Metro Vancouver’s Metro Mania
The following article is eerily familiar with TransLink’s continued building of light metro, especially subway construction. In Australia the state of New south Wales is spending AUD $11 billion (CAD $10.1 billion to build 23 km of rail line that will not generate the ridership that would demand such an expenditure, while Metro Vancouver is spending $11 billion to build 21.7 km extensions to the Expo and Millennium lines, which again, will not have the ridership to justify the expenditure.
Some time before Bombardier’s rail division was sold to Alstom, Bombardier publicly stated on its website that, it did not recommend the ART/Innovia technology for peak period passenger levels bellow 8000 passengers/hour/direction.
Peak hour traffic flows on the almost $3 billion, 5.7 km subway is estimated under 5,000 pphpd! Ditto for the Surrey to Langley Expo Line extension!
Modern light rail, costing up to ten times less to build, can economically carry traffic loads between 2,000 to over 20,000 persons per hour per direction.
This quote from our friend Mr. Haveacow from 2015, is extremely relevant in 2023,
The real embarrassing thing is what happened with Bombardier’s website. I have been pointing out to anyone who had been willing to listen that, the INNOVIA Automatic Metro line section of Bombardier’s website was moved out of the rail vehicle section into transportation systems section. Well just before John retired a big s***storm about the website had occurred. Turns out that, both representatives from Kuala Lampur and Vancouver had both been wanting to ask why their rail vehicles were not in the rail vehicle section of the website. They were told that, even though they were both highly valued long time customers and Bombardier would always be willing to design a replacement vehicle for them. It was just more advantageous for them to have the INNOVIA product as a stand alone complete transportation system product because so few people had ordered the technology compared to Bombardier’s other rail vehicle lines. Very few would be looking for just replacement vehicles and they (Bombardier) assumed that your transit people would just call them directly because there are no other compatible technologies that you would be able to order, technically. The simple translation, you can’t call anyone else our propulsion technology only works with our vehicle designs although, there are others that use LIM propulsion it would be a very expensive option. John was not sure and seriously doubts that, there was a legal requirement that the current users must order from Bombardier unless, they Bombardier does not offer an equivalent product!
Today, SkyTrain or MALM, is Alstom’s problem and with a ‘foreign’ light metro system in their stud of light-metros and only one customer, time will run down quickly for the proprietary transit system, which means costs will rise sourcing scarce replacement parts for the almost orphaned mini-metro.
As SkyTrain light metro’s construction costs escalate upwards and needed refurbishment done piecemeal, Metro Vancouver’s version of “Metro Mania” is costing the taxpayer dearly and in a time of high inflation and taxes, poses the question:
“Will Metro Vancouver’s extremely expensive metro mania ever stop?”
Is subway construction worth the cost?
Metro mania’: Former top NSW rail exec says train mega-projects lack rationale
By Matt O’Sullivan
February 20, 2023
The man who masterminded the train timetable for the Sydney Olympics warns the city’s multibillion-dollar metro rail projects risk delivering limited benefits to commuters despite their staggering price tags.
In what he terms “metro mania”, former top NSW rail executive Dr Dick Day argues the state government is rushing to commit to massive rail projects in Sydney for which there is “little rationale”.
One of the twin tunnels on the Metro City and Southwest rail line.Credit:Brook Mitchell
He describes as a “gross misuse of public funds” the $11 billion to be spent on a 23-kilometre rail line from St Marys to Western Sydney Airport because it would “see quite limited use”. Infrastructure Australia also warned two years ago that the cost of the airport line would far outweigh the benefits.
Day, a former general manager of planning and timetable development at RailCorp, expects people will travel primarily by car to the new airport after it opens in late 2026, and that a network of express buses would initially provide the best form of public transport access.
In a paper for Sydney University, Day said Sydney’s “metro mania” was destined to be an “extremely expensive and poorly thought through experiment” which would be “found wanting as a cost-effective means of enhancing” the city’s public transport network.
“Sydney’s proposed metro projects represents very poor use of what were once considered scarce public funds,” he warned. “The willingness to commit public money to such poorly conceived projects raises disturbing questions about financial governance within NSW.”
The cost of constructing three new metro rail lines in Sydney, as well as the Metro Northwest which opened in 2019, is estimated at $63 billion.
Day argues it is reckless to keep committing vast sums of money to extra metro rail lines because of a “very real possibility” that peak-hour commuting by train never returns to pre-pandemic levels.
He warns Sydney is out of step with London, Melbourne and Brisbane, where new rail tunnels under the heart of those cities will accommodate existing train services at improved frequencies and offer relief for their networks. Sydney’s metro rail lines run driverless single-deck trains, and other types of passenger and freight trains cannot operate on them.
Day, who was responsible for mapping out and planning train services that contributed to Sydney’s successful 2000 Olympics, is also critical of plans for a $27 billion line from the CBD to Parramatta known as Metro West.
He warns that most passengers travelling towards central Sydney from the outer west by rail will have boarded double-decker trains at stations further west of Parramatta, and will not change there to catch services on Metro West, which would have only one main station in the CBD. In comparison, the existing western line serves three CBD stations.
Premier Dominic Perrottet, centre, with Metropolitan Roads Minister Natalie Ward and Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan last week.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
“There has been an unprecedented rush by the government to lock in the construction of these projects despite a very poor understanding of their costs and benefits. This has taken place at a time when commuting patterns have shifted considerably following COVID-19,” he wrote.
Premier Dominic Perrottet last week re-committed to planning for an expansion of metro rail in Sydney’s outer west, including between St Marys and Tallawong, near Rouse Hill, if his government is re-elected, four years after his predecessor Gladys Berejiklian outlined similar plans.
Monkey see monkey do for subways in Oz and Canada. Not that hard to explain.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/snc-lavalin-set-to-pay-close-to-30-million-under-reparation-agreement-over-fraud-forgery-charges-1.5892500
It is obvious that five tram buses carrying 700 people can’t carry as many people as five car trains carrying 500 people in subways. Obviously.
“Solaris Urbino 18 hydrogen launched. Up to 140 passengers and 350 km range for the articulated bus”
https://www.solarisbus.com/en/press/unveiling-of-the-urbino-18-hydrogen-bus-along-with-solaristalks-2022-1828
https://www.sustainable-bus.com/fuel-cell-bus/solaris-urbino-18-hydrogen-launched-articulated/
Pouring concrete for subways is “Green”. Hydrogen from electrolysis for hydrogen buses is not. Nothing to question here.
https://uttri.utoronto.ca/news/environmental-cost-of-underground-rail-massive-says-saxe/
Oh Mickey Mouse TransScum and NDP BC you’re so fine. TransScum! NDP BC!
Subway! Broadway! Vancouver!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aqLwHP4y6Q