It’s said many a time that Vancouver is a highway-free area, which, to put it frankly, is a large misrepresentation. Maybe the City of Vancouver itself was successful in avoiding the construction of “major” highways (mind you, it still has some very wide, auto-oriented roads *cough* Marine Drive *cough* Pacific Boulevard *cough*), but in the regional viewpoint, everyone knows that highways are a fact of life. It is rather unfortunate to have large cuts of freeway going right through cities like Burnaby, North Vancouver, or Surrey, but we’ve managed to live. People need to get around, from one edge of Metro Vancouver to the other, and, I guess, arterials just don’t cut it.
The one thing we were relatively successful at, up until recently, was keeping the highways a good distance from urban areas. A good portion of Highway 1 is surrounded by greenery, providing a reasonable noise and “ugliness” barrier from the municipalities, while also making for something of a scenic drive.
This is the key concept though. If we have to have highways, let’s keep them away from our homes and lives. The government achieved this goal excellently with both Highway 99 and 91. The current Highway 99, which splits right through the ALR, around Richmond, and connects to Vancouver’s road network, was built in 1962, replacing the former stretch through Surrey along King George Highway, 10th Ave in New West, and Kingsway. The old passage is now Highway 99A, an alternate route. Highway 91, following similar structure, was built in the late 80’s, outside of Delta, through the ALR and splitting Burns Bog.
As I said before, those two Highways are perfect examples of where “the highway” works. It’s surrounded by protected green space, far enough away from people’s immediate lives, while still providing access to a high speed roadway network for regional commutes.
Unfortunately, things don’t always turn out the right way.
First, all the construction around Highway 1. This is visible most apparently near the 200th St interchange in Langley Township. The south side has a number of industrial complexes just sprouting up, while the north side has huge big box retailers. It’s worse though, because, in fact, there’s even new storage facility warehouses right in the middle of the interchange! This is the worst kind of development, not only making for a terrible living area for people, but also encouraging urban sprawl and congestion of the Highway. Also, it’s just plain ugly. We should not be having any type of development along the Highway corridor, and heck, at least Abbotsford and West Vancouver pulled it off not too badly, where commercial enterprises are close, but they don’t necessarily dominate the scene. A Highway is for commuting, not for the core of a community.
I wrote this huge spiel because I absolutely despise what the current provincial government has funded and built, with respect to highways, and no I’m not talking about Gateway. I’ve told you I don’t have a problem with them per se, they just need to be separated from urban life. So, when I discover the original layouts of the future transportation network in Transport 2021, compared to what’s currently being constructed, my blood just boils. There’s a number of projects that they’ve screwed up, and I’m not particularly sure why.
The two that touch home the most are the expansions of Highway 10 and Highway 15 (176 St.) as part of the Border Infrastructure Program. As far as I can remember, Highway 10, which should’ve never really been called a Highway since it used to be not much more than a bumpy old road for most of it’s stretch, never had many trucks. Neither did 176 St (which, oddly enough, had more trucks than Hwy 10, but is most commonly referred to as a street rather than a Highway). The interesting thing is, according to plans in Transport 2021, the GVRD called for the development of an East-West connector from Tsawwassen, along Highway 99, through Surrey and Langley to the new Fraser River crossing (aka: the Golden Ears Bridge), that was to pass through, mainly, the ALR. It would’ve avoided going through almost any urban living area.
What happened though is they expanded both 176 St and Highway 10. I don’t know if they cheaped out, or something, but it was a really stupid idea. 176 St splits Cloverdale right in half, and isn’t exactly the most pedestrian friendly type of road to have in the middle of your community. In fact, there have been many calls for an overpass because hundreds of high school students have to cross the Highway to get to Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary everyday. It gets worse though: because of the increased air and noise pollution, they erected this big, old, ugly wall along the Highway, separating the road from the residential houses right beside it.
A similar situation is occurring along Highway 10. They’ve put up these huge walls along the route. But, it creates something of a conundrum since Surrey City Council continues to push forward developments along both sides of the Highway! I mean, it would make reasonable sense to have a wall if urban living ended just north of the Highway, but they keep accepting development that is forcing a detrimental urban design on future residents. Instead of splitting an existing community in half, they are creating one!
There’s a few other projects that have been altered throughout the years that just get to me. The new Fraser River crossing, for example, was to connect Langley to Maple Ridge. Well, the original alignment would’ve had you cross directly into the Maple Ridge town centre. The alignment they are building right now though, has you cross into the outskirts of Maple Ridge, basically right between it and Pitt Meadows. Which, isn’t very supportive of transit, for sure, seeing as the routes will have to turn to Maple Ridge, then double back eastwards. I’m sure there’s a similar argument for goods movement as well.
Or, take the Queensborough Bridge. I’m not exactly sure why it was built in the first place - instead of the Highway going directly straight up to connect with Marine Drive, it does this weird detour through Annacis Island. Again, in the Transport 2021 document, it was proposed that this more direct connection would be built just north of the interchange with the Highway 99 Richmond connector. Instead, for some odd reason, they’ve continued to expand this small stretch of road through the Island, which constantly sees backups during rush hour.
What the hell is wrong with the Provincial Liberals? Do they not read up on their history? Do they not care about the plans our own region put forth? Are they just cheap? What is going on?!
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