[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Is there some measure to show there hasn't been an increase in car traffic?
As someone who has to drive as part of their living, I fear doing into downtown for meetings now.
It's a horrible place to have to drive and traffic congestions seems much worse to me than it was 5-6 years ago.

The congestion doesn't appear to be as a result of an increase in cars:

Traffic in Vancouver is getting worse even as the number of vehicles on the road stays the same, concludes a report from the city's transportation department as it prepares to measure and tackle congestion.

"As our streets become more active, the same amount of traffic will move more slowly," Lon LaClaire, the city's transportation director, told city council on Tuesday.

And the streets are definitely being used more, he said.

The number of filming permits is up by 2,000 from the 3,000 it was at two years ago. Permits to dig for utility lines have also jumped. There are more pedestrians, more bicycles, more buses, more of many other things besides cars on the road.

City councillors listening to Mr. LaClaire's presentation Tuesday added their own stories of problems: garbage trucks blocking streets, couriers riding their bikes down sidewalks, stories of ride-hailing services in other cities creating even more congestion problems, complaints about large numbers of delivery trucks downtown.

The overall city-traffic slowdown is something city engineers are sure is happening, because of anecdotal information that percolates into city hall.

The problem is they don't know exactly how bad it is. Current engineering traffic counts measure how many vehicles travel on a road, not how much time it is taking to get anywhere.

Statistics the department provided previously showed there was no change in morning traffic volumes on Burrard Street, Granville Street and the Lions Gate Bridge between 2011 and 2014. Traffic on Cambie Street had gone up by 4,000, to 30,000 vehicles during morning rush hour, between 2012 and 2014.

"But we're absolutely certain it has slowed down," said Dale Bracewell, a transportation-planning manager.

One of the first tasks of the congestion-management initiative will be to figure out how much time it takes a motorist to travel from A to B on major arterial roads.