Study Supports LRT
Someone should tell the SkyTrain Lobby that no one builds with SkyTrain anymore; even the Canada Line isn’t SkyTrain!
Modern light rail made SkyTrain and light metro obsolete decades ago, yet no seems to read the news in this part of the world, with many people still championing SkyTrain, a transit system that costs more to build; more to operate and more to maintain, than LRT.
So who are you going to believe, Shirocca Consulting, a professional transportation consulting group or Daryl Dela Cruz a teenage college student, with no formal back ground in transit? I’ll place my money on Shirocca Consulting.
Surrey defends LRT plan with economic study
Light rail transit in Surrey might look something like this street-level train in Dublin.ai??i??Ai??image credit: Surrey.ca
- byAi?? Jeff Nagel – Surrey North Delta Leader
- posted May 15, 2015
The City of Surrey is trumpeting its case for two light rail transit (LRT) lines with a study that claims the system will generate big economic benefits.
The report’s release is officially aimed at forming part of the business case to secure federal funding for the $2.1-billion project.
But it also comes as city officials seek to quell continued opposition to the choice of ground-level light rail technology over elevated SkyTrain from some critics in Surrey and Langley, and to help ensure the project proceeds even if the Metro Vancouver transit funding referendum is defeated.
TheAi??Shirocca Consulting study claims 24,600 direct and indirect jobs would be created in B.C. during construction and $1.4 billion would be paid in wages and salaries.
The provincial government would collect $132 million in taxes and $354 million in tax would flow to the federal government, and still more would accrue over the next 30 years of operations.
Mayor Linda Hepner argues the taxes generated will help offset the capital grants she wants senior governments to make to finance Surrey LRT.
She said it’s the most cost-effective rapid transit option to connect the city’s town centres.
“We can get one and a half to two times as much light rail compared to SkyTrain,” Hepner said. “And it also animates and develops and shapes the community instead of acting as just a simple mode of transportation.”
A Langley Township transportation manager recently cautioned that LRT seems designed to move Surrey residents within the city at the expense of a no-transfer, more reliable and likely faster ride for passengers from Langley through Surrey if the Fraser Highway line is built with SkyTrain instead.
Although the province overruled the original local choice of LRT for the Evergreen Line in favour of SkyTrain, Hepner said she’s confident the province understands the need for LRT in Surrey and noted it has the agreement of the Metro mayors’ council.
“It was chosen under the mayors’ plan as a priority project and agreed regionally that light rail was the way to go in terms of connectability and what we could get.”
The Surrey LRT project proposes a 10.9-kilometre “L-line” linking Guildford, Surrey City Centre and Newton that would open by 2023, and a 17.1-kilometre line from City Centre to Langley City opening by 2028.
Service is assumed to be every five minutes, falling to every three minutes with an expected service upgrade in 2041.
Light rail would have more stations than SkyTrain and be more pedestrian-friendly, offering “both eyes on the street and from the street visibility,” the report said.
“Unlike Rapid Bus or SkyTrain alternatives, the LRT will have a permanent physical presence in their exclusive rights-of-way and yet be at a human scale and have a gentle footprint in keeping with the lower density portions of the line.”
The study argues the light rail lines will be a magnet for other high-tech and health sciences employers, resulting in more jobs springing up along the network.
It notes access to Surrey Memorial Hospital would improve, accelerating the development of that area as a growing health technology centre.
And it predicts increased investment in high-quality residential, commercial and civic development that would increase the tax base and add jobs in both Surrey City Centre and Langley’s town centre.
More households may be able to afford homes in the area, it says, because the line will allow more residents to forego a car.
SkyTrain for Surrey advocate Daryl Dela Cruz said the Shirocca report appears to emphasize economics and development because the actual transit improvement case from LRT is weak.
“Commuters don’t want to know about these vague details ai??i?? they want to know if they’ll be able to get around easier,” Dela Cruz said.
His group proposes SkyTrain to Langley on Fraser Highway ai??i??Ai??which would get riders boarding in Langley to Waterfront Station in under an hour ai??i??Ai??and bus rapid transit instead of light rail on other corridors.
Light rail on King George would be only one minute faster than the existing 96 B-Line express bus to Newton, he said, while 104 Avenue would end up more congested with the loss of a lane of traffic to LRT.
“It would seem that the results have more to do with appeasing developers, business prospects, pro-light rail advocates and other such entities as opposed to transit riders and the actual stakeholders on the proposed lines,” Dela Cruz said.
I don’t put much credence into voodoo economic forecasts even though I do have a great deal of respect for Shirocca Consulting. Despite the purported economic stimulus of transit, paying scores of deadbeat transit employees gravy train pensions isn’t good for the overall economy as far as I’m concerned – just ask Greece which went bankrupt thanks to the transit pensions starting at 55 years of age. I still support transit as long as the costs aren’t crazy and don’t see transit as a money making venture making the residents paying for it, prosperous.
For Jeff Nagel to counter the Shirocca Consulting report with Daryl DC claiming that s-train is convenient, is baffling. A few nights ago, the CBC did a story on a Surrey no-voter who had to walk 20 minutes to the bus stop, ride the bus for 15 minutes and then ride the s-train for 30 minutes. In contrast, driving essentially would have taken him door to door in 30 minutes – without the spectre of taking public transit with someone as disgusting as Daryl DC. That’s the bottom line, s-train (hub to hub transit) is no substitute for point to point transport: driving, riding (motorbike) or cycling.
Believe it or not despite being a supporter of Skytrain I don’t have supper strong opinions on Surrey LRT vs Skytrain/bus. This ‘study’ does not address any of this. While chapter 5 actually does address some of the benifits of rapid transit (any rapid transit) the quoted economic benifits from the article would exist if they took an equivelant amount of money and paid people to dig holes and fill them up again. There are many benifits in chapter 5 that could be quantified but are not. The report does not have comparisons to a ‘base case’, do nothing vs LRT vs Skytrain vs increased roads ect. If the City of Surrey paid more than a days wages for this report they got ripped off. It certainly does not add much to any business case.
Oh this debate is becoming so tiresome!
Here are my feelings on the issue.
The Surrey LRT line is poorly thought out and really only benefits Surrey. It is poorly laid out if you want connections to other communities south of the Fraser River or connections across the river. The chosen right of way really hasn’t even been designed yet. So anyone saying they know how fast the end to end the LRT service is going to be is just blowing smoke, they are at best, conceptual semi-known rights of way! The amateurish, idiotic system end to end travel time estimates that Translink came up with are not even based on what a LRT line can really do, they as a group of transit professionals should have know better than that. This is disturbing because it does make me believe that in this case, some of Zwei’s more emotional ravings might have a real grain of truth to them. I have colleges who agree completely, this line is at best going to be difficult to fit into the whole region’s needs. It has been said before, if you want the LRT lines to be as fast as the Skytrain then they can design it with physically segregated, above grade, multi corridor travelling rights of way (what professionals call going cross country) with stations kilometers apart. Then it will be fast and probably just as mondo expensive as the Skytrain to build and operate.
Where LRT has the real advantage over Skytrain is that, Skytrain MUST be on its super expensive right of way to operate legally in Canada, where as LRT can operate in on many different types of R.O.W. including, on street rights of way segregated by pylons installed into the right of way, raised curbed rights of way or cheap highway K-Rails joined together into a wall. LRV’s traveling in mixed traffic rights of way are by design generally avoided unless local right of way conditions dictate that they must operate in one. This is one of the primary reasons LRT is generally cheaper to build and takes less time than a Skytrain system to install.
IT TOOK ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS THAN 2 YEARS for the TTC in Toronto, to completely dig out 2 km of the old private Harbourfront streetcar right of way on Queens Quay Boulevard West, install new separated sanitary and storm sewers and water mains (because they had to the old ones were 80 years old), move the entire rail right of way 2.5 metres south (including realigned intersections) install a new traffic signal control system, new larger and longer stations, do tunnel upgrades and install almost 8 km of new pantograph friendly catenary in the tunnel to Union and on Spadina Avenue to Bloor Street as well (including an all new electrical support system) . All of this done while just a mere 500 metres away, Front Street and all of Union Station (both Railway Station and Subway parts) were enduring major construction upgrade programs of their own.
Daryl is right, the Shirocca Report is heavy on the economics and development potential of LRT and weak on the transit operational details because the report is titled, “Economic Benefits of Surrey LRT”! It really goes without saying, what do you expect to see Daryl when you read it?
I believe LRT is a more adaptable technology than Skytrain’s and has many advantages including cost. My real core issue with the technology that the Skytrain uses comes from actually working in the transit industry out in the real world. Any operating savings you get from the driverless operating system is lost because even the newest Skytrains use very expensive non standard specialized railway parts and maintenance/support equipment. The Skytrain technology is good as long as it is new. It ages very poorly and doesn’t lend it self to easy installation that is now paramount in all new rail technology. I just recently found out that, the steerable bogies/trucks that the next generation Skytrain will use won’t even be built by Bombardier but by a subcontractor. Due to the fact that, its the only product that Bombardier makes that currently uses the steerable design and it is not compatible with the new FLEXX model bogies/trucks design that is standard on most of Bombardier’s rail products. This drives up not only the fabricating/vehicle construction costs but operating/maintenance costs as well. Even the software the Skytrain uses is expensive. Translink still has not purchased the improved operating system recovery software that, the report on last year’s Skytrain major breakdowns said is desperately needed to improve the system recovery time from 1-2 hours to 10-15 minutes. The reason, they can’t afford the $30 Million for the software package plus the $5-15 Million equipment upgrade cost that must come with it! This is assuming that Bombardier keeps building the Skytrain Technology at all. Remember no guarantees after 2018-19 that the technology will still be owned or used by Bombardier’s rail division!
I have also said before, the plebiscite is a big deal if you want any rapid transit spending at all. Voting yes or no does not guarantee that Translink will or won’t be reformed, they are independent of each other. Remember, the transit system just can’t shut down while Translink is reformed. That must go on while the system continues to operate. So whether they get more money or not that set of problems and issues will still remain. You may not trust Translink but, they are massively underfunded! The local taxes you pay for transit are about 20% less per taxpayer than Toronto’s and about 35% less than what we pay per taxpayer in Ottawa. Translink’s growing sources of funding are expanding at a rate less than inflation and all its other funding sources like gas taxes, are shrinking! Meaning, without a large infusion of money even affording a 1/3 capital cost similar to the Evergreen Line Project won’t be just financially difficult, like the current Evergreen Line Project has been, it will be financially impossible. You Skytrain people want to build a line to UBC, good luck because without much larger sources of income projects like that are not affordable locally.
Lastly about the plebiscite, whatever, your reason for voting no is remember this, Jason Bateman and CTF have no real plan, their idea is a simple double counting exercise that anti-tax zealots often use. Its not real, its dangerous and they have no ideas of how to support any transit/infrastructure program that does not involve private for profit corporations in a P3 like program. Most of these P3 programs in Canada have always increased capital and operating costs for the users and the tax payer in general. The Canada Line Project was a poorly executed P3 deal. Governments of all stripes still use them because accounting rules allow these agencies to remove certain large costs from the accounting books until the very end of the project. Thus it really becomes a grand risk avoidance exercise.
The Feds are not going to swoop in and help after the vote. This straight from the mouth of John Walsh (President of the National Council of the Conservative Party of Canada, also a person I knew from my Carleton University days, I wouldn’t call him a friend!)
“When Vancouver/Translink gets money for rapid transit it will be somewhere between $600 Million-$1 Billion, you won’t get more!”
Translation, it will most likely only cover 1/3 or the federal part of any large multi Billion dollar project. It will be subject to several conditions.
1. No one will get more than $1 Billion per project.
2. The Conservatives have to win the election!
3. The project must be a P3, whether it is design-build or a design build-operate for non Skytrain designs.
4. The Conservatives must approve the operating technology (likely to happen anyway but they do love BRT because its cheap).
5. There has to be a local funding component as well as a Provincial one.
Points 3 and 4 do only one thing regardless of the technology, they drive up the final capital cost, sometimes dramatically. You can make the argument that points 2 and 5 may also do that as well!
@Rico, for once, we agree.
Why does it cost so much to lay track in roads and build a few stations? I hear a lot of LRT costs are related to relocating utilities which would be resolved by using insulated track such as the LR55 system. I think it could be done for less.
To be truthful, you can’t believe anything transit wise from Metro Vancouver. Studies are done to support who commissioned them and the powers that be have promiced Vancouver a SkyTrain subway under Broadway and “Johny come lately” Surrey LRT.
Both are vanity projects to cut ribbons at election time and both will not do a thing to counter car use.
I spent a good part of an hour with a reported the other day trying to explain transit issues and after an hour the reporter could still not understand that differences between LRT and SkyTrain oe why no one builds with SkyTrain anymore. TransLink has done such good job making light rail the ‘bogeyman’ of transit, that I am afraid we are stuck with this lemon for decades to come.
The bus to (forced transfer) SkyTrain and (forced transfer) to bus is just not a winning ticket to attract the motorist from the car, yet TransLink still plans for this 1960’s style of transit that has proven in the past not to work.
Metro Vancouver is at the crossroads for the next 50 years and the current plan will not solve any transit issues, just providing a more crowed and expensive commute, especially with 130,000 U-Pass cheap fare for post secondary students to be issued in the fall of 2015. Even the BRT proposals are to dump passengers onto the nearest overcrowded SkyTrain station.
There are a few who see the real fiasco on the horizon, but TransLink’s reaction is to let go those who have sounded the warnings.
Light rail can be done for less however, most of our cities in both N. America and Europe are so far behind on the replacement of our underground piped infrastructure (Sewers- Sanitary and Storm, Water Mains even power and communication cable upgrades) that, usually any major transit project requires that some roads be dug up to a depth of a metre or so to replace old sewer covers and old service access points. At that point, in comes the other city or regional departments during the planning phase and say, “well if you have to dig that section of road anyway why don’t we go a little deeper and upgrade the services now while we have the chance. Its going to take 5 more years before we (name the department) will be able to get to it. Since you guys are going to have the digging equipment there anyway we might as well combine the project and get everything done at once.”
The problem then becomes that, the extra costs get charged to the LRT project budget and the other departments will pay them back or offer services in kind, much later. So whenever there is a major road or city transit project that involves the street, count on the need to “move services out of the way” which is just planning speak for, ” those god dam pipes are 80-90 years old and they need to be replaced now” and only transit is getting any money to do any work remotely close to them so, everyone combines budgets. Due to being so behind on infrastructure replacement cities usually in concert with a LRT project are forced to include a sewer and water main upgrade, rebuilt road and sidewalks project as well as a, “good look and see what is actually down there regardless what the city maps and records say opportunity”.
BNSF could be moving their line off the beach in Whiterock – could this change be incorporated into an LRT plan, or are they separate and independent events…
Zwei replies: To move the BNSF, would mean an investment of over $1 billion and I doubt anyone is going to ante up this sort of cash. LRT can use the alignment now, in the form of TramTrain, if an agreement could be reached with the BNSF.