Vancouver snow commute from hell: Drivers share their stories

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Tuesday’s snowstorm plummeted highways and byways around Metro Vancouver into commuter chaos. Many readers shared their stories of trying to navigate their way home as the snow piled up, bridges and key arteries became virtual parking lots, and people found themselves stuck in hours-long waits around the Lower Mainland. Here are some of the best (worst):

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Did you have a nightmare commute? Tell us about it in the comments below.

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Jill Fiddler: Annacis Island to Surrey

My experience was a total nightmare. I work on Annacis Island and finished work at 4 p.m. I arrived home at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. What should have been a 20-minute drive turned out to be a 10½-hour commute.

I have lived here most of my life and have never seen or experienced this. All bridges were closed at one point and if it wasn’t for AM730 radio’s traffic report I would have never made it home. Their advice to take the Golden Ears Bridge to get to Surrey was the best advice I ever got.

The city not preparing and drivers deciding to take on the storm with unprepared cars were definitely the biggest problems. I am home safely now but my heart goes out to the other commuters who experienced the same trauma. When I got home at 2:30 a.m. there were many drivers still on the road waiting to get home. May they all arrived home safe and sound.

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Mike Redhead: Richmond to New West

My journey of 16 kilometres took nine hours! I left No. 6 Road at Cambie in Richmond at 4:45 p.m., and tried for 45 minutes to get onto Highway 91. But it was at a standstill so I turned around and headed along River Road. Big mistake! When they shut the Queensborough Connector, everyone was sent off down the side roads of Queensborough to try to get back onto the bridge at Boyd Street. That had eight lanes of traffic from different directions funnelled into one lane on the on-ramp.

The road surface up to and on the bridge was sheet ice. Even with ice/snow tires, I was sliding sideways across the road. There is no way that road had seen any salt that day. The bridge was littered with spun-out buses and semi-trucks (do they not carry chains anymore?).

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I got home in New Westminster at 1:45 a.m. The sheer incompetence of the city and road maintenance is staggering.

Adrian Glover: Delta to Surrey

My commute was from Delta to Surrey. It normally takes less than 20 minutes, if there is minimal traffic it’s less than 15. Yesterday it was almost seven hours.

I drove up Highway 10 from Delta and was stopped at the interchange with Highway 91, where I sat for several hours. I saw some vehicles that were getting a chance to go up the hill were failing to make it and backing back down, so I put my chains on to make sure I was going to make it.

By the time I reached the front of the line I was redirected by the Delta Police to go down to Highway 91 and go up 72nd Avenue. When I got down there, the lineup to exit on 72nd was backed up to 64th, so I decided to carry on to Nordel Way, where my wait was much shorter and I was able to get home about 30 minutes after I got off the highway.

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Annette Kozicki: New West to Richmond

It took my husband and seven-year-old son 12 hours to get home from taekwondo. They were at 4 Elements in Queensborough yesterday, tried to get on Highway 91 to get home to North Delta and couldn’t, so they made it to Richmond to at least fill up the tank. Then they sat on the 91 from 11 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., finally getting home just after 6 a.m. Wednesday. They saw dozens of automobiles abandoned.

Elizabeth Lee: Vancouver to Tsawwassen

I drove from Burrard and West 7th Avenue to Tsawwassen. I left at 5:50 p.m. and got home at 1:02 a.m. Picture from my dash doesn’t include the time I didn’t move when the tunnel closed. Note the average speed to drive 32 kilometres. No food, no drinks, back spasms. Not fun.

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Coreen Miller: Burnaby to Vancouver

My drive home from work is usually my favourite part of my day. The anticipation of a warm meal shared with my husband, and kisses and cuddles with my fur babies. Due to my job, I was unable to leave early like some people who may have had that luxury.

Last night’s commute was far from the usual. I knew with the snowfall warning to expect delays, but this time it was outrageous. I left Burnaby at 6 p.m. and entered the parking garage of our condo at 1:51 a.m. Yes, minutes shy of an eight-hour commute, on a route that on average takes me 40 minutes.

This experience was like no other. It was emotional, exhausting and traumatic. The highway was littered with abandoned cars and trucks. The bridge was down to one lane, so you could imagine the chaos of four lanes of frustration and exhausted drivers merging into one. My leg went numb from going from a tap of the gas pedal to constant braking.

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I was without water or food and I know I was not alone in this. Seven hours in I could barely keep my eyes open. It felt like a bad dream or something you would see in the movies. To say I’m disappointed with the City of Vancouver is an understatement. One snowfall should not cause us to fall apart.

Geoff Parker: Vancouver to South Surrey

My wife was off at 7:15 p.m. from B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. She made it home around 3:30 a.m. in South Surrey. Highway 99 was a parking lot.

Hiroshi Takahashi: Coquitlam to Tsawwassen

Well, that was a very long drive back from Princess Auto Coquitlam. I checked out at 4:08 p.m., so thought I could do a quick stop at Lowe’s along the way then head home to Tsawwassen.

Sat in a lineup for a few hours, only to find out that the Queensborough Bridge was closed. Now it was about 7 p.m. I ended up heading west along Marine Way, and stopped for a quick bite. Watched cars attempting the hill at Boundary: about 40 cars stuck within the first 50 metres.

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Got over the Knight Street Bridge, then headed across Bridgeport Road and down No. 5 Road to Westminster. I had just gotten on Highway 99 when I heard that the tunnel was closed. I would have to go down to Steveston to turn around to come back up, then across the Knight bridge to get on 49th Avenue to use the freeway to get to 152nd, then back on Highway 17. By the time I finally got close to Steveston, the tunnel was open with a single lane. Why was this lane not available earlier? Why was the counterflow lane not opened for this emergency?

I finally got out to Tsawwassen at about 1:40 a.m. I mapped the trip Wednesday morning and it says it should take about an hour during the rush, not 9½ hours. Grrr.

Jianmin Cui: Annacis Island to Richmond

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I live in Richmond and drive to Annacis Island for work at night. I was stuck on Westminster Road near Richmond Auto Mall for about an hour. Then I turned back and tried Highway 91 and got stuck near the Knight Street Bridge for another hour. Finally I gave up and turned back via Knight to Bridgeport Road and made my way home near No. 2 Road.

The government had a very slow reaction to this storm and it led to this traffic mess the whole night. It was a storm everyone knew was coming.

Richard Ewing: Vancouver to South Surrey

I was working in Dunbar and live in South Surrey. Google maps said a two-hour drive home, so I went for dinner and a movie at a friend’s in Marpole. At 10:45 p.m. it said 50 minutes, so headed for home. It took two hours to get around one short block in Richmond heading toward the Massey Tunnel. After three hours I heard on AM730 that people were waiting up to 10-plus hours and that a long scenic detour would be faster.

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I was starting to get sleepy and saw one driver had actually fallen asleep at the wheel. People were driving around him on No. 4 Road, so figured it’d be better to be on the move than wait an undetermined number of hours to get moving. The tunnel, Alex Fraser and Queensborough were all dead stops.

Ended up taking Knight Street back to Vancouver, Broadway to Hastings, over to Barnet, Pitt River Bridge, Lougheed Highway to Maple Ridge, over the Golden Ears Bridge, then back through Surrey with one more detour around a section of 96th Avenue that was closed off at 168th Street.

A bit of ice on Knight Street, but I have winter tires on my four-wheel drive manual transmission little car. Clear highways all the way to the Surrey side of the Golden Ears. The only real snow on the roads was in Surrey so had to slow down to 40 km/h, but with winter tires it was easy to drive.

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Took about 80 minutes from the time I turned around in Richmond, whereas others will still be sitting at a near dead stop. Radio reported that the counterflow lane was never put in use because of restrictions on criteria when it can and protocols in chain of command. AM730 DJ speculated that maybe the one guy who could authorize it was asleep. If true, that’s ridiculous.

Saw several stuck cars and trucks, all likely members of the summer tires club, but roads along that detour route were all free-flowing with no traffic backups. It was 3 a.m., after all.

One of the biggest disappointments was in Google Maps. I use it all the time to route me the fastest way home and yesterday it failed as spectacularly as our road-clearing contractors. It kept saying the Massey Tunnel was the fastest route, but clearly it wasn’t moving. Usually it will re-route anywhere else, but I guess it froze up in the snow, too. The DJ on AM730 saved my night! (Humans are still better problem solvers sometimes.)

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David Vaughan: Annacis Island to Crescent Beach

It took from 6 p.m. to 2:45 a.m. to get from Annacis Island to Crescent Beach. There was no control of traffic off the island so drivers were tired and frustrated. Annacis is part of the disaster route and it was paralyzed.

In just under nine hours we saw three plows, but they were stuck and went toward the airport. And one police officer, who sat observing the Pattullo Bridge. The Queensborough Bridge was a sheet of ice and semis were left abandoned everywhere. New Westminster was slush with more cars and trucks abandoned.

Not one of the info screens had road closure information on them, and the Twitter accounts for B.C. Transportation were useless.

Cameron Olma: Richmond to South Surrey

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I had to pick up my daughter in north Richmond as her car would not start when she shut it off upon being stuck in traffic on Highway 99. I left my home in South Surrey at 4:50 p.m. and returned home at 3:05 a.m.

Where was the service last night from the highways department? This horrible circumstance certainly was not caused by heavy snowfall as there was no snowfall after 10 p.m., only rain. My temperature gauge never showed the temp below 1 C. When I finally got to Surrey, after re-routing through Pitt Meadows, my temperature gauge showed 2 C. 730AM traffic did bring in a staff member late at night, providing some comfort and viable options, but that was not until 1 a.m.

Shirley Grahn: Burnaby Metrotown to Ladner

My commute started at 4:45 p.m. and ended at 3:15 a.m. When I left Metrotown the roads were reasonable. But then snow got bad going over the Knight Street Bridge and the on-ramp to Highway 91 was very icy. I slipped.

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So I decided not to even try the on- and off-ramps to Highway 99. I decided to go to No. 5 Road. It was a standstill. Finally, I got into Ironwood Plaza and was trapped in the parking lot. But I felt lucky; at least I had a washroom and a place to get food.

Worst commute ever.

One question I had: Why was there no one directing traffic at No. 5 Road and Steveston Highway? I believe some accidents there could have been avoided.

Naili Salami: North Van to Burnaby

Driving from North Vancouver trying to get down to Burnaby. Left at 8 p.m, got home at 11:30 p.m. Tried following GPS by not taking the highway and going past Grandview up onto Kingsway. My car got stuck at least five times.

Turned around to go up Boundary Road, got stuck. Went on Canada Way, major backup. Waited at least an hour and a half just to get to Deer Lake Parkway. Turned around and went along Royal Oak at 11 p.m., then made it to Kingsway and home at 11:30 p.m.

Cassidy: Annacis Island to North Delta

My kids were stuck on the bridge for 5½ hours, and finally got over only to have it close behind them. Coming up the hill on Nordel Way, they squeezed by a semi-truck that was sliding backward sideways.

My husband who was coming from Burnaby got home at 11 p.m. He could not get up Snake Hill on Burnaby Mountain because big trucks were spun out. And he has four-wheel drive!

Sonja McCarthy: Bridgeport Station to Tsawwassen

Left Bridgeport by car from a hockey game at 9:30 p.m. and got home to Tsawwassen at 4 a.m. No words.

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