Transit History That Politicians Would Like The Public To Forget
The history of Vancouver’s SkyTrain light-metro system has been somewhat altered to fit today’s politcal narrative; the following is a brief but concise history of how metro Vancouver got saddled with the SkyTrain light metro system.
Prior to the Social Credit government forcing the then called Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT) system onto Metro Vancouver (To quote then premier Bill Bennett; “you will get SkyTrain whether you like it or not”, which was quoted again when then NDP Premier, Glen Clark echoes the same threat for the Millennium Line), there was a well studied plan to implement a modern light rail system for Canada.
Just weeks before the plan was to be accepted by the GVRD, the Bill Bennett government entered into a private agreement with the Government of Ontario to buy their unsalable Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS) system, which was renamed ALRT for the sale to Vancouver, to acquire the services of the then famous “Blue Machine”, to win the next election, which like today, saw a one seat majority in the legislature in Victoria.
Only one ALRT system (Vancouver) was built and the proprietary transit system remained unsalable domestically and internationally.
Bill Van der Zalm was merely the government “points-man” to sell ALRT to the public and had little to do with the decision. He is on record stating that, except for the Expo Line, ALRT or SkyTrain, was unsuitable for the lower mainland rapid transit and supports the Valley rail scheme.
The original LRT plans saw LRT from Vancouver to Richmond; Vancouver to New Westminster/Lougheed Mall and Whalley.
The following is a map, with costs (1978 dollars) of the proposed LRT lines, but for a somewhat higher cost we got ALRT to New Westminster.
Adjusting for inflation, the $430 Million to $558 Million would be $1.88 Billion to $2.45 Billion. Compare to the $6 to $7 Billion, 16 km extension of the Expo Line to Langley or the now $4 billion, 5.7 km Broadway subway!
The GVRD did not want SkyTrain and instead wanted light rail for the then Broadway Lougheed Rapid Transit Plan as their “Cost of Transporting People in the Lower Mainland” Study found that SkyTrain, just to New Westminster, was subsidized at $157 million annually in 1992; more than the trolley and diesel bus operations combined!. Accounting for inflation, this is $300 million annually in 2024 dollars
The NDP have flip-flopped twice, Broadway Lougheed and Surrey, from originally planned for light rail to SkyTrain light metro.
Why?
It certainly wasn’t because it was a better system because the well studied ALRT/ART (ART is the name for Bombardier’s rebuild of ALRT) has been found wanting and remains today unsalable.
The following is from Modern Tramways in 1983 and clearly shows that ICTS/ALRT was inferior to LRT, yet the Toronto studies were never permitted to be made public in BC and the Vancouver media never bothered to investigate ALRT.
It was known by 1983 that what we call SkyTrain was unsalable and today only seven systems were built and only six remain in operation. It was well known in the 1990’s that Bombardier’s rebuild of ICTS/ALRT was unsalable and resorting to pay “success fees” to bureaucrats and politicians in Korea and Malaysia to build with ART.
Bombardier could only sell one ART system in the USA, if the Canadian government, through the Overseas Development Bank would fund it, yet Vancouver continues to plan for more and worse, pretends it is a “world class system“!
Whoever has heard of a “world class system” that is unsalable?
This is the legacy of the SkyTrain light-metro system, a world class white elephant.
Why does government continue planning and building with it?
Rail for the Valley’s Letter To The Mayor’s Council On Transit
I have been involved with transit issues in the lower mainland for 40 years. I am also the person responsible for the Leewood Study, an independent study by Leewood Projects UK, about the viability of reinstating the former Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban service with modern TramTrain or light diesel multiple units, on behalf of the Rail for the Valley group.
The Leewood Study, published in 2010, is all the more important today, with an ever growing Fraser Valley population combined with the massive escalating costs of building with Light Metro, will make any thought of future extensions financially impossible.
Rail for the Valley: www.railforthevalley.com/
TramTrain: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram-train
Leewood Projects: leewoodprojects.co.uk/
Leewood Study: www.railforthevalley.com/studies/
The Lower mainland has a very expensive transit problem, called TransLink, which has a spending problem and not an income problem. This has resulted in TransLink demanding a further $600 million annually, threatening drastic cuts to the regional transit service. TransLink willfully squanders money on prestige transit projects, such as the SkyTrain light-metro system, which no transit authority has copied the Vancouver model!
It is time, regional politicians show some backbone and vote no to the demands of this ponderous and grossly inefficient bureaucracy because they will always come back, demanding more and more money, to hide their incompetent and extremely expensive transit planning.
The current expenditure of at least $16 billion, extending the Millennium and Expo Lines a mere 21.7 km is a combination of professional misconduct on the part of TransLink and the Provincial government and willful ignorance by the Mayor’s Council on Transit.
This $16 billion expenditure confirms Bent Flyvberg’s Iron Law of Mega-projects specifically addresses why politicians are obsessed with infrastructure at any cost.
“…the “political sublime,” which here is understood as the rapture politicians get from building monuments to themselves and their causes. Mega-projects are manifest, garner attention, and lend an air of proactiveness to their promoters. Moreover, they are media magnets, which appeals to politicians who seem to enjoy few things better than the visibility they get from starting mega-projects. Except maybe cutting the ribbon of one in the company of royals or presidents, who are likely to be lured by the unique monumental and historical import of many mega-projects. This is the type of public exposure that helps get politicians re-elected. They therefore actively seek it out.“
It is time TransLink stop its deliberate gambit of confusion with Metro Vancouver’s rapid transit system, which has led to decades of dubious transit projects, costing two to three times more than they should, by continuing building with an obsolete proprietary light metro system, locally known as SkyTrain.
Metro Vancouver’s light-metro system, called SkyTrain, is a name chosen via a radio contest in 1985 and is common name with many other elevated railways and proprietary transit systems that have no relation with Vancouver’s operation.
Vancouver’s SkyTrain light-metro system is made up of two distinct railways:
- The Canada Line, a conventional railway, built as a light metro and uses ‘off the shelf’ Electrical Multiple Units (EMU’s) currently supplied by ROTEM of Korea.
- The Expo and Millennium Lines operate an unconventional, proprietary and often renamed light-metro system, now called Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM), whose cars are only built by Alstom, after they purchased Bombardier’s rail division. No other company offers a compatible vehicle that will operate on the MALM lines. This raises important questions with the so-called bidding process with car replacement because no other company produces compatible cars!
The MALM system uses Linear Induction Motors (LIM’s) and is not compatible in operation with any other railway except its small family of now six systems. In total seven systems were built but Toronto abandoned theirs last year.
Vancouver is now the sole customer for MALM, as it is the only operator currently expanding its system.
A technology bias exists at TransLink. Internationally the MALM system is considered obsolete, as it costs more to build, operate and maintain than conventional light rail. Cities that built light-metro, such as Ottawa and Seattle, use light rail vehicles, as they are much cheaper to operate and far more flexible in operation. In today’s world, modern light rail greatly outperforms the MALM light-metro system at a significantly lower cost.
TransLink continues to use this cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and thus succeeds in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding.
Gerald Fox, Noted American engineer, retired.
TransLink’s well oiled propaganda machine, churning out ”fake news” and “alternative facts” has created the local SkyTrain myth. The SkyTrain myth has fueled the SkyTrain Lobby, which repeats TransLink’s fake news and alternative facts, so much so that politicians and the public have come to believe the SkyTrain myth.
The Broadway subway is testament to the power of the SkyTrain myth. Funding for the now $4 billion Broadway subway (this cost will be announced after the provincial election) was based on a foundation of half truths and questionable planning.
The accepted standard for building a subway is a transit route with traffic flows in excess of 15,000 persons per hour per direction (pphpd), yet peak traffic flows on the 99B Line, which will be replaced by the Broadway subway to Arbutus, is about 2,000 pphpd, based on 3 minute peak hour headway’s.
Before Bombardier’s rail division was sold to Alstom, Bombardier publicly stated on its website “that it doesn’t recommend the Skytrain technology for peak period passenger levels below 8000 passengers/hour/direction“. According to Thales news release, regarding winning the $1.47 billion resignalling of the Expo and Millennium Lines; “When the programme is fully implemented, the Expo Line will be able to accommodate 17,500 passengers per hour per direction, and the Millennium Line (Broadway Subway) will be able to handle 7500 passengers per hour per direction, a 32% and 96% increase respectively.“
For added taxpayer insult, in the late 1940,s and early 1950’s, the Toronto Transit Commission were operating coupled sets of PCC trams on select routes, offering a maximum peak hour capacity over 12,000 pphpd, yet the Millennium Line will be limited to a maximum capacity of only 7,500 pphpd!
TransLink’s two top planners were fired for their opposition to the subway, by publicly stating the obvious; that there wasn’t the ridership on Broadway to justify a now $4 billion subway.
TransLink quite happily lets people believe that Broadway is the “most heavily used transit route in Canada“, but claims “This is our region’s most overcrowded bus route.”, instead when there is a threat of professional or legal accountability.
“The problem with TransLink is that you can never believe what it says; TransLink never produces a report based on the same set of assumptions.”
Former West Vancouver Clr. Victor Durman, Chair of the GVRD (now METRO) Finance Committee.
The former Mayor of Surrey’s flip flop from LRT to SkyTrain was also predictable, as the bureaucrats at TransLink did their best to ensure this would happen.
The well oiled SkyTrain Lobby was in full force with every bit of classic fake news and alternative facts they could muster, yet ignored the fact that MALM (SkyTrain) is now considered obsolete internationally and only seven such systems have been built in the past fifty years.
The original claim that a SkyTrain extension from King George station to Langley City could be completed for $1.65 billion, was later exposed to be false, yet no action was taken and today the cost of the 16 km Langley extension is now said to cost $6 billion or $7 billion if one includes the Operations and Maintenance Centre #5. The OMC#5 is needed for the proper maintenance of the new Mk. 5 – five car train sets.
With the politcal promise to complete the proprietary MALM railway to Langley at a cost of $7 billion, another very costly issue arises.
The aging Expo line is desperately in need of an additional major rehab. This rehab includes a major overhaul, including an expanded electrical supply and all the switches being replaced with higher speed switches to permit faster operation and increased capacity. Stations must be rebuilt to deal with the higher customer flows which come with a higher capacity and is said to cost between $2 billion to $3 billion and must be done before the extension to Langley is built.
The real cost of the Langley extension will continue to rise.
How is this to be funded?
The combined annual operating costs for the Broadway subway and the full Expo Line to Langley will now exceed $70 million annually.
How is this to be funded?
Is a $16 billion expanding MALM 21.7 km a good investment, especially when one considers the lack of ridership to support such an investment?
By comparison, 2024 cost for The Rail for the Valley’s Leewood Study, for a 130 km, Marpole (Vancouver) to Chilliwack passenger service, using the BC Electric rail line, servicing North Delta, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Sardis and Chilliwack and connecting the many business parks, universities and colleges along the route, will cost under $2 billion. Or rehabbing the 230 km E&N Railway to the same standard of the RftV/Leewood Plan costing around $3 billion.
TransLink does not support the Leewood Study’s 130km Marpole to Chilliwack rail service because it would outperform their now $7 billion, pygmy 16 km extension to the Expo Line.
“But, eventually, Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT in its lesser corridors, or else limit the extent of its rail system. And that seems to make some TransLink people very nervous.”
Gerald Fox
TransLink has a spending issue, not an income issue and major rethink must be done on how we provide an affordable regional rail system. Metro Vancouver’s light-metro system has been well studied, yet those cities who have done so, have invested in light rail instead!
Why, in an era of unprecedented investment in regional rail transit, has no one copied Vancouver’s light metro system, including the exclusive use of the proprietary MALM system?
Of the seven systems built in the past fifty years, Toronto has abandoned their version of MALM and Detroit’s version only survives because the operating authority literally attended the TTC’s “transit garage sale” and purchased all the spare parts and equipment they could!
Two of the later versions of SkyTrain built in Malaysia and Korea have embroiled both the then patent holders, SNC Lavalin and Bombardier in legal proceedings, including charges of bribery.
The system serving JFK Airport, failed a peer review by the American Federal Government which withheld funding and to save face for Bombardier Inc., the Canadian government, through the Overseas Development Bank, funded construction.
It is time to put an end to MALM expansion or the provincial government and current mayors, will become like Marley’s ghost, dragging an ever longer chain made of empty cash-boxes, IOU’s, red ink, bare purses and increased taxes wrought in union made steel, election, after election for decades to come.
Remember the FastFerries?
Today, TransLink continues to be toxic with taxpayers and extending MALM to Langley will make TransLink and all who supported the gold-plated extensions radioactive politically, on a Chernobyl scale.
It is time for the Mayor’s Council on Transit to show some fiscal backbone and say no to TransLink’s demands for more money. All TransLink is doing, as it has always done, is doing the same thing over and over again ever hoping for different results, funded of course, by an increasingly paupered taxpayer.
Mayors Council on Transit Begs For More Funding
Ah, the Mayor’s Council on Transit, or the gang who couldn’t operate a Christmas tree train set is begging for more taxpayer’s money.
One has only look at the Stanley Park miniature railway fiasco to understand that politicians do not understand the issues, let alone trying to fix it. There only recourse is to throw more money at the problem, hoping this time for different results.
Not going to happen.
TransLink’s problems is not just financial, it is philosophical, as they are trying to operate a 1970’s transit system in 2024 and it is going badly. There are no real experts overseeing TransLink (the last were fired in 2015 because they opined that there wasn’t sufficient ridership potential on Broadway that would demand a subway) and career bureaucrats run the operation, being more focused on their pension plans that operating a good transit system.
Spending, now $16 billion plus, to build 21.7 km of the “proprietary” MALM light metro system which operates on the Expo and Millennium Lines seems to be a grand waste of the taxpayer’s monies as both will attract very few ‘new’ customers to transit.
But the list goes on and on, yet the “gang who couldn’t shoot straight“, fails to be honest with the public and resorts to scare tactics.
Zwei, in his typical fashion has inked a letter to the Mayor’s Council about the issue and in typical fashion it has been ignored. Increasing taxes without actually dealing with the issues is the cowards way out and cowards accurately sums up the Mayor’s Council’s demand for more funding.
So much easier to tax and spend and ignore the truth and rely on “mom and apple pie” homilies to placate the taxpayer.
It is time for a judicial inquiry on TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit to ascertain the truth, before another nickle is spent on transit.
Next post, A Letter to the mayor’s council on Transit.
TransLink ready to ask new B.C. government for help to secure billions in funding
By Mike Lloyd
Posted October 31, 2024 7:07 am.
TransLink says it can’t save Metro Vancouver’s transit services without the help of the incoming provincial government, and those needs come with a very large price tag.
The region’s transit authority is asking for an annual $2.9 billion from senior levels of government to go into a fund to be used for capital spending.
TransLink’s Mayors’ Council will be discussing the results of its “Save Transit” provincial campaign at its Oct. 31 meeting, along with how it should proceed with the incoming NDP government.
“We look forward to getting to work immediately on Day 1 with the next government to fix TransLink’s broken funding model,” said Mayors’ Council Chair Brad West.
That work includes a proposed $3.4 billion per year Access for Everyone Fund which would include $500 million per year in new operating revenues as well $2.9 billion per year in senior government contributions to capital projects.
In an open letter written in July, West said the $2.9 billion request reflects what is necessary to continue delivering the transit services the region needs and avoid severe overcrowding amidst surging population growth.
“This amount is realistic and consistent with the level of investment by other provincial governments into their public transit systems and by the B.C. government into other essential services such as hydro-electricity and health care,” West wrote.
“Here in B.C., the Provincial government recently announced $36 billion over ten years for BC Hydro, $2.3 billion for the Highway 1 expansion project, and $13 billion in infrastructure funding for healthcare projects such as the new cancer care centre in Surrey and the redevelopment of St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.
“Public transit is an essential public utility that must expand, similar to other provincial services, as our population surges,” he added.
West argues TransLink can’t meet the needs of the region without the help of the next provincial government.
A report going before the Mayors’ Council Thursday morning says that “this work will need to begin as soon as a new government forms to ensure there is sufficient time for TransLink’s Investment Plan approval process to complete by the end of April 2025 so that potential transit service cuts starting in 2026 can be avoided.”
Earlier this year, TransLink warned of the potentially drastic cuts unless it could find solutions to a looming $600 million annual funding shortfall.
The 2024 Provincial Election And Transit
How will the 2024 provincial election impact transit?
Hard to answer but, the current major “rapid transit” (Expo and Millennium Lines) projects are seeing a funding shortfall of around $4 billion and it is hard to see the new Parliament in Victoria approving funding, for what is now largely seen a “prestige” transit projects.
Oh, the politcans and bureaucrats will chatter on and on about the need of rapid transit and further embarrass themselves about global warming, but the funding is needed elsewhere, especially in the “Hurtlands” of BC.
This could lead to the Millennium Line’s Broadway subway terminating at Granville St or Burrard instead of Arbutus. The now $6 to $7 billion Expo Line extension to Langley will now be most likely deferred, with funding going to BRT planning and operation. Adios to Federal funding as by the time, the project gets on track, inflation and lack of federal funding will condemn the Expo Line extension to Langley to the history books.
Sigh …… and Surrey could have in operation today a $1.65 billion LRT line, with extensions to Langley now nearing completion.
One SkyTrain Line in Surrey will do nothing for traffic congestion or gridlock and hopeful more sane transit planning will take place.
Both the Rail for the Valley “Leewood Plan” will continue to be ignored and the E&N will continue to rot, because far too many elected officials and their bureaucratic henchmen have far too much “cred” and politcal investment in building light metro.
What will not be curtailed is BC’s now infamous “Black Top Politics” where building wider roads, new bridges (strangely not tunnels) and new highways will be top of the list.
In the short term it will be “rubber on asphalt” based transit, which will keep the Road Builders Association; the cement manufacturers, and Unions happy. The Carbon Tax will remain as a placebo, for the provincial government, pretending it is doing something to mitigate global warming and climate change, when in fact they are not.
For further insult to those concerned about climate change, the revenues from the Carbon Tax will go to fund new road projects, which in turn entice more vehicular traffic to our already over-stressed roads.
Induced demand is not in the NDP’s or Conservative’s lexicon, as is Global Warming and climate change.
BC politics at its best.
Addendum
The Greens self immolated themselves by not sticking to truly Green issues. Instead of the free transit nonsense, they should have campaigned for the restoration of the E&N into a modern regional railway. I would wager making the E&N part of their election campaign, they would have garnered one or two additional seats on Vancouver Island.
JOHN RUSTAD’S HIGHWAY TO HELL
This will be John Rustad’s highway to hell. The Conservatives, true to their ignorance of all things transit, have set forth a program, that if implemented will cost tens of billion of dollars, yet do little, if anything to alleviate congestion and gridlock.
In fact it will create massive gridlock in the region.
It is called induced demand and the more road space one creates, the more traffic that will use it, creating even worse traffic congestion and gridlock!
What about the cost of the Conservatives electoral promices?
Expanding Hwy 1 to 6 lanes to Chilliwack will cause massive gridlock elsewhere and cost in the region of $10 billion, based on current expansion costs on Hwy.1 to Abbotsford.
Expanding the Patullo Bridge to six lanes of traffic is a fools game because where will the traffic go? The road system is saturated on the New Westminster side. I cannot even guess the total costs for that, somewhere between $6 billion to $10 billion, based on new roads in New West.
The same is true for the 2nd Narrows Bridge, where an expanded bridge will create major traffic gridlock elsewhere and again the the estimated cost of this is somewhere around $10 billion, give or take a few billion.
Rustad’s Conservatives follows the BC Liberal’s false meme about the Massey Tunnel replacement, yet fail to understand that the “induced capacity” will create massive gridlock in Richmond. The total costs (full package including road and highway construction), somewhere around $10 billion.
Extending SkyTrain to Newton forgets some important factors, one being the cost to extend the Expo Line to Langley is costing around $400 million a km. (by comparison LRT can be built for about $40 to $50mil/km (cost depending on the amount of engineering required) and have a higher capacity as well. So, 6 km of SkyTrain will cost $2.4 billion in today’s money……but as the province is still trying to source the additional $3 billion to complete the light metro to Langley, I think this is more politcal hot air than sound planning.
Oh by the way, you better build this quick as Alstom is going to pull the plug building the Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM) trains that operate on the Expo and Millennium Lines and being a proprietary railway, no one else makes this antique anymore.
For you information Mr. Rustad, the Rail for the Valley Leewood Plan for a modern DMU service from Marpole to Chilliwack, using the former and still in use BC Electric Interurban route, servicing 10 major destinations, offering a maximum of 3 trains per hour per direction, would cost around $2 billion. So we can build 130 km of RftV regional railway, cheaper than 6 km of SkyTrain!
Here is a hint, we can build the RftV/Leewood Plan for $2 billion and save $8 billion by not making the Hwy, 1 six lanes to Chilliwack. This is called fiscal prudence, or are the BC Conservatives like the NDP and toss fiscal prudence out the window to win votes!
What we see from Rustad’s Conservatives is a platform based on classic “BC Blacktop Politics”, where rubber on asphalt solutions that worked well in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, but not so much in the 2020’s, where expanding the road system, expands traffic chaos. We see a childish wish list from politicians who like playing cars and offer simplistic road solutions for very serious transportation issues.
Oh by the way, the minimum cost for Rustad’s promises?
Just the a fore mentioned items, over $40 billion (accounting for future inflation and cement cost increases) and the whole package, double it. Just add it to the current provincial deficit of $170 billion – easy peasy ain’t it!
So John, where is the funding? What taxes are you going to increase to fund this? What hospitals and schools are you going to close to fund this? Don’t know?
Just promise away John, because like the NDP you are a party of back of an envelope promises and nothing more.
Lessons
A lot has happened with Ottawa’s hybrid light metro/rail system, most of it negative, but most confuse it with the very successful O-Train, which is not light rail at all, rather a regional railway, operating DMU’s.
This is what Rail for the Valley is proposing for the Valley Rail scheme and what the E&N folks should be proposing for returning a passenger service on the presently moribund route.
The province is spending over $16 billion to extend the Expo and Millennium Lines a mere 21.7 km, yet the Rail for the Valley scheme could be in operation for under $2 billion and attract more ridership, simply because it directly services a minimum of 12 major destinations.
Building expensive light metro to win elections is a fools game in the end, sadly the fools are the taxpayers who keep voting for politcans who keep doing the same thing over again, hoping for different results.
From our man in Ottawa.
The following video is Renee Amilcarr’s the head of O.C. Transpo, the LRT Committee and the operator Transit Next report to council on Line 2 and Line 4.
This live meeting with City council’ Joint Transit and Finance Committee monthly Stage 2 LRT progress report is to announce the final testing, what’s involved and when Line 2 and Line 4 will eventually open.
The important part is this is the first line extension opening after the 104 points learned from the LRT Inquiry were incorporated. The 98.5% performance standard and THIRD PARTY testing and evaluation are some of the most important points, that are constantly brought up to the listener. The fact that all data good or bad is completely open to the press and public.
The report is about 50 minutes long (if you want to listen to the whole thing) but it’s the first 8 minutes that are quite telling and offer a stark contrast to SkyTrain’s operations and Translink’s very non public operations data policy. Keep in mind we learned this process the hard way.
Let the Games Begin
Back On Track
Cities across Europe are building trams (streetcars) at a rate not seen in nearly a century. Places that had torn up their tram tracks in the 1950s have realized they had made a mistake. Twenty-one French cities have built a tramway system this century. Sixty German cities now have trams.
Further afield, China has built 35 tramlines since 2010, with ten more currently under construction. Even the United States, land of the automobile, has been investing in new trams and light rail. America now has 27 light rail systems, the most in the world, and 15 tram systems.
But Canada is falling behind. Only Toronto has retained their tram (streetcar) system and only Edmonton, Calagary, Ottawa, Kitchener and Hamilton have built light rail systems, though not true tram or streetcar systems. there are too many large Canadian cities and towns that lack reliable transportation and resort to “rubber on asphalt” transit solutions.
In “Back on Track” we look at why we struggle to build much-needed trams and how to fix it.
The following back on track report is for the UK audience but has many lessons for Canada and especially BC. In Metro Vancouver, we are following an extremely dated ‘Light-Metro” and “Hub & Spoke” transportation philosophy. Unfortunately what was thought good in the 1980, has little revelance for today’s transit issues.
Flexibility is the keyword in today’s transit world and the tram is one of the most flexible transit modes on the market. The tram or streetcar can:
- Operate as a tram or streetcar on a city street.
- Can operate as light rail on a dedicated Rights-of-Ways.
- Operate as a light-metro on a grade separated Rights-of-Ways.
- Operate as a Metro, either in a subway, or on viaduct or at grade.
- Operate as a passenger train on the mainline railway.
- And it can do all this on one transit route, without the need of a transfer!
https://www.britainremade.co.uk/backontrack
The first paragraphs of this study contains two ‘zingers”:
Trams have a higher capacity, lower emissions, and better ride quality than either cars or buses. A single lane of a city street could carry 1,500 people per hour in cars, 8,000 people in buses, or up to 22,000 people if it was used as a tramway. With more doors, longer carriages, larger stops, and signal priority, trams can easily move thousands of people along a busy corridor in Britain’s cities. Trams can combine the capacity advantages of trains with the immediacy and lower cost of buses.
First zinger; “A single lane of a city street could carry……….., 8,000 people in buses………..”. Thus, Broadway currently has a peak hour customer flow of around 4,000 pphpd (all bus services), yet the city wanted a subway on a route that could handle up to 8,000 pphpd using buses and when the city got its wish, Vancouver is getting a $4 billion, 5.7 km subway which maximum capacity, according to Thales who is resignalling the route, have a maximum capacity of 7,500 pphpd.
One just cannot make up such utter stupidity and gullibility of building a subway!
The second zinger is that trams can carry up to 22,000 pphpd, which is something to consider when the maximum capacity of the Expo Line, after resignalling, will be 17,500 pphpd.
https://www.britainremade.co.uk/backontrack
Are You A Transit Expert? 15 Questions.
Here are ten questions to test the knowledge of political candidates about LRT & public transit for this coming provincial election. Passing grade is 70%.
- What is light rail transit?
- What Makes a tram or streetcar Light Rail
- What is a metro?
- What is capacity?
- What grade maximum is now industry standard for light rail?
- What is the maximum grade that LRT/tram climbs (by adhesion) in revenue service today?
- What is the capacity of the Broadway B-Line Express Bus?
- Approximately what percentage of operating costs of a transit system can be attributed to wages?
- Approximately how much ridership is lost per transfer?
- Are automated transit systems cheaper to operate than non automated transit systems?
- What is the maximum capacity of the largest light rail vehicle today, calculated at all seats filled and standing passengers at four persons per square metre?
- How many names has the SkyTrain, as used on the Millennium and Expo Lines, been marketed under?
- Before the first subway was built in Toronto, what was the maximum capacity obtained by using trams on the streetcar system?
- What is the maximum legal Capacity of the SkyTrain system?
- What is considered the maximum capacity obtained by a streetcar or tram route?
Answers:
1) LRT is a transit mode, generally electrically powered, able to operate in mixed traffic, that can economically carry between 2,000 and 20,000 persons per hour per direction. (Light Rail Transit Association)
2) The dedicated or “reserved” rights-of-way, enables a modern tram to have an operation, superior to light metro and almost on par with a heavy rail metro.
3) Metro is a grade separated transit mode, electrically powered, built for average hourly ridership loads in excess of 10,000 pphpd. (Bombardier were compelled to recommend that MALM (SkyTrain) should not be built on routes with average ridership less than 8,000 pphpd. LRT can be operated as a metro, though a metro can’t operate as light rail!
4) Capacity is a function of headway and car capacity.
5) 8%
6) 13.8% (Lisbon, Portugal) – (Correct if one answers 13% or 14%)
7) Based on TransLink’s schedule of peak hour 3 minute headway’s (20 trips per hour per direction) and bus capacity of around 100 persons, the hourly capacity of the Broadway B-line Express bus is around 2,000 per hour per direction.
8 ) 70 to 80%
9) 70% (Hass-Klau Study)
10) No, studies have found that LRT is cheaper to operate, when comparing equal systems on equal right of ways.
11) 350 passengers; the 54 metre long ‘Caterpillar’ modular light rail cars used in Budapest, Hungary. (By comparison, four Mk.1 SkyTrain cars have a capacity of 300 persons!)
12) At least six: Intermediate Capacity Transit system (ICTS); Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT); Advanced Light metro (ALM); Advanced Rapid Transit (ART); Innovia Light Metro (ILM) ; Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM).
13) The old Danforth Boor streetcar route, operating coupled sets of PCC cars obtained a peak hour capacity in excess of 12,500 pphpd.
14) The maximum legal capacity of the Expo Line, according to Transport Canada’s Operating Certificate is 15,000 pphpd, but will be upgraded to 17,500 pphpd after resignalling. The Millennium Line is another story, According to Thales, who won the $1.47 billion resigalling contract; “the Millennium Line will be able to handle 7500 passengers per hour per direction, a 96% increase.“
15) Over 30,000 pphpd on Kaiserstrasse in Karlsruhe Germany. Due to the success of its regional TramTrain network, Kaiserstrasse saw peak hour headways of 40 seconds with coupled sets of trams and TramTrains. So congested was the route it was nicknamed the “gelbe wand” or yellow wall by locals (yellow being the predominate colour of the trams). Soon a new subway will replace the route.
The Song Remains The Same. The NDP Stick To Their Worn SkyTrain Script
The following is a repost from 2020 and sadly absolutely nothing has changed. Just four years later, Premier Eby continues to fumble the transit ball.
The now full estimated cost for the 21.7 km extensions to the Millennium and Expo Lines is now North of $15 billion and climbing by the day. From a rough guesstimate, the project is now around $5 billion underfunded, so the continued random closing of Emergency Wards in Hospitals in the “Hurtlands” will continue as the NDP fumble along trying to source the billions of dollars needed to fulfill politcal promises now well over twenty years old.
The completion of the Broadway subway to UBC is now in excess of $8 billion and rumour has it that TransLink wants to build it elevated from around Vine to UBC to save $2 billion or so in cost.
Then there is the recent 19.5 km North Shore SkyTrain plan, which in light of recent huge escalation is cost for building with the proprietary light metro, would be in excess of $12 billion!
Then there is the Canada Line P-3, with its billions dollars worth can of worms with future expansion.
Not going to happen and the NDP instead of planning what the taxpayer can afford, instead plan for ‘pie in the sky’ SkyTrain light-metro projects to bamboozle the taxpayer once again.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
So in the 2024 election cycle, the NDP’s transit planning is akin to “The song remains the same”; lots of promises; lots of photo-ops and 10-second sound bytes for the evening newscast, but in the end, nothing.
An Election Is Coming. The NDP Follows The Old Script.
Posted by zweisystem on Tuesday, September 15, 2020
As with all Metro Vancouver transit projects, they are good for three or four election cycles.
The NDP are just using their tired playbook from the 90’s, nothing more and, shock and disbelief, Parliamentary Secretary for TransLink, Browinn Ma is the do nothing MLA for North Vancouver Lonsdale.
Need I say more.
“Our government is committed to creating greener and more liveable cities and boosting access to transit as much as possible,” Claire Trevena, minister of Transportation.
If the NDP government was really committed to creating a greener and more livable cities, they would dump the $500 million/km plus Broadway subway in favour of $25 million/km LRT and the $200 million/km Expo Line extension in Surrey for $6 million/km Vancouver to Chilliwack TramTrain.
Show us the funding for this $6 billion plus project, then maybe we will get excited.
So, where is the funding John?
Five Burrard Inlet rapid transit crossing options announced
by Marcella Bernardo and Mike Hall
Posted Sep 15, 2020
File – SkyTrain. (Lasia Kretzel, NEWS 1130)
The five study options include a tunnel or bridge
NORTH VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Rapid transit to the North Shore is one step closer to being delivered after the completion of a technical feasibility study, with five potential crossing options.
The list for a third Burrard Inlet crossing — finalized by the B.C. Ministry of Transportation — includes links to either downtown Vancouver or Burnaby, via a tunnel or bridge.
“We are now able to move forward on some more technical planning around that. That’s the really exciting part, for me. There’s at least five feasible options,” said Linda Buchanan, mayor of the City of North Vancouver.
She’s not saying which option she prefers, though.
“At the end of the day, I just want to make sure that we can do the next phase of the work, and we really are looking at getting a line that starts us to be able to move people and goods and greener and sustainable ways, keeps our cities vibrant and makes us more prosperous.”The Burrard Inlet Rapid Transit study is to help with Transport 2050 planning.
The study was led by Mott MacDonald Canada and listed as crossing options:
- Downtown Vancouver to Lonsdale via First Narrows (tunnel crossing);
- Downtown Vancouver to Lonsdale via Brockton Point (tunnel crossing);
- Downtown Vancouver to West Vancouver via Lonsdale (tunnel crossing);
- Downtown Vancouver to Lonsdale via Second Narrows (new bridge crossing);
- Burnaby to Lonsdale via Second Narrows (new bridge crossing).
“Our government is committed to creating greener and more liveable cities and boosting access to transit as much as possible,” Claire Trevena, minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, says in a release.
“This study shows possibilities that can be considered in future planning. It’s exciting to look towards a future high-speed connection that will make moving around on the North Shore and Greater Vancouver easier and greener.”
Connecting Lonsdale City Centre with Vancouver’s metropolitan core and the regional rapid transit network, while considering compatibility with existing and future land use, is one of the recommendations put forward by the Integrated North Shore Transportation Planning Project.
“People living in North Vancouver are eager to embrace socially, environmentally responsible ways to travel that allow them to beat the traffic,” says Bowinn Ma, MLA for North Vancouver.
No timeline or start date has been set for the crossing project, nor have costs.
Passenger Rail – Mexico Gets It, Why Doesn’t Canada?
Mexico’s politicians get it, to mitigate the effects of global warming and climate change, rail is the only option to reduce both personal and commercial vehicle use.
3,000 km of revitalized passenger rail route is ambitious, but at least Mexican politicians seem to understand the need of a modern passenger rail service, unlike their Canadian counterparts who stick with “carbon taxes” and electric cars as the way to fight global warming. Canadian politicians think spending over $15 billion for 21.7 km of rapid transit is OK, but $5 billion revitalizing around 400 km of passenger rail, is seen as a waste.
Sadly, Canada’s vacuous passenger rail strategy is focused on “High Speed Rail” (HST), with politicians and bureaucrats alike remain ignorant to the massive costs involved because in Canada, it is not about useful rail projects, rather it’s about photo-ops and ten second sound bytes for the evening news. Regional rail projects such as Rail for the Valley’s regional railway connecting Vancouver to Chilliwack via the former BC Electric Interurban line or the revitalization of the E&N railway on Vancouver Island are not just ignored but derided.
Canada is rapidly becoming a “Hermit State” with climate change and global warming with the philosophy that “Canada can tax climate change out of existence”, but doing little else. This expensive and ruinous philosophy is making Canada a backwater for real change and real change, which includes passenger rail, is needed.
Mexico’s new Prime Minister gets it, sadly our two contenders for Canada’s top job do not.
Incoming Mexican President commits to passenger rail revival
By Railway Gazette International10 September 2024
MEXICO: President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum has unveiled her ‘100 Steps for Transformation’ programme which contains the revitalization of passenger rail services on three major corridors, totaling 3 000 km in length.
The three services announced earlier this summer are among the seven routes totalling 8 000 km proposed for reactivation by outgoing President Andres-Manuel Lopez Obrador in November last year.
Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico’s President on June 2 and is set to begin her term in office on October 1. She has pledged to launch passenger services on three corridors in the first five years of her six-year presidency. Tendering for the infrastructure works is planned for the fourth quarter of this year and construction on some lines is planned to start in early 2025.
The programme stipulates that rolling stock procured for the three railway projects would have to be manufactured in Mexico. Currently, Alstom, CAF and CRRC have production sites in the country.
Serving the new airport
The first project to be implemented would be a 65 km route from the capital’s Felipe Ángeles International Airport, which was inaugurated in March 2022, to Pachuca, northeast of Mexico City. This service would be built on an entirely new alignment at an estimated cost of 20bn pesos. It is expected to serve eight municipalities in the densely populated area around Mexico City and relieve the congested road network.
It would be an extension of the 20 km greenfield line that is currently under construction between FAIA and Lecheria; this is scheduled to be inaugurated later this year.
The line to FAIA and Pachuca will branch off at Lecheria from the main line that links the Buenavista railway station in Mexico City with Cuautitlan. Services on the line to Cuautitlan are being operated by CAF.
Guadalajara and Monterrey
Passenger services are also to be restored on two existing freight-only lines. The longest would link Mexico City with Nuevo Laredo on the border with the USA via San Luis Potosi and Monterrey. The passenger trains would cover a distance of 1 143 km and implementation is expected to cost 400bn pesos.
The second route would link Mexico City with Irapuato and Guadalajara on a 581 km main line. The Mexico City – Queretaro section would be shared with services to Nuevo Laredo. The reinstation of passenger services on the Querétaro – Guadalajara section would cost 55bn pesos.
The government is currently studying if passenger trains in these corridors could share tracks with freight services after modernisation work has been completed, or whether new alignments would need to be built. This would be more costly but would allow higher speeds.
As required by the presidential decree published last November, freight concessionaires have been conducting technical studies to assess the feasibility of the restoration of passenger services on the selected routes and to define their own potential involvement. According to the decree, if private companies are not interested in the assessment and provision of passenger services, they will be able to maintain their freight operations, but the government could take over responsibility for delivering the passenger services.
The government is already overseeing management of the country’s two main line passenger projects. Tren Maya is being delivered through the Secretariat of National Defence, while the Mexican Navy is overseeing management of the Interoceanic Railway of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
CPKC operates and manages the Mexico City – Querétaro – Nuevo Laredo line and the Querétaro – Guadalajara section is managed by Ferromex.
Tren Maya and Trans-Isthimus extensions
The 100 Steps for Transformation programme also proposes extensions to the two major railway projects which have been developed during the Obrador administration. A 200 km extension of the Trans-Isthmus Railway would be built from the port of Coatzacoalcos in the Gulf of Mexico to the Dos Bocas port in Paraíso.
A 50 km extension is planned to extend the Tren Maya route from Mérida to Puerto Progreso in Yucatán.
The government is also assessing construction of a new alignment to link Veracruz on the Trans-Isthmus Railway with Palenque on the Tren Maya network. Construction of various intermodal freight terminals is also envisaged on the Tren Maya network in order to allow freight traffic to use the
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