Transportation

How many times have you seen a road like this?

A pavement in this condition is a ticking timebomb ready to self destruct. An asphalt pavement is meant to serve as a wear course for vehicles to drive on safely, but just as important is it’s function as a barrier against the elements. When cracks like this occur, water can penetrate the base and sub base courses, breaking down the structural integrity of the road. The pavement also becomes much more susceptible to frost damage in cold climates.

Reading articles like the following is enough to make you wonder what it is going to cost to replace all the roads in Canada, (and the water and sewer pipes underneath as well)!  read more »

Last week I wrote an article about Castlegar Airport, Gas Prices and the Potential for Airline cuts. Here's another article about the same problem that could be faced by many rural communities in BC, the last one was from ABC News America, this one's from the New York Times...

Airlines’ Cuts Making Cities No-Fly Zones - New York Times

Financially strapped airlines are cutting service, and nearly 30 cities across the United States have seen their scheduled service disappear in the last year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Others include New Haven, Conn.; Wilmington, Del.; Lake Havasu City, Ariz.; and Boulder City, Nev.

Over the same period, more than 400 airports, in cities large and small, have seen flight cuts. Over all, the number of scheduled flights in the United States dropped 3 percent in May, or 22,900 fewer flights than in May 2007, according to the Official Airline Guide.

Is anyone keeping note of the problem here? If people can't get here, they won't be spending dollars here, and the tourism economy (along with other industries) will see a decline. The Kootenay region has always been relitively remote, could things become more remote once again?

Cars and trucks idling has been a contentious issue among drives, but I don't see people taking the sort of advice that I'm reading these days - That leaving your vehicle running, if you are stopping for more than 10 seconds, is worse than shutting it off and starting it again.

I've included a bunch of excerpts and links for your reading pleasure. More after the jump...  read more »

Castlegar airport is a pretty quiet place, that is until about five minutes before a plane is due to land. Everyone looks to the sky and waits for the bussing of the twin prop flights from either Vancouver or Calgary.

There are only two destinations from this airport, East or West, and in winter you're lucky to catch a flight to or from either of them with the way this valley closes up in Winter.

But my post today is less about Castlegar Airport, and more about the way we rely on air travel, and what this means as the world spirals beyond peak oil...

ABC News: Why Airlines Might Abandon Your City

What the airlines are doing to stay "aflight" is raising prices and cutting back flights to make sure those price hikes stick. You know all about the raising-prices-and-fees part (American Airlines was the final airline to announce $25 to check a second bag); but what might be more nefarious for many travelers, especially those in smaller cities with regional airports, is what one airline analyst tagged as an inevitable "mother of all capacity cuts" that will occur as legacy airlines begin to merge.
Deciding where to cut routes and cities is fairly easy; airline bean-counters simply sort their city-pair spreadsheets by profitability, and those at the bottom are first on the hit list. Naturally, they look at the number of passengers who travel in and out of the cities in question (although, interestingly enough, if there are too few passengers, smaller airlines may qualify for federal subsidies — during 2006, for example, Department of Transportation figures indicate subsidized Big Sky Airlines averaged just two passengers a day on its Lewiston to Billings, Mont., route). Unfortunately, even those subsidies weren't enough to keep Big Sky from going bust.

Seeing Air Canada, (ok, ok "Jazz") is the only scheduled commercial carrier to Castlegar, we can bet that there would be some provincial or federal support for maintaining a service? Don't be so sure, airlines, even federally supported ones, have gone under before, and we are coming to an unprecedented crisis., with cheap fuel scarcity and no viable technological alternatives on the horizon, (hybrid airplanes would just be too heavy with today's technology, and solar planes can barely carry one person, let alone a passenger!).

How much do you rely on air travel? Would airline route cuts impact your business? How about the tourism that uses planes to get to your city?

While driving across BC this last week, one things that stands out in my mind is the removal of rails. Sure, in some corridors there are rails on both sides of the river; but in others, all that is left is the rail grade and a walking trail to commemorate an old mode of transportation.

I recently came across this celebration of all things Rail, (if you're in the States, its on May 10th. 2008)...

Home | National Train Day

The first-ever National Train Day is on its way, and there’s never been a better time to celebrate. With passenger ridership growing every year, more and more people recognize that trains are the best way to relax and enjoy the ride. To read, talk, work or snooze the time away. Which makes traveling by train the nicer way to get there.

From Amtrak's perspective, there's never been a better time to get on a train to travel across the country, which is a view in stark contrast to that of the automobile powered society we inhabit.

Canadian Train Day?

Canada doesn't have a day to commemorate trains, but just like America, Canada was built on the backbone of a transcontinental railway network. Until the end of WWII, the train was the main mode of long distance travel in Canada. These railways today provide almost no passenger travel, but exist solely to transport goods to factories and major cities. The main passenger network is run by ViaRail, who's network is shown below:

The days of short route trains may return one day. In my area, is would be possible to run a passenger train from Nelson to Trail via Castlegar on existing tracks. Currently these tracks are only used for freight - so with some investment into new stations, carriages and efficient locomotives, this route has the potential to revive rail travel outside of the large cities.

With the rising cost of gas and car travel, an efficient train network is not out of the question.

Vancouver is undergoing some serious growth, even after years of development with condos and sprawling suburbs. Having just visited, I was again reminded of the sorry state of the transportation infrastructure in this finest of Canadian Cities.

US Needs Vancouver as Model :: Views :: thetyee.ca

Yet there is even more to do in Metro Vancouver to provide a model for the future. While your metro area has many examples of great walkable urbanism, over 85 per cent of you still use the car for most of your travel needs around the region. That indicates a metro with an over-dependence on a single form of transportation and one land use option; the drivable suburban option.

There is a lot of good going on, but there is still a lot of improvement to be found. What do you love/hate about traveling around this city? Could America learn something from Vancouver?

Technorati Tags: Vancouver, tranportation, Urbanism, Metro Vancouver, travel