Tuesday, November 14, 2023

The very narrow The Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_Gate_Bridge

 "The 1933 bylaw authorizing construction included a provision mandating that "no Asiatic person shall be employed in or upon any part of the undertaking or other works". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_Gate_Bridge#History

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026b-eng.htm While Canada has allowed for more diversity over the decades, Canada has nowhere near  even 1% of the world's' population. It's been a struggle just for Canada to accommodate half of 1% of the human population.

Unfortunately for most of the 20th century, Vancouver was to remain as just a provincial backwater for as long as possible. For had the city been allowed to flourish onto the scale of the likes of SydneySan_Francisco or even Seattle, that would mean there would be a lot more people. Which means more non-white people and that was just too uncomfortable a notion for the White colonial mindset.

Of course the colonial mindset could be seen all over the world, but so many other cities weren't thwarted like Vancouver and Victoria. You will never find any official BC mandate revealing that it was to remain as a provincial backwater for as long as possible. 

Thus, the local power structure continually tried to hold things back for most of the cities history. A multigenerational stunted growth policy is a clever way to slow a city and province down. Calgary and Seattle became big business cities, because they aren't under any BC type restrictions.

One only look at what Alberta and Washington_(state) have been able to do, because they aren't in BC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta#Transportation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_(state)#Transportation

The 12 lane Ship_Canal_Bridge in Seattle is the closest big & wide bridge to V-BC. Although the Port_Mann_Bridge is much closer, it only has 10 lanes. Unfortunately, both bridges don't have any existing rail component. 

Fortunately, Vancouver, WA wasn't forced to indefinitely endure a 3 lane bottleneck like V-BC has.

The planners of the Sydney_Harbour_Bridge didn't have a backwater BC mindset. However, after several decades, the SHB was augmented by the Sydney_Harbour_Tunnel. Unfortunately, there was no provision for a 3rd lane each way to allow for express buses.

https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/current-projects/western-harbour-tunnel-and-warringah-freeway-upgrade How is this possible? Of course NSW isn't under any backwater BC type restrictions.

https://caportal.com.au/rms/wht

The Western_Harbour_Tunnel should have had an extra section for future express busses or even another train line. 

While something like the Sydney_Metro should have already gone under the harbour decades ago, at least it's not as late to the party like Vancouver is.

"Stage 1 (Metro North West) operates with 6-car trains running on 4-minute headways. After the addition of the Stage 2 extension to Bankstown, the stations’ platforms will be configured to allow for future use of 8-car trains and the signalling system designed to allow for 2-minute headways, both of which are planned to be introduced once sufficient patronage demands it. Eight-car trains have a design capacity of 1,539 customers and increasing the running frequency to ultimately 30 trains per hour (2-minute headway) would provide a maximum capacity of 46,170 passengers per hour per direction." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Metro#Capacity 

"In the event that extensions to 8 cars happens if sufficient demand warrants the contract, two infill carriages will be added between cars 05 and 06." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Metro_Metropolis_Stock#Service_formation This allowace for such expansion just isn't part of the BC mentality, but for NSW, it's not a problem.

With the Lions_Gate_Bridge being so narrow, it's impossible to have proper HOV & express bus lanes. Yet for decades, the city refuses to build a bus & HOV tunnel.

Although Portland is a stunted city when compared to Seattle, Portland still has a much better set of bridges than Vancouver, BC. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Vancouver_Regional_District

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_metropolitan_area,_Oregon


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