Albertans: lets take their land while we can!
There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
311–320 of 477 posts
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess they haven't read yet on how damaged the supply chain is going to be then. This is not "we'll fix it up in a few weeks" road damage, it's more like major shipping roads in BC are going to be affected for through the worst of the winter here.
To be fair, I just found out about this literally from the link at the top of this page, a couple of hours ago. Not exactly enough time to become an expert in supply chain logistics in a province I don't even live in. I'm reading now that there's already some stress due to displacements from the Lytton fire earlier this year, and displacements from Abbotsford, Merritt, etc are not gonna help the situation. I'm still…
Look, it's not "roads blocked". We're not talking "move the dirt and it'll be ok". The roads are GONE.
Bridges and huge sections of the most important highways are now rubble floating down rivers with nothing there anymore. This is in some of the most difficult terrain to rebuild in that you could have. People who know what they are talking about are saying we are short highways through the winter.
Here's some chopper footage: https://twitter.com/RobinMonks/status/1460690606410194949
City folks who think this was just some rain are nothing but evidence of how disconnected city people can become from the infrastructure on which they depend.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 unu…
I think things can get a lot worse without portending "Mad Max"-style scenarios.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#314Some chopper footage of just how bad the road damage is. This is not getting fixed in a long damn time.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#315Earlier 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.
Depends what you consider peripheral. The places within a couple hours big enough to notice as you drive through are basically Lions Bay/Squamish going north, Maple Ridge/Mission on the 7, and Abbotsford/Chillwack/Hope on highway 1 out the Valley.
Chilliwack and Hope might be cut off, though I think it's possible to get there via minor roads/unusual routes. Abbotsford is partly flooded, but areas that aren't should be accessible. Lions Bay/Squamish and Maple Ridge/Mission are fine, as far as I know.
So if a 1-2 hour drive is the limit, then parts of Abbotsford/Chilliwack/Hope are pretty miserable right now, but it should be fairly localised.
On the other hand, you can argue that most of Southern BC is "peripheral" to Vancouver, despite parts being 4-5 or more hours away. Those parts will have more issues, since you start getting into places where the only connections are (were) the highways that flooded and washed out.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#316Quick! Invade and size Vancouver while no one is paying attention.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, I just found out about this literally from the link at the top of this page, a couple of hours ago. Not exactly enough time to become an expert in supply chain logistics in a province I don't even live in. I'm reading now that there's already some stress due to displacements from the Lytton fire earlier this year, and displacements from Abbotsford, Merritt, etc are not gonna help the situation. I'm still…
Look, it's not "roads blocked". We're not talking "move the dirt and it'll be ok". The roads are GONE. Bridges and huge sections of the most important highways are now rubble floating down rivers with nothing there anymore . This is in some of the most difficult terrain to rebuild in that you could have. People who know what they are talking about are saying we are short highways through the winter. Here's some chopp…
Oh wow, that's crazy. Thanks for sharing that.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#318I think if you put up a stop signs next to the obstructions and wash outs, Vancouver drivers then just sail right through them like they are nothing.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gas comes through pipeline from refineries in Washington, so that should be largely unaffected. Lots of produce does come from the Fraser Valley which is impacted, but also North/South links to the USA (ie. we get heaps of produce from California). I assume there's a fair amount of food that is delivered from the port, as a lot of food packaging warehouses are near the port. Most trade in Canada is North/South aligne…
> we get heaps of produce from California Are the prices in line with what those products would cost in the US (e.g. WA state)? I was under the impression that the prices in BC were lower, so now I'm wondering if the price adjustment to account for local markets is significant or not, or if I misremembered completely.
Last time I was in New York was a good few years ago, but I was very surprised how much more expensive supermarket food was than in the UK, like 3x more. In a huge country with lots of farmland like the US with less stringent food regulations in theory food should be cheaper so I’m curious as to what causes this price difference.
Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada
#320For 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…
Oh your brother will feel the pain when the Whole Foods on Cambie runs out of those cheap organic bananas from northern Alberta.