The ever prevailing(annoying) traffic in Highway 1 is something that people of lower mainland are becoming tolerant about. This morning as we cruised through the traffic, we got immersed in formulating the theory to beat traffic (at least skip the pain of cruising through it). We discussed various routes to get to Vancouver from Langley, fall back plans and timing our office hours. This post statement of proof of our theory and how concerned department could use the Traffic Data Program and Google Maps to plan the inflow of vehicles.
We are going to explore some of the common routes in the lower mainland and see if we could find a pattern in the traffic flow.
Let’s look at the ever problematic Highway 1.
This is the traffic map 6 AM in the morning. Everything looks neat and green!
Some traffic around 6.45 AM. Orange zones along Surrey to Burnaby.
Half an hour(7.30 AM) down the lane, North shore is all packed.
Another half an hour (8.00 AM) Burnaby to Vancouver is all packed, whereas almost smooth flow from Langley/Coquitlam/Surrey to Burnaby
Twenty more minutes (8.20AM), people have started finding some alternate routes to reach to workplaces instead of relying on the highway.
A closer look at the exits and highway feeder ramps across this path can help us identify the possible reason why this traffic is inevitable.
Brunette Avenue
Let’s say you get to the point on Highway 1 where the Port Mann Toll road ends.
The place where Port Mann drops you off is always the point of heavy traffic in the morning.
Prime contributors for this traffic in this area are:
- Mary Hill bypass merger
- Lougheed Highway merger
- And of course, the big, broad Port Mann traffic(This brings in traffic from Surrey, Langley)
- Traffic from Patullo into Highway 1.
Say a truck travelling all the along from Port Mann wants to exit in Brunette drive which is just 2.5 km away from this point, he has to move all way to his right to get to the exit.
Let us for once assume, everyone follows road rules and they don’t merge into a lane on a solid line. How do they expect a truck to drift from HOV lane to the rightmost lane which is completely packed with light vehicles?! How do light vehicles drift lanes where there is a merge is happening?!
Gaglardi Way
Though it connects to SFU, this exit is not a traffic prone zone. Whereas, it does feed in some traffic into Highway 1
Kensington
This is famous for its evening congestions rather than the morning traffic issues. This again feeds in the considerable amount of traffic into Highway 1.
Sprott Street
This again feeds in traffic into Highway 1.
Willingdon Avenue and Grandview Highway
Willingdon avenue sometimes tends to reduce the flow a bit but then, the issue here is the Grandview highway exit that is actually 1.5 km from this exit.
By the time you get off this place there is enough traffic from the Grandview highway merge lane.
Boundary Road
This feeds in a considerable truck and heavy vehicle traffic and a significant amount of north shore traffic. It essentially adds to the backup queue after Willingdon.
East 1st, Rupert Street
Though there is a considerable gap between Grandview and E1st, there are traffic feeds from Boundary road and Grandview Highway.
Hastings and McGill Street
Percentage of cars that exit via Hastings is very less. But there is potentially a bigger issue at this point. The road is already completely full by the time you reach here. The funny thing here is, you can exit in E1st Rupert and drive all the way down the exit ramp to merge in about 650m to Hastings exit. If you decide to go past this exit, you are either going to North Vancouver or taking the McGill Street Exit. And the moment you merge in, you will be lead into the Cassiar tunnel. So there will be a bunch of vehicles trying to take the lane that clearly says McGill Street only and then squeeze into the left lanes before the tunnel(or even inside the tunnel sometimes). This means, even more, traffic and congestion.
And the road leads to the North. So all these congestions now have to narrow into the two-lane traffic. Of all these observations few common causes can be identified:
- Highway 1 has more feeders than exists
- Certain significant exits are poorly managed to make it highly difficult for the highway to cater the heavy inflow of vehicles.
- Every major exit has a traffic signal and the wait times there are considerably high. This, in turn, affects the exit ramp.
The ministry did come up with the Gateway Program to reduce this traffic and a considerable part of this is accomplished.
There seems to be a considerable increase in the traffic in Port Mann as well.
There is a significant increase in bridge traffic but this only means more congestion. Unless they complete the Highway 1 lane extension project, Port Mann is just adding to the trouble. From a layman’s perspective, if I pay the toll for Port Mann bridge, I would highly appreciate if it can reduce my travel timing. I would very well cruise within the city instead of taking the highways.
From a layman’s perspective, if I pay the toll for Port Mann bridge, I would highly appreciate if it can reduce my travel timing. I would very well cruise through your SFPR ,spend 15 more minutes of my travel time and have plenty of alternative routes and save toll charges.
After all these rants, there are few questions that linger:
- You now want to levy toll charges on pattullo bridge, but that does not mean you reduce traffic. Common man pays a part of his wages just to toil in the same old traffic.
- Why not introduce more park and ride stations instead?
- Why not ply more of these express bus services that connect these people to nearest sky train stations?
- Why are the authorities of TI Corp predicting 2 percent growth in the traffic to Port Mann? This means nothing to the layman other than the fact that we get to know you get better revenues next year!
- Why are the open data reports for these potentially significant intersections mentioned above is empty?
- Why not just come up with a law/rule that restricts the inflow of large/heavy vehicles during peak hours?