Editor, The News:
Some rocket scientists have concluded that traffic congestion in Greater Vancouver is worse than almost anywhere in North America.
I’ll bet someone sucked some big public tax dollars out of the trough to do this study and arrive at this no-brain conclusion.
Well, it isn’t rocket science and you don’t need degrees in traffic engineering to make this obvious observation.
One of the major causes is very simple – too many single-family residential subdivisions sprawled between Vancouver and Hope on both sides of the Fraser River.
The answer doesn’t lie in building more highways and bridges. That would only create even greater traffic problems.
Solutions must be found to reduce the volume of single occupant vehicles on our roads and that must begin at city hall, not at Translink or the province or federal governments.
I don’t think there is a single example anywhere in the urban world where single family residential development will support or make transit viable.
The solution must come from the densification of housing in practical development nodes where transit would be viable and desirable, but that requires municipal councils to make intelligent decisions – a seemingly impossible task for our local councils.
In the meantime, we will continue to allow residential sprawl and will also continue to finance an increasingly useless transit system as people remain stuck in their single occupant vehicles whilst commuting to their jobs in the city.
Sandy Macdougall
Maple Ridge