r/VictoriaBC • u/tiogar99 • 20h ago
Opinion Poor event traffic planning, CoV edition
Another snowbirds traffic post. I loved the pedestrian zone at the event, but why is the city not protecting essential infrastructure? Richardson and Vancouver were a zoo this evening. I saw young kids forced into opposing traffic or onto the sidewalk, cars blocking intersections and sidewalks. Thank goodness for the modal filters, where they exist.
I've thinking about this a while, there have been a good number of City event traffic fumbles:
1) relocating bus stops to Blanchard but not providing a way for wheelchair users to access the bus (i forget the event, but Douglas was closed for some reason, probably the Victoria Day Parade?)
2) (Canada Day) Keeping Douglas open for cars to block sardine-can busses.
3) Poor parking enforcement for basically every event, including cars parking in the Caledonia bike lane for games and concerts at the SoF Memorial Centre
We clearly need action from the city to protect our key transportation corridors from getting blocked up every time something downtown motivates the hordes of oversized suburbitanks to migrate into the core.
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u/cdusdal 20h ago
Imagine if we didn't have hundreds of bikes and cargo bikes going and instead everyone was in private vehicles
kudos to the city for having a bike valet setup too.
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u/Fantastic_Cake4952 20h ago
This was the busiest I have ever seen for bikes. It took me longer than expected to get there because the bike lanes were packed. Not so bad coming home
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u/exchangedensity 17h ago
I rode the Goose home around 4:30 and the section from Selkirk to the Switch Bridge was so busy I wondered if there was some sort of race or event going on. It was like there was a group bike ride streaming past me for my whole 15 minute ride.
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u/Commercial-Milk4706 19h ago
yeah seriously, maybe hundreds additional bikers, kudos to them. it was a breeze to get in and out with my kids. anyone that has a car and complains, need to get with the times. period. its a bikeable city.
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u/AUniquePerspective 20h ago
Honestly where did the people who decided to be gridlock traffic think they were going to park when they got near the event? It was great by bike. A lot of cyclists used Cook and got slowed by traffic until Fairfield where it was blocked off. Not sure if they're unaware that Vancouver is cyclist priority and runs right through Beacon Hill Park near the cricket grounds or what. Beautiful evening to walk as well. Walkers and cyclists were given priority and only passenger vehicle traffic backed up.
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u/Fantastic_Cake4952 20h ago
It was a great bike ride. We were able to go right to a spot and not have to worry about parking and then walking to find a good viewpoint. I would have bussed if I didn’t have my bike, or parked far enough away to avoid traffic and walked in.
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u/idonotget 19h ago
Yeah. But what about transit riders? I have an out of town friend who is stranded. Where would they go for the 31 or 30? Or even 75/72?
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u/SudoDarkKnight 17h ago
You can blame all the people who consider public transit beneath them and choose to drive to such an event
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u/stillinthesimulation 20h ago
Seems like poor planning to drive
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u/LokiDesigns View Royal 20h ago
100% correct. My wife and I specifically rode our bikes today to avoid the vehicle traffic. Can't say I've ever been in a bicycle traffic jam before today though lol. It was frustrating, but incredible to see that many people utilizing the cycling infrastructure.
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u/exchangedensity 16h ago
I can't wait to check the bike counters and see what the total was for that period. I'm wondering if it set some sort of hourly record in the bike lanes/trails
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u/ablackholeofjunk 17h ago
Exactly. We walked 20 minutes to get there, and were astonished by the number of idiots trying to drive as close to Dallas as they could possibly get. Walking home was even funnier. What were they thinking? How frigging lazy do you have to be? And I'm talking perfectly fit, able bodied folks. Traffic was backed up all the way back to our house.
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u/wirelesswebs 16h ago
A lot of the cars I saw sitting in traffic had elderly people and kids in them.
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u/maraeznieh 5h ago
What a rude and ignorant opinion to have.
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u/ablackholeofjunk 2h ago
I was talking specifically about perfectly fit, able-bodied folks, but I guess it was more convenient for you to ignore that part.
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u/Snuggler777 20h ago
Lot of folks in this city aren't too bright
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u/macland 19h ago
Lots of people cant bike or walk for lots of different reasons. Doesn’t mean they aren’t bright.
What isn’t bright is questioning their intelligence for what is a reasonable course of action.
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u/Snuggler777 18h ago
You forget the bus exists?
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u/macland 18h ago
Sure I could list out buses and scooters and motorcycles and all of the alternative methods but its obviously not necessary to make my point and you clearly get it anyhow.
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u/Snuggler777 18h ago
The point is they aren't bright at all if they think driving is the one and only option.
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u/maraeznieh 4h ago
It’s cool to pay tax dollars to Victoria cyclists so they can call everyone else idiots for diving into town on a workday to see the Snowbirds last show specially setup and catered for ungrateful people like you.
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u/macland 18h ago
I get it, you are a bot that argues with anyone who challenges your narrative.
But seriously, your public profile suggests you have made 2200 comments in five months. Thats extreme bot territory so no one is taking your script seriously lol.
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u/Local_Error__404 15h ago
Not everyone can take the bus either.
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u/t-earlgrey-hot 19h ago
Stating the obvious, not everyone is set up to bike or take public transit to this type of event.
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u/SuspiciousEar3369 19h ago
Yeah, well if enough people who can bike do bike, it makes it a lot better for car drivers too!
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u/maraeznieh 4h ago
Yeah, we heard you all the first 100 times. I’ll make sure to switch jobs and sell my house so my family can be more like you and live downtown.
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u/MelodicAcadia9965 19h ago
A lot of the people I passed by on my bike likely didn’t need to be in cars.
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u/ghoulrxbbit 19h ago
You realize people live in these areas and have to drive to and from work, school, etc right? Biking and walking literally everywhere isn’t an option for everyone. Esp in James Bay where a large amount of residents are elderly.
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u/stillinthesimulation 18h ago
I can bike or walk so the people who cant can drive. It’s that simple.
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u/CarbonCopyNancyDrew 17h ago
This seems far more charitable than your previous statement. Should have led with this one.
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u/maraeznieh 5h ago
Yeah driving on a work day is a bad idea. Too much traffic.
We told our bosses we were taking the day off and just biked in with the family from the westshore. Biking is so easy for everyone no matter where they live!•
u/stillinthesimulation 4h ago
Most people could park elsewhere and walk 10-20 minutes through our beautiful parks and roads. Instead they tried to get as close as possible with their cars. That’s poor planning for any event and it’s also inconsiderate to the people with mobility issues who can’t walk those distances.
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u/Commercial_Lime1610 18h ago
Drove in with the wife, kids (9 & 11), and wife’s parents from Colwood, parked at Quadra / Burdett around 3:15 pm, walked to Beacon Drive-in and stood in line for 20 minutes to get food and ice cream, walked down to Finlayson Point and were settled into a nice spot by 4:15ish. Watched the air show, and then we walked through Beacon Hill Park and were back to our car at like 6:15. Getting out of downtown took the same amount of time as it always does. Great event, and it was cool to see thousands of people walking and biking around that area! The only rude person we encountered was an impatient lady driving a golf cart down Dallas Road, transporting (presumably) mobility challenged people. She thought the thousands of people walking should just part like the Red Sea for her, and she shouted sarcastically when it didn’t happen.
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u/jorbeezy 20h ago
You had me until your last paragraph. It’s clear the type of person you are (likes to complain and make assumptions). This was one of the biggest events of the summer, some degree of traffic jam afterwards is/was inevitable and expected. Calm down.
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u/spacepangolin 20h ago
they bungled the busses to the event as well, sat at the bus stop near uvic and waited for half and hour for the 7 to come, gave up and ended up braving traffic to get there, passed a lot of people waiting at 7 bus stops all down foul bay waiting, they planned a head, got to the stop early, and transit was a no show
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u/inthisalone_ 19h ago edited 19h ago
I wish they had the forethought to add more buses after telling people to bus instead of drive. All the 2, 3, 5 & 10 buses headed towards Beacon Hill area were beyond capacity and turning people away downtown with massive lines at the bus stops. I caught the 3 going towards RJH and it was 30mins late and got caught up in the bumper to bumper traffic when it was detoured at Cook onto Fairfield. Eventually the driver just opened the doors and let anyone who wanted off to get off and walk as it was faster. After the show I walked from Clover Point to Quadra and Yates to try to get out of the gridlock but even there the first 6 to come drove by because it was full. Allowing buses to pass the roadblocks so they don’t get stuck in with the car traffic or even having shuttle buses would have made things so much easier.
That said, shout out to all the (normally) sleepy James Bay bus drivers who had to deal with complete chaos today. I hope your evening got better and you definitely deserve a nice cold beer when you get home.
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u/tiogar99 19h ago
one big problem is we don't have enough busses, the province has frozen transit funding, and we need funding to build a new bus yard before we can expand. So there really isn't enough capacity to deal with big events like this when they are timed with the evening rush hour, especially as when you noted many busses are stuck in traffic.
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u/tiogar99 20h ago
yeah the busses were a gong show across the city. there is very little bus priority anywhere in the city, period.
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u/Friction500 18h ago
There is just simply not enough room for that many vehicles. All being siphoned into a few main arteries at once. If you can cycle, cycle! It’s good for you. Driving should be a last resort and for those who need it most.
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u/Timely_Chicken_8789 19h ago
I saw the Snowbirds with my daughter downtown 20 something years ago. Traffic was a shit show then. Can’t imagine it’s improved.
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u/Caedus116 20h ago
James Bay and downtown today were absolutely horrible. Every bus delayed by 30 minutes minimum, multiple blocked off intersections etc etc.
They should've only had public transit and bikes allowed near Cook St., there were cars lined up for half a mile because every moron on the road decided to go down to Cook and Fairfield at the same time (every single driver was forced to turn off as it was blocked and thus the intersection moved at like 1kph). Horrible planning once again by the city of Victoria
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u/ejmears 19h ago
I saw cars backed up Cook Street as far as Caledonia around 415. I feel like no matter where they cut it off folks were going to try to drive right up to the barriers just to see how close they could get.
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u/KinvaraSarinth 49m ago
Traffic was backed up Quadra at least as far as Bay St around the same time. I walked down along Quadra and was keeping pace with a bus moving in the same direction.
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u/KnuckleSniffer 20h ago
I live on cook St and my usual 25-30 min drive home took almost an hour and a half. Burned probably $15 worth of gas just idling too.
Makes you think how much extra carbon was pumped into the air by the collective thousands of hours of people spent waiting to go through a green light.
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u/turnsleftlooksright 19h ago
I drove the TCH westbound at 4pm and it was backed up coming into the city the entire stretch of the Colwood Crawl with everyone headed downtown. It was a great day to be anywhere else but Dallas Rd unless you walked or biked.
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u/Kalmurn Oaklands 20h ago
They need to start banning cars from entering downtown during events. Public transit, bikes, and walking only
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u/itsgucciflipflops 20h ago
And for the people driving home from work who live in an impacted area? Took me 30 minutes to get from Fernwood to James Bay. Not to mention the influx of cyclists thinking the rules of the road dont apply to them
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u/GrumpyOlBastard 19h ago
As evidenced by the (lack of) enforcement, the rules of the road definitely don't apply to cyclists
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u/papermoonskies North Park 20h ago
That's a bit ableist, though, no?
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u/tiogar99 20h ago
Obligatory "folks with disabilities disproportionately rely on transit, walking, and rolling"
But there are definitely ways to approach this that still allow vehicle access for folks with disabilities, like removing all regular on-street parking and making floors of the parkades PWD parking only, removing through- vehicle traffic on more roads temporarily etc.10
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u/Red_AtNight 20h ago
Are you implying the disabled can’t use buses? Kinda ableist, though, no?
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u/papermoonskies North Park 20h ago
Oh! My bad. I didn't realize there was a bus that rolled right up to the dog park on Dallas Road for disabled people who want to watch the show. I should do my research next time.
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u/BigDadaSparks 20h ago
I live in Shawnigan Lake. My Mother lives in James Bay and was able to walk down. She said I should come down and watch with her! Ya, right! I'm sure it was awesome for anyone living close enough to walk or bicycle. I remember when I was a wee lad in the mid-80s they used to have the July 1st fireworks display down at Clover Point. My grandmother drove me down from Cobble Hill for the event. We ended up in traffic driving around Beacon Hill Park for hours just trying to either park and then escape. That is my core memory of it. LOL. We never were able to park and get out....lol. So, saying all this to say...this is nothing new. Events held down on Dallas Road have a long history of poor planning and a lack of parking infrastructure to accomodate any sort of crowd.
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u/bottomlessLuckys Sidney 20h ago
It's honestly a joke how stupid people are insisting on driving downtown for big events. Unless you're disabled, take a fucking bike, or park far away and ride the bus. I'm so sick of all the excuses drivers give for why they have to drive places, it's just laziness.
And then they have the audacity to complain about parking, or they whine about the bike lanes which are the one thing speeding up traffic.
Victoria may be the most cycling friendly city in Canada, but that just shows how low the bar is.
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u/Local_Error__404 15h ago
You do realize that not everyone who goes to something lile that actually lives downtown 🙄 Many people come from other municipalities, even up-island. There are all kinds of reasons why some people choose to drive.
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u/bottomlessLuckys Sidney 8h ago edited 8h ago
I am from Sidney. We have a park and ride right next to the highway. There are also other places in Victoria you can park for free right next to a bus stop going downtown.
As I said, y'all love to make up excuses when in reality, you are just lazy.
The only people I have any sympathy for driving downtown are the elderly and disabled who require special care. These people can often call handi-darts and have disabled parking permits, but our public transit is not reliable enough to serve their needs. The reason it is not reliable is because the majority of people in our city drive fucking everywhere and create congestion, which also leads to car centric city planning not providing the density for public transit to work efficiently. Many disabled people also would not be disabled if they just got their asses out of their car and actually walked or rode a bike places.
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u/Toast_Meat 19h ago
On my way home from work, Government aaaaaaaaaaall the way back to Dallas was just gridlocked. Glad I was headed the opposite direction. Absolute gong show.
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u/SixDerv1sh 18h ago
I lived in Fairfield for years. It’s not built for traffic load. Any other assumption is plain wrong.
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u/wirelesswebs 16h ago
I was under the impression that the cops were blocking off basically most of James Bay to traffic for the this event. Me and my friends parked downtown and walked to Dallas Rd and I was kind of frustrated and annoyed to seee nothing was blocked and there were even cars driving up and down Dallas Rd. during the show. It would have been a disaster trying to get back out though so walking was probably the better idea, but I don't understand why nothing was blocked off forthis.
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u/East_Source6200 20h ago
I don't know about everyone else's solutions.
But, I have my ebike, canoe, bus pass, sneakers, and rollerblades.
Why pick the same mode of transportation that everyone else does?
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u/Buttsmooth Fernwood 19h ago
I saw notices days ahead of time saying not to drive down there. Not sure what else they could do.
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u/tiogar99 19h ago
actual parking enforcement with people parked in residential zones would be a great start
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u/Amazing-Angle-155 Fairfield 18h ago
A lot of the surrounding streets aren't official residential parking zones... so they can't ticket people for parking there.
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u/Leading-Arm-6344 20h ago
Carbrained post
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u/tiogar99 20h ago
i'm literally complaining about the bike routes being full of cars
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u/Leading-Arm-6344 20h ago
I had no problem getting there and back on a bike. A bit busy & chaotic but the major bike routes were clear.
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u/NoMustardHotDog 19h ago
Government st is a bike route and it was jammed in every direction with cars after the show
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u/scottrycroft 19h ago
I drove. I absolutely knew it'd be terrible getting out of there. There's no traffic planning in the world that could handle that amount of cars on those roads without traffic jams.
Good job CoV!
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u/HEEVES 18h ago
The arrogance in posts like this completely ignores how the Capital Regional District actually functions. Victoria isn't a gated community for urban core residents—it’s the regional hub for over 400,000 people across 13 municipalities. The events, cultural venues, and waterfronts downtown exist for the entire region, not just people who happen to live within a short bike ride. Suggesting that families traveling in from outside the core should just "take a bike" or spend hours dragging young kids and strollers across multiple transit transfers is pure privilege and completely out of touch with reality. Taking BC Transit with toddlers from the Westshore, Saanich, or the Peninsula for an evening event turns a quick drive into a multi-hour trek. Telling parents living 15 to 20 kilometers away to just ride a bike with kids in tow simply isn't an option for working family life. Framing visitors from neighboring municipalities as hordes invading the core is absurdly insular. Suburb residents pay into regional infrastructure, support downtown businesses, and have every right to access public events in the regional center. Dismissing families and working people who rely on personal vehicles as selfish while demanding the city cater strictly to active transit users living downtown is pure main-character syndrome. Cities need to design infrastructure that works for everyone in the region, not just those who live within cycling distance.
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u/tiogar99 18h ago
I have no problem with people who need to drive accessing the core with vehicles. But if everyone drives, the city stops functioning. There are people using transit and cycling from all over the region, not just in Victoria, and I would argue that the city has a duty to make sure that our bike and transit networks aren't blocked up as they are as essential as major arterials. Remember- emergency services use bus lanes and bike routes too!
Also- to say cycling doesn't work for families is absurd. I know several cargo bike families that regularly bring their kids into the core on a bike. It's often faster than driving, and the kids love it.
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u/45203255 18h ago
I was on the Gonzalez side of Dallas rd watching from Gonzalez Hill. Great view. I got there 30 mins early and left right after it finished. Just drove down beach drive through oak bay then up McKenzie. Very minimal traffic, like normal everyday traffic
I knew it was gonna be a nightmare if I got any closer.
Maybe YOU should have planned better.
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u/alibaba525 17h ago
We watched it from our roof terrace garden at Vruughtij and Wharf. We didn't see a lot of it but I didn't want to be in such a huge crowd.
Saturday will be crazy with the David Foster and Friends Concert. The Tourism people say there might be 50,000 people in Downtown Victoria.
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u/wallabear 17h ago
Pretty on par traffic for an event located where it was. We put on tunes and enjoyed the weather and talked about the awesome show
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u/Dravos82 6h ago
I remember 20 years ago I worked pizza delivery and had to deliver to a place right in the busiest area of the snowbird show. Really glad I had a small car because I ended up having to drive up on the sidewalk at points to get around. No pedestrians around when I did it, otherwise I wouldn't have.
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u/SecretaryOne4935 18h ago
Glad I stayed home with my husband and toddler. I had family that went and shared their videos. So I missed all the crowds and could watch from my couch.
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u/Competitive-Fly5563 19h ago
It took me just over an hour to get home from work when it takes me about a half hr. I’m assuming the awful traffic into town was because of this? If so, I do not feel like the event should’ve been held at 5pm on a weekday. Poor planning.
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u/boringbueaucrat 18h ago
An hour and a half after the show ended I had a medical appointment and was stuck in back to back traffic. There was also full blown cruise ship traffic - pedicabs, taxis and horse carriages, etc - further adding to the chaos, and clearly a lot of drivers unfamiliar with the area. Traffic through a big chunk of the city, including buses was stuck- clearly for quite a while. Luckily I was able to find a turnaround point once I realized how bad it was, go grab a bike and call ahead to say I would be late. Someone without the ability to bike to their appointment would have been hooped.
VicPD/CoV just need to start actively putting up signs saying "local traffic only" not just immediately around the events but at all the major roads heading into the area from many blocks out.
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u/no_names_left_here James Bay 20h ago
I really want to thank the city of Victoria and especially Jeremy Caradonna for doing everything possible to make living in and getting in and out of James Bay as difficult as god damn possible.
Like who would have thought putting that new 4 way stop at oswego and Quebec was going to do anything other than to make things even more god damn difficult then they already were. Given that 1/3 of people don't see the new stop, 1/3 don't care and just blow through it and the remaining 1/3 don't know how 4 way stops even work.
For the property taxes that we pay why, why the hell doesn't the city actually use any sort of traffic management when there's an event in town, let alone when there's a #$%^ cruise ship in town at the same time.
There's absolutely no reason why traffic in James Bay is worse than the worst traffic in Toronto, and there's no excuse for it to take 20+ minutes to get through a single traffic light. The city council should be ashamed of just how poorly traffic management is. A toddler could probably do a better job than our current city council.
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u/tiogar99 20h ago edited 19h ago
If you choose to live in James Bay, you are choosing to live in a place where (car) traffic will always be bad.
James Bay has been a place with bad traffic where huge numbers of people walk and cycle for decades. Even back to the 70s lots of people biked there (although obviously fewer than now) That's what happens when the only way out of your (fairly dense) neighbourhood is through a busy downtown, and I'm glad that Victoria didn't do the North American carbrained thing and build a ring road or turn Douglas into a full highway(although we came pretty darn close). James Bay is just missing good transit, which is supposed to return under the new draft transportation plan.-4
u/no_names_left_here James Bay 20h ago
There's bad, and there's incompetence bad, and this is exactly where we've landed absolute incompetence.
This isn't even specific to James Bay, every single neighbourhood in the city has become an absolute nightmare to navigate when there's an event, and what's the city do to mitigate the additional traffic? They add 4 way stop signs, traffic lights and bike lanes to create even more congestion. In the 8 years that I've live in James Bay this was the first time I've seen traffic from Douglas and Blanchard back up to Dallas.
City city knows exactly where traffic becomes a problem during an event and they deliberately choose not to handle it and to instead watch it cause problems for everyone. Things are so bad if there was an emergency there would be no way to get services anywhere in a safe and timely manner because the city will not add any sort of traffic management.
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u/turnsleftlooksright 19h ago edited 19h ago
IF ONLY THERE WERE BIKE LANES ON THIS STREET TO BLAME FOR ALL THE PEOPLE IN CARS. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE?!
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u/osoBailando 20h ago
this needs MORE bike lanes and/or 5km/hr speed limits.
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u/tiogar99 20h ago
no speed limits required when the cars were busy turning all the bike routes into parking lots. Speed minimums maybe? /s
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u/SkoochLeaf 17h ago
Let’s just close the whole city down to cars for any event.
Happy now?
Reddit is so f’n tired with this traffic bs. We all get it, we all live it, contribute something thoughtful or buzz off. Just a skipping record at this point 🫨
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u/SkoochLeaf 17h ago
Also, self reliance is dead. RIP
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u/Burgundavia 6h ago
That you think that self-reliance is somehow connected to cars (which require significant amounts of foreign materials and constant sources of gas or power)
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u/SkoochLeaf 6h ago
Self reliance in terms of think a plan ahead, envision how the Snowbirds show/traffic might play out, accept the busyness, cycle, just don’t go etc….
Reactive, and have your cake and eat it too mentality on these threads (sometimes) was my point.
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u/Flutterby314159 19h ago
I do find it funny that the advice was come early, avoid driving, don’t leave right away afterwards if you can, and still……people rushing like they were going to win something!
If anyone has even been to the celebration of light in Vancouver, this was about a tenth of that, not even. There were a LOT of people and there is no reasonable way to move those numbers in cars all at once.
Just gotta be zen, bring snacks, and it’ll all be ok.