Homeless in Vancouver: Sign of another hit and run at Manitoba and Broadway

by Stanley Q. Woodvine on April 29th, 2015 at 3:42 PM

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Both Columbia and Manitoba Street on the south side of the intersection with West Broadway Avenue are theoretically blocked to southbound motor vehicle traffic by well-marked traffic diverters.

Tuesday afternoon (April 28), the Manitoba Street island’s “no entry” sign lay nearly flattened; its steel pole almost sheared off at the base (note: I originally identified it as the traffic diverter a block west on Columbia—so sorry).

The war between motorists and cyclists is endlessly diverting

A southbound cyclist rides through the traffic diverter and past the prone signage.

Stanley Q. Woodvine

The traffic diverter—a concrete example of the city’s determination to calm the speeding traffic coming off the highway-like West Broadway Avenue into the child and pet-filled Mount Pleasant neighbourhood—is a low island in the southbound lane of Manitoba Street, on the south side of the alley paralleling the south side of West Broadway.

The island is designed to allow two-way bicycle traffic but only one-way northbound motor vehicle traffic coming out of the neighbourhood.

Southbound cars and trucks are supposed to be diverted into the alley but far too many drivers choose to ignore the traffic diverter altogether and drive right over it. But at least the majority of them do so without incident.

This is actually the first time I've seen the Manitoba diverter damaged but it's only been a little over 17 months since a driver mowed down the signage on the Columbia diverter.

One fine day, one of these impatient, selfish drivers will hit more than just signage in their blind haste to get to the stop lights at 12th Avenue.

Looking south at the freshly fixed Manitoba Street diverter.

Stanley Q. Woodvine

Comments

4 Comments

Problem Reaction Solution

Apr 29, 2015 at 4:29pm

1. Install traffic impeding silliness everywhere, creating gridlock.
2. People react, declare "gridlock and congestion" a problem.
3. Propose a new sales tax as the solution.

Stanley Q Woodvine

Apr 29, 2015 at 5:32pm

@Problem,

I couldn't care less about non-Mount Pleasant residents complaining that the city has deprived them of a shortcut-slash-through road between West Broadway and 16th Avenue.

Thanks to the "Maginot line" of traffic diverters, the six blocks of pure residential between West Broadway and 16th Avenue is measurably safer for children and pedestrians.

I would certainly be interested in hearing what residents who live in that part of Mount Pleasant think of the traffic diverters.

Problem Reaction Solution

Apr 29, 2015 at 8:10pm

You're assuming a lot there, and missing the point. I've lived in the area for decades and have never owned a car, so I'm not complaining about shortcuts. Though that doesn't change anything, argument wise. I was pointing out the mechanism by which power grows.

Vancouver, and Mount Pleasant in particular, is a psychedelic funhouse of randomized traffic enragement. That creates artificial gridlock, pissy drivers, unnecessary emissions. This new problem is then capitalized on by the powers that be, who collectively scream through all the media outlets they own that it's time to raise the tax on peoples food with a new transit sales tax.

I would be interested in hearing a response to this other than "But that's crazy, people with money and power would never use their money and power to get more money and power."