Vancouver driving

[amorak]

I came into this thread looking for the obvious answer and left dissapointed...

Asians!

[Mad Mel]

Originally Posted by Igottago

Calgary drivers are no prize...

In The Long Way Round, they rode around the world without being hit by a car. Until they got to Calgary, then it happened.

Twice.

[ipuckedyourmom]

Originally Posted by amorak

I came into this thread looking for the obvious answer and left dissapointed...

Asians!

you want asians, try Richmond!

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by henriksedin33

Yes, Victoria. At least Vancouverites do a good 10-20 over the limit on a consistent basis, try driving around at 40-45 everywhere you go on roads that are more and more being changed from 2 lanes each way to 1 lane each way with bike lanes and boulevards.

Really? I find Victoria to be a pretty easy drive. It actually kind of reminds me of Medicine Hat driving. Well, almost. Maybe because I was already in Vancouver for 4 days and had gotten used to all the aggressive driving, but when I went to Victoria, it honestly felt like stress free driving. There didn't seem to be any rush hour traffic, even at around 4 or 5 in the evening.

[VANFLAMESFAN]

Have lived here all my life, so I dont know anything else. I'm used to it. I live in East Van/Burnaby and work on the South End of the Cambie Bridge, so I never have to deal with HWY's, bridges or downtown traffic. I got a real easy commute.

Driving downtown sucks, but like I said, I have nothing to compare it to, so to me, this ir normal. When I was in Calgary, I did notice a lot less cars downtown, especially after work hours.

The street name thing is cool with me. I like the system because I'm used to it, but yeah, if you're an outsider, it would probably drive you crazy.


A little tip that I just found out about a year ago to help me find stuff easier: If you ever want to know the cross street of something, use the Rule of 16. Use it for all streets in Vancouver that run north/south. Take the address, subtract the first two numbers by 16, and bingo you have your cross street.

Example, you're given the address 7498 Granviile Street. Take the 74, subtract 16 to get 58, and there's your cross street. Granville and 58th. Try it out, it's pretty cool and pretty handy when you know about it.

Of course, there are more blocks north of 1st Ave, so it gets tricky from there, but you can estimate. So if you have say 1425 Renfrew, it's 2 blocks north of 1st Ave.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by VANFLAMESFAN

A little tip that I just found out about a year ago to help me find stuff easier: If you ever want to know the cross street of something, use the Rule of 16. Use it for all streets in Vancouver that run north/south. Take the address, subtract the first two numbers by 16, and bingo you have your cross street.

Example, you're given the address 7498 Granviile Street. Take the 74, subtract 16 to get 58, and there's your cross street. Granville and 58th. Try it out, it's pretty cool and pretty handy when you know about it.

Of course, there are more blocks north of 1st Ave, so it gets tricky from there, but you can estimate. So if you have say 1425 Renfrew, it's 2 blocks north of 1st Ave.

Ya, that is pretty cool; almost as easy as..........hmmm, I dunno, perhaps having the address actually indicate where the building is? Lets see. 1166 12th Ave is at....11th Street and 12th Ave! Amazing! What a trick!

[frinkprof]

At first I thought the thread title was "Vancouver Diving," and thought it would be about the Canucks.

[VANFLAMESFAN]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Ya, that is pretty cool; almost as easy as..........hmmm, I dunno, perhaps having the address actually indicate where the building is? Lets see. 1166 12th Ave is at....11th Street and 12th Ave! Amazing! What a trick!

Obviously in a ideal world, that's how it would be. We only have numbered streets running one way in Vancouver. In a city where the addresses don't make a lot of sense, little tricks like these are helpful.

[Mad Mel]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Ya, that is pretty cool; almost as easy as..........hmmm, I dunno, perhaps having the address actually indicate where the building is? Lets see. 1166 12th Ave is at....11th Street and 12th Ave! Amazing! What a trick!

No kidding. It's so simple, 1166 12th Ave is between 11th St and 12th St. Completely logical. Of course, in Calgary, it puts you between 10th and 11th St. That always annoyed me.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Mad Mel

No kidding. It's so simple, 1166 12th Ave is between 11th St and 12th St. Completely logical. Of course, in Calgary, it puts you between 10th and 11th St. That always annoyed me.

it's the only way it works though, if you start the addresses at 100, the 100s have to come before 1st street (between centre street and 1st street.

[Mad Mel]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

it's the only way it works though, if you start the addresses at 100, the 100s have to come before 1st street (between centre street and 1st street.

Why start the addresses at 100? What's wrong with 1 through 99? They use 1-99 on any street which isn't part of the numbered St/Ave grid system... my address was 24 on my street in Calgary. Other cities in Alberta work that way (Lethbridge, Edmonton), they don't need to start at 100.

[ClubFlames]

This was one MSN today.

http://autos.ca.msn.com/photos/galle...entid=25789956

[alan21]

I prefer driving in Vancouver and surrounding area. People in Calgary drive too slow and are usually way too indecisive. The only problem with Van is there isn't enough freeways and too man 60 maximum speed limit zones. Overall Vancouver has better drivers.

[Crazy Bacon Legs]

The frustrating thing about Vancouver is the number of absolutely clueless drivers. Sure, I dealt with my fair share of bad drivers in Calgary, but I can't count the number of times every day that I witness mind-numbingly stupid behaviour on the roads here.

Left turns on double yellow-lined, signed ("No left turn!") streets. Running stop signs. Driving a consistent 20 km/h under the limit. Slamming on the brakes and then signaling a turn. Random lane drifting. Sitting at a green light and then confusedly looking around when someone honks. Almost running over a nice young family in a crosswalk. And that was ONE driver I was behind today.

The thing is, I've had people almost hit me on numerous occasions and then drive away, completely oblivious to the fact they almost had a serious accident. And I mean flying through a 4-way stop and not realizing it despite the fishtailing cars and screeching tires. Seriously.

You can alter some bad behaviour through enforcement and such, but you cannot beat the stupid out of someone.

Vancouver and its surrounding areas are not fun to drive in, and mostly because of the drivers. Much, much worse than anywhere else.

[VANFLAMESFAN]

I've never bought into the whole "This city has better this, better that" when it comes to people. Not sure how one city has a huge amount of worse drivers than another city. Granted, I haven't lived anywhere else, I haven't travelled a whole lot, but to me, people are people. You're going to have idiots in every city, you're gonna have rude people in every city, you're gonna have bad drivers in every city. It's just the way it is.

Don't take this post as me defending Vancouver. It's not like that at all. I don't really care what people think of Vancouver's drivers or people or anything like that. Every city has its fair share of all sorts of different groups. How is Vancouver THAT much worse than anywhere else in Canada?? I just don't understand that line of thinking.

I've never been in an accident(knocking on wood) in my life. If I were to move to Calgary and get into one or two in the first year of living there, I'm not going to say, "Calgary has way worse drivers than Vancouver." People are the same. Within reason of course. I'm not going to say people in Vancouver are the same as people in Ghana or anything like that. Oh and yes, I did bring up Ghana because of the Amazing Rave episode tonight.

At the end of the day, it's amazing what you find when you are looking for it or if a bad first impression taints your feeling towards something.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by VANFLAMESFAN

I've never bought into the whole "This city has better this, better that" when it comes to people. Not sure how one city has a huge amount of worse drivers than another city. Granted, I haven't lived anywhere else, I haven't travelled a whole lot, but to me, people are people. You're going to have idiots in every city, you're gonna have rude people in every city, you're gonna have bad drivers in every city. It's just the way it is.

Don't take this post as me defending Vancouver. It's not like that at all. I don't really care what people think of Vancouver's drivers or people or anything like that. Every city has its fair share of all sorts of different groups. How is Vancouver THAT much worse than anywhere else in Canada?? I just don't understand that line of thinking.

I've never been in an accident(knocking on wood) in my life. If I were to move to Calgary and get into one or two in the first year of living there, I'm not going to say, "Calgary has way worse drivers than Vancouver." People are the same. Within reason of course. I'm not going to say people in Vancouver are the same as people in Ghana or anything like that. Oh and yes, I did bring up Ghana because of the Amazing Rave episode tonight.

At the end of the day, it's amazing what you find when you are looking for it or if a bad first impression taints your feeling towards something.

i'm not basing my thoughts on the drivers in the cities, i'm basing them on the traffic infrastructure. downtown Vancouver is extremely poorly designed, while Calgary is quite simple. the other major cities that i've driven around in are Edmonton, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas, and Vancouver easily ranks at the top as the worst to find your way around in to me

should be interesting next year though, as i'm planning a cross country roadtrip, going through Toronto and Montreal, then dropping down into the states through Boston, New York, Washington, and Chicago. i'm curious to see how those will compare to what i'm already familiar with

[VANFLAMESFAN]

Yeah, my post wasn't about your original one whatsoever. I commented on Vancouver's structure above.

My above post was about the notion of one city have better or worse anything and how I feel every city is essentially the same. I know I'm in the minority, but that's the way I feel.

[HPLovecraft]

Have you driven in downtown Toronto yet?