> The only way to drive between the coast and the rest of Canada at this time is through the United States.
Doesn't a large fraction of trans-Canada road traffic transit through the US anyway, because it's faster that way?
There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
291–300 of 477 posts
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a suspicion that gmaps infers roads from photographs, and some of the roads are not roads at all.
There's something called the TIGER database. [1] Of course, that needs to be populated and updated somehow and Google probably applies various corrections. But there are plenty of tracks, especially in the American West, where their status as a "road" is somewhat a function of weather and opinion. [1] https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series...
>> I have a suspicion that gmaps infers roads from photographs, and some of the roads are not roads at all.
> There's something called the TIGER database. [1] Of course, that needs to be populated and updated somehow and Google probably applies various corrections.
That's for the US though, it wouldn't cover Canada (though Canada probably has an equivalent).
IIRC, Google actually has a fairly large team of cartographers keeping Google Maps up to date. In addition to satellite and aerial photographs, and other maps, Google also has the benefit of Street View cars to give it on-the-ground data plus GPS tracks of customers using Google Maps on their phones.
On OpenStreetMap, there's a layer that shows all the GPS tracks that its users have uploaded, all superimposed on each other (though last I checked it hadn't been updated in some time). It's pretty easy to make out real roads from that data.
This website has some pretty good essays about Google Maps and other mapping services: https://www.justinobeirne.com/.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dire in what way? Vancouver still has the YVR airport, a seaport, ferries, a downtown float plane airport and both road and rail access to the US. There will be some impact to prices, I imagine, while the road and rail links to the rest of Canada are rebuilt.
I'm totally unfamiliar with the geography there; are peripheral cities and towns around Vancouver as unaffected as Vancouver itself? I can imagine it happening in some places I've lived, where the central city is humming along just fine and everyone inside the city is blind to the 50% of the population around the city that just got stranded and cut off from supplies.
More or less. Greater Vancouver suburbs largely unaffected. Farther out peripherals (Abbotsford, Hope) badly flooded. All regional towns and cities beyond those cut off.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#294For just a bit of context/anecdata, I'm talking to my brother who lives in Vancouver and he wasn't even aware this was a problem. The road closure[0] on hwy 1 near Abbotsford/Chilliwack is a good one hour drive away from Vancouver core[1]. So while it sounds noteworthy for an entire city be technically flooded in, unless you were driving to the boonies, you're probably not actually impacted in any meaningful way. He…
I'm surprised there's no shortages yet because trucks can't get to the city. Or does Vancouver import most non-regional goods from the US (and not the rest of Canada) anyway?
[deleted]
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#295The majority of, well, everything in Canada comes from China (as with all countries). And it all arrives via port of Vancouver.
Christmas shopping is going to be interesting this year, unless they get the freight moving asap.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you take the ferry to Prince Rupert and get out that way?
That's a really long route and the ferries don't carry that many people compared to a road. (I once took a ferry from Prince Rupert to Skidegate on the Queen Charlotte islands and back. It was an 800 passenger ferry, temporarily replacing a 300 passenger ferry I think on the same route which was taken out of service for maintenance. The ferry in question was the ill-fated Queen of the North, which ran aground on a di…
Re: MV Queen of the North, a 20 minute ferry ride is thrilling. A couple of hours is too long. The QotN route was 14 hours?! Terrifying ordinarily, then exponentially so on its last voyage.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#297For just a bit of context/anecdata, I'm talking to my brother who lives in Vancouver and he wasn't even aware this was a problem. The road closure[0] on hwy 1 near Abbotsford/Chilliwack is a good one hour drive away from Vancouver core[1]. So while it sounds noteworthy for an entire city be technically flooded in, unless you were driving to the boonies, you're probably not actually impacted in any meaningful way. He…
I live in Vancouver - my coworkers and family were very aware of this, watching footage online and exclaiming at the brutal nature of the weather and landslides we experienced yesterday. Never seen this many roads closed in BC in my nearly 4 decades living here.
I'm not sure about BC, but coastal cities (not the big ones... the little ones) on the Pacific coast of the states regularly get 'stranded'. Honestly, as usual, the media overplays everything. The fact is that Vancouver and most major coastal cities are not going to be super-affected. The truth is that -- based on current import patterns -- the rest of the country is more likely to face shortages than any West Coast city where all the freight comes in.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ahhh, I remember it being possible on one of the Baofeng’s that can do almost anything. Transmitting may require licensing, but listening should be fine.
Citizen-Band "CB" is a pretty specific type of AM radio limited to a number of defined channels around 27MHz. Those Baofeng radios are VHF/UHF (140MHz/440MHz) FM radios, not "CB". If you had a Baofeng, and your buddy had a CB, there is no good way they would be able to communicate. These radios can operate in a wide range of frequencies with various levels of legality. But yeah in the US and Canada its generally lega…
[deleted]
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
I5 around Bellingham was cut off yesterday night, and all the highways that ran parallel to it have issues. Right now, south bound lanes open only. So you can escape Vancouver, but you can't get back in.
>So you can escape Vancouver, but you can't get back in. Yes you can. >WSDOT said detours would happen on the northbound side at exit 242, with drivers getting back on at North Lake Samish Drive. https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/i-5-near-bellingham-closed-...
Oh, that's better then.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#300One of my family members has been stuck just east of Hope, British Columbia[1] for almost two days now. There is currently no cell service, but luckily they have a Garmin inReach so we can communicate via its SMS feature. For anybody with friends/family in the area, the BC subreddit megathread[2] on this is a good starting place to get information on evacuations, power outage status, road closures, official relevant…
The Reddit thread seems to be largely given over to speculation about the complete collapse of society globally which is, in my opinion, getting just a little bit carried away and anyway not really informative.
I mean yes, but when your province experiences over a 4 month period:
* Record heat wave * Record forest fires * Record rainfall * Tornadoes for the first time in history * And now record flooding
It's hard not to feel a little apocalyptic.
Especially while most of the people in charge and seemingly 60% of the voters still want to hand-wave these away as one-offs, and unusual, ignoring the trend or the density of unusual/record event.