Welcome to The Greater Discussions, a Vancouver-based channel with the goal of providing quality video essays on a variety of local topics. Join me, Arden English, in exploring the city I grew up in while discussing its past, present, and future.
Minimum or near minimum wage worker can no longer afford a rental in Canada. The only answer is killing the housing market and commercial real estate with serious deflation.
Thankfully, EVs and EV busses are MUCH quieter. A quiet electric whine and, unfortunately, tire noise. Want to bet that the noise tires make will become an issue as cars get quieter?
I can say, as someone who drives an EV, that the tire noise is no different than that of a gas car. Any speed above like 50kmh is indistinguishable from a noise perspective
Fantastic video, you have great video making skills. I speak to people from many walks of life and while I don't know everything I think the issue with housing is pretty straight forward. The problem with Vancouver/Seattle is that as population increased, the value of old nasty homes simply increased along with the population demand for housing, and so you had this massive wave of conversion of cheap old nasty homes, that were mortgage free, just paying the tax cost, and rented out for cheap - these turned in to flipped, remodeled homes, today paying both a mortgage and a much higher tax fee leading to much higher cost of housing but there is the population to support it. However leaving the bottom without housing options.
the bridge would have been built by now and this tunnel is going to hit 10 billion by the time its done if ever. Also anyone notice they are going to devastate a huge part of the park to build it? NDP ego costing us billions.
Where is the TRAIN SYSTEM, should they not have a train lane as well. And this young man is talking about the replacement years, my God i am 63 and since the mid 80’s we have been talking about it. And bike lanes really what for who is travelling by bike along the freeway from Surrey Delta to Vancouver, will that lessen the number of cars by 3 per day. Again the worst transportation planning in CANADA.
PROJECT UPDATE: The Highway 99 Tunnel Program announced in their newsletter today that they will be replacing the HOV lane headed Southbound between Westminster Hwy and Steveston Hwy with a Bus-On-Shoulder lane while adding an extra lane in the process! This means two things: 1) Richmond will now have bus lanes along ALL of Hwy 99 in BOTH directions!! This is huge for transit riders in the area! 2) There will still be 3 travel lanes for cars in this space. All this is doing for drivers is maintaining the same number of lanes heading into the tunnel. Preliminary construction work is underway.
I wonder if the government should appropriate the land where the gondola will look over, so that privacy issues are less of an issue. Maybe put some office towers or midsized office buildings in the way.
You missed the fact that the old bridge project had much better transit infrastructure than the current tunnel plan does. Take a look at the Steveston interchange where busses would stop in the median, and an elevator would be used to transport passengers to the bus stop.
Great video. Tsawwassen terminal is a bit of an oddity. I do think Translink should invest in a semi high speed link between the ferry terminal, airport, and downtown, with suitable stops to intersect other transit options. Even if its expensive, in my opinion it is the better solution. LRT in my humble opinion will be a good solution for SE and SW marin drive. It badly needs superior transit and buses are not a great option. Moreover several pockets along the route are densifying rapidly.
10 lane bridge would have made more sense but what can you expect from NDP. If 3 lanes in the tunnel is not enough now during rush hour, how is it going to be better with the new tunnel. I guess they can always refurbish the old tunnel to add the 2 missing lanes in each direction.
13:50 “HOV lane for some reason” !!!???? Are you kidding me? Without that HOV lane I would have to wait another 30 minutes in traffic whereas now I carpool with 3 others in an electric car every day… what were you thinking when you said that? That HOV lane is completely valid and needed. Not to mention this tunnel will already be congested when it opens. 4 lanes for passenger cars MINIMUM. Another failure by the NDP
cool vid idea biking culture and how we can learn to improve our biking infrastructure/culture from countries in europe like Holland where 45% of their population bikes to work.
My grandpa was the first person to go though the tunnel on his horse. even back then he was one of the people who where saying that two lanes each way was too small. and now here I am tell the people who are working on it that we need more then three lanes each way, what a waste of money
Just a boondoggle all the way around. The original 10 lane bridge was under construction in 2017 when it was cancelled. It would have been operational by 2022. Another EIGHT years will have passed before we get to a smaller 8 lane tunnel that hasn't even begun construction as of 2024. A massive 13 years will have passed between the start of bridge construction and tunnel completion.. The tunnel will be instantly congested from the first day operation. BOONDOOGLE.
I always thought there should be train rails along the middle of highways, since the city is already built around those routes. Both directions could have egress in the centre to underground exits. But ya, biking there, no thanks
As I said on your full video, I suspect it is so that they could double-up the use of the "empty" space, because they have to have a pedestrian access of sorts for servicing the tunnel and as an emergency exit anyway. However, I am willing to entertain the idea that they are just bad designers. Bad decisions have happened in the Lower Mainland before.
good news for cyclist , cuz before I need to cycle though Surrey( terrible place to cycle across) to reach to Alex bridge , but now I can cycle highway 99 to red
All the crossings of the Frazer are being upgraded in support of The Pacific Gateway Transportation Strategy. First industry decides it needs bigger tankers further up the Fraser (past New West) and then the people transit folks add their needs on top of that.
In year 2030? Are you talking the tunnel in Canada? No project can be completed on time in Canada, delay for 5 years is normal! The first phase of Light Rail System in Toronto began in 2011, and planned to open this year, unfortunately, after 13 years construction, this phase is still incomplete and has no scheduled opening date.
Don’t worry I’m working on it 😆. One more non-housing-related video in the pipeline then we’re back to it. I guarantee Metrotown and Brentwood will be in that following video!
NIMBYs ruin all public works projects. I still remember all the people that were against the Canada Line, and I bet today they're all riding on that train fairly often, and all I hear is about how much time the line saved people.
A good friend of mine is a senior engineer for the main contractor who constructed the Port Mann Bridge and now works on mega infrastructure projects in the United States (big time projects). Ten years ago, I asked him about a tunnel replacement for the George Massey. His main concern was that the required grade for the ramps would require the tunnel to be excessively long and hence the tunnel to be extremely costly. Also, great video; very informative for the public!
