Seven Oaks Magazine.

Something remarkable is happening in Vancouver. In a reversal of a trend for the last 100 years, people are abandoning their cars and switching to transit, bicycles and walking. At the same time, the provincial government is pushing a major program of freeway expansion.

In June, Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon announced plans to spend well over $1 billion to expand the freeway from Langley to Vancouver. At the time it could be taken as pressure to get Translink directors to approve the province's planned RAV line. After all, most transportation planners -- and people who have observed Los Angeles' freeways -- recognize that expanding urban freeways only creates traffic jams and encourages sprawling, automobile-dependent suburbs.

"It just means a bigger parking lot," said Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan. New Westminster Mayor Wayne Wright agrees. "We can't take any more. We've got 40 000 cars a day right now".

The Greater Vancouver Regional District passed a motion in August asking Victoria to delay moving ahead with the freeway expansion until its impact has been assessed. Yet even after the TransLink board bowed to the pressure and approved RAV on a third vote, Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell continues to push freeways. Liberal MLA Dave Hayer (Surrey-Tynehead) complained about city administrations interfering with "a project they have no jurisdiction over," even though the freeway dissects several Greater Vancouver municipalities.

The plan is to widen the freeway to at least eight lanes from First Avenue in Vancouver to 200 Street in Langley, which would entail building a new bridge beside the Port Mann Bridge. Since many of the roads that connect to the freeway are at capacity, other expansion projects would be required to deal with bottlenecks created by the freeway expansion. Possible projects include widening roads such as 1st and 12th Avenue in Vancouver.

Induced Traffic

The realization that expanding roads actually increases congestion was raised by Jane Jacobs in her 1961 planning classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Recent studies confirm Jacobs' assertion that the number of car drivers in large urban areas is elastic and will fill expanded roads, usually within two to four years.

Some freeway proponents suggest that the project will cut pollution by reducing the time cars spend idling. In fact, expanded freeways always lead to greater automobile use and increased pollution. In Greater Vancouver, automobiles are the largest source of air pollution, and contribute much of the emissions causing global warming. Smog is already a serious health concern, particularly for residents of the Fraser Valley where the air quality is usually the worst. Farmers in the Valley already lose about 10 per cent of their crops to pollution -- there is no current estimate of how much lung function their children lose.

"We used to be able to see Mt. Baker in the summer but now it disappears in the haze," said long-time Surrey resident Ted Cain in a recent conversation "This freeway expansion will just bring us more smog; we won't be able to breathe here."

Global warming has been widely acknowledged as one of the greatest threats to humanity, and the Canadian and British Columbia governments have pledged to reduce greenhouse gas pollution under the Kyoto agreement.

Reduced Traffic

Jacobs' research documents how automobile traffic decreased when community activists forced the closure of the road through New York City's Washington State Park in 1958. To the astonishment of the freeway lobby, who wanted to expand the existing roadway into a major freeway through the park, there was no increase in traffic or congestion on surrounding streets, as people shifted to other modes of travel or met their needs closer to home. Jacobs notes that transit ridership, walking and cycling increases when people choose their mode of transportation "in response to current differentials in speed and convenience."

Such a change is evident in Greater Vancouver as public transit service and cycling infrastructure slowly improves. After years of increase, car registration is leveling off, and the number of registered cars in the City of Vancouver dropped by 1500 in 2004, according to ICBC. Reports suggest that traffic around the University of British Columbia has been significantly reduced by the introduction of the 'U-Pass,' which gives every UBC student a transit pass with the cost deducted from student fees.

The decrease in vehicles vindicates Vancouver's 1997 transportation plan, which gives priority to pedestrians, cyclists, public transit and goods movement over cars. There have been few road expansions, some improvements have been made to transit, and cycling routes now reach many areas of the city -- even though the City has been slow to implement the plan.

Deming Smith, a Vancouver-based transportation consultant who previously lived and worked in Los Angeles, gives credit to community activists who stopped a proposed freeway into downtown Vancouver in the 60s.

"Vancouver is the biggest city in North America that does not have a freeway running through its heart. People here learned early from Los Angeles' mistakes and have made this one of the healthiest and most livable cities on the continent, " said Smith. "Urban freeways destroy communities and increase the automobile dependency that leads to really severe traffic congestion and air pollution."

Bus ridership is up 11 percent in only one year in Greater Vancouver, with increases of about half as much for Skytrain. The increase is attributed to better bus service, reduced cost of transit relative to fuel costs, and the introduction of the U-pass.

A key service improvement is the partial reinstatement of night bus service after all 16 late-night routes were cut in 2001. Night buses were only re-instated after a prolonged campaign by the Bus Riders Union (BRU), which continues to campaign for more transit. "We aren't satisfied with eight late night routes -- we will continue our fight for 24-hour transit seven days a week on an expanded number of routes, to ensure meaningful access to mobility for bus riders," says BRU organizer Heather Jones. At present, night service extends daily runs up to 22 hours, leaving at least a two-hour gap before the early morning buses start.

However, buses remain overcrowded as ridership demands exceed TransLink's bus purchases and increased service. Interestingly, much of the recent service improvements have been to bus routes that are so heavily used that fares cover most of the cost of running the service. Translink has been reluctant to release estimates of cost recovery by route, apparently to avoid criticism for not moving more quickly to improve service on overcrowded routes that break even or run at a profit.

The Transit Alternative

There are ways to reduce congestion on the Port Mann Bridge, the freeway and throughout the region. Many drivers stuck in traffic want to switch to transit, which would open road space for more efficient goods movement and those who need to drive.

Transit improvements can also support compact communities where there is less need to travel to work, play and access services.

The proposed freeway and Port Mann Bridge expansion parallels the underutilized Expo SkyTrain line. The SkyTrain Bridge and line has a capacity of at least double the number of passengers now carried at rush hour. The stations and track are designed for trains up to twice as long as the present short trains, and more frequent service is possible without major modifications. SkyTrain cars are often crowded with passengers; nobody, however, has ever seen a traffic jam on the SkyTrain Bridge between New Westminster and Surrey.

The Skytrain system has been criticized for being too costly because it cannot be used at-grade and the high-tech cars and computer equipment are only available from one manufacturer. However, the Skytrain track and bridge are already built and the loan is being paid. Buying more Skytrain cars makes more sense than building a new freeway bridge competing with a transit system used to only half its capacity.

Improved bus service in Surrey, Langley and other municipalities south of the Fraser River is desperately needed. This would improve connections with SkyTrain and reduce pressure on the Port Mann Bridge and, just as importantly, reduce the need to drive within municipalities. Improved transit service is needed throughout the region so riders crossing the Fraser can get to diverse destinations throughout the Lower Mainland. Service in lower-density areas does not have the same cost recovery as in Vancouver, but the cost of operating subsidies would be small compared to the proposed freeway expansion.

Translink recently won an award for its 98B-line express from Downtown Vancouver to Richmond, which has boosted ridership in Richmond and in Vancouver. The B-line bus model reduces cost per passenger over slower conventional buses and is suited for use on corridors connecting urban centers, such as on the Fraser Highway from Surrey to Langley City and other routes on both sides of the Fraser. The 98B-line includes transit-only lanes in Richmond and Vancouver, and some queue-jumper lanes to avoid traffic delays.

According to a February 2004 report to the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority board, ridership on buses was 12.2 percent above target while SkyTrain ridership was 7.9 percent below. This is partly because the Millennium SkyTrain line is only partially built and does not yet connect to the Tri-Cities area. Completing this line would provide a rapid transit route both between the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, and between Surrey and the Tri-Cities. Since nearly one third of westbound commuters on the Port Mann are headed to the Tri-cities area during the morning rush this would provide an important alternate route around the congested bridge. While this line should not be completed at the expense of needed bus improvements which provide more cost-effective transit, it would do much more to reduce traffic headaches, and take pressure off the Port Mann, than any freeway expansion. The completion of the Millennium line to the Tri-Cities area is currently in doubt due to lack of firm provincial funding.

If the province can find the money to fast track a freeway that is counter-productive, it should be possible to fund transit improvements that will reduce the time people spend commuting and make the region more livable.

Even without considering the pollution that is harming the health of our children, and the global warming that threatens the very stability of the life support systems we all depend on, the proposed freeway expansion makes no sense. It would only erode our quality of life and increase the time we spend in traffic jams. As when people stood up to stop the first proposed freeway through the heart of Vancouver, it is time to stop this insane freeway proposal -- and to insist on better transit instead.

Eric Doherty is an environmental consultant and a director of the Society Promoting Environmental Preservation (SPEC) www.spec.bc.ca.