“Skytrain in Vancouver” by Micheal Chu is licensed by CCBY
The connection between public transit and urban sustainability is significant;Ai??public transportation has been shown to reduce air pollution and GHG emissions,Ai??positively enhance urban densification, and drive economic growth in communities.
In light of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Christy Clark’s multimillion dollar transit funding announcement, we sat down with Patrick Condon, Chair, Urban Design, and Professor of Landscape Architecture to get his perspective out what this development means for the future of urban design and public transit in Vancouver.
Q. What is the significance of this announcement?
This announcement presents nothing new, it only certifies what was previously announced: The Federal government is willing to pay 50 percent of the cost of new transit projects, up from the traditional 33 percent. Unfortunately the funding levels are far far below what is needed to build out the 7.5 billion dollar Mayor’s Council transit plan. At only 250 million per year combined total from local, provincial, and federal resources it would take 30 years to finish this “ten year plan”.
Q. How will these investments affect Vancouverai??i??s urban design?
The Mayor’s Council ten year plan will affect regional urban design in a number of ways. The most hopeful part of the plan, and the easiest to achieve, are the rapid bus improvements proposed for new “frequent transit corridors” in all parts of the region. These new “B-line” type services could catalyze new medium density development on many major corridors, especially if provided in dedicated lanes. Such systems have dramatically improved the number of transit users and urban quality of life in many cities, including Curitiba BrazilAi??and Bogota Columbia. On the other hand, more expensive subway systems are only logical if accompanied by very high density development within a ten minute walk of transit stations. This model of development is now manifest at Metrotown and Brentwood town centres. High rise construction brings with it a number of social, economic and sustainability costs which IAi??have enumerated in the past, including susceptibility to earthquake damage, high per square foot construction costs, heavy use of GHG emitting concrete, and the disappearance of small scale local commercial activity.
Q. Is this sufficient to address Vancouverai??i??s transit issues?
WIth the funding formula and amounts we now know, we can calculate that it will take 30 years to build the Mayor’s Council’s ten year plan. By that time the region will likely be home to 3.5 to 4 million people. Most of this number will be located in currently suburban locations. The ten year plan is thus already out of date and will not serve our future region well. It would be wise to start over and generate a new, more affordable plan – a plan more in keeping with what we now know are the likely financial resources and the growth trends expected over the next three to four decades.
Q. What will the legacy of this investment be?
The political culture of our region is deeply committed to the plan as proposed and unlikely to re-evaluate it to reflect this new financial and temporal reality. My hope is that the much cheaper parts of the proposal, the rapid bus network, will be the first to be built, and that this system will be a sustainable armature for future regional transit oriented development.
Patrick Condon has over 25 years of experience in sustainable urban design: first as a professional city planner and then as a teacher and researcher. He has distilled his 20+ years of experience designing sustainable communities in his recent book ai???Seven Rules for Sustainable Cities, Design Strategies for a Post Carbon Worldai??? (2010 Island Press). He is now the Chair of the Masters of Urban Design Program at UBC.
Although Professor Condon makes some great points he falls short on one of the main parts of his article. I always believed that, one of the major unaddressed issues with the Mayor’s 10 year Transit plan was the planned purchasing of buses. The Professor assumes just like everyone else that, the division or holding company that looks after your buses has the capacity to accept those new buses and maintain them. They do not and said that much, during the debate around your transit plebiscite last year. New buses for more B-Line bus routes is a good idea but there was a considerable hole in the plan. You guys are almost out of bus garage space for storage and maintenance. So before new buses are purchased you need at the least one, very large new storage and maintenance garage plus a considerable number of staff and mechanics. In the transit industry, bus mechanics are worth their weight in gold and must be paid accordingly or you loose them to other transit properties! An entire team of personnel people at the TTC in Toronto is devoted to essentially luring away mechanics from other transit operations to work at the TTC. Then you have to actually hire and train at a minimum, 2.5 drivers per bus. That’s a tall order, for the first part of a 10 year transit $7.5 Billion plan that is presently only funded at a level of slightly less than $1 Billion (assuming you guys come up with your local funding component first)
Zwei replies: On a radio forum last year I posed almost the same question, from recollection, I said; “It is all very well and good to buy new buses, but there is nothing in the budget to hire all the people to drive, operate and maintain them.” I was later told by a bus driver that there were over 300 buses in storage because there is no budget to hire drivers.
Yes, going with what we can afford or what serves transit users, isn’t in the plan. I’m going to be candid and not as diplomatic as Patrick. Essentially, both SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier are run by individuals who influence or bride politicians who shovel money from taxpayers to build infrastructure for SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier to make money. Technically, this is criminal.
Both SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier are lousy firms with lousy reputations. SNC Lavalin can’t win jobs which are put out for fair competition or tender. Firms such as Bechtel, Fluor and AMEC would trounce SNC Lavalin; so, SNC Lavalin uses its “influence” to “persuade” crooked politicians to build infrastructure making SNC Lavalin money. Same goes for Bomb-ardier. Bomb-ardier can’t win jobs if it goes up against Siemens or Alstom. So, Bomb-ardier uses its “influence” to “persuade” crooked politicians to build infrastructure making Bomb-ardier money.
Don’t think that these two firms aren’t going to be challenged and that heads won’t roll. Liberals doing business with SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier are going to find themselves in deep crap when the Conservatives and NDP break the SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier scam which is similar to the one in Quebec a few years ago:
“A corruption scandal has hit Quebec’s political establishment with the arrest of a powerful former Liberal cabinet minister – the first high-level figure among the dozens of local politicians, bureaucrats, party organizers and business executives already charged with illegal political fundraising and bribery.”
“The engineering firm had a business development approach that was rather aggressive,” said Inspector André Boulanger, head of investigations at the permanent anti-corruption squad.”
To be fair Eric, Bombardier beats Alstom and Siemens all the time in rail vehicle sales in open honest competition around the world. Remember Siemens is no longer the 2nd or 3rd biggest rail car producer in the world, its actually fallen to 4th behind CRRC (was briefly 5th until CSR & CNR merged to form CRRC in 2014) a Chinese company. Expect more market share loses if the current low sails continue, 5th place is likely behind Japan’s Kinki Sharyo and maybe 6th, behind even CAF. Siemens still hasn’t fully recovered from its bullet train design and servicing fiasco’s and the Combino LRV (structural issues with the LRV frame) which had to be redesigned and renamed Avenio. Bombardier, Alstom, Kinki Sharyo, CRRC, Hitachi, Stadler and CAF all rushed to fill the LRV and high Speed Rail Market void created by Siemen’s problems in production. Only in the North American LRV market has Siemens been able to somewhat hold on to market share. Everywhere else it has lost tremendously.
If you are looking for crooked behavior in the Canadian Rail Transit market, Alstom did the most wretched thing ever in Montreal. Fearing they would lose out to Bombardier in the contract for Montreal’s new Rubber Tired Metro Cars. Alstom decided it was better to form a Limited Liability Corporation with Bombardier and together become the lone manufacturer in the rubber tired metro train market not just here but in France as well. So if your in France (mainly but not exclusively Paris) or in Montreal and or most likely Santiago or Mexico City as well and you need a new Rubber Tire Metro Car Set ( based on the basic Michelin design) well, depending on where you are you had 2 or 3 choices. Now thanks to Alstom you now have only 1 main choice worldwide Bombardier/Alstom LLC. Hitachi makes a competing product but so far they only have sales in Japan and China. The independent Mexican rail car producer which produced trains for Mexico City’s giant rubber tired system was bought out by Bombardier a decade ago and its main plant is still used for parts fabrication by Bombardier.
@Haveacow, it would be nice if Siemens and Alstom were given the opportunity to compete with Bombardier in Vancouver, too. We might have trams in Vancouver and better transit one day without Bombardier being the preferred supplier at 10 times the cost, or maybe Bombardier would be building tram lines at 1/10th the cost, instead.
How did the stranded passengers get off the s-train disabled by the water main break today? Well, hopefully some 90 year old didn’t have to jump to safety:
“Skytrain in Vancouver” by Micheal Chu is licensed by CCBY
Although Professor Condon makes some great points he falls short on one of the main parts of his article. I always believed that, one of the major unaddressed issues with the Mayor’s 10 year Transit plan was the planned purchasing of buses. The Professor assumes just like everyone else that, the division or holding company that looks after your buses has the capacity to accept those new buses and maintain them. They do not and said that much, during the debate around your transit plebiscite last year. New buses for more B-Line bus routes is a good idea but there was a considerable hole in the plan. You guys are almost out of bus garage space for storage and maintenance. So before new buses are purchased you need at the least one, very large new storage and maintenance garage plus a considerable number of staff and mechanics. In the transit industry, bus mechanics are worth their weight in gold and must be paid accordingly or you loose them to other transit properties! An entire team of personnel people at the TTC in Toronto is devoted to essentially luring away mechanics from other transit operations to work at the TTC. Then you have to actually hire and train at a minimum, 2.5 drivers per bus. That’s a tall order, for the first part of a 10 year transit $7.5 Billion plan that is presently only funded at a level of slightly less than $1 Billion (assuming you guys come up with your local funding component first)
Zwei replies: On a radio forum last year I posed almost the same question, from recollection, I said; “It is all very well and good to buy new buses, but there is nothing in the budget to hire all the people to drive, operate and maintain them.” I was later told by a bus driver that there were over 300 buses in storage because there is no budget to hire drivers.
Yes, going with what we can afford or what serves transit users, isn’t in the plan. I’m going to be candid and not as diplomatic as Patrick. Essentially, both SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier are run by individuals who influence or bride politicians who shovel money from taxpayers to build infrastructure for SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier to make money. Technically, this is criminal.
Both SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier are lousy firms with lousy reputations. SNC Lavalin can’t win jobs which are put out for fair competition or tender. Firms such as Bechtel, Fluor and AMEC would trounce SNC Lavalin; so, SNC Lavalin uses its “influence” to “persuade” crooked politicians to build infrastructure making SNC Lavalin money. Same goes for Bomb-ardier. Bomb-ardier can’t win jobs if it goes up against Siemens or Alstom. So, Bomb-ardier uses its “influence” to “persuade” crooked politicians to build infrastructure making Bomb-ardier money.
Don’t think that these two firms aren’t going to be challenged and that heads won’t roll. Liberals doing business with SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier are going to find themselves in deep crap when the Conservatives and NDP break the SNC Lavalin and Bomb-ardier scam which is similar to the one in Quebec a few years ago:
“A corruption scandal has hit Quebec’s political establishment with the arrest of a powerful former Liberal cabinet minister – the first high-level figure among the dozens of local politicians, bureaucrats, party organizers and business executives already charged with illegal political fundraising and bribery.”
“The engineering firm had a business development approach that was rather aggressive,” said Inspector André Boulanger, head of investigations at the permanent anti-corruption squad.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/corruption-charges-reach-quebecs-highest-political-ranks/article29286325/
Once a Lie-beral, always a Lie-beral. Stay tuned.
To be fair Eric, Bombardier beats Alstom and Siemens all the time in rail vehicle sales in open honest competition around the world. Remember Siemens is no longer the 2nd or 3rd biggest rail car producer in the world, its actually fallen to 4th behind CRRC (was briefly 5th until CSR & CNR merged to form CRRC in 2014) a Chinese company. Expect more market share loses if the current low sails continue, 5th place is likely behind Japan’s Kinki Sharyo and maybe 6th, behind even CAF. Siemens still hasn’t fully recovered from its bullet train design and servicing fiasco’s and the Combino LRV (structural issues with the LRV frame) which had to be redesigned and renamed Avenio. Bombardier, Alstom, Kinki Sharyo, CRRC, Hitachi, Stadler and CAF all rushed to fill the LRV and high Speed Rail Market void created by Siemen’s problems in production. Only in the North American LRV market has Siemens been able to somewhat hold on to market share. Everywhere else it has lost tremendously.
If you are looking for crooked behavior in the Canadian Rail Transit market, Alstom did the most wretched thing ever in Montreal. Fearing they would lose out to Bombardier in the contract for Montreal’s new Rubber Tired Metro Cars. Alstom decided it was better to form a Limited Liability Corporation with Bombardier and together become the lone manufacturer in the rubber tired metro train market not just here but in France as well. So if your in France (mainly but not exclusively Paris) or in Montreal and or most likely Santiago or Mexico City as well and you need a new Rubber Tire Metro Car Set ( based on the basic Michelin design) well, depending on where you are you had 2 or 3 choices. Now thanks to Alstom you now have only 1 main choice worldwide Bombardier/Alstom LLC. Hitachi makes a competing product but so far they only have sales in Japan and China. The independent Mexican rail car producer which produced trains for Mexico City’s giant rubber tired system was bought out by Bombardier a decade ago and its main plant is still used for parts fabrication by Bombardier.
@Haveacow, it would be nice if Siemens and Alstom were given the opportunity to compete with Bombardier in Vancouver, too. We might have trams in Vancouver and better transit one day without Bombardier being the preferred supplier at 10 times the cost, or maybe Bombardier would be building tram lines at 1/10th the cost, instead.
How did the stranded passengers get off the s-train disabled by the water main break today? Well, hopefully some 90 year old didn’t have to jump to safety:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/new-westminster-water-main-break-brunette-braid-1.3653063