Posted by: SixZeroSixOne
Posted by: vantanclub
All the recent planning from Translink looks like route 4 is the future option. Not the fastest for the north shore, but would serve the largest amount of potential future development instead of mostly underwater or a park. Skytrain up Hastings, across Second Narrows, and then down to the Quay.
Option 4 seems pretty useless to me, unless there's likely to be a huge shift in housing density on either side of Second Narrows.
Who would choose to work in Downtown and live in Lonsdale if their commute involved going via Second Narrows??
I think I did read a while back that the NS highway problems are mostly caused by locals (i.e. me!) doing local east-west travel (on and off within a couple of junctions) rather than thru traffic from/to Burnaby or Sea-to-Sky - and this is why the separate "local traffic only" bridge over Lynn Creek was added.
If this is still correct, surely the solution is to provide better east-west connectors across the Shore...
(But I'm not an urban planner!)
Option 4 wouldn't be for people to get from Lonsdale to Downtown, that's what the seabus is for, and a tunnel and train just isn't viable for that ($$$ for minimal increase in speed and frequency).
Option 4 (which doesn't show that it would go down to Lonsdale, and up to Burnaby) is for all the people that are trying to go other places than downtown. East-west on the shore, east van, Burnaby, and connect to the expo/millennium lines, to and from the seabus. Studies have shown that the greater traffic is more to do with more people commuting to work on the north shore than it is from the population increasing.