Urban Tech Data :: UTD: October 2016

New Burrard Inlet crossing options

TransLink’s Mayors’ Council’s $7.5-billion, 10-year transportation plan, which is currently being decided by the region’s voters, does not account for the need of additional road capacity to the North Shore.

The Lions Gate Bridge and Stanley Park Causeway are under the jurisdiction of the provincial government. Any improvements or a replacement would have to be spearheaded and largely funded by the provincial government, as in the cases of the new Port Mann Bridge, Highway 1 expansion, South Fraser Perimeter Road, and the upcoming George Massey Tunnel replacement project.

There have been at least half a dozen proposals to build an undersea tunnel to the North Shore, with the oldest proposal dating back to 1890s.

A more serious proposal was fronted in the 1960s and 1970s when the provincial government pushed a plan to build a network of freeways that criss-crossed the city’s waterfront. With the exception of the Granville Street Bridge and the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts, the freeway plan never saw daylight due to municipal-level opposition.

One Danish proposal in the 1990s even called for a land reclamation project in Burrard Inlet at the location of the midway point of the bored tunnel. Condominium towers would be built on the island to help fund the construction of the project.

In the late-1990s, Glen Clark’s provincial government proposed a plan to refit and expand the rusting 1930s-built Lions Gate Bridge. The original plan called for a replacement and expansion of the bridge deck from three lanes to four lanes, eliminating the need for a counterflow traffic system.

But elected officials in Vancouver City Council and the Park Board opposed the plan, given that that a significantly greater number of trees would have to be cut down along the causeway.

Shortly after the Lions Gate Bridge refit project was complete, in 2002 a proposal emerged to construct a six-kilometre long tunnel from the foot of Main Street in Vancouver to the North Shore.

From Vancouver, the route would traverse northwest under Coal Harbour, pass by the area just north of Brockton Point, and end at Taylor Way in West Vancouver to provide a direct and more efficient connection with the Upper Levels Highway. The depth of Burrard Inlet along this tunnelled route option is relatively shallow, ranging from 40 metres to 75 metres.

Like in many other major cities, this 2002 proposal will enable commuters to bypass the street grid and local traffic of the downtown core.

Traffic from the existing Lions Gate Bridge configuration, used by about 70,000 vehicles every weekday, already causes severe congestion in downtown streets and increasingly spills into West End neighbourhood streets.

Any crossing replacement or expansion option would have to consider the reality that downtown Vancouver’s street grid does not possess the capacity to handle a significant increase in vehicle traffic volume. This could be further exacerbated by the City’s plan to demolish the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts, which will redirect traffic to other adjacent arterial streets.

http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2015/04/lions-gate-bridge-close-vehicle-traffic-2030-government-agreement/