Portland’s Streetcar, Connecting The Entire Community
This speaks for itself.
I must remind the unconvinced that going from 4,000 users a day to 15,000 users a day (in TransLink’s convoluted lexicon, this equates to over 30,000 boarding’s a day), which is a big deal in the U.S.A.
So here is a thought, instead of a $3 billion subway to Arbutus, with limited capacity, how about a $1 billion LRT/streetcar connecting UBC to BCIT and to Vancouver as far as Stanley Park?
Waterloo LRT Update
The following video shows the Waterloo LRT under construction.
Ottawa Update – The Trams Are Coming, The Trams Are Comming………..
From our friend Haveacow in Ottawa, an update on the Ottawa light rail.
http://www.masstransitmag.com/
Paving Paradise – Has the Premier Washed Her Hands of Public Transit?
The grossly overbuilt Hwy 17 & 99 interchange. Why build just one overpass, when you can build three?
This is the legacy of the BC Liberals: gold plated highway and bridge construction, designed to funnel huge
portions of taxpayer’s money into the pockets of corporate friends.
As pointed out many times before, the Expo, Millennium, and CanadaAi?? mini-metro lines and the soon to be completed Evergreen Line (the Evergreen Line is the unfinished portion of the Millennium Line) were or are nothing more than vanity projects of who ever the political party was in power at the time. Rapid transit was built to cut ribbons for pre election photo-op’s; reward political friends and insiders with large construction contracts and sooth the voters angst about a lack of public transit. Ridership was assured by recycling large numbers of bus riders onto the mini-metro.
It is now clear that the Premier’s transit plebiscite was to stall transit investment in the region and with no real reforms coming to TransLink, especially with Minister Fassbender in charge. it is business as usual in BC.
Both the SkyTrain Broadway subway and the poor man’s SkyTrain being planned for in Surrey will not only be extremely expensive, they will be controversial, so much so, that they could be vote losers at election time. So it is clear that the BC Liberals have resorted to the tried and true “blacktop” politics that have won so many elections in the past.
A good example is the hugely expensive and vastly over engineered Highway 17 expansion project in South Delta, which is in the constituency currently held by the independent MLA, Viki Huntington, which the BC Liberals hope to blacktop their way to an election win in the next election.
The needlessly expensive and massiveAi?? bridge, replacing the Massey Tunnel, is another sweetener for the South Delta and South Surrey voter, even though after $3.5 billion investment, it will move gridlock about 5 km further down Hwy. 99. Never fear, the MoT is going to expandAi?? Hwy. 99 to 6 or 8 lanes, which will create traffic chaos for the Oak and Knight Street Bridges.
Endemic gridlock and congestion is coming to Richmond with the current highway’s planning.
Of course the BC Liberals are not expanding Gordon Campbell’s vanity project, the Canada line, simply if they do, it will spotlight how incompetent the original construction was and underline the fact that the Canada Line is the only heavy-rail metro in the world, built as a light metro, which has less capacity than a simple streetcar costing up to one tenth to build!
The Canada Line and the Evergreen Line has showed the BC Liberals that “blacktop” politics is not only are cheaper than TransLink’s transit expansion, it gives the BC Liberal government more opportunity to give ‘spreadin around money’ to political friends and insiders. Hence now all the talk of “road pricing” and “congestion fees”, to help fill government coffers for more lolly to divvy up among friends and insiders. The anti-car crowd love that kind of talk, but so does the premier, seeing even more money to blacktop more farmland to more election wins!
Joni Mitchell’sAi?? lyrics from “Big Yellow Taxi” have never rung so true; “Don’t it always seem to go; That you don’t know what you’ve got; ‘Till it’s gone; They paved paradise; And put up a parking lot.
More and more, the Premier seems to have washed her hands of public transit, seeing that there is no political gain to be made and in fact there is a lot more political capital to be made paving paradise.
Calgary Transit launches 4-car C-Train service; capacity to increase by 33%
Calgary Transit launches 4-car C-Train service; capacity to increase by 33%
Today, Calgary’s C-Train is carrying over 333,000 passengers a day and is the most heavily used new build LRT system in North America. No wonder the SkyTrain lobby hate the C-Train so much!
Also worth noting that modern LRV’s being delivered to Calgary, able to carry 200 passengers cost about the same as ART Mk.2 car which can carry about 110 persons, crush loaded.
Calgary Transit currently operates as a single fare zone, with a flat rate fare for all standard service including bus, BRT, and the C-Train. The cost of an adult 1 zone fare is $3.15, a monthly adult pass is $99.00. No need for an extremely expensive Compass Card and fare gate system.
Simplicity and affordability is just not in TransLink’s lexicon.
More and more, the SkyTrain ALRT/ART rapid transit system becomes the Edsel of public transit.
Port Mann Fumble
The Port Mann Bridge is a prime example where a government replaces a perfectly good bridge with a multi billion dollar vanity project.
Other examples were the Expo Line, the Millennium Line, the Canada Line, the Fast Ferries, and most recently the BC Place retractable roof.
With the Port Mann Bridge vanity project, would it not have been better to just twin the Port Mann spend the balance on a new road/rail bridge replacing the Patullo and the decrepit Fraser River Rail Bridges?
Ai??
From Integrity BC:
Irene Kerr, president and CEO, Transportation Investment Corporation took exception to one point in our recent commentary on the reckless rush to sign the Port Mann Bridge deal, writing in a letter to The Province newspaper:
ai???The total budget project is and always has been $3.3 billion. That’s the only budget figure ever approved.ai???
That may be true for the ai???budget,ai??? but it’s not true for the first, second or third estimates, unless the government was fudging the numbers to get public buy-in.
So once again, here are the original estimates, starting with the 2006/07 BC Budget (caps our emphasis):
B. C. Budget and Fiscal Plan 2006/07ai??i??2008/09, February 21, 2006:
ai???Among the major components of the Lower Mainland plan are improvements to roads and bridges referred to as the North Fraser Perimeter Road…estimated to cost $400 million; a new South Fraser Perimeter Road with a projected cost of $800 million; and, the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge with AN ESTIMATED COST OF $1.5 BILLION.ai???
…
Vancouver Sun, January 31, 2006: ai???$1.5 BILLION IS FOR THE TWINNING OF THE PORT MANN BRIDGE AND THE HIGHWAY THAT LEADS TO IT.ai???ai???This includes construction of an additional two lanes on Highway 1 and the Port Mann Bridge twinning, which will mean a second, new bridge supported by cables. It includes bicycle lanes and an engineering plan allowing for the future inclusion of a light-transit railway line when merited by the population and traffic.ai???
…
Bidders line up to twin the Port Mann Bridge and collect the tolls, Vancouver Sun, June 26, 2007:ai???The government estimates the cost of all this at $1.5 billion in 2007 dollars. Given the way construction costs are rising, THE FINAL TAB WILL PROBABLY EXCEED $2 BILLION by the scheduled completion in 2013.ai???
…
P3 Agreement Finally Reached for Port Mann Bridge, ReNew Canada Magazine, February 6, 2009:ai???But the estimated cost at that time (based on information from Partnerships BC) was $1.6 billion. THE COST NOW? AROUND $2.4 BILLION.ai???
…
For Irene Kerr’s complete letter-to-the-editor:http://blogs.theprovince.com/ai??i??/letters-juno-beach-remembraai??i??/
…
Sources:www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/ai??i??/managingsuccessmakingthemostofbritai??i??
www.canada.com/story_print.htmlai??i??
http://www.canada.com/story.htmlai??i??
http://renewcanada.net/ai??i??/p3-agreement-finally-reached-for-ai??i??/
http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/ai??i??/2007OTP0151-001241-Attachment1ai??i??
Annual Tram/LRT Statistics
The following are the annual tram/LRT ridership statistics courtesy of the Eurotrams group.
In contradiction to what many local politicians; bureaucrats and academics would have us believe, modern LRT and or tram can carry large numbers of transit customers and do in annual revenue service.
Let us forget the many “man-of-straw arguments” against LRT by the usual suspects, modern LRT works well ans can cater to high density traffic on a daily basis.
1. St Petersburg: tram 476 mill pass p.a., 205 route km.
2. Budapest: tram 396 mill pass p.a., 156 route km.
3. Prague: tram and light rail 333 mill pass p.a., 142 route km.
4. Bucharest: tram and light rail 322 mill pass p.a., 145 route km.
5. Vienna: tram and light rail 294 mill pass p.a., 177 route km.
6. Warsaw: tram 270 mill pass p.a., 120 route km.
7. Moscow: tram 252 mill pass p.a., 163 route km.
8. Paris: tram 233 mill pass p.a., 104 route km.
Note: Paris tram figure includes Translohr rubber-tyred guided vehicle9. Zagreb: tram 214 mill pass p.a., 148 route km.
10. Cologne: light rail 210 mill pass p.a. 195 route km.
11. Hong Kong: tram and light rail 206 mill pass p.a. (estimated), 49 route km.
12. Zurich: tram 205 mill pass p.a., 126 route km.
13. Brno: tram 188 mill pass p.a., 139 route km.
14. Yekaterinburg: tram 180 mill pass p.a., 180 route km.
15. Melbourne: tram 177 mill pass p.a., 250 route km.
16. Berlin: tram 173 mill pass p.a., 192 route km.
17. Stuttgart: light rail 170 mill pass p.a., 192 route km.
18. Dresden: tram 145 mill pass p.a., 134 route km.
19. Istanbul: tram 140 mill pass p.a.
20. Gothenburg: tram 140 mill pass p.a., 144 route km.
21. Leipzig: tram 134 mill pass p.a., 148 route km.
22. Amsterdam: tram 130 mill pass p.a., 138 route km.
23. Brussels: tram 123 mill pass p.a., 139 route km.
24. Toronto: tram 105 mill pass p.a., 150 route km.
25. Munich: tram 105 mill pass p.a., 79 route km.
LRT & BRT For London – Ontario That Is
A Steam Delight For a Stormy Saturday
We have all seen the Bluebell railway, mostly incognito in movies and television shows and now some videos to watch the Bluebell in action.
From Wikipedia.
The Bluebell Railway is a heritage line running for 11Ai??mi (17.7Ai??km) along the border between East and West Sussex, England. It uses steam trains which operate between Sheffield Park and East Grinstead, with intermediate stations at Horsted Keynes & Kingscote.
The first preserved standard gauge steam-operated passenger railway in the world to operate a public service,the Society ran its first train on 7 August 1960, less than three years after the line from East Grinstead to Lewes had been closed by British Railways.
On 23 March 2013, the Bluebell Railway commenced running through to its new East Grinstead terminus station. At East Grinstead there is a connection to the UK National Network, the first connection of the Bluebell Railway to the national network (in 50 years) since the Horsted Keynes ai??i?? Haywards Heath line closed in 1963.
Today the railway is managed and run largely by volunteers. Having preserved a number of steam locomotives even before the cessation of steam service on British mainline railways in 1968, today it has the largest collection (over 30) of steam locomotives in the UK after the National Railway Museum. The Society also has a collection of almost 150 carriages and wagons, most of them pre-1939.
Please watch.
Light Rail Gets an Ally – We Welcome New Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi
For the first time since I have been advocating for better transit, now over thirty years, we now have a minister of the crown who not only understands modern light rail, he is an advocate of modern LRT!
Let us hope new infrastructure minister Amarjeet Sohi is open to new ideas including the Leewood/RftV TramTrain!
New infrastructure minister Amarjeet Sohi a ai???light rail advocateai??i?? with incredible backstory
By BJ Siekierski | Nov 4, 2015
Amarjeet Sohi is shown in Edmonton in this file photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason FransonAmarjeet Sohi ai??i?? a three-term Edmonton city councillor and light rail advocate who was once held as a political prisoner in India for over two years in the 1980s ai??i?? was sworn in as infrastructure minister Wednesday, which would seem to make him the point man on billions in promised infrastructure spending and the creation of a new Canada Infrastructure Bank.
But with new Liberal infrastructure money divided into three categories (public transit, green infrastructure, and social infrastructure), and the fate of the Conservative-created crown corporation PPP Canada (Public-Private Partnership) ai??i?? which reports to the finance minister ai??i?? unclear, thereai??i??s still a lot to be fleshed out.
Sohi, whose incredible story of surviving torture, solitary confinement, and sleep deprivation at the hands of the Bihar state authorities in India was the subject of a February profile in the Edmonton Journal, only narrowly defeated Conservative MP and junior minister Tim Uppal.
He comes to federal politics from Edmonton municipal politics, where he ai???represented the city on the Canadian Urban Transit Association, and has been a strong advocate for light rail transitai???, according to a biography provided by the Liberal Party.
ai???What I have learned over the past eight years being a city councillor is that municipalities donai??i??t have the ability to plan for long term. When they donai??i??t have the long-term funding commitments from their partners, itai??i??s always difficult to plan. Also, it becomes costly ai??i?? even though you may have a long-term vision and plan in place, you canai??i??t execute it unless you have a strong commitment from your partners,ai??? Sohi told the Journal the day after the election.
ai???One thing Iai??i??m really about is the $2 billion each year for next 10 years commitment that we have made (to mass transit). That will definitely help us in our city, help us expand the LRT to all parts of the city. And we are committed to being equal partners.ai???
He also stressed the importance of giving the municipalities the freedom to build infrastructure as they see fit, without dictating the terms.
ai???The Liberals are very clear on how we support municipalities. They are very clear that we are there as equal partners, but we are not there to dictate to municipalities how to build a system and what kind of procurement process they have in place. We leave that to the municipalities and itai??i??s up to every municipality to decide which way they want to build so the system, whether itai??i??s P3 or not P3,ai??? he said.
Itai??i??s hard to say what, if anything, that means for PPP Canada, which the Harper government created as a crown corporation in 2009.
The Liberal infrastructure plan doesnai??i??t mention PPP Canada, says the new infrastructure bank will help municipalities finance the broad range of infrastructure projects their communities, and that the Liberal government will work with the ai???private sector and pools of capital that choose for themselves to invest in Canadians infrastructure projectsai???.
Presumably Catherine McKenna, the new environment and climate change minister, will have to work closely with Sohi on implementing the planai??i??s green infrastructure component, which commits to direct funding for things such as local water and wastewater facilities, and climate resilient infrastructure.
As will Jean-Yves Duclos, the new Minister of Families, Children, and Social Development, since the ai???social infrastructureai??? component includes promises investment in affordable housing and seniors facilities, early learning and child care, and cultural or recreational infrastructure.ai???
In 2016-17, the Liberals have committed to $5.1 billion in additional spending for public transit, green infrastructure, and social infrastructure.
Thatai??i??s on top of the $5 billion in infrastructure spending under the New Building Canada Fund, which is for what more often comes to mind when the word infrastructure is used ai??i?? bridges, roads, and ports, for example.
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