road infrastructure, not the other way around with the gas tax providing more.

I'd rather see logical development than the mantra of building the tax base being used to rationalize suburban sprawl. Start with urban densification and rapid transit, then build good row houses instead of SFD, and disincentive urban sprawl by end ensuring that the full costs of the sprawl development are borne by those developing on the urban fringe.

[Mike K.]

We don't have suburban sprawl, though. Victoria and environs have an incredibly small urban footprint compared to other jurisdictions even in this country that are our population size, let alone those of the US.

 

We also have the most underdeveloped infrastructure network in all of North America for a city of 200,000 or more. So the issue of building highways shouldn't be posited as exuberance but rather as a necessity when we have the wagon trail that we do for the Malahat, lights along so much of the Pat Bay, and a single choke point at TCH/Burnside/Old Island highway that if it were ever, heaven forbid, closed down, the entire urban core/peninsula would have no access to the rest of Vancouver Island and no access to the region's West Shore. And that's the result of laissez faire infrastructure planning.

[RFS]

Ill admit i was trolling a bit there.

Income taxes, both provincial and federal subsidize road infrastructure, not the other way around with the gas tax providing more.

I'd rather see logical development than the mantra of building the tax base being used to rationalize suburban sprawl. Start with urban densification and rapid transit, then build good row houses instead of SFD, and disincentive urban sprawl by end ensuring that the full costs of the sprawl development are borne by those developing on the urban fringe.

What about kids Manuel? as a kid where did you grow up? Wont somebody think of the children? children probably wouldn’t enjoy living in a 400 sq ft box attached to a train station all in the name of “good urban planning”. Or is child rearing only reserved for the elite few high net worth individuals? I think we need some urban sprawl to give people and families housing options.

[Cassidy]

I think your bridge will have to happen, as with a combination of the Gowland Range, and the Sooke Hills, almost all future densification will occur in the Collwood/Langford/Metchosin/Sooke area in the next 50 years.

 

Development isn't going to happen to the North of the city ... it can't ... there's nothing but mountains in the way. So it's going to go to the West, which is rural today, but can't remain that way based on the continuous development I've seen happen here in the last 50 years.

 

Although development may one day go up the Saanich Peninsula, for the time being the Agricultural Land Reserve protects a great deal of that land from development. And although there is ALR land in the Westshore (primarily in Metchosin, and scattered about elsewhere), it's far less a factor on the Westshore than it is on the Saanich Peninsula.

 

All this to say that in the next 50 years pretty much all new construction will occur on the Westshore (it's underway already) which one could anticipate will one day (50-75 years?) rival the Saanich/Victoria/Oak Bay triad for population density.

Weather, lifestyle, access to recreation 365 days a year ... it's been drawing a non-stop stream Canadians to live in the CRD for decades now ... and will continue to do so ad-infinitum.

 

So your bridge will have to happen - there really isn't a choice in the matter.

(Of course much driver suffering will happen in the meantime, likely for years - if not decades before this actually happens, and even with your new bridge, there will still be a need to some form of light rapid transit through the same general area).

 

Personally, I'll be long dead by the time this all happens ... but it would indeed be a sight to see!

[PraiseKek]

Bottom line is no one likes riding the bus. Well I guess the inevitable crazy man who acts all weird and smells bad probably does but everyone else hates it. For that reason I say let's build infrastructure people actually WANT which is highways and roads. This new buzz phrase "induced demand" means building something people want. Why is urban planning about building things people hate? What a complete waste of a life. I'd neck myself if I was an urban planner at this stage.