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There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

kelownanow.com

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Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#341

Post by elihu »

Maursault wrote: post #296
elihu wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Prince Rupert to Skidegate (the route we took) is 7 hours, and the reverse trip would have been about the same. I thought it was rather a pleasant ride. Wikipedia says the QotN's regular route from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert was 18 hours. I'd probably get a little bored, though I'm sure the scenery is amazing.

I think most passengers don't expect the ship to scrape it's bottom on a rock at full speed. It sunk in the middle of the night, so probably a lot of the passengers were asleep before they had to scramble to the lifeboats. All but two people got off.

Rupert to Skidegate is mostly open sea, but I could imagine navigating some of those narrow fjords could be a little nerve-wracking. I think they have to time their routes to account for the huge tidal changes they get there, which cause some pretty strong currents.

Incidently, the QotN was the only ship in the Canadian ferry fleet that didn't have a double hull. Not sure it would have made a difference in this case.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#342

Post by dfadsadsf »

ghaff wrote: post #126
shagie wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has been speculation that Apple would build this into their phones I'm not sure how... the InReach (and similar products) are a Iridium satellite communication system that requires a bit more heft in the signal (up and down). When you look at the iridium phones ( https://www.iridium.com/product-type/satellite-phones/ ) those aren't small things (look at the antennas). Then you've got: > Enhanced Battery Life…

When there was speculation before the consensus seemed to be it was unlikely for technical reasons. Also, while sure it would be nice if something were a no/low-cost add-on to a regular smartphone, the average consumer probably wouldn't pay much extra, much less an incremental subscription fee. And there's something to be said for a rugged, potentially safety-critical, standalone device that's separate from your phon…

I would absolutely pay for this feature and it will be enough of differentiator for me to pick specific phone model. I live close to major metro area and I do not have cell connection on a regular basis starting from ski resort with spotty connection (does not work at all on some runs) to walk (not even hike) in the closest state park. Ability to use Messenger withtout cell is easily $200-300 feature I would pay for.

On antenna - you can probably build purpose-specific satellites for text messaging that does not require big antenna. Iridium is 485miles high orbit - you can probably have satellites at closer to 150-200 miles elevation

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#343

Post by swader999 »

iainctduncan wrote: post #312
lhorie wrote: post #305

Earlier 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…

That section in the Twitter link can be fixed fast is what I'm thinking but then I remember that B.C. is heavily unionized and my optimism fades.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#344

Post by ospzfmbbzr »

cf100clunk wrote: post #136
bobthepanda wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the Trans Canada Highway in some parts is an undivided 2-lane road, so it wouldn't be surprising for freight to choose to take something like I-90 instead, though you would have to go through border checks.

The Trans Canada Highway from Kamloops to Hope was largely superceded as a trucking route by the more capacious and direct Coquihalla Highway after 1986. Now the Coquihalla is in dire condition.

The Coquihalla is one of the more dangerous highways you will ever drive, particularly in winter, mainly due to altitude and bad weather. Not fun in a white out.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#345

Post by ospzfmbbzr »

Dedime wrote: post #7

I surprised you didn't link Kelowna's finest newspaper, Castanet: https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/351544/Mudslides-close-all-... I love them because their reporting is terrible and the site itself is straight out of the 90's. They used to run polls that were easy to manipulate, according to a ex-coworker of mine. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Nonetheless, everybody in Kelowna acts like Castanet is…

The terrible reporting assessment is very accurate. Castanet got lucky and capitalized on a strong desire for local content and also the fact that big players did traditionally ignore the Kelowna media market. Kelowna only really became a bigger city after the Coquihalla Highway was built in 86 to 88 (in stages and Kelowna was last link) and the attitude towards it from outside media took a long time to catch up.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#346

Post by swader999 »

015a wrote: post #335
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #25

People really overestimate how resilient infrastructure is to natural disasters, and such disasters will become more common as the earth warms.

More people need to think about their emergency preparedness. We're not talking about permanent societal collapse; just a week-long collapse of electricity, food supply, water, transportation, or other critical goods. If you live in a cold climate: go buy an indoor safe propane heater right now, with a supply of propane. Its not that expensive (maybe $100) for the value you will get out of it in the coming years. It…

Ice storm in Quebec made me realize I need all this.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#347

Post by TMWNN »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #128
skrebbel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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…

>Most trade in Canada is North/South aligned. Tbh the east/west orientation of the country doesn't make a lotta sense lol.

As Paul Krugman wrote, Canada is closer to the US than to itself. (https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/eh/>)

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#348

Post by wheelinsupial »

skrebbel wrote: post #105
lhorie wrote: post #100

For 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?

There don’t seem to be shortages in Vancouver or surrounding areas from what I’m hearing. However, I’m in Chilliwack house sitting while my family is away. There absolutely are shortages here.

Three gas stations are out of gas (this was before noon) people are driving down with jerry cans to fill up extra fuel, stores are all bare because people ran to the stores to stock up on food, there was a line to get in the grocery stores. While inside some people were pushing two carts full of groceries to the checkout.

The roads going West are flooded out and the roads to the East are flooded out. There is definitely shortages here because Vancouver has the regional warehouses. There is no resupplies that can come into Chilliwack, and there hasn’t been an announcement on when the roads will clear.

Some areas are told to shelter in place and others are told to evacuate.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#349

Post by swader999 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #172

I'd expect this to be a bigger problem for Edmonton and Calgary than for Vancouver. The former cities now have no road access to the port of Vancouver.

Those cities are largely supplied via north south routes from USA.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#350

Post by TMWNN »

woah wrote: post #268
lhorie wrote: post #100

For 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…

Most of the population of Canada is within miles of the US border. For any given city, connection to the US is probably much more important than connections to other parts of Canada.

As Paul Krugman wrote, Canada is closer to the US than to itself. (https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/eh/>)
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