More Canada Line Woes

Posted by
Filed in City
January 30, 2007

As time pushes forwards, a whole lot of people are losing sleep over Canada Line construction.
"Is it the outrageously soaring costs?" Nope.
"Is it the high pressure time line?" It ain't that.
"Is it bus passenger anger towards a project that doesn't benefit the general population?"
"Businesses closing down due to construction outside?"
No: people are losing sleep over ... honking. I sleep in an apartment building by 12th and Cambie, and with all the lovely traffic changes at that intersection and boneheaded drivers, the horns punctuate all hours of the day and night.

True, sometimes a horn can be a friendly 'beep' to let someone know that the light turned green 10 seconds ago. Or sometimes a little 'beep-beep' can let a driver know that she's turning into oncoming traffic (get off the cell, lady!). But at Cambie and 12th, there's not enough friendly honking happening.

Cars (and SUV's, etc) have horns, and drivers seem to be deeelighted to have a cluttered intersection such as this to use them. There's signs which show NO LEFT HAND TURN or even NO RIGHT HAND TURN. And then the myriad of drivers who apparently didn't know that construction was under way decide to turn anyways. Because hell, if they didn't, they'd have to drive another 3 blocks and turn there. Not that I blame them. Driving in Vancouver is awful, and driving anywhere in Vancouver that requires a left hand turn sucks even more.

Also, traffic gets so blocked from people who lamely get stuck in the intersection (and adjacent intersections, things get so backed up). This is a dream come true for horn honkers. Beep beep, sir. Your car is blocking the green light I've been waiting for for 10 minutes now. Please move on through at your earliest convenience. Beep beep.

That's all fine and good, except for that before (back in the good ol' days) we could drift into dreamland with nothing but the peaceful lull of revving engines, and the occasional siren. But now the gentle vroom vroom has turned into BeepBeep and HOOOOOOONK!

Geez, is this bothering anyone else? I definitely find car horns to be pretty jarring, and the thought of the traffic obstructions and disruption ongoing for weeks, months... years more... Uh, sorry this is kinda depressing. I'm gonna go take a nap or something.

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I'm with CBC Radio in Vancouver, and I'd like to talk to you more about the horrible honkers in your neighborhood.

Please e-mail me your contact information.

Thanks,
Craig

Posted by: Craig at January 30, 2007 12:59 PM | Quote Comment

That intersection's bad, though it's getting a little better. The first few days after they started the East, "real," trench (as opposed to the recently completed Western one) they only had the no turn signs hanging by the stop lights. It took a while before they put some in at driver's-eye level too.

Posted by: Wrenkin

at January 30, 2007 6:12 PM | Quote Comment

Just a note that the Canada Line costs are not "outrageously soaring" - it's a fixed price contract. If costs increase, InTransitBC (the contractor) has to absorb it.

Now the Evergreen Line - which is going to be contracted piecemeal by Translink - those costs have soared beyond budgeted amounts.

Posted by: Ron at January 30, 2007 6:58 PM | Quote Comment

CBC - har dee har har! C'mon now. Let's just shut down everything now. Not sorry to say, statusq, that you are an idiot, an uninspired writer. If you don't want people to insult your work, try harder, please.

Posted by: MK at January 30, 2007 10:34 PM | Quote Comment

Sorry MK, this is as hard as i can try, this being a volunteer job that i just do for personal kicks. Granted, the honkhonk deal definitely is a situation for which absolutely nothing can be done, so really the point of the article was just to give a moment's consideration of the residents of this (or any) construction project where the noise pollution has jumped up a couple notches.

And if it ended up being more of a rant than intended i unduly apologize, and humbly accept your expert constructive criticism.

Posted by: statusq at January 31, 2007 11:05 AM | Quote Comment

we like cbc, and cbc likes us. The interview was on the air tonight. There was no whining, just some commentary about how consistently irate the honkings are. The cbc dude took his recording gear down to the intersection, and lo and behold somebody tried pulling a nono turn, and the horns wasted no time in chiming in. Don't take my word for it, of course.

Posted by: statusq at February 1, 2007 11:17 PM | Quote Comment