3745 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

Meh, they've got a harbour and boats. They'll manage

...but is this talk of a new road just talk by some vocal folks or is it on the radar of the CRD? Seems strange that we have significant infrastructure issues within the core and we're looking at expanding our most distant suburb's infrastructure. Sounds bogus.

[G-Man]

^ Actually that is a good point Derf. How about a harbour to harbour fast ferry? Certainly cheaper than LRT...

[Mike K.]

It could work provided it's fast enough. The route can start in Sooke and stop for a few minutes at the new Royal Bay development in Colwood and finally offload in Esquimalt at a future LRT station

...or it can go directly into downtown. I bet the whole trip would only take 25 minutes if not less judging by the speeds the Clipper goes and the time it takes to arrive in Seattle.

[Galvanized]

I heard talk on the radio of a new road to Sooke possibly going trough from Goldstream area. The complaint was that Sooke can be cut off from Victoria due to there being only one road out of there. I could see a new road start at the top of the Sookahala (the four lane stretch) that would follow the power-line right of way inland from the existing road, but for all the cost would LRT not make more sense. An LRT route could even pass over sensitive park land for a more direct route.

Are we talking about Humpback Rd?

[ressen]

No see Sooke open for business under the west shore forum. Humpback road may be closed to all traffic and made into a park.

[mikedw]

Economists say the problem is that when you give away a public good for free -- say, road space during rush hour -- people will use it up. One remedy is to start charging for it.

So, using computer technology and transponders etc., you pay to use the HOV lane (even if it's just you in the car). You get into town in 10 minutes vs. 45, and even the slower traffic lanes get a little better because you've taken your vehicle out of them.

While I don't like the idea of charging for using the roads, they do have a point.

My two thoughts on the subject of commuters and gridlock:
1) Work closer to home-- preferable at home. If Langford people worked in Langford, there would be much less traffic in play.
2) Tie odometers to ICBC rates. Figure out what the median annual mileage is (like 20,000km per year-- or whatever it actually is); if you fall short of the median, you get a discount. As you go over the median, your rates go up. When you renew your insurance, the ICBC person looks at your odometer and records it. The next year, they read it and figure out the difference. There would have to be more rules in place to adjust for vehicle sales, etc., but it would mean that people who clog our roads and are more likely to be present for an accident pay a premium.

[Mike K.]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Langford is building an intersection at the new Langford Parkway and the TCH about a kilometer north of this proposed overpass, isn't it? So how does that solve the problem Mayor Young says exists due to the lights at Spencer and TCH?

City paving way for Spencer Road interchange

By Edward Hill
Goldstream News Gazette
Feb 14 2007

An interchange at Spencer Road and the Trans-Canada Highway is inching closer to reality, says Langford Mayor Stew Young, with the City submitting draft plans to the Ministry of Transportation.

“They are starting to recognize the importance of this,” Young said Thursday. “We are in co-operation mode now. The ministry is working co-operatively with staff to get the best-case scenario at the best cost.”

Young said the provincial government is committing about $5 million to the $30-million interchange. Langford has collected the remainder through development cost charges.

Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Jeff Knight said talks with Langford are progressing well, and the ministry is in the “final stages” of a formal funding agreement.

Young said ideally, the City would get the go-ahead to break ground in six months, completing the interchange within three years. If that happens, Young says it would be the first interchange in B.C. built mostly without taxpayer money.

But if there are long delays, Young worries property development will overflow to where the interchange needs to sit. “There is only more traffic and the window of opportunity is getting narrower,” he said. “The Trans-Canada in southern Vancouver Island shouldn’t have traffic lights.”

It took Langford about three years to get landowners near the TCH-Spencer intersection to agree to an interchange, which is expected to link into a boulevard on the south side of the Bear Mountain development.

Bear Mountain developer Les Bjola also said the interchange seems likely to get approval. “We have been involved in a lot of the discussions,” Bjola said. “All indicators are that we are there.”

The 3.8-kilometre Bear Mountain Parkway route is cleared and ready for construction, Bjola said.

“We are just waiting for the municipality and the government to sign off on the Spencer overpass,” he said. Bjola noted that Bear Mountain has committed to pay a “majority” of the cost for the interchange and the parkway.

Eliminating the stoplight at the intersection is meant to ease traffic congestion on the lower Malahat, and to stop traffic from backing up into Langford. Young is blunt, saying he doesn’t want regional traffic woes to stifle development and growth in the city.

“I don’t want to see Langford’s economy suffer because the road is jammed up,” he said. “In two to five years traffic is going to be stopped halfway up the Malahat behind the light, and that is detrimental to the region and southern Vancouver Island.”

He said there is further pressure to get the interchange built. The development community will continue to foot the bill for major infrastructure projects if it can see tangible benefits, he said.

“There will be a lot less impact on taxpayers in Langford,” Young said. “In the past 15-20 years as development occurred, there wasn’t enough money for infrastructure. Developers didn’t pay their fair share.”

mailto:reporter@goldstreamgazette.com

[G-Man]

Yeah I have been wondering that point as well. So eliminating a traffic is good and building another traffic light a km north is also good? Who would have known!

[Ms. B. Havin]

I thought by "interchange" they meant eliminating the traffic light that's there, and building an overpass? (I think I know the intersection; it does have a lot of traffic w/ people on northbound TCH turning left to go home to the residential around the southern end of Langford Lake -- if I'm thinking of the right intersection.) So the way I read this is that they want an overpass/ interchange at Spencer & TCH and further up, on the north end of the lake...?

[ressen]

The traffic light at Langford parkway and the TCH is right at the bottom of a long sweeping curve when heading out of town. I foresee this as a cause of accidents. This is where an overpass should be built if any are built. The distance from Spencer Rd. to Langford Pkw. is just over 2K.

[G-Man]

I just don't understand the logic....

[Mike K.]

There is no logic behind it, unless an overpass "is" planned for Langford Parkway that we don't know about, but that's rather unlikely with a $30 million price tag.

Thanks for the diagram, ressen!

[Mike K.]

Originally posted by VicHockeyFan

Airport pitches traffic interchange upgrades
Approach to facility inadequate, Airport Authority contends

Kim Westad, Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, February 15, 2007

The Victoria Airport Authority wants a new traffic interchange at the corner of the Pat Bay Highway and McTavish Road in time for the 2010 Olympics.

And while the authority wasn't successful yesterday in the bid to have the Capital Regional District endorse it, they're still asking the province to fund the project, estimated at near $12 million.

The airport has had approximately $50 million worth of improvements in the past few years with the completion of the terminal expansion, said authority president Richard Paquette. But he said the intersection to access the airport is outdated, inconvenient and unsafe.

"We think the airport has a key role to play in welcoming people to B.C. It's unfortunate that the intersection is not keeping pace with the balance of improvements of the airport," Paquette said.

A record-setting 1,400,000 passengers passed through Victoria International Airport in 2006, up six per cent from 2005.

Traffic has also increased, but the intersection hasn't been improved to keep up, Paquette said. The airport authority didn't have statistics on the number of accidents at the intersection, but described it as "totally inadequate and dangerous."

It also doesn't make the best impression for travellers to come to the capital of B.C., and have to wait 15 minutes at a stop sign to turn left from Canora Road onto McTavish Road, before they can wait again at a traffic light to get onto the Pat Bay Highway. With many Olympic visitors expected to spend time on Vancouver Island, the intersection should be done before the Games begin, Paquette said.

The authority suggests a two-lane, bi-directional overpass and roundabout on the west side of the highway. The land needed is already owned by the province. The airport authority would contribute $1 million toward the project.

But the request for endorsement, which would show regional support to the provincial government, was defeated in a 12-8 vote at the CRD board.

Several of those who voted against it said that while they understood the concerns, there were other transportation priorities in the region, and this one couldn't jump the queue.

Paquette said the authority will still continue lobbying the province to approve the project.

The airport has grown in both the number of passengers and aircraft in 2006.

Air Canada Jazz started a non-stop jet service between Victoria and Edmonton; Harmony Air introduced weekly seasonal service to Honolulu; Delta Airlines introduced a seasonal summer service to Salt Lake City and Horizon Air will put a bigger aircraft on its Victoria to Seattle flight as of April 1.

After customer complaints about airport food, a White Spot will open this spring.

[VicHockeyFan]

15 minutes to turn off Canora? Is that a bit of an exageration?

[Mike K.]

I'm at the airport at least once a month and there are days when I sit at the stop sign for an extended period. I've never timed it but it's can certainly be a lengthy wait.

Nevertheless, I discovered a work around. Turn south off of the traffic circle and continue up to the four-way stop at McTavish. Then turn left onto McTavish and bypass the huge queue on Canora

[ressen]

If they are going to build an interchange anywhere; how about starting with McKenzie at TCH.

[VicHockeyFan]

If they are going to build an interchange anywhere; how about starting with McKenzie at TCH.

A good start would be to make a better RHT lane off McKenzie onto the TCH northbound with an extended merge lane. There is land available for such.

[G-Man]

The simple thing is that there should not be one dollar of provincial tax money going to Spencer Road. It should be fixing Mackenzie Ave first.

[Mike K.]

OP-ed from the Feb 16 TC:

Smarter decisions needed on roads
Spencer Road interchange, airport upgrades
useful, but not the real regional priorities

Work will likely start this year on a $25-million interchange at the TransCanada Highway and Spencer Road in Langford. On the Saanich Peninsula, the Victoria Airport Authority wants a $12-million interchange on the Patricia Bay Highway.

Both would reduce traffic congestion and accidents. Both are overdue.

But we would be more comfortable if they were part of a proper regional transportation strategy, rather than more examples of squeaky wheels being greased with road improvements.

The Spencer Road intersection could use work. It’s a bottleneck, in contrast to nearby interchanges built as part of highway improvements in the 1990s.

But should it be a higher priority than, for example, the McKenzie/Admirals intersection closer to downtown Victoria? That is a key part of the regional transportation network and it’s also a more critical bottleneck.

Fixing the McKenzie intersection would ease the Colwood Crawl; the Spencer work would not. The improvements have been a priority for years. Drivers have been suffering the delays long enough.

Getting rid of one bottleneck usually just means creating a new one farther along the road.

That said, the daily jams at McKenzie are worse than the ones at Spencer, so McKenzie deserves attention first.

The proposed work east of the airport, at the intersection of the Patricia Bay Highway and McTavish Road, deserves support. First impressions matter and when visitors face a stop sign with a dangerous left turn as they leave the airport, it could give them the wrong idea of our region.

The airport access is outdated and unsafe and does not reflect the worldclass airport terminal that has been developed over the past few years.

But should that interchange be the top priority on the Pat Bay Highway? What about Sayward Road, an intersection that is busy, narrow and notorious for its high accident rate?

As we look at proposals for highway spending, we also need to keep in mind the concerns about global warming. Does an interchange help the environment by reducing idling traffic or — more realistically — does it make things worse by encouraging vehicle use?

Decisions on transportation systems should be made on a regional basis, taking into account a wide variety of factors.

It makes little sense to solve one problem here and another over there without looking at the big picture.

[rjag]

1st post here!!! Hello everyone! I live in North Oak Bay and commute to Keating and most of my business is downtown.

There will always be piecemeal work done on our transport infrastructure as long as there are 14 or more municipalities at the table. Why would View Royal invest millions just so someone from Sooke can shave 2 minutes off their commute to Victoria?

Until we see all the little kingdoms get reined in and told to work together there will never be an appropriate solution.

Each municipality working on its own, will only have the interests of their residents.