Commuter Hell

[GordonH]

Central Okanagan is fixated on odd lane bridges, they went from a 3 lane bridge to a 5 lane bridge. The moment I heard the William Bennett Bridge was going to be 5 lanes... I went what the hell.
Logic would dictate 6 lanes:

right lane merge on or off lane
centre lane straight thru
left lane passing

Oh well, they built a 5 lane bridge

[kgcayenne]

Did someone change the light timings?

[Grandan]

If you built a bridge which was never congested at any time it would be grossly overpriced and underutilized because the periods of congestion are short. So far few people are prepared to car share , ride the bus or even consider leaving earlier or later to avoid the rush. It is not as though the bridge is congested at all times like some places on earth. You want to see bridge mayhem
try driving in Pittsburgh. Do I detect a Troll under the bridge?

[dodgerdodge]

Did someone change the light timings?

On Wednesday i had to get to Kelowna from Shannon Lake area. No problem as it was now almost 10.30 or so i thought. I could not believe it when i got to Westside Rd interchange and we were stopped just like rush hour. After another painful stop start all the way to Abbot lights it appeared nothing was wrong, no construction, no accident, no stalled vehicles and no Cambell Rd mergers either at that time. After Abbot it was a breeze. Freakin amazing

[gardengirl]

Central Okanagan is fixated on odd lane bridges, they went from a 3 lane bridge to a 5 lane bridge. The moment I heard the William Bennett Bridge was going to be 5 lanes... I went what the hell.
Logic would dictate 6 lanes:

right lane merge on or off lane
centre lane straight thru
left lane passing

Oh well, they built a 5 lane bridge

We are stuck with the bridge we have. It is 5 lanes. That was a mistake. I see no reason they could not remove the centre barriers and install lights to change the direction of the lanes just like the old bridge had and which the Lions Gate in Vancouver still does. In the morning, 3 lanes in to Kelowna, in the evening 3 lanes out. Pretty simple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_Gat ... bridge.JPG

[kgcayenne]

Gardengirl, what URL were you trying to share?

[Mucks]

Couldn't help but notice that since school ended, driving into Kelowna has been more tolerable...my estimate is that my drive is 10 minutes shorter than it used to be as traffic now backs up at the overpass instead of Hudson/Westlake. Guess we can't blame all those non-BC plates for clogging up our highway. According to Mayor Findlater, the highway should be worse now that tourist season is upon us. Come September, we should be back to the old extended waits to get into town...

[dodgerdodge]

Couldn't help but notice that since school ended, driving into Kelowna has been more tolerable...my estimate is that my drive is 10 minutes shorter than it used to be as traffic now backs up at the overpass instead of Hudson/Westlake. Guess we can't blame all those non-BC plates for clogging up our highway. According to Mayor Findlater, the highway should be worse now that tourist season is upon us. Come September, we should be back to the old extended waits to get into town...

Well i really thought that the traffic flow would be much better since schools finished but this morning we were backed right up almost to Boucherie as we were 2 weeks ago when school was in. I was in a hurry today and thought i would be a sneener and drive down the back road to Campbell, oh what a mistake that was, it was backed way up too, in fact i think it took me longer but i'm not sure. What the heck is this all about? Are we to believe all the tourists are up and travelling at rush hour desperate to get into Kelowna before 9 ? Do all the snowbirds have summer jobs or are they all rushing to get into town for their early morning doctors appointment?

[Glacier]

I don't live over there, so I've never taken this Sneener shortcut. Now, I know a thing or two about human behavior, and that is this. If you build a highway that's riddled with traffic lights to such an extent that it's FASTER to take a back road, people will take the back road. I admit that I do this when going to Kelowna from Vernon. I take Glenmore because it's faster thanks entirely to the fact that there are fewer traffic lights. If MOTI would install just 1 or 2 overpasses (I'm looking at you airport intersection) I would stop taking Glenmore.

The same principle applies to West Kelowna. If there weren't so many traffic lights on the highway you wouldn't have so many Sneener sneakers. Add enough overpasses, and you'd have none because the highway would be much faster.

[dirtybiker]

And for the love of all things decent, get rid of that light at University way.
There is not one good reason for it to still exist. !

This eve coming into Kelowna from the North was ridiculous.
Three light rotations to get through at each controlled intersection

[dirtybiker]

Did someone change the light timings?

I heard a little story about this very thing.

That the powers that be did change the light timing at the Kelowna end.

Due to high water and trying not to wreck the bridge the lights were changed so that
the vehicles on the bridge could only crawl across so as to do less damage at the expansion joints.

It is a floating bridge after-all
and the high water was (is) stressing it more than they like.

Slow vehicles = less fluctuations.

<<<Plausible>>>

[Glacier]

I like to hit the crest of the bridge hill at 280km/h so that I can get air. Easy to do if you're the first one at the red light leaving Kelowna.

(No, I don't really do that.)

[GordonH]

I like to hit the crest of the bridge hill at 280km/h so that I can get air. Easy to do if you're the first one at the red light leaving Kelowna.

(No, I don't really do that.)

Due to the amount of traffic on 97, I would like to see this between the hrs of 6am to 6pm. lol

[Glacier]

Due to the amount of traffic on 97, I would like to see this between the hrs of 6am to 6pm. lol

I was the only one on the bridge at 9 am one morning (going west). Dude beside me was really slow, and I was first in line at the light. Since the traffic from the previous light was long gone over the bridge, no one was ahead of me on the bridge. It was 100% mine.

[dirtybiker]

Due to the amount of traffic on 97, I would like to see this between the hrs of 6am to 6pm. lol

It would be considered the 4th passing lane,
"in a single bound"


Maybe three bounces on re-entry though.