Posted Route to YVR from Fraser Valley Dreadful!
 

Had a very tedious experience driving into YVR from Calgary at around 4 pm yesterday, Monday. At Fort Langley, exited Highway 1, following signs onto Highway 10, an incredibly slow, jammed two-lane road with many traffic lights, passing through strip commercial and truck farms, taking forever to get to the new Highway 91, which itself doesn't have a ramp directly into the airport. For future reference, what would a faster route be? And can the authorities change the signage?

Unfortunately, there is no good route from the FV to YVR other than what you took (no controlled-access highways).

If you try to stay on the highway, you would have run into congestion at the Port Mann bridge (mornings or afternoons). It's possible to exit in Surrey to get to the airport via the E-W connector in Richmond but that's messy (all suburban roads through the 3rd largest city in B.C.).

If you got over the Port Mann bridge, you'd have to get through some combination Coquitlam, New Westminster, Burnaby, Vancouver and definitely Richmond to get to YVR with the rush hour traffic. It wouldn't have been any easier.


One possibility is to turn south at Langley and head west on zero or 4th Avenues (or is that street) that parallels the border. Unfortunately these roads are posted with a very slow speed limit (50 km/h?) but are mostly traffic-free.

[This message has been edited by terenz (edited 06-13-2002).]

I now see the downside of the anti-auto policies I used to push (and hold Vancouver up as an example of). It's a problem at least in suburbs which are highly auto-dependent, and in a metro area without extensive rail service and which tolerates a five-month transit strike.

I don't think a YVR-FV link is needed but then again I am a geocentric Vancouverite.

Anyway, any highway building here will inevitably lead to more traffic congestion caused by suburban development ("build it and they will come" - a line coined by W.O. Mitchell). When the Alex Fraser bridge was completed 16 years ago, it suddenly caused traffic on the Massey tunnel to disappear. Now everything is clogged and traffic's growing.

If you are flying into YYC from the BAY area, you might consider taking a WJ flight from Abbotsford (YXX/YXY?) back to YYC.


A take-no-responsibility city council.

Actually I was wanting to fly direct Vancouver-SFO, so Abbotsford wouldn't have worked.

What a huge contrast in freeway mileage between Vancouver and Seattle! Agree that traffic in Seattle is still bad, but at least during off-peak periods freeways do get you around quicker. Freeways don't automatically lead to massive peripheral development, since planning controls can work if there's enough will.

Also, in Vancouver's case, I'd like to see more of a sustained commitment to rail and transit if its longtime mobility model isn't to crash and burn. Not merely a scheme to do things on the cheap.