If you are visiting Vancouver or Victoria from Calgary or Edmonton, you will be shocked as to how narrow most of the bridges are in Greater Vancouver and Victoria. Edmonton was wise in the 1970s to have 125 m long underground LRT stations. Foolish Vancouver opted to only have 80 m stations on its first 2 lines and an absurd 50 m for the 3rd line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_(Calgary) , https://www.calgary.ca/green-line.html
https://www.calgarytransit.com/plans---projects/lrt/green-line.html
https://engage.calgary.ca/greenline/UndergroundStations Fortunatly, any underground stations in Calgary will be closer in length to that of the Edmonton LRT and not backwards Vancouver.
https://www.railjournal.com/regions/north-america/tunnel-preferred-for-calgary-lrt-green-line/
https://www.calgary.ca/green-line/stations.html
The main roads and bridges in urban parts of Alberta are allowed to be wider than their counterparts in backwards BC. So while people in the urban parts of Alberta are concerned or even angry about rapid growth, at least Alberta can easily build more urban infrastructure. That's because Albertal isn't affect by the (unofficial) BC Mind Virus (BCMV).
A timely example is a new bridge between Surrey & NW. Despite Surrey being expected to become the largest city in BC, the new bridge will only open with 4 lanes. No 3rd or 4th lane each way for busses, HOVs and trucks. Thus, all the road traffic at either end is funneled into just 2 lanes each way. Plus, there are no breakdown or emergency lane, just like the old bridge.
While this new bridge can eventually be widened to 6 lanes, there is no provision for a lower deck for LRT, busses and trucks. Despite SW BC being a seaport area, trucks are funneled onto mostly narrow bridges. There has been a lack of interest to build bus bridges next to almost all of the bridges in Greater Vancouver. Yet, there is a Half-A$$ED attempt to have a better regional express bus network. This regional Rapid Bus attempt will always be a joke, unless a series of bus bridges are built. The Half-A$$ED approach is to try to have bus lanes on 4 to 6 lane bridges. Designating 2 bus lanes would reduce the narrow bridges to only 1 or 2 lanes each way for general traffic in what is suppose to be a major seaport and urban area.
Most of the worlds population is non-white and for a big part of the history of BC, there has been a refusal to build up bigtime infrastructure for everyone. While some Albertains might wish that there was a wall built around their province or a force-field like out of Star Trek, BC is almost pretending like there is. Thus, the keep things small and backwards mentality.
Several decades ago, BC implemented a symbolic slow-growth approach. Despite BC not having any control over immigration, or trying to establish an internal passport & checkpoint system, to KEEP PEOPLE OUT, it opted for the next best thing. Stunt or scale back the urban infrastructure to project a strong symbolic reluctance to growth and thinking big.
When you realize how much larger things are allowed to be in Alberta, Washington State and even Western Australia & compare them to watered down BC, you see quite a difference. Despite BC & Canada in general, being multicultural, BCs cities keep finding ways to water the scale of things down. Canada has yet to have even 1% of the world's population, despite its size.
While there are good arguments to occasionally slowdown immigration, that can eventually become problematic, just like too much immigration. Even in the 2020s, some people in the former White colonial parts of the world still wish that Canada & Australia, etc., could be a White Man's paradise. However, that seems so impractical on a planet that mostly has a non white population.
https://humanrights.ca/story/chinese-head-tax-and-chinese-exclusion-act
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chinese-head-tax-in-canada
https://royalalbertamuseum.ca/blog/chinese-head-tax-george-yees-story
https://www.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/blog/chinese-exclusion-act/
https://parks.canada.ca/culture/designation/evenement-event/exclusion-chinois-chinese
https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/asian-heritage-month/important-events.html
https://stanleyparkvan.com/stanley-park-van-monument-komagata-maru.html
https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2022/10/05/vancouver-komagata-maru-memorial
https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/01/30/vancouver-komagata-maru-memorial-vandalism/
Even if Alberta were to eventually become its own country, it would be extremely unlikely that it could ever impose a White Man's Paradise Agenda. The same could be stated for backwards BC. However, something very peculiar has been happening in BC for several generations.
Several BC cities and municipalities play off each other with various slow-growth agendas. Vancouver being one of the most restrictive & backwards on the the planet. Somehow the legitimate anti freeway fears of the 1960s & 70s didn't get the city & region to still build a series of bus & HOV bridges. Plus, a long-term, high capacity urban rail system.
While Montreal planned for 152.4 m stations to accomodate 9 car trains, backwards Vancouver only built 80 m Skytrain stations for the first 2 lines. Then to top that, was a plan to build a line to Richmond with only enough level clearance for 50 m stations. The 1st line only started to run 5 car trains in 2025. Eventually, the 2nd line will also have 5 car trains. However, the line to the airport was deliberately designed not to have 5 car trains. Just a Half-A$$ED 2.5 car train, someday. WTH?
For Greater Vancouver to mostly have narrow bridges, one would think the all the stations could ultimately be at least as long as a Montreal Metro train station. Indeed, Greater Vancouver should have built for 10 car trains, but will only have 5 car trains on the 1st two lines & a 2.5 car joke of a train on the 3rd line. As of 2025, the 2nd & 3rd lines are still only running 2 car trains. Such a great way to symbolically show the resistance to eventually link YVR to both of the main BC ferry terminals.
The inadequate 3 lane Lion Bridge still has no bus & HOV tunnels near it. Urban parts of Australia never seemed to have a similar reluctance to build tunnels as does backwards Vancouver. Tunnels for Montreal & Seattle aren't a problem either. At least BC is slated to have a new and improved tunnel by 2030, that's only a couple of generations late.
Oh, if only people would stop moving to BC, especially Vancouver & Victoria. Well, that's not the case, its just that various BC cities want to only build urban infrastructure that is inadequate. Despite the frustrations that some people have in Alberta, at lest wider bridges, longer trains & taller buildings are allowed there. This watering things down in BC approach is symbolically indicative to refuse to properly build for a growing population.
Surrey should have already had at least 1 hospital the size of VGH. At least Surrey like Burnaby, can build up taller in what is still mostly a mountain wilderness province.
BC is a long way from New England & Southern Quebec. The restrictive urban planning measures in Greater Vancouver keep preventing it from becoming a proper big metropolitan area like Greater Boston and Montreal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_(MBTA) Calgary will have its own version of a Green Line, eventually. https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Calgary+Green+Line
