More driving

Yes CJ, its story time with Gerry again.

And now, the end of the trilogy. Driving in BC is sometimes an exercise in patience, and sometimes it’s a trip down memory lane. Usually the former.

Strangely enough, driving Granville road from downtown, to the Airport reminds me of Montréal traffic. You see, there is no highway from downtown Vancouver to the airport. In Canada, it’s one of the closest city’s airports to its downtown cores. On a good day, the taxi fare is under $30.

But herein lies the problem. Since there is no highway, Granville, being a 6-lane road, is used as a stand-in expressway to the airport by the taxis. I love this stuff; it reminds of driving in downtown Montréal traffic. I thought I had returned to the roadways of my youth. I was happy. My wife was not. She values her life, or so she keeps reminding me from behind clenched teeth, firmly grasping the Jesus bar.

Some of the frustration of BC driving comes from the drivers, and some comes from the planners. 2 of the more famous Vancouver bridges have an odd number of lanes. The Lions Gate Bridge has 3 lanes, as does the road through Stanley Park. Yes 3. My cousin Mike has serious concerns about the intelligence of those who thought this was planning. My cousin Mike is a very intelligent and astute fellow.

The Port Mann Bridge is a 5-lane um, well, oddity. There are 3 eastbound lanes, and 2 westbound. Analyzing this in logical terms, they want more people out of Vancouver more than they want going in. I know that BC’ers are aware of the inequity, yet it remains. In order to compensate for it, Highway 1 east of the bridge is only 2 lanes westbound. With this planning gem in hand, Sunday afternoon traffic backs up at least half-way through Langley & Surrey. On a bad day, you can tell someone from Surrey by how surly they are. Bad joke? Sorry.

Highway 1 through Burnaby is the most traveled highway in the lower mainland. Highway 1 only goes through Vancouver for about 3 Km. Yes that is correct. The largest city in western Canada is serviced by all of 3 Km of highway, and only through its eastern tip. Wisconsin Tourism Federation!

Now let me dicuss the drivers. I think they have all OD’ed on granola. Either that, or while hugging trees, they have had their free will was sucked out of them by their friendly neighborhood cedar. Highway 1 through Burnaby is a six lane road. There are 3 eastbound and 3 westbound lanes. The left-most lane in either direction is a diamond lane, reserved for buses, motorcycles, and vehicles with more than 2 people.

No that wasn’t a typo. Most of BC’s HOV lanes require 2 occupants. And for those who were wondering, the HOV lanes are less than a tenth as busy as the regular lanes, anytime of day. Logic tells us from this that a vast majority of cars on the highway have only 1 passenger. Good old green BC.

Now in the right & middle lanes, one would assume that we would see slower and faster traffic respectively. Not so. This is where the free will or granola poisoning comes in. Much to the disdain of anyone from other parts of the country, dude in the center lane is quite content to match dude in the right lane’s 85 klicks. C’mon folks, tune in to our world, please?!?

Montréalers don’t do well in Vancouver. They expect to be able to go fast. Not gonna happen. Get behind the two-some doing 85 side-by-each and start flashing your high beams; nothing. If anything, it usually forces both cars to slow slightly, trying to figure out why you’re flashing them. The one time in 100 you get them to separate and manage to pass them, both are blissfully unaware of the world around them, happily staring blankly ahead. Do you remember the movie “The Stepford Wives”?

I sometimes wonder if all these drivers think that it is their duty to make sure no one goes over the speed limit. But then again I notice how disconnected they are from the frustrations they cause. So now it’s lesson time. Every time you think that someone is doing something on purpose or to just to tick you off, remember that most people are so engrossed in their own little world that they just don’t have enough bandwidth to waste on you. After all, you’re just another car on the road.

And folks, it’s not juts driving; it’s everything. If your boss isn’t paying you the attention you think is your due, it’s probably because he/she is focused on something that is important to them. To put a different spin in this, when a 3-year-old is engrossed with their Barbie, or Pogs, or Tamagotchi, we don’t rail on them, do we?

Treat others the way you would treat a 3-year-old, even those who aren’t acting like one.

Cheers folks!