2241 replies to this topic

[Spy Black]

The Malahat railway bed gets straightened and paved for two south-bound lanes from just north of Tunnel Hill.

The general number of 25,000 cars per day is used to describe traffic on the Malahat.

Splitting into two routes let's use 12,000 cars per day transiting each direction.

 

If you honestly believe that the CRD will allow 12,000 cars to transit to the west of Japan Gulch, then such a plan might be conceivable. 

I don't believe for a second that the CRD would allow cars anywhere near Japan Gulch ... ever! ... definitely not between the reservoir and Japan Gulch itself. 

This same kind of "caution" exercised by the CRD is also what nukes the repurposing of the Niagra Mainline route ... they're just never going to let traffic that close to the watershed.

 

Repurposed logging roads or rail routes are interesting ... but the solution to this problem remains a bridge first, and a very specific and well designed ferry operation second.

Either way, the workable solutions utilize the Saanich Peninsula as a launch point, and ignore any expansion of the existing road route from Goldstream heading north.

Edited by Spy Black, 11 December 2021 - 07:30 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

The general number of 25,000 cars per day is used to describe traffic on the Malahat.

Splitting into two routes let's use 12,000 cars per day transiting each direction.

 

If you honestly believe that the CRD will allow 12,000 cars to transit to the west of Japan Gulch, then such a plan might be conceivable. 

I don't believe for a second that the CRD would allow cars anywhere near Japan Gulch ... ever! ... definitely not between the reservoir and Japan Gulch itself. 

 

The alternate route should be local no-through traffic only.  It's only opened in emergencies that block the current highway for more than 90 minutes.

[Spy Black]

The alternate route should be local no-through traffic only.  It's only opened in emergencies that block the current highway for more than 90 minutes.

On a personal level, I think the Niagra Mainline route as a full time route would be an excellent choice, so I don't disagree with your proposal.

 

But on a realistic level, CRD Water will never allow either the Niagra Main, or the rail right-of-way to be modified in any way that would see vehicle traffic navigate anywhere near Japan Gulch.

[Victoria Watcher]

On a personal level, I think the Niagra Mainline route as a full time route would be an excellent choice, so I don't disagree with your proposal.

 

But on a realistic level, CRD Water will never allow either the Niagra Main, or the rail right-of-way to be modified in any way that would see vehicle traffic navigate anywhere near Japan Gulch.

 

I don't know where the watershed area is so forgive my crude diagram, but you build the thing so that green has local access, and red is the section opened only during emergencies. 

 

You finance it all by selling off some land to residential subdivision development in each green-road areas.

 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 11 December 2021 - 07:48 AM.

[Spy Black]

The north green line is entirely possible, but the south green line probably isn't.

 

The south green line likely isn't possible, as it transits Goldstream Provincial Park, the Goldstream Watershed, and Sooke Hills Wilderness Park (which is a CRD owned buffer to the watershed itself).

The south green line also transits to the west of the Japan Gulch UV and disinfection facility, through which all of our drinking water travels.

 

Also, any road to the west of Japan Gulch also transits over top of (a very close to the surface at that point) Kapoor Tunnel, again through which all of our drinking water travels.

 

If you've ever interacted on a personal level with CRD Water, you'll just know that such access to the vicinity of the Kapoor Tunnel, Japan Gulch, and Goldstream Watershed simply will never happen.

[Victoria Watcher]

The current highway transits Goldstream Park, why can't a new road?   An entire city (Banff) is inside a park.

[Spy Black]

Grandfathered in I would guess, just as the rail line right-of-way would have been.

 

Banff isn't near a watershed (and interestingly, albeit totally off topic, even the land underneath the 3 million dollar homes in Banff remain the property of the Federal Government, you just lease it).

[Victoria Watcher]

I don’t think any park is grandfathered in. The rail line is a different story as it and a distance from each side (50 feet I think) is owned by the corridor foundation.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 11 December 2021 - 08:37 AM.

[splashflash]

Japan Gulch is south west and upstream on the Goldstream River at the Trans-Canada Highway. The railway loops miles west to gradually gain elevation and cross the Goldstream River well upstream of where Hwy 1 crosses the river.
A short connection of two southbound lanes of carriageway across the Goldstream and up to the railway bed would be downstream and away from the CVRD water shed. Together with two northbound lanes along the current highway (move the jersey barrier) this should more than suffice for the current maximum of 32,000 cars per day.

A temporary non-permanent, detour route for the Niagara Main connection would indeed route vehicles past the Japan Gulch. The Great Trail (formerly Trans-Canada Trail) cuts steeply up a bank and down to avoid the area, to a degree, and in my opinion ruins the experience of the trail for long distance travelers. So I get your point about CRD concerns. They don't want to route the trail along the railway where it travels along the Goldstream despite it being readily doable. Further north, the Great Trail follows the Niagara Main and the CRD even built washrooms and display boards along the route.

For a two lane couplet, the Niagara Main could also be connected to bypass the Japan Gulch loop. The Niagara Main is inferior to the rail option in my opinion because the steeper grade and that is the CRD access route for their watershed reservoirs. I think a $30 million temporary bypass would be wasteful unless frequent buses were to routed permanently along it and connect well, to the north, at Shawnigan Lake at least, or better the TCH. The more and further the connections are to bypass routes for buses, the less viable it would be. The E&N is the closest to the TCH.

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Edited by splashflash, 11 December 2021 - 10:10 AM.

[Spy Black]

For clarity … when I reference Japan Gulch, I’m referencing the physical location of the Japan Gulch Disinfecting Facility, not the physical location of the geographical feature of the same name. 
 

The rail right-of-way runs between the Japan Gulch Reservoir, and the Japan Gulch Disinfectant Facility … and thus will never be accessed by vehicles. 

It is (IMO) utterly futile to ever imagine any thoroughfare through the Sooke Hills Reserve, or “added” to Goldstream Park such that it would come anywhere near Japan Gulch. 

Your proposed route runs right through the Goldstream Campground. 
It’s just never going to happen. 

 

It’s a ferry or bridge across the Saanich Inlet, or a complete rebuild of the old Port Renfrew to Shawinigan Lake route (minus a new Bedspring Bridge!). 

Edited by Spy Black, 11 December 2021 - 01:17 PM.

[splashflash]

Your proposed route runs right through the Goldstream Campground. 
It’s just never going to happen. 
 
It’s a ferry or bridge across the Saanich Inlet, or a complete rebuild of the old Port Renfrew to Shawinigan Lake route (minus a new Bedspring Bridge!).

Route goes to the north of the campground, but would cut through trails, no doubt. If the CRD is touchy about anything near the treatment building then they would go after the campround. I won't give them ideas!

The bridge to the Peninsula won't happen: cost - strike 1, residents - strike 2, surrounding road network, strike 3. A ferry would run into the same problems too on either side of the Peninsula if too large or frequent.

Port Renfrew loop upgrade could be sold as an alternative but would not warrant much money spent past Sooke.

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[Mike K.]

West of Sooke and in particular the stretch west of JR is just awful along Highway 14. There’s going to have to be some intense investment to fortify that route to handle more traffic than it currently does. At least work is going on to improve the stretch between Otter Point and French Beach but it’s still a detour-less highway along there, and sketchy if you’re not familiar with the road.

I suspect the route via Boneyard and Otter Point Road makes the most sense, but the province will have to invest into a phase two of Highway 14 improvements to either expand or replace the Sooke River Bridge, and work out stretches of Highway 14 east of Sooke that currently have no detours (like most of the stretch east of the bridge and west of the new highway project).

[Victoria Watcher]

Your proposed route runs right through the Goldstream Campground. 

It’s just never going to happen.  

 

If you want to make omelets, you have to break a few sacred cows.

[Nparker]

If you want to make omelets, you have to break a few sacred cows.

That is going to one heck of a beefy omelet.

[Mike K.]

The Malahat had to shut down today in the Goldstream span after a tree came crashing down across the highway. Luckily it didn’t harm anyone. It could have easily killed people.

[Spy Black]

The Malahat had to shut down today in the Goldstream span after a tree came crashing down across the highway. Luckily it didn’t harm anyone. It could have easily killed people.

The Goldstream stretch isn't a particularly long or deep canyon, but it is precipitous in places, and it definitely poses serious threats from the likes of rockfall to trees falling ... as has been long demonstrated by the somewhat low-tech "fencing" solution.

https://www.google.c...!7i16384!8i8192

[rjag]

Its all nice to talk about how it can never do through the watershed...we have a serious risk issue that needs adressed sooner than later. If that earthquake hits, this road will be literally destroyed and the CRD will be cut off for months if not years. 

 

Simple enough when it comes to that fact of life. This is not unique, many countries have similar topography and even smaller populations to connect and just get on with it. 

 

We experienced a minor inconvenience for a few days and look at the impact....now amplify that by months. 

 

The Malahat has outlived its function and should be relegated to a secondary tourist route like the up Island oceanside route. 

 

There absolutely needs to be a new highway connecting the CRD to the rest of the Island. Stop listening to the fantasies of people like Littman and his 'buses will solve everything' fantasy. They wont. Its a distraction.  

[Victoria Watcher]

Doesn't look that hard to avoid.  And where you cross it you just have different style roadside run-off collection. 

 

 

 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 12 December 2021 - 09:14 AM.

[rjag]

Doesn't look that hard to avoid.  And where you cross it you just have different style roadside run-off collection. 

 

 

 

 

Yup, its a political distraction, they make it out like the road would literally go over the top of the reservoir. The politicians that push these fallacies need to be shown the frigging door as they are doing more harm than good for this region

[Mike K.]

And if we’re going to fix the Malahat we also need to do away with the TCH/Burnside/Old Island choke point. What a horrible road network decision, to locate a nexus of the entire connectivity to the West Shore in one spot without detours. Brilliant.