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SULLIVAN: Adding housing will not remove traffic jams

I spent some quality time on the on-ramp to the Lion’s Gate Bridge on Monday. Approximately 40 minutes. Plenty of time to look around and watch everyone break the law on hand-held devices.

I spent some quality time on the on-ramp to the Lion’s Gate Bridge on Monday. Approximately 40 minutes. Plenty of time to look around and watch everyone break the law on hand-held devices.

But what else were they supposed to do, stuck in park in a foolish attempt to scale the city’s most picturesque bottleneck? Think about why they’re stuck in park, etc.?

Well, if I’ve learned one thing about traffic on the North Shore, it’s best not to think about why it’s so bad, and even worse trying to figure out how to fix it. It just ends in tears.

Take, for instance, the recent North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce breakfast dedicated to traffic (I wonder how everyone got there?), featuring three of the North Shore’s foremost solutioneers: provincial MLAs Ralph Sultan, Jane Thornthwaite and Bowinn Ma.

A formidable brain trust spanning the generations.

Bowinn Ma, the freshly minted MLA for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, is also the parliamentary secretary for TransLink for the provincial government. She’s kind of in charge of moving people around.

Which is why it made my eyes water when she said the problem was housing affordability. Don’t get me wrong; housing affordability is a big problem. There’s no way we could afford to buy the modest Norgate bungalow we bought in 1989 to get a foothold on the housing market ladder, but blaming the housing bubble for traffic inflation seems like a bit of a stretch.

Yet, it’s hardly the first time I’ve heard it. The argument is: ordinary people who work on the North Shore now have to commute to and from PoCo and points east, so the highways and byways have become increasingly plugged with people trying to get to work and home.

You have to believe, however, that if more people could afford to live here, traffic wouldn’t be so bad.

Hmm.

Jane Thornthwaite, who has been an MLA a lot longer than Bowinn Ma, agreed with her honourable adversary. We need density, that is – more people. After all, “do we really want our snow removal guys coming from Chilliwack?” I suspect that was a rhetorical question, but let me try to address it anyway:

It’s at least possible that more people will exacerbate the problem. Unless required to do so by the terms of their employment, people live where they like. And it’s conceivable they may prefer to live in Chilliwack than in a 600-square-foot apartment in North Vancouver – even if they could afford it. And if at the same time we increase density on the North Shore without increasing capacity, we’re going to have more traffic. No?

Capacity. The elephant on the bridge, blocking traffic. Read it and weep: In 1960, there were nine lanes of traffic to and from the North Shore. Fifty-seven years later, there are still nine lanes. And according to the above formidable brain trust, no more are in the works.

Ma, the TransLink czar, maintained firmly that “you cannot build your way out of traffic congestion” with more lanes, bridges and therefore, more cars. The only long-term solution, she says, is public transit.

Thornthwaite is all in on TransLink and has even floated the idea of connecting the North Shore to the rest of the world via SkyTrain. Brilliant idea! Of course, it’s not one that TransLink takes seriously, with its sights set on more pressing priorities such as rapid transit in Surrey and along Broadway to UBC, both admirable goals, surely.

At this point, the tears are starting to run down my cheeks. But my upper lip remains stiff, if quivering slightly.

Ralph Sultan, the veteran, artfully pointed to the federal and municipal governments as sources of the solution. Indeed, the feds have pledged to go billions of dollars into debt to get Canada moving again. Somehow, though, once it’s funnelled through political channels, all that cash and commitment comes out the other end as another SeaBus.

Sultan also buys into the need to power up development as a solution to traffic. Once again, before I become completely inconsolable, would someone please explain to me how affordable housing (even if it’s remotely likely, which it’s not), somehow solves the traffic problem on the North Shore?

Maybe the formidable brain trust is just being, um, political, and the truth is nothing solves the North Shore traffic crisis. Maybe we’re just destined to become an endless vale of traffic tears.

Or maybe it’s time to dry our eyes and take up the cry for the SkyTrain to the North Shore. At the very least, TransLink may send a few extra buses across those nine lanes, just to shut us up.

Journalist and communications consultant Paul Sullivan has been a North Vancouver resident since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Madonna. p.sullivan@breakthroughpr.com

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