A transit day in the mainstream media
The two Vancouver dailies have offered, surprisingly to, several letters and an editorial about local transit issues.
From the Vancouver Sun, comes a letter from a Mr. Villegas, who seems to know a lot about modern LRT and he is quite correct that a tram would offer a comparable service as a much more expensive SkyTrain light-metro. What is more interesting is that the pro SkyTrain Vancouver Sun printed the letter at all!
http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/letters/Cities+need+tram+SkyTrain/5136201/story.html
Tri-Cities need a tram, not SkyTrain
By Lewis N. Villegas, Vancouver SunStop the "Evergreen tax" and the lunacy in Port Moody-Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam transit planning. Trans-Link has enough money to build the alternate plan – an Olympic tramstyle system, sleek and modern, just like in Paris or London.
Yet Tri-City leaders want SkyTrain. Why? SkyTrain will blight Port Moody waterfront riding on grade, guarded by barbed-wire fence.
SkyTrain will blight Burquitlam-North Road, where apartment properties will get a new view … SkyTrain elevated track outside their windows, and screeching noise.
On the other hand, Olympic-style trams revitalize corridors they cross: Burquitlam-North Road, will become an "urban village;" St. John's street Port Moody a vibrant heritage district; and Guilford Way a modern, transitoriented neighbourhood.
Tram will deliver twice as many stations as SkyTrain for a fraction of the cost. Walk-on trams are more sustainable than SkyTrain.
Yet, these facts are glossed over as local governments sell density to pay for SkyTrain.
Trams offer the right place, right price tag, and deliver equivalent passenger trips and travel time as SkyTrain.
Lewis N. Villegas
Vancouver
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Collecting all fares always made sense
The ProvinceAbout damn time! That's the consistent view of Lower Mainland taxpayers, particularly drivers, to the news that TransLink is finally installing faregates.
For years, TransLink officials made the ridiculous claim that the loss of revenue from using the honour system for fare payments was so little it didn't justify the high cost of gates.
Almost no one agreed, particularly since nearly every other transit system in the world has used faregates for decades.
In explaining the new initiative yesterday, TransLink said it estimates it loses $7.1 million a year to fare cheats. But since TransLink took in more than $413 million in fares last year, that suggests they believe just one in 60 riders cheats. The real losses are likely higher. In 2008, Finance Minister Kevin Falcon suggested they were $40 million a year.
One also hopes that at $171 million for 400 turnstiles, Trans-Link is getting good value. At $427,000 per gate, that's about the price of a two-bedroom condo in Yaletown.
With transit responsible for 60 per cent of TransLink's expenses (compared to nine per cent spent on roads), and motorists providing 36 to 68 per cent of revenue (depending on how much property tax one connects to motorists), it's important that all fares be collected – as they should have been for years.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Sickening waste
By Roy Speers, The ProvinceSo, $170 million for SkyTrain gates, let me think about this . . . are you kidding me?
Maybe we should look at who is going to be set for life after this project. No, wait! Then the government would have to spend another half a million for a study.
Gas taxes, HST, huge pensions for bureaucrats, wasteful overspending – am I the only one getting sick to the stomach of the mismanagement of our money?
Roy Speers, Surrey
© Copyright (c) The ProvinceLesson from London's Tube might have saved us $170m
By Ruth Enns, The Province
