Perth, WA, Australia

 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/canning-bridge-bus-interchange 

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/technical-commercial/smartfreeways/how-to-use-a-smfy/making-way-for-emergency-vehicles

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://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Perth

Westham Island Bridge remains closed as damage assessment continues

 https://www.delta-optimist.com/local-news/westham-island-bridge-remains-closed-as-damage-assessment-continues-11769626 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/bridge-in-delta-bc-still-closed-to-vehicles-after-marine-incident/ 

https://vancouversun.com/news/traffic-alert-westham-island-bridge-in-delta-closed-after-hit-by-barge 

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Westham+Island

The Great SkyTrain upgrade (potential)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D2CXdZ_4Ro 

Unfortunatly, the first 2 Skytrain lines were designed to only have 80m stations and trains. The 3rd line to YVR and Richmond was only designed to have 50m stations. In contrast, the Montreal Metro has stations long enough to accomodate 152.4m long trains. Thus, the greatest mistake was to not enable the Skytrain to eventually become a very high capacity train system. Combine that with mostly narrow bridges and roads in Greater Vancouver and you have the epitome of congestive urban planning. 

At least by late 2025 some of the new 5 car trains were out, along with some of the old 6 car little box trains on the 1st line. The 2nd and 3rd lines are still running 2 car joke trains, but that symbolically fits right in with the, KEEP BC SMALL AND BACKWARDS mentality. 

A proper big city long-term plan would have been to allow for 10 car trains, with at least 5-6 car trains at the start when each line opened.

Vancouver residents decry lack of government action after London Drugs closure

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-london-drugs-closure-gastown-residents 

Vancouver and BC just gave up and let that part of the city go to $HIT!

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/david-eby-warning-london-drugs-closure

UBC students hold a fake party for 18-year unfulfilled promise of SkyTrain

 https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/ubc-students-birthday-party-skytrain-delay-2026-11742303 

https://www.ams.ubc.ca/news/ubc-students-celebrate-18-years-of-skytrain-delays

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/campbell-unveils-14b-transit-upgrade-for-b-c-1.728772

The UBC-Broadway+Corridor should have been built to the Tri-Cities_(British_Columbia) in 1 or 2 phases. Unfortunatly, the days of a line from Coquitlam to UBC are still so far away. 

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/the-14-billion-transit-plan-the-b-c-liberals-conveniently-forgot

The Millennium_Line was built in the middle first, when it should have started with UBC, Vancouver and Burnaby. Instead, it started from East Vancouver, through Burnaby, then to Port_Moody and ending at Lafarge_Lake-Douglas_station in Coquitlam. At least there+will+likely+be+a+UBC+Station+before+the+next+millennium.  

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=UBC-Broadway+Corridor

SkyTrain's Canada Line service disruption

(service disruption ends after 14 hours) https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-canada-line-service-disruptions-january-14-2026 

For a rapid transit line that opened in 2009, on the surface, it sure wasn't designed to be an efficient high capacity line for the future. It's still just a 2 car joke of a train. Fortunately, most real cities around the world planned for not only 6 car trains, but even 8-10 car trains. 

Unfortunatly, Vancouver has been hit very hard with a multigenerational agenda of continually imposed small scale infrastructure. Vancouver has water on 3 sides, as its on a peninsula. Since the powers that be couldn't build a Boundary+Road moat or trench, the next best thing was to symbolically show the reluctance to build proper big city size infrastructure. This stunted approach to things is about symbolically holding the scale of the city back for as long as possible. 

Despite backwards Vancouver not being able to apply a castle-moat-and-drawbridge control system, the next best thing was to symbolically keep things smaller than what normal or proper big cities allow. 

Here are some of the best examples of holding the size of things back. The 3 lane joke that is the Lions+Gate+Bridge has never had a rapid transit rail tunnel and no express bus tunnel next to it. Especially, no 6 lane highway tunnel. It's a classic BC bottleneck-chokepoint, by design.

From a 3 lane joke of a bridge to a two car Canada+Line joke of a train. It met the symbolic requirement to be shorter than the LRT in Edmonton, the C Train in Calgary and the trains in Seattle and Portland. 

The+Post+building+complex could have been Vancouver's first 50 story office tower, it's not even 25 floors. It would be impressive if it were in Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops or Prince George. That's the unfortunate thing about Vancouver, so much is done to only be impressive to small cities or towns.  

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=The+small+Westin+Bayshore+Hotel+in+Vancouver

Things have been kept so small in Vancouver throughout its history, that any big city stuff might seem overwhelming. There has been an unofficial KEEP THEM OUT mentality, but since the city cant have checkpoints, building things small symbolically demonstrates the perpetual reluctance to not allow a big city in backwater BC. 

Since Vancouver can't control Burnaby and can't stop Surrey from eventually becoming the biggest city in BC, they are able to build things on a larger scale than Vancouver.

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=YVR-Canada+Line

Mild Victoria, BC

Victoria has been a provincial backwater for most of its history. Despite being in a mild winter setting, it's so small when compared to Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax. 

https://victoria.citified.ca/news/35-storey-one-victoria-place-mixed-use-tower-unveiled-blanshard-st-pandora-ave

https://www.onevictoriaplace.ca 

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=37&status=15  

While Edmonton was eventually allowed to have a tall building, even by Toronto, Calgary and Montreal standards, Victoria was always supposed to have shorter buildings than Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax. That's part of the KEEP THINGS SMALL mentality on V. Island. 

Victoria should have had its first LRT line by now, but that might improve urban mobility. Eventually, Victoria and Nanaimo will merge into one linear urban area. Eventually, the Comox_Valley_Regional_District will have over 100,000 people, the Regional_District_of_Nanaimo will have over 200,000 people, the Cowichan_Valley_Regional_District will exceed 100,000 people and the Capital_Regional_District will have over 450,000 people. 

Of course there doesn't seem to be any big regional scale planning from Sooke to Courtenay. Perhaps the island's urban planners will wait until there is 800,000 and over a million residents on the island.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Island#Demographics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Rail_Corridor#Vancouver_Island_Transportation_Corridor_Coalition

So, as more people discover that Victoria and Vancouver are the mildest winter cities in Canada, more people just might want to move there. Especially, when Canadian Snowbirds don't feel as comfortable with Florida, Texas & California.  

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=population+growth

About 90% of TransLink's first two Bus Rapid Transit lines will have bus-only lanes

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/translink-king-george-langley-haney-place-brt-bus-lanes-proposal 

Since the metropolitan area has rivers and an inlet, there should have been a regional network of bus bridges by now. Instead, BC insists on overloading the mostly narrow bridges in the Greater Vancouver Region.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/translink-surrey-king-george-boulevard-langley-haney-place-brt-route-station-maps

From 6 to 4 lanes

 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10163196613962377&set=a.10152101514842377 

Several cities are able to build bike and foot bridges in their downtowns. Unfortunately, backwards Vancouver has taken a congestion approach to transportation planning for several decades. The Burrard-Bridge could have remained 6 lanes wide if a proper bike+bridge had been built next to it. 

https://www.cyclingthread.com/bicycle-bridges-18-stunning-routes-18-unique-crossings-2025 

https://momentummag.com/here-are-10-incredible-bicycle-bridges-around-the-world/

https://www.arch2o.com/10-amazing-bridges-passageways-bikes  

https://medium.com/@raydelahanty/what-is-north-americas-busiest-bike-bridge-3ac84cf8b8c3

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Burrard+Street+Bridge 

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Tilikum+Crossing+in+Portland Unfortunately, it looks like the biggest city in BC won't be getting anything like the Tilikum Bridge in the foreseeable future. 

Original cars on SkyTrain's Canada Line set to be refurbished

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-canada-line-original-trains-refurbishment 

Perhaps allowing for enough future station clearance to accommodate 10 car trains would require too much forward thinking in backwards BC. However, this line should have been started with at least 5 car trains. Unfortunatly, the very short stations were only designed to accommodate 2.5 car trains. As of 2026, only 2 car joke trains are still being run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)#Canada_Line It's one thing to say that having very short stations can save on construction costs, but to not allow for significant future expansion defeats the purpose. Someone clearly didn't want the Canada_Line to eventually have proper, long big city trains. 

There still is hope that this Half-A$$ED, small-scale line can become a little closer to that of a proper big city train, someday. 

Feb 12, 2020 https://www.richmond-news.com/local-news/canada-line-continues-to-break-records-translink-3116818 "On an average weekday last year, the Canada Line had an average of 150,000 boardings, continuing to “outperform projections,” according to TransLink."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Line "During the 17 days of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the line carried an average of 228,190 passengers per day."

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=YVR-Canada+Line

Four Lane Pattullo Bridge Replacement Project

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ING5Pfrdk 

The old bridge has 4 narrow lanes and no traffic divider. However, the new bridge won't have any bus or HOV lanes and no emergency lanes. 

Chokepoint-bottleneck planning remains firmly entrenched in backwards BC.

London Drugs closing its Woodward’s location, citing safety and operational issues

 https://globalnews.ca/news/11602959/london-drugs-closing-woodwards-location-safety-issues/ 

While Kelowna is gradually fitting into its role as the 3rd largest urban area in BC, Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria need to function more like properly growing metropolitan areas.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11602086/victoria-store-owner-frustrated-911-services-hung-up-on/ 

Giving up and letting crime take over is foolish. An effective effort needs to go towards dealing with the various urban social issues. 

New Year's Eve fireworks in Seattle

 https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/how-watch-nye-fireworks-seattle 

Despite Seattle being relatively close to backwards Vancouver, BC, no Mind Virus will be thwarting Seattle.

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/events/new-years-eve-fireworks-and-events-around-seattle-to-ring-in-2026 

https://seattlebloggers.com/new-years-eve-in-seattle/

https://www.spaceneedle.com/newyears 

https://www.seattlecenter.com/events/featured-events/new-years-eve

Perth New Year’s Eve Fireworks

 https://soperth.com.au/perthnews/perth-new-years-eve-fireworks-2025-2026-132795

https://www.perthnow.com.au/wa/iconic-raffles-hotel-promises-to-be-among-the-places-to-be-this-nye-for-a-great-fireworks-vantage-point-c-21094454 

https://visitperth.com/events/new-years-eve-in-the-city-2025 A nice hot summer in Perth is so much better than a cold, damp depressing winter in Vancouver, BC.

https://www.perth.wa.gov.au/news-and-updates/all-news/double-firework-spectacular-to-ring-in-2026 

The people of Perth and WA in general, are so fortunate that nothing like the Vancouver Mind Virus has ever been accepted there. 

https://www.worksafe.wa.gov.au/schedule-fireworks-events

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Perth+and+Seattle

Would people pay a bridge toll if it helps solve traffic woes on the North Shore?

 https://www.nsnews.com/opinion/letter-i-would-gladly-pay-a-bridge-toll-if-it-helps-solve-our-traffic-woes-11665442 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Shore_(Greater_Vancouver) 

As of 2026, no bus, car, truck and commuter train tunnel was ever built near the extremely inadequate 3 lane Lions+Gate+Bridge. For if there had then, the LGB could have become a nice bike and foot crossing.

Of course no bus, truck and commuter train bridge was built next to the Iron+Bridge. The inadequate Iron Bridge is so narrow that there isn't any room for emergency lanes and especially no proper express or rapid bus lanes.

By now, there should be a SeaBus crossing of at least every 5 minutes in both directions. 

Its extremely difficult to bring the Greater Vancouver Region up to a proper urban transportation standard. Partly because this is part of backwards BC and partly because there is just such a lack of a normal big city vision. 

For some reason, congestive transportation planning just isn't that popular outside of backwards Vancouver, BC.

Driving over the Pattullo Bridge replacement

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwwOqxqzNrQ 

It's great symbolism with opening the bridge with just 1 lane. In 1800s backwater BC, it was amazing just to have a wagon road anywhere. Well the new bridge, when it's fully open,will have 2 wagon roads each way, just like the old bridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0EeyJmmpuM 

Partial opening of the Pattullo Bridge replacement

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDFkc9Oa-j0 

Unfortunatly, the old bridge is such bad shape that it can't be refurbished. Otherwise, each bridge could have provided 3 or 4 lanes each way. People will be in for a shock once the old bridge is dismantled. Then the new bridge will become just another classic 4 lane BC bottleneck-chokepoint. 

No bus lanes or HOV lanes and especially no wide emergency lanes. 

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Pattullo+Bridge

Peace River Nuclear Power Project in Alberta

https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/89430?culture=en-CA 

It would be very likely for Alberta to have the first such power plants in Western_Canada.

https://www.energyalberta.com Of course there are various risks, but Alberta likes to think big. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/private-sector-advances-proposal-for-large-scale-nuclear-power-plant-in-northern-alberta-1.7345039 

https://www.alberta.ca/nuclear-energy-engagement 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_River,_Alberta

https://www.peaceriver.ca/business-development/peace-river-nuclear-project 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_River,_Alberta#Economy 

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/ap1000-under-consideration-for-deployment-in-alberta

 https://www.albertawilderness.ca/issues/wildlands/energy/nuclear-power 

https://www.energyalberta.com/project#project-overview 

Alberta just never had the same impose restrictions that backwater BC has. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Canada#Economy

History of the Pattullo Bridge in BC

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw934knFUgc Such a very narrow 4 lane bridge that just wasn't properly designed for future capacity. 

The new (4 lane) cable-stayed bridge to replace the old 1937 Pattullo Bridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHzr0ZSIcfo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crossings_of_the_Fraser_River#Main_Watercourse_(New_Westminster_to_Yellowhead_Pass)

History of the Port Mann Bridge in BC

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4aYxObfjJ8 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#Original_bridge The original PMB had only 2 lanes each way with no emergency lanes or wide shoulders. It was designed to be a classic BC bottleneck-chokepoint right from the start. Eventually, a 5th lane was squeezed in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#Opposition_to_twinning_plan While bridge duplication isn't that big of a problem in Australia or the US, it is in the BC part of Canada. Australia is allowed to have 3 proper big cities on the Pacific. Thus, the urban scale of infrastructure in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane are much larger than what's allowed in the Greater Vancouver Region. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#New_bridge Given that this is supposed to be part of the main East-West highway in Canada, a significantly wider bridge was eventually approved. While it was designed with a provision for a potential future rail line, there should have also been a provision for a lower deck. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crossings_of_the_Fraser_River#Main_Watercourse_(New_Westminster_to_Yellowhead_Pass)