We've Got Traffic!

Yesterday, we migrated northward on the regular schedule. We time these trips exquisitely so that there’s just enough time to do whatever Ed needs to do at Home Depot for the remodeling experience and then to get to the ferry landing about 10 minutes before the ferry departs. We have, of course, previously scheduled the trip on a day with relatively low ferry traffic and at a time when Vancouver street traffic is at a low-ish point. Except in the middle of the night, there is no real low point in Vancouver traffic because Vancouver long ago, based upon what was happening to Los Angeles, decided that keeping the traffic bad would limit the number of cars that people would try to bring into the city. This has not entirely worked except for the ‘keeping the traffic bad’ part.

Vancouver has expanded considerably in recent years as Canadians finally realized that greater Vancouver is the warmest part of their country. Though no Florida, B.C. generally and Vancouver particularly have attracted a massive migration from Canada’s more easterly provinces, especially as the Vancouver economy has exploded with its port/trade connections to Pacific Rim countries. From the west, which we also sometimes refer to as the Far East, large numbers of Hong Kong residents migrated here back when Hong Kong was turned over to China. With these population pressures, Vancouver real estate is now priced like Beverly Hills real estate. That means that people have been forced farther and farther outside Vancouver proper for affordable housing, and it has surely increased traffic formidably.

Even up here on the Sunshine Coast, we feel the impact of Vancouver expansion and traffic. When we first came here 16 years ago, you could arrive 8 minutes before any of the ferry departures any day, any time, at the terminal on either side and expect to drive right on board the Queen of Whatever you were getting that month. But now, no time in the summer and only Tuesday through Thursday in the winter (and not always then, depending upon regular holidays) can you count on not being told to wait two hours for the next ferry to come. Spring and fall, depending upon the weather, is iffy on Thursday and Monday, but Tuesday and Wednesday are okay. The weekends might be okay, depending upon the time and the direction you're heading: they’re coming here on Friday and Saturday, and leaving here Sunday and Monday, so you want to be going in the opposite direction.

But it’s not just people coming up to vacation or weekend. There were precious few people who commuted to Vancouver from the Sunshine Coast 16 years ago. Now, there’s an amazing crowd for that trip every morning and they are coming back every evening, all week long. Mostly, they don’t take cars (which would involve about $50-$60 per round trip). But all these people who are going to work in Vancouver are people for whom it was cheaper and less time-consuming to live here and take a 45-minute ferry ride plus another 45-minute bus or van ride from West Vancouver to downtown than to drive from up the Fraser Valley and pay a bundle to park in Vancouver. Something about that city planning really didn’t work.

The car-discouraging part of the city planning also meant that the City Parents refused to allow any freeways through the city. So all traffic is routed through city streets. There is a kind of beltway (but it’s only partial) that we take to the ferry, thus circumventing much of the street traffic but that works only if you don’t need to go into the city at all and are willing to drive, as the crow flies, a considerably longer distance.

So, Vancouver city planning has resulted in impossible street traffic and impossibly high housing costs for Vancouver. And for those of us just north, it has resulted in jammed ferry terminals, too-rapid expansion in population, and too-quickly-rising property costs. In addition, we get a different kind of traffic problem. The Sunshine Coast has, as its main and only thoroughfare, a 40+mile two-lane highway with (currently) a total of about six traffic lights along its length. You want to make sure that you don’t plan to make a left turn onto that highway when the several-hundred car ferry traffic is making its progression up to the next ferry terminal. So whether you are planning to take the ferry or not, you are always best to be thinking about what the ferry is doing.

Yesterday’s drive? Because of careful planning and no unforseen events, an excellent trip.