Want to see grown men cry? Slide your car into the eastbound traffic on Highway 1 after 5 pm. Plenty of emotion is on display, from calm, silent prayers to seething rage directed at the Ministry of Transportation, the Province, and North Shore politicians.
With its economy, nature and close access to Vancouver, North Shore may be a great place to live, but its perennially snail-paced traffic blights that reputation.
As someone who drives daily from his law office on Lonsdale Ave to his home in Blueridge, DNV Councillor Jim Hanson is acutely aware of the toll the bumper-to-bumper traffic takes on commuters and wants to do something about it. At a council meeting on January 8, Councillor Jim Hanson will ask DNV staff to report on options to create a vehicle lane for eastbound traffic on Highway 1 connecting Lynn Valley Road to Mountain Highway.
“It would be beneficial for the DNV to request that MoTI partners with DNV staff look at the feasibility and cost of an eastbound highway auxiliary lane extension between Lynn Valley Road and Mountain Highway to effectively connect the Highway 1 eastbound on-ramp from Lynn Valley Road to the Highway 1 eastbound off-ramp at Mountain Highway interchange,” his motion states.
“There is already this space available to put in lanes. So, it seems to me that this can be done at a relatively low cost. We could connect a lane, and at least some of the traffic would be able to clear off on the side, and it would reduce overall traffic along that stretch by some measure,” he says. “It came to my mind because I frequently head down this roadway to get on the highway. There is a lane beside me, a space and a paved lane here would have allowed me to get on the highway.”
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He also wants to see options for improving access and circulation between Lynn Valley Road, Mountain Highway, and Keith Road, particularly during peak traffic periods when eastbound Highway 1 traffic flow is heavily congested. He says his suggestions are cost-effective, easy to implement and an incremental step towards better separating municipal and regional traffic. He adds that this will also improve safety and reduce delays and Greenhouse Gas emissions.
His motion also calls upon Mayor Mike Little to write to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and other agencies to partner on ways to improve traffic on Highway 1. Hanson adds that traffic congestion continues to detract from the liveability of the District of North Vancouver. This ongoing failure of our east-west road system results in economic, social, and environmental harm and is a significant concern to residents of the area,” he says.
Rapid transit and smart development were the guiding forces for Hanson’s re-election campaign. In 2020, a technical feasibility study for rapid transit connecting Vancouver to North Shore across the Burrard Inlet proposed five routes, but something concrete has yet to come of that proposal.
I concur, the third lane option from the Lynn Valley road eastbound access on-ramp heading down the ‘cut’ is just so easy to do, one has to wonder why has this not been done already? In fact, I had thought that this third lane was already designed in and that when the whole highway project of the last few years wrapped up I wondered where is the new third lane?
But let’s take it further, I believe that more deck space should be added to the Lynn Valley road overpass (a third lane eastbound), enabling three lanes of traffic from the Lonsdale eastbound on-ramp over Lynn Valley road and on down the ‘cut’. The needless congestion of traffic not intending to head over the bridge to Vancouver can be downright exasperating.
After these traffic flow improvements are completed might I suggest to then go about extending the Lynn Valley road ‘west-bound’ highway on-ramp as a third lane running to the Lonsdale exit, more for safety than congestion.
Final one on my list, is the on-ramp west-bound to highway one from Capilano road, a third lane here (again for safety reasons), should be considered, it would be expensive though with the bridge needing more deck space to make this happen, food for thought I’ll call this one.
This was in the original plan, but the NDP killed it after beating the Liberals in the provincial election. This would help make the whole redesign work. It is curious that Hanson was unsuccessful running for office for the NDP a couple of times, could there be an election on the horizon?
One more lane, bro
We need a third crossing. We need a better crosstown route, similar to David in Coquitlam. Gov’t wasted $230mil. on this project. Now a rapid bus, C’mon. Who are they kidding. Suggest-
-stop running Nanaimo ferry out of Horseshoe bay. Use Tsawassen only. Cost $0. Some traffic removed.
Consider a second route to Squamish thru Coq that is currently a forest road.
-Failing that, tunnel under burrard inlet, de facto third crossing created. Then continue it just past Horseshoe bay.
-Use existing rail tracks and run a train to Vancouver.
This has been suggested multiple times, but discarded.
What this councillor suggests will only get clogged by commutersas soon as they figure it out, as a way to race thru north van.
The TRANSLINK property tax levy was started in the late 1990s and because North Shore homes tend to be costlier than elsewhere we pay more than our fair share despite the fact that the North Shore has no rapid transit connections nor despite the RapidBus no hope of any in the next 10 years.
The last time ANY new traffic lanes from elsewhere in Vancouver to the North Shore were added was 1961 – and in that time local population in North + West Van have tripled while Squamish / Whistler have increased 10 fold. (Not sure what the numbers are for Sunshine Coast which also goes through the Horseshoe Bay bottleneck)
As far as I can tell the ONLY Transit projects involving North Vancouver these last 5 years are upgrades to Phibbs Exchange despite two successive DNV mayors who were VERY tuned it to Translink.
Clr. Hanson’s proposal is sound but not even minimal for the needs of traffic over the last 20 years in North Vancouver.
Why not address these five years ago before the ministry blew 300 million ????
This is a good idea and glad to see a politician bang the head to the wall we are doing every time, thanks Jim let’s do it it’s never late
Most probably if it’s cost-effective and makes sense to help traffic on the North Shore it probably won’t happen.
The only work that seems to get done over here is to take away from vehicles and put in useless bike lanes that you hardly ever see anybody on and Pedestrian crossing signals or traffic lights at the intersections, where there are more pedestrians that are too lazy to push the button than the ones that do.
I see this every single day.
With all the me me first aditudes at merge ramps that 600 meters of lane will solve nothing
Absolutely right. Waste of money. The big elephant in the room is increasing density and mass immigration.
Unless the bike lane is on one one of the two bridges ALL the cost is paid for by District, City or West Vancouver – it CERTAINLY isn’t part of the GVRD, Translink or provincial government budgets!
I recollect that the 300million project was originally to include a separation of west/ east traffic from the bridge traffic. It quietly disappeared. What happened?
NDP voted in. Maybe contact your MLA.
This should have been included when the work at the bottom of the cut was being done. Duh! It’s a no brainer.
The traffic will just bottleneck further up in another area. Dumping a constant traffic onto Keith and Mountain highway on rush hour will easily clog it up even further, denying the road space even more for local traffic.
Further, there’s a little something called induced demand.
“One more lane will fix it”.
🥱🥱🥱
Traveling the upper levels highway, especially between 7:00am to 10:00am and 3:00pm to 6:30pm is like witnessing Hwy 1 congestion to and from Surrey.
Like it or not, another vehicle crossing is required, trades people, materials suppliers, Howe Sound and Island bound travelers need their vehicles, no amount of fast buses will solve the problem so for the Love of God, wake up Victoria!
Hey councilman. How about a roundabout (ubc style) on the Brooksbank East Keith traffic hell. An average red light takes two minutes to change there. And some better signage above the lanes going towards the bridge on the low road, on Keith etc. People pretend not to know where they need to switch lanes because it’s only indicated ATTHE POINT of SWITCHING with a tiny black square with an arrow screwed on the traffic light post.
If your anticipating adding additional lanes to congested areas why not
include Capilano Road , Marine Drive, Lonsdale, Keith Road etc.
Bike lanes with little to no ridership should not take precedence over
the majority of vehicle users.
Our streets have become increasingly clogged over the years due to increased
demand of autos , a trend that will continue.
Why is there no way to get to north Mountain highway from highway 1 eastbound?
i’m so glad we spent 100’s of millions if not billions already. traffic is no better now then it was before!!
It’s interesting how counsellor Hanson takes issue with a stretch that he commutes on daily. Instead of suggesting solutions from an amateur perspective, he would be better off talking with his city staff and learning about the consequences and costs of what he is proposing. At the end of the day he is part of traffic and so is everyone who drives (myself included at times). I’m not a professional and don’t know the best solution here. Counsellor Hanson isn’t either.
Not going to help
Just creates the three into two again…solution is third route upper Lynn valley …Braemar over Lynn creek over to Blueridge …at least If your in the zone.. no hwy 1 required
A key objective of the project you’re referring to was to improve access to and from the east of Seymour area. Whether Hanson lives in Seymour or not (he actually lives in Blueridge) that doesn’t invalidate the objective.
Wow, a real life One More Lane Bro. How is someone with such a lack of understanding around induced demand allowed to be in a position of power? Astonishing.