Would seem easier to automatically pull it base it off of income than to default charge everyone the maximum MSP rates until individuals can prove they should be paying less or not at all. My ex stopped paying (before we were together) because she couldn't afford to make payments, so they started taking what was owed from her income tax return and gst rebate cheques. I was like: "Are they really so bureaucratic to not be able to put the act of non-payment together with the use of income tax returns and gst rebates and figure out she should be exempt?"

I agree that Burnaby isn't as dumb as Moonbeam in regards to bike lanes. But as far as I can see, they haven't done shxt to improve any of the current roads. In fact, as the Brentwood area and the Metrotown long term plans have already shown, they are just as fxxking stupid as Moonbeam is by putting a huge amount of density over a relatively small area.

How is densifying a small area stupid?

Densifying a small area is the entire concept behind the city plan put forth. They develop areas around the skytrain stations as "Nodes", each node is relatively self sufficient for day-to-day type things, like each one will have some coffee shops, a grocery store, shops, etc. Then each "Node" has larger access to other areas via the transportation infrastructure, namely the skytrain.

It's a pretty typical plan and used all around the world. Means that many people can get away without needing their car save for 1 or 2 times a week. Some people may never need a car.

Sorry I didn't make myself clear enough in the previous post.

Densifying a small area is not stupid. However, densifying without appropriate measures to manage traffic is extremely stupid, and that is what I was referring to. From what I can see, Burnaby has only been adding density without solutions to tackle the increased vehicular traffic that will come along with the density.

To be fair, Burnaby is densifying right where the Skytrain nodes are as you say. However, it is unrealistic to expect the majority of the residents in those areas to primarily rely on Skytrain for their mobility needs. We are not London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Taipei where the majority of people rely on mass public transit to get around. Unless you're going to DT, the majority of the population in Metro Vancouver (including Burnaby) still rely on and prefer personal vehicular traffic over public transit. Moreoever, both Brentwood and Metrotown see a good amount of regular city traffic going through the areas. To develop the areas without presenting a viable solution to manage traffic seems unwise to me.

Perhaps Burnaby has a long term vision / OCP to turn Metrotown, Brentwood, and other similar communities into primarily public transit-centric ones. But if that is their long term goal, it is not something they can achieve on their own. They would need the collaboration and a generally orchestrated approach with the entire Metro Vancouver onboard to make it happen.

To be fair city of Burnaby did a few things that helps. Around Wilingdon and Canada way and No1 highway, city of Burnaby expanded a left turning lane and also made changes so there are less grid lock.

The way the city plans is not meant to have such massive population. Now the cities (Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam etc etc) is playing catch up. As population grows people really need to adjust their driving habits. IE using more public transit but the city did not expand public transit at all. We need 3 to 4 times as much skytrain coverage than we do now in order to get people to change.

You have to remember is not easy to say just add a lane here and there. There are only so much public space the gov can use. HK, Tokyo, Beijing,taiwan, singapore have it plan right from the get to to use mainly public transit so they build their trains,MTR, subway as the backbone of the city and add roads as secondary. Their public transit is much much more convenient than driving (when I was in Tokyo taking the trains is far easier to get around than by taxi), they have impose heaving tax on buying vehicles, vehicles insurances and some cities even only allow certain areas (my ex brother got a car but he can only drive in certain areas in Beijing he can't drive to the city center coz his liscense plate doesn't allow that.).

I know it is not an easy task at all to just add vehicular capacity to the existing road infrastructure, which is why I don't think it is a very smart idea (for the city) to allow high density buildings going up in the first place. You can call me anti-growth, and I am fine with a label like that. IMO, chasing growth for the sake of growth is not a healthy idea at all. If you cannot deliver sustainable growth, I think it is better to hold steady instead of forcing unsustainable growth.

I understood your previous response, but then you tacked on this.

Your solution doesn't make sense, if we don't densify people will just come from farther away, so although they may not hit traffic as bad, they still will end up travelling from 2 hours away to get to work. What you are suggesting it like the difference between Los angeles and New york. In LA most people drive, but they drive 60 or more km to get to work, often taking upwards of an hour. New york is a simillar story, if you try to drive it will take you upwards of an hour to travel 5 km to get to work.

The difference between NY and LA is that one has an easy solution to fix the problem and the other it's impossible. in NY the short distances and density mean that mass transit is VERY feasible. However in LA the scale and expanse mean that transit is so cost prohibitive the city isn't even looking at it as an option. Instead just building bigger and bigger road networks to try and meet the demand of people coming from further and further away to get to work.

Pick your poison.

I honestly welcome the news.

Port Mann should have been free since day 1. It's a main artery that connects Vancouver to Surrey for the HWY1. How they got away with tolling it in the first place is beyond me.

By tolling Portmann, it didn't actually help the transportation much. People on a budget who live in Surrey would still take the Pattulo whenever possible. And it nullified the whole argument to expand Portmann.

Similar argument can be applied to GE, but some might argue it's a luxury.

The only ways to stop growth are to ban immigration and to prohibit everyone else from outside of the region and in other parts of the country from coming here. I'm sure lots of people would be on board with the former, but the latter is impossible to achieve without drastic consequences to the people who live and work here. You can't do it legally because mobility rights are guaranteed in the Charter. You could make this place unattractive by crashing the economy. However, unless you're sitting on a pile of cash, you still likely won't be able to afford that detached house in a recession.

We all shit on density, but what's the solution when people continue to move and stay here? Open up the ALR? Sell more Crown land to developers so we can all own detached houses?

Personally, I think spreading the city out is a better solution than high densification for the time being. (Medium densification is more acceptable in my books for now.) Some of you may not agree, and that's OK.

The problem is, Metro Vancouver is finding itself in too rapid a growth where we are jumping directly from a low density situation (single detached homes) to a high density situation (40 floor high rises) over a relatively short time frame. We are skipping the medium density situation (low and mid rises) that allows us to better cope with the transition from low to high density. Our infrastructure is not designed to handle this rapid growth. The roads can't suddenly gobble up all the cars. And we can't afford mass transit either because outside of those few pockets of high density, there isn't enough density to support /justify the mass transit.

Farming is important. We need to eat. But that doesn't mean I am opposed to opening up some ALR. As a somewhat similar example, look at the plop of land in Richmond bounded by Garden City, Alderbridge, No.4, and Westminster. IIRC, it was some sort of Natives reserves zoned for farming. The Natives wanted to turn that into a residential lot -- probably of the hih rise variety -- but was repeatedly denied. As a layperson, I don't understand that. Nobody in the right mind would want to farm there when the plot is already bounded by commercial and residential plots on 3 sides.

Life does not have to revolve around CoV. Businesses should be given incentives to open up outside of CoV so that there are employment opportunities not only in DT Vancouver. There are obviously businesses that are location-dependent, but a whole lot of them should also not care whether you open shop in DT, Richmond Business Park or Surrey Business Park.

Demolish huge tracts of SFH and replace with Row Housing. Similar to what's happening along Cambie but at a much greater scale.

Of course that's going to happen right after we ban immigration and close all of BC borders.

It's my view that non-strata rowhomes are the ideal form in the medium term. This is where the Township of Langley, City of Coquitlam, and New West have done something right. Unfortunately with the price of land in Metro Vancouver, such homes are approaching a million dollars which is not too far from a Vancouver special with a basement suite. People ultimately want to own the land underneath their home, even if it means being civil with your neighbours about replacing a roof.

It's a shame that other municipalities won't pursue this form which would result in lower prices for these homes in the long term.

You get your own garage in many of these types of places. Big plus for members on here. Sounds retarded, but having my own garage is really the only thing spurring me to try and move from my current apartment to a house.

You also get garages in strata townhouse complexes. Unfortunately, most townhouse complexes in the City of Vancouver have underground parkades which require more maintenance and limit what you can do to your vehicles. Storage lockers are no replacement for a proper garage.

I would never go back to a complex without personal garages.

One more note on the whole city of burnaby being run so supremely.

If that were the case the city wouldn't have such a problem with extreme shortages of low income housing, with the final remaining large social housing developments being shut down with the latest round of rezoning around metrotown the city of burnaby has basically turned a blind eye to those residents who needed those units.

It's actually been a major criticism from other cities, like the city of vancouver, who has stated burnaby needs to do something, because the city of vancouver cannot be responsible to build social housing for the entire region just because Burnaby doesn't see it as being a priority.

So yeah, running a city like a business is a great plan, if you can choose to totally not give a fuck about some of your most desperate residents. Good job Mayor Corrigan.

So you expect the city to use the most valuable land to build social housing for low incomers? I am sorry but that have no sense of logic at all. Social housing is needed but should not be in the center of the city. There are lots of area to build social housing on less valuable land.

Even though I don't like how the city re-designing metrotown I do support the social housing in that area needs to go somewhere else where land is more affordable and let developers develop here. Beside is not like all social housing is gone. As far as I understand new apartments needs to have a certain number of units left for social housing so is not like is all gone.

Mayor moonbean can complain all he likes since his goal to end homeless haven't actually work at all. There will always be homeless and there will always be more demand to build more social housing. Is a never ending cycle so there needs to be a stop somewhere.

There is a strong argument that social housing should go where there is immediate access to public amnenties and public transportation. Poor people shouldn't be driving cars so that's why you put social housing next to commercial centres and public transit corridors.

The problem with that thinking today is that land adjacent to rapid transit and commercial centres is so expensive. Blame it on property speculators, but also blame it on millennials who don't seem to want to live the surburban lifestyle they enjoyed while growing up.

knew I was saving some coins today, splurged on a $7 bubble tea :victory:

Took port mann today, make it to work in 20 mins from surrey to new west. Cut my commute in 1/2 :fuckyea:

i think it's because everyone is gone for the long weekend... i'm gonna wait for next week to see if there are any noticable differences.

I should have put that I left at 5:15am lol, that would make a difference :fullofwin:

A lot of happy drivers today. haha.

Despite me paying for your happiness on bridges I never use, this should really help splitting the traffic for more efficiency. I think it's good.

oh okay. i had to start work at 7am this morning. i only gained 10 minutes going over the pattullo on my normal route because i wanted to see if anything changed. the parking lot was only 20% of what was normal capacity when i got there and then i realized it was the long weekend coming up and no one was here.

the real hell begins next Tuesday for highway 1 users

I wonder how this is going to affect the other side, at the second narrows.

Ever since the new port mann opened up with it's larger capacity my commute over the second narrows has become hell in the afternoon, since all the traffic flows so freely all the way until the bottle neck at the Cassiar.