https://globalnews.ca/news/11841417/metro-vancouver-three-minute-meeting-members-pay-500-dollars/
Apparently, its better to waste money on overpaid managers, rather than putting it towards bus and train bridges and improved highways overall.
10 Lane Narrows Bridge in Perth Australia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mVXcX-4h4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlJHHuLdOj0
Unlike backwards Vancouver, Seattle, WA has longer underground stations, just like Edmonton has. Longer stations make it easier to have longer trains.
The Narrows Bridge in Perth, WA, Australia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mVXcX-4h4 It has 5 lanes each way and 2 commuter train tracks. The Homer_M._Hadley_Memorial_Bridge is part of an 8 lane I-5 crossing with 2 LRT tracks. The Samuel-De_Champlain_Bridge has 8 lanes, plus 2 REM commuter train tracks. These 3 fantastic bridges were all possible, because they aren't in heavily restrictive Vancouver. Plus, WA and Que. never wanted to adopt the BC-B$ approach to things.
Unfortunately, in backwards BC, the 1st two Skytrain lines only have 80m stations and the YVR-Canada Line has 50m joke stations. Some of the stations on the first 2 lines might have enough level clearance to only have an extra car at either end of a lengthened platform.
However, the shortsighted Canada Line wasn't designed to eventually accommodate 5 car trains, just a 2.5 car joke of a train, someday. It was as if someone thought that there was no need to have enough level clearance so that the very short stations could be double or tripled in length eventually.
At least by 2025, the first SkyTrain line was running some 5 car trains. Unfortunately in 2026, the 2nd Line and the 3rd Line are still only running 2 car joke trains. Every Skytrain line should have had stations designed to eventually accommodate 8-10 cars trains, but that's what a proper big city would do. Backwards Vancouver wants to hold out for as long as possible, by symbolically building small.
Despite its overall land area, Canada has less than 1% of the worlds population. A crappy economy in recent years and cold weather for half of the year helps to keep Canada from ever having 1% of the worlds population.
Texas has more people than Australia and California has more people than Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_sovereignty_movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec#Economy Canada should have become a commonwealth of independent states similar to Australia. However, since Canada is right next to the US of America, some thought that it might be too confusing. Alberta as well as Quebec, should become fully recognized states within Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_and_territories_of_Australia
The Alberta Secession Movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LiCuWV2D9g
Alberta within Canada should have become something like a commonwealth independent state similar to Australia. However, since Canada is right next to the USA, some thought that it might be too confusing, back in the day. As each provincial district wants to become more like an independent state within Canada, that should become possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_and_territories_of_Australia#States
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Wol0Q3zDg
Still seems pretty small and quaint today. Nowhere close to the scale of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, but a good rival to Winnipeg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide#Economy Its already set to have many more tall buildings than cold Winnipeg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide#Transport Busses, trams, subways and commuter trains, all can help to provide people with more options than just driving.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramways_in_Adelaide#Mid-century_decline_and_closure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramways_in_Adelaide#Renewal_and_expansion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramways_revival_in_Adelaide#Developments_since_the_2018_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railways_in_Adelaide#Lines Wow, perhaps backwards Vancouver might have as many lines, someday.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-best-city-world-timeout
Fortunately, Australia doesn't have half a year of cold, crappy weather. Even the North Island of NZ can avoid the crappy Canadian weather. Unfortunately, if one wants to avoid the harsh Canadian winter, the best locations are in Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria, or SW BC in general.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-car-free-days-funding-city-council
The no+fun+city aspect of the Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV) isn't suppose to be real, but it occasionally keeps manifesting. Fortunately, these street festivals still have a chance in Vancouver. Just like some truncated summer fireworks still might be possible.
What's really fortunate is that the VMV hasn't spread to Montreal & Toronto, Calgary & Edmonton, or Winnipeg, QC & Halifax. Especially to any of the major cities in Australia & NZ.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1r960mq/tbt_aerial_view_vancouver_downtown_coal_harbour_c This was still a time when Vancouver didn't allow any office tower to have a 30th floor. As of 2026, no office building in Vancouver has been permitted to have a 40th floor. However, Burnaby & Surrey are planning to have their first office building over 40 stories. That's because they aren't under the extreme height restrictions that Vancouver imposes.
Seattle had its first 50 story office tower in 1969. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeco_Plaza
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Square The first 50 story office tower in Australia (1967) was possible because they don't have anything like the height restrictions in Vancouver.
Toronto had its first 50+ story office tower in 1967. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto-Dominion_Centre#Late_20th_century
SF had its first office buiding over 50 stories open in 1969. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_California_Street 52 stories, but the equivalent of 60 when counting all of the mechanical plant floors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9WJa9Q8dA
Of course many large urban areas around the world have more than 1 or 2 skylines or tower clusters.
For the longest time, no building in Vancouver or BC, was allowed to be as tall as the 1930s CIBC tower, which is now a stump.
https://www.blogto.com/city/2017/05/toronto-lost-observation-deck-commerce-court-north/
https://www.torontojourney416.com/canadian-bank-of-commerce-building/
https://www.25king.ca/the-history
It wasn't until the early 1970s when stumpy, Vancouver allowed a building to be taller than the L.A. City Hall, or the Smith Tower in Seattle.
The 1930s CIBC tower, the L.A. City Hall and the Smith Tower, would still be prominent towers in Vancouver, but stumps in their own cities.
Despite Vancouver being divided by an inlet and a river, the city wasn't able to build a huge wall along Boundary Road. Thus, the KEEP THEM OUT agenda was a little thwarted. The various White city councils tried to do the next best thing. That was to symbolically impose various restrictions as a reluctance to think, plan and build on a BIG city scale. The time especially from 1960 to 2000 had predominantly White City Hall and its councils continually impose several overlapping restrictions.
Since Vancouver can't control immigration or the movements of non-white people, keeping things small and backwards, means that less people will move there than to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. However, with a mild winter climate, more and more people want to move to backwards BC, especially small-minded Vancouver and provincial Victoria.
In spite of immigration and Multiculturalism, Vancouver was to perpetually promote its small scale agenda.
While the first Skytrain line can finally run 5 car trains, the stations weren't designed to become long enough to eventually accomodate 9 car trains like the big city Montreal Metro has.
The 2nd and 3rd Skytrain lines are still only running 2 car joke trains. Running 8-10 car trains is what a proper big city would do, but not backwards Vancouver.
Narrow bridges provides strong symbolism of the cities narrow-mindedness. When bridges are too narrow, its difficult to have a proper express or rapid bus system. The reluctance to build parallel bus and HOV bridges helps to maintain the congestive planning approach that is vancouver and the Greater Region.
Vancouver's refusal to build parallel bike bridges has meant that 2 lanes were removed from the Burrard Bridge, 1 lane from the Cambie Bridge and 2 lanes from the Granville Bridge.
Keeping buildings symbolically short when compared to what scenic Sydney, Auckland, SF and Seattle allow, also helps to maintain Vancouver's reluctance to enter the big and tall urban scale. In fact, the scenic setting that Vancouver is in has been used as the main excuse to continually scale the city down. Yet, several scenic cities around the world are either able to have wider bridges, wider roads, longer trains or taller buildings.
The world is mostly composed of non-white people. Canada has less than 1% of the world's population and stubborn Vancouver symbolically remains as a small provincial backwater on the Pacific Rim.
https://centralparktower.com.au Unlike Perth, Vancouver forbids 50 story office towers and Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne size residential towers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/108_St_Georges_Terrace In fact, no office building in Vancouver has been permitted to have a 40th floor. However, since Burnaby and Surrey aren't under the restrictive controls of Vancouver, they will eventually allow office towers over 40 stories.
Despite Australia having less people than Canada, Perth is allowed to have taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains than Vancouver. Taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains are even less likely in Halifax than whats in Brisbane or Queensland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q1_(building) To see buildings on a similar scale of what Brisbane allows, one has to get to Greater Toronto. Brisbane is allowed to have some buildings that would even be impressive in Melbourne and Sydney.
While Montreal is allowed to have taller buildings than Vancouver, Montreal isn't allowed to have Sydney size towers. Especially not on the scale of what Melbourne and Toronto permit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day , https://www.australiaday.org.au/about
Australia Day 2026 should be celebrated ‘loudly and proudly’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW_oufA8Sbw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day_debate#Protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day_debate#Suggested_alternatives
https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/travel-information/driving-in-wa/driving-in-perth
https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/technical-commercial/smartfreeways While WA take a spart aproach, backwards BC still takes a dumb approach to things.
https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan/smartfreeways/ 4 lanes each way with 2 track in the middle. You won't find that in Vancouver or anywhere in backwards BC.
https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan In contrast, the Metro Vancouver Region is a joke!
"Perth is Australia’s fourth biggest city, with a population of 2.3 million. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhS-fiJ14GU Perhaps surprisingly, Perth has an expansive suburban railway network. 8 lines, 85 stations and 270 km of track – it’s a large system for a relatively small city."
https://www.webuildvalue.com/en/reportage/sydney-harbour-bridge.html
https://www.smec.com/mm/project/west-gate-tunnel-project/
https://lpclawyers.com/bridging-the-gap-part-1-bridge-projects-in-australia
https://www.georgiou.com.au/project/mandurah-estuary-bridge-duplication/
https://www.bridgewaterbridge.tas.gov.au/about/history , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQJIdGUlFqg , https://www.bridgewaterbridge.tas.gov.au/