Will expanding Highway 1 actually reduce congestion?

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Good morning, 

Nate with you today. I don’t know about you, but with the cooler weather we’ve had this week and the calendar rapidly flipping through August, it feels like summer is almost over. 

Personally, I’m excited to crack open my (probably dusty) sweater drawer and put together some cute fall outfits. But the end of summer also comes with some sadness, and a degree of stress to fit in all the ambitious summer plans that have gone as-of-yet unrealized. Whether it’s camping, boating, road-tripping, or festival-attending, the next couple of weeks are a great time to fit in some of those final summer activities. 

As the seasons change over the next month or so, you might even feel some shifts in which behaviours, norms, and values feel important, according to new UBC research on seasonal morality. Some of these shifts are related to seasonal cycles of social and personal anxiety, among other findings, which have potential implications for things like elections and legal judgments. This CBC interview is worth a watch if you want to know more. 

But enough about that, let’s get on to the news and events for your still-striving summer weekend. 

— Nate Lewis, Vancity Lookout

PS - If you find this newsletter valuable, please consider forwarding it to your friends. New to the Lookout? Sign-up for free.

WEATHER

Friday: 21 🌡️ 14 | 🌤️

Saturday: 27 🌡️ 16 | 🌤️

Sunday: 20 🌡️ 14 | 🌧️

Monday: 23 🌡️ 14 | 🌤️

TRANSPORTATION

Will expanding Highway 1 actually reduce congestion?

What happened: The province released details for a portion of its Highway 1 improvement project. The third phase (Phase 3B to be specific) of the Fraser Valley Highway 1 Corridor Improvement Project will double the width of the road through Abbotsford, expanding the existing four lanes into an eight lane highway. 

By improving the highway, the provincial government will “keep goods moving smoothly and help people get to work and back home faster,” Premier David Eby said as part of the funding announcement. 

The price tag: At $2.65 billion, the cost is steep for 8 km of road work. It amounts to an estimated $5 billion for road works in the area, when combined with the $2.34 billion allocated by the province last fall for another 13 km portion of Highway 1 upgrades between Langley Township and Abbotsford.

• It works out to about $240 million per km over the 21 km length of the third phase of the  project, which represents a “drastic exponential increase” in cost compared to the project’s previous phases through Surrey and Langley Township, according to Urbanized. For comparison, Phase 1 & 2 cost approximately $407 million over 14 km, or roughly $29 million per km. 

More details: While increasing the number of lanes is the centre piece of the work, the upgrades also includes a new interchange at Highway 11, a rebuilt overpass, as well as adding an HOV and a shoulder bus lane in each direction. 

• Major construction on this phase of the project will begin in 2026 and be completed over a five year period, according to the province. Further west, construction on the first portion of this phase will begin in 2024, with a similar five year estimated construction period.

Context: While politicians and business organizations in the Fraser Valley are keen to see this sort of investment, the announcement comes in the midst of a funding squeeze across the region, especially for public transit. Locally, Translink recently announced they would need to cut service by 50% if they’re unable to address their systemic $600 million annual funding shortfall by 2026. 

The why: One of the main factors for the upgrades, as cited by Premier Eby and Chilliwack MLA Dan Coulter, is the current difficulty for drivers moving through the area due to heavy traffic volumes. 

• More than 80,000 drivers use Highway 1 between Langley and Abbotsford every day, according to the province. 

However: Numerous scientific studies have found that increased road capacity generates a proportional increase in traffic volume. While there may be a short-term reduction in travel times and congestion, those benefits are shown to disappear within about five to six years of a road expansion project. 

• Dive deeper: A 2011 study coined the phenomena as “the fundamental law of road congestion,” concluding that more road space is unlikely to relieve vehicle congestion. 

Local pushback: Denis Agar is the executive director of Movement, a group advocating on behalf of Metro Vancouver transit riders. 

Agar welcomed the project’s inclusion of bus-on-shoulder lanes but echoed the research that wider highways don’t reduce congestion (in fact, they make it worse, Agar said). He pointed to the “desperately, painfully overcrowded” situation on BC Transit’s route 66, or Fraser Valley Express, which runs between Lougheed and downtown Chilliwack, as an example of a mode of transportation that would benefit from provincial funding. 

• “Can you imagine standing on a crammed bus for 90 minutes travelling from Chilliwack to Burnaby, and then having to take 1 or 2 more transit trips to get to your destination? I've heard stories that the last 66 of the day is so full that it leaves people behind. Sometimes BC Transit will send more buses to pick up the stranded riders, but they're the ones that have to deal with the delay and uncertainty,” Agar told Vancity Lookout.

“Instead of using $2.65 billion to make traffic worse,” why not use some of that money to fund sorely needed public transit to, from, and within the Fraser Valley, Agar argued. 

Municipalities like Chilliwack have asked and been turned down for local transportation funding, according to Fraser Valley Today. However, the province is funding increased transit service in Abbotsford and Mission, according to the Fraser Valley Current. 

SPONSORED BY VIFF CENTRE

VIFF Centre Reopens with Spectacular Upgraded Cinema

After upgrades to the Vancity Theatre, VIFF’s year-round venue will reopen tomorrow, August 17, with state-of-the art 4K laser projection, Dolby Atmos immersive sound, a brand new screen, and even comfier seats!

VIFF will showcase their upgraded cinema with a new series. Total Cinema celebrates everything that makes going to the movies special, with a selection of classic films that demand to be seen on the big screen. From colour (Speed Racer, Amelie, The Last Emperor) to sound (Tron: Legacy, Roma, Stop Making Sense) to spectacle (Lawrence of Arabia, The Matrix, Blade Runner 2049)...

VIFF also continues to bring the best in current art house releases, from rousing and romantic lesbian musical comedy Chuck Chuck Baby to acclaimed residential school documentary Sugarcane to Agnieszka Holland’s powerful Green Border.

Live music events include John Coltrane’s Blue World with The Mike Allen Trio and a screening of Le chat dans le sac.

VANCOUVER NUMBERS

🪟 $300,000: The amount of money a thrift store on the Granville strip said they’ve had to pay over the past three years, due to broken windows and security guard staffing. They say it’s been caused by the city converting a former nearby hotel into supportive housing. [Wildlife Thrift Store]

👮 $664,391: The amount of money the Vancouver Police Department said they spent on policing for the seven home games during the Canucks playoff run this spring. [CityNews]

CITY HALL

Elected city officials draw attention for alleged conduct, conflict of interest

While there were no formal investigations, a few elected officials in Vancouver have been in hot water based on various allegations about their conduct, allegedly using their official positions in dubious ways. 

• It’s another layer in the ongoing political frothing over the role of the city’s integrity commissioner, which was established in 2021 to oversee the ethical conduct of elected officials, but, importantly, not to scrutinize political or policy decisions.

What happened: ABC Coun. Peter Meiszner owned UrbanYVR, a Vancouver-based real estate and urban development news website (which Meiszner founded in 2016), for about seven months after being elected as a city councillor in October 2022, according to the Vancouver Sun. UrbanYVR relied on advertising and sponsorship from the real estate industry, during the same time Meiszner had meetings with major Vancouver-area developers as a city councillor, according to the same Sun column. 

Meanwhile, Independent park board Comm. Brennan Bastyovanszky was the subject of a complaint last year, regarding his repeated requests to go backstage and thank performers, in his role as commissioner, after a show at the PNE. Now, it’s been revealed that the mayor’s chief of staff, the city manager, and an ABC councillor, were involved in escalating the complaint to the city’s integrity commissioner. 

• Lisa Southern, the city’s integrity commissioner, did not find either Meiszner or Bastyovanszky to be at fault in either case, and dismissed the complaints without a formal investigation.

However: The details of the cases shared by Southern reveal both situations included technical reasons regarding why there were no formal investigations into either allegation.   

In Meiszner’s case it was that the complaint of conflict of interest, made by former Burnaby city planner Robert Renger, had occurred more than 180 days earlier and therefore fell outside the integrity commissioner’s jurisdiction, according to the Sun column.  

In Bastyovanszky’s, no formal investigation was conducted due to the complaint’s lack of first-person evidence. The matter was eventually handled through “informal discussion,” according to information included in Southern’s report. 

What it means: Both cases highlight the increased attention on the professional conduct of Vancouver’s elected officials, and the role of the integrity commissioner’s office in overseeing and investigating alleged breaches of conduct. 

Earlier this month, Vancouver city councillors with the ABC party moved to suspend the office’s work until they could clarify the integrity commissioner’s role and scope of work. The attempt was ultimately delayed until city council is back in session in September, after opposition councillors questioned the urgency of the move and made further complaints to Southern’s office, according to CBC. The meeting has been rescheduled to Sept. 25.

THE AGENDA

🚒 Another major fire in Vancouver – the third this week – put eight people in hospital, and displaced 38 residents. The fire, which occurred at a three-storey residential building in Kits, began on a couch and spread to neighbouring units. [CBC]

🌳 A memo sent to all Vancouver city staff on August 12, reviewed by Vancity Lookout, provided an update on the proposed park board governance transition. The memo noted the city anticipates the provincial government would make the necessary changes to the Vancouver Charter – to allow the city to take over management of parks and recreation – following the upcoming provincial election this October. That means the issue is riding on B.C.’s electoral outcome, with it being unclear how a different government would approach the issue. [Vancity Lookout] 

🛥️ Renting a pleasure craft to putt around English Bay is a fun and exhilarating activity, particularly in summer. However, it comes with risks, as highlighted by a recent Transportation Safety Board report. In 2022, a small rented boat was overturned in the harbour by a cargo ship’s bow wave. The three people aboard the ship at the time were rescued, but the two dogs with them were never found. [Vancouver Sun]

🪵 One of the totem poles featured at Brockton Point in Stanley Park will be relocated to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology next month, due to the pole’s condition and age. The six-metre pole was carved by Kwakwaka’wakw woodcarver artist Ellen Neel in 1955 at Neel’s Ferguson Point studio on the west side of the peninsula, according to the city. The totem pole installation, surrounded by pieces of Coast Salish art, has a complex colonial history. [COV, Jordan Wilson]

🥵 People on income assistance are disproportionately impacted by high temperatures, according to the Tyee. Recent research shows that, of the estimated 740 people who died due to the 2021 heat dome, the strongest risk factor was individual-level low income. The majority of heat deaths happen in private residences, and the people who are most at risk are often those who don’t have the means to adapt their environments to extreme heat. [The Tyee, IOP Science]

🚸 While 30 km speed limits in cities are something that road safety groups like Vision Zero Vancouver and Walk Metro Van have (so far unsuccessfully) advocated for, we have a new regional example of a municipality doing something similar. The Township of Esquimalt recently lowered speed limits, with maximum speeds of 40 km on main roads and 30 km on all others. They’ve done this in tandem with a significant increase in active transportation infrastructure like separated bike lanes. It’s one place to watch, to be sure. [Esquimalt]

WEEKEND GUIDE

Vines Art Festival | August 16 & 17, various times and locations | Catch the last two days of this interdisciplinary series of free events on the theme of art-led land justice | Schedule 

Junction Public Market | August 16-September 29, 11 a.m. | Granville Square (above Waterfront Station) | Open daily (except Mondays), they’ve got food, drink, and shopping on offer. Plus, you can also catch live music all weekend long! | Event schedule 

Theatre Under the Stars | August 16-24 | Malkin Bowl, various showtimes | Head out to Stanley Park for the final week of performances, featuring the well-loved classics Cats and School of Rock | Tickets $40

F The Disco | August 17, 4 p.m. | Container Brewing | Discover new music from Vancouver DJs, and maybe even dance a little bit 🕺 | Tickets $12

SEEK Bespoke Market | August 17 & 18, noon | Greenspace behind VSB offices (Fir St. and 10th Ave.) | Find ceramics, slow fashion, handcrafted jewellery, curated vintage, plus food, beverage, and wellness products from over 25+ vendors | Free entry

Vancouver Tenants Union Info Session | August 18, 4:30 p.m. | Second Beach Picnic Area | Renters are invited to a general meeting on eviction defense at a VTU meet up that promises food, fun, and solidarity | Free

R&B Brewing Block Party | August 18, 11 a.m. | 54 E. 4th Ave. | A Brewery Creek block party featuring food trucks, vendors, tattoos, and a bevy of beverages (alcoholic and otherwise) | Free entry

Granville Block Party | Intersection of Granville and Robson | August 24 & 25, 1 - 7 p.m. | Join us for a vibrant two-day street festival in the heart of the Granville Entertainment District! This event is free, fully licensed, inclusive and family-friendly | Learn more [Sponsored]

Richmond Sunflower Festival | Daily until August 31 | Richmond Country Farms | Feast your senses with 90 varieties of Sunflowers, Dahlias and Gladiolas on over 20 acres of farmland | Tickets $12

Sip and Stretch | August 21, 1 p.m. | 320 Water Street (Gastown) | Enjoy the city’s summer pedestrian program in Gastown with an accessible one hour guided movement workshop, plus free drink samples | Free

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

• Swimming with a shark sounds scary to me, but these divers described a magical experience last week in Lions Bay. [VIA]

• Easy tips and advice for personal finances with Dollarwise, a free newsletter. Try it out today and get control of your money. [Sponsored]

• The author of the beloved book Braiding Sweetgrass will be giving a free talk at UBC later next month [Georgia Straight]

• This Northern Chinese restaurant is serving up so excellent BBQ meats. [Vancity Lookout]

• Another Vancouver performance and arts space is closing down due to high rents, but not before they go out singing. [Georgia Straight]

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GAME TIME

Today’s Wordle is a seasonal pastime that’ll seep away (for most of us) come fall. Can you work out what it is?