Quote:
Originally Posted by Glacier
That excuse is getting old. The example I give is the 450 km "Cariboo Connector" from Cache Creek to Prince George. It's flat and mostly rolling hills. Very easy ground, much easier than most of the US or anything outside of the Prairies in Canada, and yet the province wants to do 4 laning with no proper medians the entire way.
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Having driven the Cariboo Connector many times one reason for not spending the money on a earthen divide is the relatively low traffic count. I do agree that all the new 4 lane sections should have the concrete medium barriers in place (many of the new sections don't, which iI do think is penny pinching).
People look at specific road (such as the Cariboo Connector) and say that it is not so expensive to have an earthen divide, but the thing is the MoT has to share the same pot of money for the entire province. So to do so on the Cariboo Connector might mean the cancelation of a 4 landing project or two along the #1.
This earthen divide debate feels like an annoying distraction seeing how many first world nations use them sparingly (or not at all) and their highway networks are world class. Concrete barriers get 99% of the job done for a fraction of the cost. More than one way to skin a cat.
If earthen divides are the be all and end all that means every single urban highway in North America that only uses a concrete divider is a sub standard design
Focus this energy where it should be, such as demanding that the MoT use interchanges on their upgrades and not traffic lights.
A 4 lane highway divided by a concrete barrier is a very standard highway design throughout the world, and given BC's relatively small population (with far flung pockets of population), vast expanses, rugged terrain of mountains, canyons, fiords, rivers, etc..., and the lack of a true federal highway program means that the extra expense for an earthen median is not worth it.
Our older highways did use them because highways were cheaper to build in the past, much of BC didn't have enough population to support 4 lane highways outside of the south coast, and most of the areas that have them are incredibly flat and easy to do so (most of the 99 and #1 through the valley is flat as a pancake).
Maybe if the island highway was built as a 4 lane highway with a concrete median instead of the earthen median it has it would have been built as complete free flow as originally intended with no traffic lights... (I am aware that there were other issues at play, but just maybe there would have still been enough funding left to build all the interchanges, which is far far far more important than an earthen barrier).