A Brief Primer on Toronto’s Trolleybuses
The following brief history of Toronto’s Trolleybuses was provided by Avrom Shtern in the LRPPro blog and is worth a read as it somewhat mirrors Vancouver’s trolleybus situation.
Trolley Buses operated in TO between 1921 and 1993.
Frequently Asked Questions about Toronto’s Trolley Buses
(Last Modified on September 6, 2013 11:46 PM)
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Why did the trolley buses disappear from Toronto’s streets?Why did the trolley buses disappear from Toronto’s streets?
Bad timing, mostly. Electric vehicles have longer lifespans than their diesel counterparts (at least 30 years versus 12-18 for the average bus), but even these vehicles have to be rebuilt or replaced sometime. The most recent fleet of Toronto’s trolley coaches started operating in the year 1947. In the late 1960s, the TTC had the entire fleet rebuilt by Western Flyer, and that added another twenty or so years to the trolley buses’ lifespan. That brought the fleet to 1992.
By 1992, the fleet was showing its age again, and the infrastructure was also on its last legs. To retain trolley coach service, the TTC was looking at either rebuilding or replacing its fleet, and spending millions to upgrade aging infrastructure. The price of oil was also very low at this time, and the electric trolley buses had become the most expensive surface vehicles of the fleet to operate. Add to this a budget crunch and shrinking ridership from the recession, and the TTC decided that the trolley buses weren’t worth it, anymore.
The final straw was the natural gas buses. At the time, this new technology promised quiet, smooth operation and reduced pollution, and the builders marketed these buses as ideal replacements for trolley bus service. The TTC did not stop to think that these improvements only appeared when natural gas buses replaced diesels; instead, it pushed for a change of technology from electric trolleys to natural gas. The natural gas design has shown its flaws, since then, and the TTC are no longer as interested in the technology.
In general, trolley buses were the poor siblings of transit agencies’ streetcar and bus fleets. While theoreticially combining the advantages of streetcars and diesel buses (lower emissions, greater flexibility, less likely to be blocked by traffic), practically they also combined the disadvantages of both technologies (less capacity, more infrastructure required). In Toronto, the trolley buses were usually assigned to lower-demand residential ex-streetcar routes. Except for Bay and Ossington, they were never assigned to transit corridors where frequent service was required. Their adept handling of steep hills was never displayed in flat Toronto. In general, they were never given a chance to prove themselves.
Why did trolley buses use two trolley poles and streetcars only use one?Electrons are charged particles and are repelled from negatively charged surfaces and are attracted to positively charged surfaces. For electrical components to work, they must stand between this flow from negative to positive. If anything prevents electrons from running to the positive surface (e.g. the positive outlet of a battery or plug) from the negative surface (e.g. the ground or the negative outlet of the battery or plug), then there is no current, and electrical motors won’t operate.
Streetcars take power from a charged trolley wire. The electricity travels through the trolley pole and the inner workings of the streetcar and is channelled out of the wheels and into the rails and the ground. Trolley buses have rubber-tired wheels, however, and rubber is an effective insulator against electrical current. To have a current, the trolley bus must either string a metal chain from the motor to the ground, or return the power to a differently charged wire. Guess which is safer and more practical.
There are streetcars which operate using two trolley poles. Cleveland is one example. This is done when the transit agency wants a more controlled circuit, rather than routing the electricity into the ground via the rails.
Why were there two separate divisions of trolley bus routes in Toronto?
Eglinton Division and Lansdowne Division remained separate because the route that was to connect them together was never converted to trolley bus operation. The TTC had serious plans to convert the 32 Eglinton West bus to trolley coach operation (going as far as to construct a rollsign for it), but never followed through. It is possible that this was due to opposition by Forest Hill residents to the stringing of overhead wires along Eglinton Avenue.
So, how did trolley buses get transferred from one division to the other?They were towed.
Seriously, that’s probably how the TTC did it. Fortunately, they didn’t have to do this very often, as both the Eglinton and Lansdowne Garages had the facilities necessary to perform all of the necessary maintenance. Without the trolley wires, there was no other option in moving the trolley bus around. Well, you could try batteries, but batteries are the reason why Toronto’s Last Trolley Bus rots in a parking lot instead of runs on city streets.
So, how do you know this stuff?
We look it up. Here are the sources we’ve consulted in building these web pages. You may be able to find these publications in your local library…
Bromley, John F., and Jack May Fifty Years of Progressive Transit, Electric Railroaders’ Association, New York (New York), 1978.
Filey, Mike, Not a One-Horse Town: 125 Years of Toronto and its Streetcars, Gagne Printing, Louiseville (Quebec), 1986.
Filey, Mike, The TTC Story: The First Seventy-Five Years, Dundurn Press, Toronto (Ontario) 1996.
Roschlau, M.W., ‘Adieu, Mt Pleasant’ Rail and Transit, Sept-Oct 1976, The Upper Canada Railway Society, Toronto (Ontario), 1976.
Scrimgeour, Pat and Scott Haskill., ‘Toronto Trolley Coaches Stored’, Rail and Transit, January 1992, p3-4, The Upper Canada Railway Society, Toronto (Ontario).
Toronto Transit Commission, Trolley Coach CC&F and Flyer Coaches, The Toronto Transit Commission, Toronto (Ontario), January 1987.
Wickson, Ted, ‘TTC leases 30 Edmonton trolley coaches’, UCRS Newsletter, July 1990, p19, The Upper Canada Railway Society, Toronto (Ontario).
Le Mans A tram for a small city
While both BC Transit and TransLink gold-plate LRT planning with millions of dollars of extras, making tram projects almost as expensive as SkyTrain, the new Le Mans LRT/tramway demonstrates that light rail is affordable for smaller cities.
The new 15.4 km Le Mans Tramway total cost is about CAD $450 million, including cars or about CAD $29 million/kmA? per km. to build. Compare this with a Broadway subway and or Surrey’s proposed LRT.
Photo’s Courtesy Jack May
Le Mans:Ai?? Population:Ai?? City 150,000; Metro Area 295,000
Distance:Ai?? 125 miles west-southwest of Paris, 1 hour
System Length:Ai?? 15.4 kilometres
No. Lines:Ai?? 2
No. Stations:Ai?? 29
Year Opened:Ai?? 2007
Rolling Stock:Ai?? 23 Citadis 302
Construction costs: ai??i??229m (CAD $326.8 million), excluding the planned fleet of 19 LRVs. Ile-de-France would fund 42Ai??5% and the national government 25Ai??5%, Val-de-Marne council 15% and RATP 17%.
Cost per Citadis 302 tram: Approximately CAD $5 million per unit (including spares).
Bombardier Transportation accused of corruption in South Korea
A single car train on the Yongin Everline Line
The following is from CBC Radio Canada.
Even though the date of this news item is Jan. 28, no news outlet in Vancouver has mentioned it.
It also answers the question why TransLink has ignored the Yongin Line, it only has one car!
So let us revise the SkyTrain list, there are only 6 1/4 SkyTrain lines in operation around the world.
Bombardier Transportation accused of corruption in South Korea
Bombardier offered gifts and trips to win lucrative contract, South Korean officials allege
CBC News
Posted:Jan 28, 2015
Bombardier Transportation was investigated in South Korea over corruption allegations but never charged, CBC’s French-language service Radio-Canada has learned.
A task force led by KoreanAi??prosecutors alleges that Bombardier, based in Quebec, offered gifts and trips to Canada for civil servants and politicians who decided to choose Bombardier’s technology for an elevated train system.
When the project was first announced almost 15 years ago, it was said to be worth more than $1Ai??billion.
Train with 1 car
(A note by Zwei: The Yongin line operate cars singly, yet Bombardier claims that the Yonguin ART could carry 25,000 ~ 30,000 persons per hour per direction, the same sort of nonsense his peddled here!)
The train system that began operating in 2013 is now a financial burden for the taxpayers ofAi??Yongin.
‘TheAi??YonginAi??train has only one car.’– HyunAi??Geun-Taek, lawyerYongin, the 12th biggest city in South Korea, has an impressive elevated train, which runs for 18 kilometres linking the SeoulAi??subway system to a large amusement park named Everland.
The elevated train in South Korea, made up of a single car, will cost taxpayers about $3.5B over the next 30 years. (Radio-Canada)
The train is similar to Vancouver’sAi??SkyTrain but there is a major difference ai??i?? it only has a single car.”We thought it was going to be a metro, but the Yongin train has only one car, so we could say it’s more like a bus,” said Hyun Geun-Taek, a lawyer who filed legal action on behalf of the citizens of Yongin.
The “bus” is expected to cost taxpayers $3.5 billion over the next 30 years, including maintenance.
The city chose the elevated train, proposed by a consortium led by Bombardier, because a government agency predicted a ridership of 183,000 passengers a day.
That projection was exaggerated, according to a Yongin city councillor.
“[It’s] a ridership so inflated, we can say it’s a joke,” saidAi??Yoo Jin-Sun.
It turned out the ridership prediction was way off. When the train entered service in 2013, there were fewer than 10,000 passengers a day.
Police probe for corruption
The public-private partnership between the city ofAi??Yongin and the consortium prompted prosecutors to launch an investigation.
A special investigation unit alleged that Bombardier offered gifts and trips to the civil servants who made the ridership forecasts and recommended the company’s technology.
“Between 2003 and 2005, Bombardier paid three trips to Canada to 37 people ai??i??Ai??flights in business class, luxury hotel, golf, sightseeing,” alleged Geun-Taek, adding that 18 Yongin city councillors also travelled to Canada for so-called “LRT [light rail transit] field trips,” courtesy of Ai??Bombardier.
The company has consistently denied the corruption allegations.
“They were not pleasure trips. There is a need to convince the people that our technology works well … If it had been corruption, they would have charged us,” said Serge Bisson, the vice-president of systems in northern Asia for Bombardier Transportation.
The prosecutors also alleged that Bombardier created a $2-million slush fund for an employee, Kim Hak-Pil, who is a high-ranking executive in South Korea and aAi??Canadian citizen.
Korean investigators suspected the slush fund money was used for lobbying civil servants and business partners onAi??other projects in South Korea.
“What I know is that we didn’t make illicit payments. We did not bribe anyone,” Bisson said.
A white elephant
No charges were laid at the end of the investigation due toAi??the statute of limitation according to prosecutors, while Bombardier said it was because there was a lack of evidence.
The city had to make drastic budget cuts in education and welfare programs, such as heating for seniors’ community centres.
“It’s a scam on the edge of legality. That’s what I think,” said Korea national assembly member Kim Min-Ki.
As the city of Yongin struggles to repay the debt associated with the train system, Bombardier is still making money. The company charges the city about $26 million a year in operation and management fees.
Bombardier has an operation and maintenance contract that can last 30 years.
http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/news/story/1.2935567
Karlsruhe Revisited
Let us not forget, the birthplace of what is now called TramTrain, was in Karlsruhe Germany.
When it comes to denial, the following statistic is greeted with hoots and howls of disbelief from the anti-tram crowd, yet it is the very basis for the success of TramTrain today.
Ridership of the Karlsruhe-Bretton route went from 533,600 per week, when transit customers took a commuter rain and then transferred to a tram, to 2,554,976 per week with the seamless (no transfer) journey provided by TramTrain. A 479% increase in ridership in just six months!
I would not predict such a ridership increase on the Fraser Valley interurban, but I believe the naysayers, both at TransLink and in Victoria and of course the SkyTrain Lobby, are deathly afraid that the TramTrain will prove popular and statistics, will put their transit plans in an unfavorable light.
From 2012…….
A few weeks back, Zwei created a firestorm of denial by the anti-tram crowd, when I reported that the main tram route in the city was being replaced by a subway; “because of the success of Karlsruhe’sAi??regional tramtrain service, the main tram route through the city was seeing 45 second headways“. All Zwei did was calculate the capacity offered by Karlsruhe’s trams and tramtrain and came up with a figure of over 40,000 persons per hour per direction, with 45 second (90 trips per hour) headways, with coupled sets.
Impossible screamed the SkyTrain crowd; Karlsruhe can’t operate coupled sets of trams, claimed a planner from TransLink.
Yet, 45 second headways, with a mix of single cars and coupled sets could give peak hour capacities in Karlsruhe well in excess of 35,000 persons per hour per direction.
Well the following quote from the Light Rail Transit Associations Topic Sheet No 5 – A Question of Capacity tells the story.
THE CAPACITIES of different modes of
transport are generally quoted as
0-10 000 passengers per hour for bus,
2000-20 000 for light rail, and 15 000
upwards for heavy rail.
It is city centres where several routes combine
that the most capacity is required. A typical
situation could be a pedestrian street with six
routes operating at 10-minute headway giving 36
double coupled trams per hour each with a
capacity of 225. This gives a nominal capacity of
16 200 passengers per hour which can be
increased to 25 200 pph in extremis without extra
vehicles. Light rail is unique in this ability to
operate on the surface with its capacity without
detracting from the amenities which it serves
Note Statistics are based on Karlsruhe, using GT8-l00c/2 cars.
Adios, the Shopping Mall?
The shape of things to come?
Transportation planners in Metro Vancouver should take note that when planning very expensive fixed transit infrastructure to shopping malls, if the mall closes in 15 years, the transit system will have very expensive infrastructure to nowhere.
This is very true for SkyTrain and its $80 million/km elevated structure is impossible to move. LRT, with much cheaper costs would also cost about $10 million/km. to $20 million/km. to have the tracks relocated, but still very expensive to do.
A subway becomes a hole in the ground and in Europe, some abandoned subways have become mushroom farms in the middle of major urban centres.
So, with TransLink planning very expensive transit in shopping precincts such a in Surrey or on Broadway, could they be investing in ghost lines in 15 to 20 years hence?
The following is from Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-28/the-decline-of-american-shopping-malls/6050956
Dead malls: Half of America’s shopping centres predicted to close by 2030
Amy Ginsberg’s teenage years centred around White Flint Mall in Maryland.
“There were glass elevators and marble and high-end stores,” she said.
“When I was in high school in the 70s and 80s there was nowhere else to go, really.
“The mall was where the stores were, it’s where the movie theatres were.
“You would just go to the mall and hang out.”
But White Flint’s doors closed this month.
Like so many malls in America it had been ‘dead’ for a while – the term used when a mall’s occupancy rate falls below 70 per cent and it is on a downward spiral.
Mark Hinshaw, an architect, city planner and author, has been watching the decline.
“It’s a major phenomenon that’s lasted for six decades and I think people assumed it would just go on forever,” he said.
“The shopping centre was kind of the attack vehicle that went out into the landscape and put down a solid footing and then things grew up around it.
“But that course is changing now; the people are now looking at other ways of living.
“Certainly living in cities is much more popular than it has been in a long time. Millennials are fuelling the economy like never before and they’re not interested in driving.”
At the peak of the shopping centre boom, 140 malls were being built every year in America.
If their fate had not already been sealed, the recent recession marked the beginning of the end.
People stopped spending as much, or started spending online, and then discovered they didn’t need as much.
Executive director of the Shopping Centre Council of Australia Angus Nardi said Australia was a long way off the situation in the US.
But he predicted hurdles ahead for Australia’s shopping centres.
“You can never say never in terms of dead malls and there’s always business risks … a critical and current risk is the Abbott Government’s review of competition policy, which could lead to a less regulated or free-for-all cowboy approach to retail land use planning,” Mr Nardi said.
He said America had more retail floor space per capita than any other country in the world, and oversupply had been the biggest problem.
In America there are dozens of simply abandoned malls, only good to be used as sets for horror movies.
Others are trying to change tack before it’s too late, incorporating libraries and housing, even city halls, to encourage their survival.
TramTrain for the E&N?
The Talk of TramTrain from other than Zwei is good news, especially from Vancouver Island.
A Diesel powered TramTrain service, both for Victoria and Naniamo is doable and would be affordable.
A 18 km. Diesel TramTrain line from Langford to Victoria, plus a single track 5 km.Ai?? loop in the downtown, should cost no more than $350 million for a 30 minute service.
For Naniamo, a 25 km. Diesel TramTrain Line from Ladysmith to Naniamo Harbour, with a 5 km., single track, on-street section to Departure Bay ferry should again, not cost more than $400 million to install.
TramTrain, combined with the heritage Budd Car DMU’s, could provide good transportation for the island at an affordable cost and help keep the venerable E&N in operation.
OP-ED COLUMN: Rail proponent offers another perspective on E&N
Contributed – Goldstream News Gazette
posted Jan 23, 2015
Re: Passenger rail needs teamwork (Our View, Dec. 26)
Your editorial is correct, there needs to be a tight partnership between all organizations involved in planning, owning, financing and operating the E&N before service can be restored. Only then can the railway truly live up to the potential which its advocates argued it has when they campaigned against its threatened abandonment in 2001-02.
The first step is to create an interim framework: Southern Rail providing the commuter and intercity rail for VIA Rail under Island Corridor Foundation auspices. Once the operation has demonstrated its value, a permanent framework can then be formed to plan and execute service expansion.
The second and simultaneous step is to decide on a Victoria terminus. The success of the E&N hinges on the location. The only sound choice is at the west end of the Johnson Street Bridge where the city centre is visible and accessible, including by foot. The site also would permit a future extension of rail into the downtown.
In contrast, having the depot by the Roundhouse or Mary Street in Vic West, as some Victoria city councillors are supporting, will cripple E&N ridership, particularly commuter rail, because such out of the way locations will require time-consuming transfers to shuttle buses and vans. E&N patronage sank after the CPR moved the depot from Store Street to that vicinity in 1972, following the extension of Pandora Street to the Johnson Street Bridge. The subsequent public and political outcry led to the return of E&N/VIA service to Store Street, on a much smaller site, in November 1985.
The third step would be to look at the options for commuter rail, but also rapid transit. The province has balked at light rail transitai??i??s $950-million price tag. The bus option it is leaning toward will not attract many new passengers, nor will it attract green transit oriented development; bus lanes can disappear in coats of paint.
The E&N route is the best option for rail transit because it uses the existing right of way and is the only option to serve the critical Esquimalt dockyards and military employment markets. Unlike Uptown, on Highway 1, Esquimalt has no rapid bus alternatives. The E&N also can serve Victoria General Hospital with a short shuttle service.
But the E&N commuter rail potential is hampered by limited frequency (every 30 minutes) and by its inability to penetrate the city centre, such as to the Legislative Precinct, as the equipment used is typically unsuited for street running. The old Store Street site is too far from most employment and commercial activity.
There is an alternative to commuter rail and LRT: TramTrain, also known as diesel light rail (DLR), which merits study. Using lightweight, low-emission, articulated and accessible vehicles, TramTrain/DLR could safely travel on-street, thereby reaching city centre destinations without transfers. They are equally suited for and are used in commuter, intercity (like Vancouver Island) and rapid transit scenarios. For those reasons, TramTrains/DLR is slowly gaining popularity. It is in service in Ottawa; Austin and Denton, Texas; between Camden and Trenton, New Jersey; and in such European cities as Zwickau, Germany.
On the E&N, TramTrain/DLR could provide LRT-like rapid transit, commuter and intercity rail for a much lower cost ai??i?? even with a new Johnson Street rail bridge ai??i??Ai??than building LRT on the Highway 1 corridor. TramTrains could operate four to seven times an hour between Langford and Victoria, using short passing sidings, and two to three times a day from up-Island points.
TramTrains are suitable replacements for the cumbersome 1950s-vintage VIA Budd cars. At least one supplierai??i??s design has been approved by the U.S.Ai?? Department of Transportation to share the same tracks as freight trains, and the cars can be specified to include bike racks, toilets and Wi-Fi. Canada tends to follow, but is usually more flexible than the USA.
Should a study recommend TramTrain/DLR, and the province, CRD, and Ottawa agree to fund it, the best framework is an Island-wide transportation authority. This agency would take responsibility for buses and local ferries and integrate them with the E&N. The result would be an attractive and sustainable alternative to car commuting and sprawl by enabling green travel and development.
Brendan Read is a former Victoria and Courtenay resident and co-founder of the SaveRail Coalition.
Whatever happened to the future? From the BBC
An interesting item from the BBC.
Whatever happened to the future?
By Matthew Wall Business reporter, BBC News
Whatever happened to interplanetary travel, hover cars, and hypersonic jets?
Once it seemed as if there were no limits to how far or fast we could travel, such were the leaps in technological development in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Inventors dreamed up all sorts wonderful vehicles, from rocket-propelled bicycles to flying cars, propeller-powered railways to monowheels.
In 1895, HG Wells even imagined a machine that could travel through time.
Nation competed with nation to travel further, higher and faster by land, sea and air.
Speed was king.
Richter’s 1931 rocket-propelled bicycle was never likely to gain mass appeal…
Is it a car or a plane? An AH Russell flying car concept from 1924Nuclear dreams
And when the nuclear age dawned it seemed as if we had another, almost limitless power supply at our disposal, prompting thrilling designs for nuclear-powered rockets, cars, planes, trains and boats.
“On that train all graphite and glitter; undersea by rail; 90 minutes from New York to Paris… What a beautiful world this will be, what a glorious time to be free.”
So sang Donald Fagen in the song I.G.Y. [International Geophysical Year] from his 1982 album, The Nightfly, evoking the technological optimism of his childhood in 1950s America.
In 1957, the year the song is set, the USSR launched the world’s first earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik 1.
A 1950s vision of what future commuting might look like
The 1952 Couzinet Aerodyne RC-360 “flying saucer” failed to get government backing and never flew
The 1960s TV programme Thunderbirds continued the idea that technology would help us master gravityMankind seemed to be one step away from becoming Masters of the Universe.
“People were looking at the pace of technological development and as we got into quantum physics it even seemed that the notion of teleportation was plausible,” says Glenn Lyons, professor of transport and society at the University of the West of England.
“There were certainly some leaps of faith.”
Commercial reality
So why did so many of those wide-eyed visions for tomorrow’s transport never come to pass?
“The reason they didn’t happen is the same reason why they won’t happen in the future – technological utopianism,” says Colin Divall, professor of railway studies at York University.
Concorde, the Franco-British supersonic passenger jet was noisy, polluting and expensive“There’s always a vested interested in overhyping new transport schemes, because inventors are looking for investment.”
And there’s the rub – money, or lack of it.
George Bennie’s Railplane – a suspended carriage driven by propellers fore and aft – made it to the prototype stage in Glasgow, 1930, but did not then get commercial backing. Bennie went bust in 1937.
“Bennie’s train did work as did other prototypes, such as the hovercraft on a track in the late 1960s, but they were never commercially viable,” says Prof Divall.
The Railplane failed to attract backers and never made it beyond the trial stage – Bennie went bust in 1937Rene Couzinet’s elegant and intriguing Aerodyne RC-360 “flying saucer” failed to win government support and never got off the ground – literally.
Concorde, the elegant delta-winged supersonic passenger jet capable of 1,350mph (2,173kph), was noisy, polluting and pricey. It made its last flight in 2003.
Space travel in particular has proved astronomically expensive – pun intended – which is why no-one has revisited the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
Nasa’s 1972-2011 space shuttle programme cost nearly $200bn (A?132bn) in total for 135 missions – or about $1.5bn per flight.
Gravity, it seems, is a very tough nut to crack.
Alan Bond, founding director of Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines, believes his company has developed a jet engine capable of powering a passenger plane at Mach 5 – five times the speed of sound – meaning a flight from London to Sydney would take under five hours.
“But at the moment no-one has moved on that because it’s going to be very expensive to develop – there has to be a strong commercial incentive,” he says.
Innovation costs, and if the invention doesn’t solve a pressing problem for the majority of people at a price they can afford, it’s unlikely to take off.
Why don’t we see electrically powered perambulators (1923) on our streets?Crash and burn
It also doesn’t help if your futuristic transport project ends up killing people.
The sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic in 1912, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives, did little to increase the popularity of luxury ocean liners.
But it did usher in a number of new maritime safety regulations and ultimately did little to halt the mid-20th Century boom in ocean travel.
The Hindenburg zeppelin disaster in 1937 led to the end of airships as passenger transportHowever, when the majestic Hindenburg, the largest hydrogen-filled zeppelin ever made, caught fire and crashed to the ground in 1937, killing 36 people, the disaster effectively ended the use of airships as passenger transport.
Air travel in particular demanded stringent global safety standards to win public trust, leading to a conservatism in design and a cautious, iterative approach to technological development.
The iconic Boeing 747 “Jumbo Jet”, first flown commercially in 1970, looks almost identical to the 747s flying today, 45 years later.
Similarly, motor cars of the early 20th Century were more distinctive and diverse than they are now, but the need for global safety standards saw a gradual homogenisation in design.
The Volkswagen Beetle hasn’t changed its shape much in over 70 yearsLow carbon future?
Of course, global warming caused by manmade greenhouse gases has imposed severe strictures on all future transport projects.
Transport contributes about about 25% of global carbon dioxide emissions, yet the global population continues to rise along with demand for mobility.
Car technology may have come on in leaps and bounds, but our potholed roads are gridlocked and many megacities around the world are wreathed in lethal pollution.
Our wantonness with hydrocarbons has become self-destructive and cannot continue, argue many.
So the race is on to switch to alternative low-carbon fuels – conventional electric batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and compressed air to name a few.
There is also a lot of work going on to make our existing vehicles more efficient – using more lightweight materials, for example – and making use of data analytics to improve how we operate and integrate our urban transport systems.
Will electrically powered driverless cars change our attitudes to urban transport?But in the digital age, are we beginning to think differently about transport?
“Our cities will increasingly function through the mass movement of information rather than the movement of vehicles,” argues Prof Lyons.
Others disagree, believing the human need to travel, explore and trade will always keep us on the move.
Over the coming weeks our Tomorrow’s Transport series will be exploring how we are responding to these challenges and featuring forthcoming innovations in planes, trains and automobiles.
I Told You so Department.
Old Zwei told you so that the Compass Card was old kit as are the fare gates!
The Compass Card and the fare gates deserve a criminal investigation but that will never happen, not in BC, where the police and courts shy away from political interference.
Fare evasion was not a problem, yet the mainstream media, notably radio ‘NW went on and on about fare evasion to such an extent (the old repeat a lie often enough routine) that the public became enraged at fare evasion and demanded fare gates, which by the way, don’t really curb fare evasion.
Now, TransLink is struggling to install old kit that in all probability will only be used for a short time because they are not cost effective.
Translation: It will cost more to operate the Compass Card and fare gates than what was lost due to fare evasion.
Hate to say it but; “I told you so”.
Will Compass Card technology be obsolete when rolled out?
Other cities have adopted mobile passes
Anita Bathe January 22, 2015
ANCOUVER (NEWS1130) ai??i?? With TransLinkai??i??s Compass Card system not rolling out until at least the end of the year, a digital expert says the technology will be a lot closer to becoming obsolete.
Richard Smith with Vancouverai??i??s Centre for Digital Media says mobile phone payment is really the future.
ai???The smart phone is becoming the thing that people have in their hands and they donai??i??t want to use it to do transactions. To the extent that you can accommodate it, youai??i??re better off.ai???
Heai??i??s not sure how hard it may be to change TransLinkai??i??s system once itai??i??s implemented but he says the technology is in demand.
ai???Tokyoai??i??s system uses a separate card and what people have done is they stick them to the back of their phone so that could be an interim solution. A challenge arises there if you have too many things stuck to the back of your phone then either they mix each other up or they donai??i??t work.ai???
In London, people can use their credit or debit card to get through fare gates and some forms of mobile phone payment are also available.
TransLink would not confirm whether smart phone payment is something it is currently looking at.
Ai??What is a plan “B”? TransLink Will Spend $4 Million To Find Out
One has to laugh at the imperious TransLink and the gullible mayors trying to sell this dud to the public and the old adage seems to be true: “Those who do not read history, are doomed to repeat the same mistakes”.
Trust us says TransLink. Trust us say the regional mayors.
Sorry no, Zwei would not trust TransLink with a wooden nickle as this ponderous and imperial behemoth, lumbers on, doing the best it can to earn more lucrative stipends, bonuses and higher car allowances. Better transit? Nope!
The Vancouver Sun, which is trying to massage the YES side printed an article by Kelly Sinoski about TransLink and the mayors not having a plan “B”, while in the Province, Mike Smyth has a better read of the public’s mood and why the plebiscite may fail.
But there is a joker in the deck for the No side, TransLink is going to spend $4 million on the YES side for their money grab. Yup, the imperious bureaucracy, ever worried about themselves, rather than transit customers, are going to spend $4 million ($4 million that they don’t have, rather $4 million of the taxpayers monies to do a slick-willy advertising campaign to shore up the faltering YES side.
A plan “B”, I guess it is spending $4 million to try to win the plebiscite because a NO vote will show that there wasn’t really even a plan A.
It seems the mandarins at TransLink are so stupid, that they don’t realize how stupid they are.
Gerald Fox’s 2008 Letter – First posted in 2012.
“It is interesting how TransLink has used this cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and has thus succeeded in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding.”
Posted by zweisystem on Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Today, in 2015, construction of the Evergreen Line is under way, yet saga continues with moving guideways and sinkholes causing much disruption. So, it’s time to enter the Way-back machine and once again look at TransLink’s business case for the Evergreen Line.
In, 2008 Gerald Fox, a well known American transit and transportation expert shredded TransLinkai??i??s Evergreen Line business case and found it grossly biased in favour for SkyTrain.
In other jurisdictions such comments would lead to legal action or an inquiry, but not in BC, where TransLinkai??i??s deliberate manipulating of certain facts may have lead to a police investigation of TransLink and its bureaucrats!
I would like to remind Surrey’s new mayor, a one Ms. Hepner, that the very same TransLink bureaucrats are now planning for LRT in Surrey are the very same anti-LRTAi??~ pro-SkyTrain bureaucrats that worked on the Evergreen Line and it is for certain the very same pro-SkyTrain arguments are still being made for Surrey!
Nothing less than an audit of TransLink, West coast Mountain Bus and SkyTrain including the Canada line, by BCai??i??s Auditor General, will clear the air. Both the provincial government and TransLink are deathly afraid of this happening as they continue to steamroll one SkyTrain or light-metro project after another on the BC taxpayer.
The following is the Gerald Fox letter of 2008ai??i??ai??i??ai??i??ai??i??ai??i??..
Update: The auditor General did indeed audit the Evergreen Line and found LRT was more expensive to build and carried fewer people. So sad to see such incompetence in the AG’s department, especially we know that LRT has a higher capacity than SkyTrian and the cost to construct LRT cn be one tenth of that of SkyTrain. So bloody embarrassing!
From: A North-American Rail Expert
Subject: Comments on the Evergreen Line ai???Business Caseai???
Date: February 6, 2008
Greetings:
The Evergreen Line Report made me curious as to how TransLink could justify continuing to expand SkyTrain, when the rest of the world is building LRT. So I went back and read the alleged ai???Business Caseai??? (BC) report in a little more detail. I found several instances where the analysis had made assumptions that were inaccurate, or had been manipulated to make the case for SkyTrain. If the underlying assumptions are inaccurate, the conclusions may be so too. Specifically:
Capacity. A combination of train size and headway. For instance, TriMetai??i??s new ai???Type 4ai??? Low floor LRVs, arriving later this year, have a rated capacity of 232 per car, or 464 for a 2- car train. (Of course one must also be sure to use the same standee density when comparing car capacity. I donai??i??t know if that was done here). In Portland we operate a frequency of 3 minutes downtown in the peak hour, giving a one way peak hour capacity of 9,280. By next year we will have two routes through downtown, which will eventually load both ways, giving a theoretical peak hour rail capacity of 37,000 into or out of downtown. Of course we also run a lot of buses.
The new Seattle LRT system which opens next year, is designed for 4-car trains, and thus have a peak hour capacity of 18,560. (but doesnai??i??t need this yet, and so shares the tunnel with buses). The Business Case analysis assumes a capacity of 4,080 for LRT, on the Evergreen Line which it states is not enough, and compares it to SkyTrain capacity of 10400.!
Speed. The analysis states the maximum LRT speed is 60 kph. (which would be correct for the street sections) But most LRVs are actually designed for 90 kph. On the Evergreen Line, LRT could operate at up to 90 where conditions permit, such as in the tunnels, and on protected ROW. Most LRT systems pre-empt most intersections, and so experience little delay at grade crossings. (Our policy is that the trains stop only at stations, and seldom experience traffic delays. It seems to work fine, and has little effect on traffic.) There is another element of speed, which is station access time. At-grade stations have less access time. This was overlooked in the analysis.
Also, on the NW alignment, the SkyTrain proposal uses a different, faster, less-costly alignment to LRT proposal. And has 8 rather than 12 stations. If LRT was compared on the alignment now proposed for SkyTrain, it would go faster, and cost less than the Business Case report states!
Cost. Here again, there seems to be some hidden biases. As mentioned above, on the NW Corridor, LRT is costed on a different alignment, with more stations. The cost difference between LRT and SkyTrain presented in the Business Case report is therefore misleading. If they were compared on identical alignments, with the same number of stations, and designed to optimize each mode, the cost advantage of LRT would be far greater. I also suspect that the basic LRT design has been rendered more costly by requirements for tunnels and general design that would not be found on more cost-sensitive LRT projects.
Then there are the car costs. Last time I looked, the cost per unit of capacity was far higher for SkyTrain. Also,it takes about 2 SkyTrain cars to match the capacity of one LRV. And the grade-separated SkyTrain stations are far most costly and complex than LRT stations. Comparing 8 SkyTrain stations with 12 LRT stations also helps blur the distinction.
Ridership. Is a function of many factors. The Business Case report would have you believe that type of rail mode alone, makes a difference (It does in the bus vs rail comparison, according to the latest US federal guidelines). But, on the Evergreen Line, I doubt it. What makes a difference is speed, frequency (but not so much when headways get to 5 minutes), station spacing and amenity etc. Since the speed, frequency and capacity assumptions used in the Business Case are clearly inaccurate, the ridership estimates cannot be correct either. There would be some advantage if SkyTrain could avoid a transfer. If the connecting system has capacity for the extra trains. But the case is way overstated.
And nowhere is it addressed whether the Evergreen Line, at the extremity of the system, has the demand for so much capacity and, if it does, what that would mean on the rest of the system if feeds into?
Innuedos about safety, and traffic impacts, seem to be a big issue for SkyTrain proponents, but are solved by the numerous systems that operate new LRT systems (i.e., they canai??i??t be as bad as the SkyTrain folk would like you to believe).
Iai??i??ve no desire to get drawn into the Vancouver transit wars, and, anyway, most of the rest of the world has moved on. To be fair, there are clear advantages in keeping with one kind of rail technology, and in through-routing service at Lougheed. 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.
It is interesting how TransLink has used this cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and has thus succeeded in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding. In the US, all new transit projects that seek federal support are now subjected to scrutiny by a panel of transit peers, selected and monitored by the federal government, to ensure that projects are analysed honestly, and the taxpayersai??i?? interests are protected. No SkyTrain project has ever passed this scrutiny in the US.
Victoria
But the BIG DEAL for Victoria is: If the Business Case analysis were corrected to fix at least some of the errors outlined above, the COST INCREASE from using SkyTrain on the Evergreen Line will be comparable to the TOTALCOST of a modest starter line in Victoria. This needs to come to the attention of the Province. Victoria really does deserve better. Please share these thoughts as you feel appropriate.
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