[Soundy]

So what's the alternative?

The old Port Mann and surrounding infrastructure was WAY over-loaded and over-crowded. More capacity needed to be added, one way or another. So when you're already dumping a few billion into the project, do you skimp on a few percentage points and build things JUST BARELY big enough to handle projections, and then have things get clogged up again during rush hour, but still come in even over-all by averaging in all times of the day?

Or do you take the opportunity to do it all ONCE, spend a little extra, make sure there's PLENTY of room for any possible future growth, and little chance that rush hours are going to clog up for a very long time?

The former way is how MANY projects have been done over the years, and come back to bite us before long. As long as the entire corridor is getting ripped up and re-done, better to over-engineer things a bit while you have the chance, as well as re-designing and re-doing ALL the interconnects that need it.

I mean, I can think of at least twice in the last 20 years that the Cape Horn interchange has been kind of half-assed re-built, that's kind of shuffled traffic around, but not really CHANGED its flow, and certainly not IMPROVED it more than just temporarily. Now, it's a dream to use, and it will still get better as the rest of the connections are brought online.

Unfortunately, transportation is one of the biggest draws for armchair quarterbacks. Over-build things by even a bit, and everyone's all over it for being a waste. Under-build it, and before long people are bitching about the idiots that designed it too small for the growing capacity. Transportation designers pretty much LIVE a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't existence thanks to the tens of thousands of people who "know better".