And you think TransLink has problems………
Vancouver is not the only city having financial problems with transit.
Toronto is mired in political vanity subway projects and the TTC is steaming full speed ahead into a financial iceberg as well.
The Scarborough Subway and Smart Track are about to collide
| By John Lorinc
Anyone who thinks they can read between the lines of the two sets of council votes this week ai??i?? about the Scarborough subway and Smart Track ai??i?? should remember that what weai??i??re seeing now at City Hall is merely political foreplay.
The four quick votes against Josh Matlowai??i??s administrative inquiries into the Scarborough subway cost/corridor questions tell us nothing about councilai??i??s ultimate intentions with regards to that $3.4 billion-and-counting monument to Glen de Baeremaekerai??i??s insecurities. Nor does the impressive 42-2 vote in favour of the Smart Track studies reveal evidence of unity of purpose.
Rather, what really matters is that point off in the middle distance where these two sets of transit mega-project proposals, and their respective price-tags, intersect. Because they will, and that collision will likely occur approximately a year from now ai??i?? a kind of supercollider for Torontoai??i??s latest transit ambitions.
City and Metrolinx officials will spend much of the rest of 2015 analyzing the various configurations, how the two routes interact with one another, and how Smart Track fits into the provinceai??i??s $15 billion Regional Express Rail plan. At the same time, the Scarborough subway scheme will be subject to an accelerated approvals process that will look at corridor configurations, lengths, stations, etc.
But the crucial money/financing questions wonai??i??t hit council until next spring, at the earliest, and thatai??i??s when the bonfire of the vanities will begin in earnest.
As an aside, one of the reasons Torontonians are chronically confused about transit is that transit reports wash up on councilai??i??s agenda so frequently, and repeatedly, that itai??i??s often difficult to identify genuine decision moments. As the councillors well understand, those moments occur when they agree to spend or borrow money, and vote on motions that end in phrases such as, ai???authorize city officials to enter into agreementsai??i??ai??? We had one of those moments in the fall of 2012 ai??i?? when the City, the TTC and Metrolinx signed a master agreement to build the four LRT lines. Weai??i??re now facing the $75 million consequence of reneging, which is how you can tell it was a real decision.
Problem is, itai??i??s not always easy to determine where in the process the money vote will occur. Sometimes, what feels like the ninth inning is actually only the seventh inning (Exhibit A: the Scarborough subway vote last spring). But as I said, the councillors all know.
While city officials laid out a process and rough time-table at council this week, several externally-imposed financial imponderables could derail the process ai??i?? most notably the federal contribution to Smart Track. No one, including John Tory, has the foggiest idea how that one will play out. Until we all know the answer to said riddle, the rest is up in the air. After all, the quantum of the provincial contribution to Smart Track is obviously a function of the size of the federal investment. As long as we donai??i??t have answers, sit back and watch for more foreplay.
Amidst all those question marks, my sources tell me that city staff, once they turn their attention to the money issues, will make sure that council is presented with the full financial picture. After all, the combined price tag for Smart Track and the Scarborough subway could easily exceed $12 or $13 billion ai??i?? a substantial, though undetermined, portion of which will come from property taxpayers, development charges and city-issued debt.
Given that the cityai??i??s debt-service ratio will be perilously close to the mandated 15% ceiling by 2020 (the current level is 12%), itai??i??s clear that decisions on the two lines canai??i??t be made independently, both for financial reasons and also in terms of transit effectiveness.
Another piece of analysis we wonai??i??t see until next spring is city staffai??i??s take on the revenue potential for Toryai??i??s tax increment financing (TIF) scheme, which involves borrowing funds for infrastructure investment and paying down the debt using taxes generated by increased property assessment. During the election, candidate Tory claimed TIFs along the Smart Track corridor would bring in $2.6 billion.
What City officials will do, over the next year, is develop various scenarios for what kinds of revenues the City can actually expect, based on low, average and high-growth development projections on the corridor. Theyai??i??ll also quietly canvas the bond markets to see whether TIF notes will sell, and for how much.
The politically expedient move for Tory and his backers would simply be to believe the most optimistic revenue scenario, and choose accordingly. But the reality is that the capital markets will have to absorb a massive release of City of Toronto debt, which is secured against investment decisions that may not happen for decades and are subject to macro-economic unknowns. Indeed, investors have never seen City of Toronto TIF bonds before. The markets will price accordingly, but itai??i??s safe to assume the City will pay a premium ai??i?? i.e., higher servicing charges on the operating budget ai??i?? because it will be pushing out so much speculative debt on top of all the other borrowing the City does in normal course.
Bottom line: if council wants to limit the Cityai??i??s exposure to costly debt charges, it may have to consider additional revenue tools to finance Smart Track.
All the while, more granular cost estimates on the Scarborough subway will come into sharper focus, and I fearlessly predict those numbers will go up every time de Baeremaeker and Scarboroughai??i??s newest grievance-monger, Jim Karygiannis, open their mouths.
In the past, council has tolerated project budget inflation due to mission creep or unexpected complexities, e.g., St Clair right-of-way, Queenai??i??s Quay, Union Station. But the foregoing mega-projects pale in comparison to the Scarborough subway, raising the spectre of mind-boggling budget overruns.
Consider the yelling about the Union Station revitalization, which has seen its cost jump by $80 million, to $795 million. But a 10% increase or overrun on the Scarborough subway budget, a figure that is significantly less than the contingency on the Queenai??i??s Quay revamp, could top $350 million or more, enough to pay for half the Queenai??i??s Quay East LRT. And that number may only be part of an equation that includes additional outlays for Smart Track due to higher borrowing costs, lower-than-expected federal transfers, etc.
Point is, the financial uncertainties associated with one will affect the viability of the other.
About a year or so from now, council will be asked to cast votes on reports that include numbers with dollar-signs, and theyai??i??ll likely be requested to make choices about how to mitigate those very large costs. Among those choices will be service scenarios generated by the cityai??i??s expert transit advisors that reveal the redundancy writ large on these two parallel sets of rapid transit schemes.
So ask yourself this question: if Tory and the rest of council have to choose between these two megaprojects in order to mitigate the cityai??i??s long-term financial risk, which one will they throw overboard?
From where I sit, it seems almost inevitable that weai??i??re barreling down the tracks towards a political either/or moment.
Trams that never stop at traffic lights
Trams that never stop at traffic lights could be part of Melbourne’s people-moving future
Trams that never have to stop for traffic lights could be the norm in Melbourne in the future, under plans being developed to deal with population growth in the city.
For the past seven years, VicRoads has been using mathematical modelling to figure out how changing conditions – such as traffic light frequency and clearway times – affected traffic flows.
VicRoads director of network policy and standards Andrew Wall said public transport was the focus of future planning because of its ability to carry far more people.
“We’ve used the model to assess what happens if we for example give absolute priority to the tram, which means that when a tram gets to a set of traffic signals, it never has to stop,” Mr Wall said.
“The model lets us look at those sort of situations, so it’s giving us some insights into how hard we can push the traffic signal system to give priority to trams.”
With Melbourne’s population projected to hit just under 8 million by 2053, Mr Wall said the roads authority had to look at “clever ways to move people around the network”.
“The focus on moving people is probably the critical thing for us,” he said.
“We want to set the road network up and the traffic signals up so we’re maximising how many people we move, not necessarily how many vehicles.
“Over time we have given more and more priority to trams, and we’re likely to give even more in the future.”
The mathematics of being stuck in traffic
Professor Jan De Gier and Dr Tim Garoni began working with VicRoads in 2008, as part of an internship with the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems.
Since then the University of Melbourne researcher has been applying the basic principles of mathematical physics and statistical mechanics to roads in a unique way.
“We studied simple particle models in mathematical physics and noticed that some of these ideas were actually applicable to traffic flow, so we could use very efficient models and intuitive ideas that we learned over the years, in the modelling of traffic,” Professor De Gier said.
“You can view cars and buses and trams on a traffic network as simple particles, so you ignore a lot of the details that are inessential for traffic.
“If you model particles flowing through on a graph … and you set up the rules properly, you’ll see that they behave very much like traffic, so they spontaneously form traffic jams, and other things.”
“So they’ve provided the tool, it’s up to us to use the tool to help inform decisions on how we operate the road network,” he said.
He said mathematics was being used in similar ways in European countries like Germany and Switzerland because it was a cheap and effective alternative to tradition modelling.
Mr Wall said using mathematical modelling was actually more informative than conducting real world traffic tests.
“We did a [real world] trial around Kew, a network of around 50 intersections, over four weeks, where we ran the traffic signal system differently on a day-on, day-off basis,” he said.
“What we found with that is that the variability in traffic from day to day made it really difficult to assess whether we were having an impact.
“So that sort of pointed us to that there’s got to be another way to analyse and assess the changes, which led us to a discussion with some mathematicians on a different approach to how we might do this.”
To develop a sophisticated traffic model of each individual road, intersection and vehicle in detail would cost between $500,000 and $1 million, Mr Wall said.
“This model can be set up for that same network for a fraction of that cost and lots of different options tested.”
Professor De Gier said the method meant that they could see how changing parking policy, tram frequency and traffic light intervals affected the network several kilometres away.
“VicRoads didn’t have tools to model traffic on a network, so all they could do was model in a few intersections or very global origin-destination modelling,” he said.
“What we can do with them is simulate suburbs or collections of traffic intersections of about 100, and see how traffic evolves on such a network if we change certain things.”
Street parking benefits trams
One of the surprises that has come from his research came from when his team modelled the effect of clearways on tram times, Professor De Gier said.
“The traditional thought was that if you have clearways all day then that would be good for cars and trams,” he said.
“It turns out that [with clearways] cars overtake trams and can obstruct the tram at the next intersection.
“So having parking provides a gating effect for trams who can then move through the network better.”
For the first time this year, Professor De Gier’s team will not be looking at generic traffic models, but will be looking at a specific area – Melbourne’s inner north.
Much of this research will be done at Monash University by research fellow Joyce Zhang of the new ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers.
“They’re extending the use of this model to look at the road network in the inner north,” Mr Wall said.
“So while we’re using this as a generic tool to look at networks, it’s actually being applied to look at the whole road network in the inner north and how that might work in the next 10 or 20 years.
“There’s a lot of north-south tram routes in that area, there’s a lot of population growth happening on those roads and to able to cater for that population growth, we need the north-south tram routes to work really well in terms of moving people.”
You have sat too long ……………..
TransLink CEO Ian Jervis has been made to “walk the plank” in an attempt to appease the No side of the upcoming plebiscite.
A quote from Oliver Cromwell comes to mind, when he dismissed the rump parliament.
You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
Many will see this as merely rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and one wonders how many more people will forced to “walk the plank?”
TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis steps down ‘to restore public confidence’
Ai??The board decided to replace Jarvis ahead of a controversial plebiscite in Metro Vancouver this spring that will ask the public to approve a 0.5 per cent sales tax to fund transportation expansionBy Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver SUN
TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis has stepped down, effective immediately “to restore public confidence” in the transportation authority, said board chairwoman Marcella Szel.
Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider, Vancouver Sun
===
METRO VANCOUVER – Ian Jarvis has stepped down as TransLink CEO, effective immediately, in an attempt “to restore public confidence” in the transportation authority, said board chairwoman Marcella Szel.
The decision was made to replace Jarvis ahead of a controversial plebiscite in Metro Vancouver this spring that will ask the public to approve a 0.5 per cent sales tax to fund transportation expansion across the region.
Doug Allen, who most recently served as president and Chief Executive Officer of InTransit BC, will replace Jarvis on an interim basis.
“The decision was not taken lightly,” Szel said. “We believe it’s the right thing to do. We need to build public confidence at TransLink.”
A search committee has been established by the board of directors to undertake a comprehensive search for a new CEO. This search is expected to take several months.
Jarvis, who has served TransLink since 1999 and as CEO since 2009, will act an advisor to the board until the conclusion of his contract in June 2016. He will continue to be paid his salary, while Allen will also be paid $35,000 per month for the next six months.
“We are not particularly happy paying two CEO salaries for a year-a-half,” Szel said. “But it was the board’s view to change leadership and change leadership now.”
She said the board has been concerned about public confidence at TransLink for some time, especially over complaints about SkyTrain breakdowns and the Compass Card, and “is listening to customers and the public regarding the need for change and has taken action.”
TransLink will use Jarvis’s expertise while counting on Allen to bring “fresh eyes” and more accountability and transparency to the transportation authority, she added.
She said new leadership is needed both before and after the plebiscite, which will determine whether TransLink will have more funds to expand the system or continue as it is now.
“We need new vision and new strength to lead us through that phase,” she said.
The new CEO will oversee a $10-billion transportation system and $1.5 billion dollar operating budget, 6,700 employees, and
TransLink’s operating companies: Coast Mountain Bus Company, BC Rapid Transit Company, and Transit Police. Building a better relationship with customers and key stakeholders will be paramount.
Allen recently served as president and Chief Executive Officer of InTransit BC, the company that built and operates the Canada Line.
Allen is not a candidate for permanent CEO and will work directly with the Board of Directors in recruiting and selecting his successor.
“During this transition period, Mr. Allen will provide excellent leadership on all priorities, including meeting aggressive targets on the Compass program, implementing recommendations from the independent review of the SkyTrain outages, and moving forward on actions to improve safety and service for our customers,” said Szel.
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)
Ai??
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.
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