Gridlock

Vancouver has the worst traffic out of every city I've been to (although I haven't been to a lot). I noticed that even in the middle of the day (when most people are at work) the roads are highly congested, like rush-hour in other cities. So I started thinking of why the traffic here is so bad.

At first, I thought it was because of the road system itself. There are tons of cars and only so many roads. Or maybe it's because of the fact that Vancouver is bordering the Ocean and has some major rivers and waterways around it, making for more bridge traffic (bottelnecks). Or maybe it's just because the roads were not designed for the proper amount of traffic, or for the right high-concentration locations. Also, there are always construction projects slowing things down on some of the major roads. Some of these reasons may indeed be why the traffic in Vancouver is so bad, but there is an even bigger reason:

VANCOUVER HOUSE PRICES!

On the skytrain recently I was amazed at how many people live in (or at least go to) Surrey. Taking a look at the Ten Largest Municipalities in BC by Population we can see how the population around Vancouver is spread out (via wikipedia):

1. Vancouver - 545,671
2. Surrey (GVA) - 347,825
3. Burnaby (GVA) - 193,954
4. Richmond (GVA) - 164,345
5. Abbotsford - 115,463
6. Coquitlam (GVA) - 112,890
7. Saanich - 103,654
8. Delta (GVA) - 96,950
9. Kelowna - 96,288
10. Langley Township (GVA) - 86,896

There are a lot of people who live outside of Vancouver in the surrounding areas, and where do these people work? Vancouver, of course! So every morning, if we assume a mere 25% of those people are adults and work in Vancouver we have a whopping 1/4 of a million people coming in every morning and leaving every evening.

If housing prices weren't so bad (or if businesses were to open up shop in other locations more often, rather than downtown Vancouver) people could afford to live closer to work rather than having to commute extreme distances every day to their (slightly) cheaper homes in Surrey and other places. I, myself, have to travel about 1 hour by so-called 'rapid' public transportation to work every morning and evening. It's not just that the 2/24 (almost 10%) of my day is wasted in traveling, but the crowded system, whether on a bus, skytrain, or in my car, also adds to stress and annoyance levels.

Not much the average commuter can do, other than try to live closer downtown or try to find jobs that aren't centered downtown. In the meantime, I'll just have to live with this daily gridlock (and continue to complain).