Canada Line Train Catches Fire
The fire was on the Canada Line, which isn’t SkyTrain. For those who are not in the know, the SkyTrain system cars are powered by Linear Induction Motors or LIM’s and the Canada Line cars are powered by “squirrel cage” electric motors.
Much of Canada Line down
By DAN FUMANO, The Province December 20, 2014
Much of the Canada Line is down after a SkyTrain caught fire.
Photograph by: Submitted, Robin Leung
Electrical problems on the Canada Line caused sparks, smoke and delays Saturday afternoon in Richmond.
TransLink released a statement around 3:30 p.m., advising there was no train service between Richmond-Brighouse Station and Aberdeen Station due to a ai???problem train.ai???
By the time of the announcement, shuttle buses were in place, running between Brighouse and Bridgeport Stations.
An hour later, an update from TransLink said: ai???An investigation is ongoing. Early findings indicate that there was an electrical fault. We will know more after a full investigation.ai???
Videos and photos taken at the scene showed smoke rising from the train and bright sparks shooting from the track underneath, while it appears passengers move around the train cars.
Canada Line passenger Kevin Snaden said the ai???train smelled like smokeai??? when he and other passengers were told to disembark at Aberdeen Station.
Snaden, a 29-year-old visiting from Calgary, said: ai???Two fire trucks, ambulance and police cars were there very quickly.ai???
Canada Line service was operating as usual between the Airport and Waterfront Stations.
TransLinkai??i??s statement said: ai???We advise customers to plan for extra travel time this afternoon and we thank everyone for their patience.ai???
– Were you aboard this Canada Line train Saturday afternoon? The Province would like to hear from you ai??i?? please reach us at provweb@theprovince.com
(Video courtesy of Twitter user @markrobinsonyvr)
A trip down memory lane
The shape of things that never were; a model of an articulated UTDC ALRT vehicle.
An advert for ALRT, circa 1983. Sadly for Diane Edgecomb, the Detroit ICTS has been nothing more than a curiosity, which quickly earned the name the “Mugger Mover”.
Notice that the gap between the two MK.1’s have been ‘photo shopped’ to make them appear as one car, in order to compete with the emerging articulated light rail vehicles. Already, the management at the UTDC were aware that SkyTrain’s small cars were a disadvantage to sales.
Oh, what fools we mortals be
In charge of our of our Metro band,
Moonbeam is here at hand,
With a higher PST, mistook by me,
While pleading for a congestion fee.
Shall we their fond referendum see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Apologies to the bard!
The regional mayors who support a $0.5% increase to fund TransLink have shown their utter ignorance of transit issues by calling the upcoming Transit referendum the “Metro Vancouver congestion improvement tax.“
Ha, ha, ha, because the fools that coined this phrase are utterly incompetent because the only way to reduce congestion is to reduce road space. The name is an oxymoron but the mayors are too clueless to understand this.
What this tax should be called is the “TransLink Executive Bonus Tax“, or the “Mayor Moonbeam Subway Tax“; because a transitAi?? improvement tax, it is not.
Incresing Transit Capacity By Reducing Transit Stops – A New Stragety For Broadway
The following table from Bus or Light Rail – Making The Right Choice, shows that in Germany, the distance between bus stops is far greater than that of the City of Vancouver. On Broadway, from Granville Street to Alma, on average there is a bus stop every 260 metres, making bus stops very much closer in Vancouver than comparable European transit systems.
Many European transit systems also offer exclusive rights-of-way’s for buses, especially through choke points.
By reducing the number of bus stops along Broadway by over a third, thus making the the average distance between bus stops every 400 metres to 450 metres and having exclusive rights of ways or bus lanes at strategic points along the transit route, TransLink could speed up trolleybus commercial speeds on Broadway and by doing so, increase capacity on the trolleybus routes with the same number of buses presently used, with very little new investment needed. With proper planning, TransLink make the 99B Line buses only stop at Fraser, Kingsway, Granville, and Alma, with the new faster trolleybus service able to provide fast journeys to UBC West of Granville Street.
How so?
Fewer bus stops means faster commercial speeds and faster commercial speeds means that the us can complete its journey faster thus able to run more trips on a transit route per day. With strategically placed bus lanes, avoiding choke points, would ensure punctual service.
With the trolleybuses having faster commercial speeds, a lot of pressure would be taken off the 99B-line limited stop express buses, by offering a faster service, while at the same time capacity along Broadway would be increased because of the faster ‘turn around’ time of the buses.
This begs the question:
“Has TransLink purposely kept trolleybus service on Broadway as well as other trolleybus services slow, to ‘show-case’ the B-Line express buses and to keep the illusion of overcrowding to make customers think that the only recourse is a multi-billion dollar subway?”
What is Translink Afraid Of?
I can see with the TransLink referendum, that the SkyTrain lobby is claiming all sorts of misleading information about SkyTrain; a SkyTrain subway and SkyTrain fiances.
The following is from the GVRD’s 1993 The cost of Transporting People in the British Columbia Lower Mainland.
Please note that the annual subsidy for one SkyTrain line was $53.54 million higher than the diesel buses, the trolleybuses and Seabus combined! One is staggered at though of the SkyTrain and Canada Line’s subsidy today.
The table clearly shows the $157 million operating subsidy for that year and now twenty-one years later, TransLink and Metro Vancouver are loath to enter an updated table showing the the annual subsidy for the SkyTrain and Canada line systems. Before next years referendum, the public should demand a concise table as like the one above, showing the transit operating subsides for transit in 2014.
What is TransLink afraid of?
The truth?
The GVRD’s 1978 LRT/Rail/Road Bridge – A Bridge Too Practical
In 1978, the GVRD were poised to install a three leg light rail system on the region and to cross the Fraser river a new bridge would have to be built.
Demonstrating the forward thinking of the era, GVRD planners conceived a multi-use bridge for ‘rapid transit’; the mainline railways; a cycle path; and when the Pattullo finally went kaput; a four lane vehicle bridge.
The LRT lines were so designed to have a two lane car deck above when needed and a ‘fast’ lift span would have two railway tracks, giving ample capacity, including a Vancouver to Chilliwack rail service which was envisaged at the time.
It is now history, as the provincial government imposed SkyTrain on the region and a stand alone SkyTrain, Sky Bridge was built instead and a replacement for the badly aging Pattullo Bridge is about a decade away and a replacement for the absolutely decrepit Fraser River Rail Bridge is no where in sight.
Maybe metro Vancouver should dust off the 1978 rail/road bridge and build it to replace both decaying bridges.
Capacity and speed of transit vehicles in the city
In the past few weeks, the merchants of misinformation have been busy spreading their anti tram rhetoric in a vain attempt to justify a Broadway subway.
Unfortunately the mainstream media have repeated the same misinformation without any independent research done.
The following charts come from Bus or Light Rail Making the Right Choice, Second Edition, by Prof. Carmen Haas-Klau, Graham Crampton, Carsten Biereth, and Volker Deutch, published in 2003. Bus or Light Rail Making the Right Choice, was a very important international study of public transit systems, focusing on buses and trams.
Table#7 gives an accurate capacity numbers of various kinds of buses and LRT and table #8 gives the commercial speed of trams and buses in mixed traffic and on its own rights-of-ways.
It can be easily seen that trams generally have faster commercial speeds than buses in mixed traffic and trams operating on their own rights-of-ways have higher commercial speeds than buses operating on exclusive rights-of-ways as well, with the exception of the Ottawa and Pittsburgh busways.
When the anti-LRT crowd claim that trams are only as fast as buses in the city or that trams can only carry as many passengers as a bus, please refer them here.
TransLink Incompetence Continues – Again Another Fail
Incompetence, thy name is TransLink. Suffice to say, if this happened in Europe and passengers were trapped in a bus for two hours because of a downed trolley line, management would have been fired the next day. All (except for Vancouver maybe) transit services that operate trolley buses or trams have a “crash crew” on duty to deal with such events in a timely matter.
It is clearly evident that TransLink’s management cannot cope with the existing transit system in emergencies and the organization has taken no steps to make improvements in this department, why then would our regional mayors trust TransLink with more monies to fund transit projects they will not be able to cope with in the future.
Senior TransLink management should take time from attending their important meetings and drive their taxpayer paid for cars and observe in person why TransLink should get no further monies from the taxpayer.
From Eric Chris.
TransLink train wreck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrZxt476ef4
Hereai??i??s an update on the potential tragedy and loss of life incident on the 99 B-Line from about 5 pm to 7 pm on Friday December 12, 2014. I contacted the CBC and Vancouver Sun by email to let them know what was happening. No surprise, ai???Vancouver Sunai??? receiving massive amounts of advertising revenue and complicit in the campaign to dupe taxpayers for more funding for TransLink ignored my email, like all the rest in the past.
However, the CBC responded and rushed a crew out but the crew arrived too late. Passengers were let off the bus at about 7 pm and quickly dispersed by TransLink before the reporters arrived:
ai???From: cbc.ca On Behalf Of Cbc News Vancouver
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 7:15 PM
To: eric chris
Subject: Re: unfolding B8031 B-Line disaster ai??i?? where are the cameras and reporters?
Hi Eric
Are you on board the bus? Or know someone who is?
ThanksOn Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 6:50 PM, eric chris wrote:
For the last two hours, dozens of transit users have been trapped inside a 99 B-Line diesel bus with a high voltage wire on it from the broken trolleybus line which snared the bus. It is at the corner of Blanca Street and West 10th Avenue in Vancouver. Is this not news?Does TransLink have a preventative maintenance program? Do the buffoons who get paid too much at TransLink run things until they break? Shouldnai??i??t TransLink be informing the reporters when this crap happens rather than keep a lid on it?ai???
I had an appointment at UBC for 8 pm and cycled the two kilometres to UBC after the passengers alighted the stricken 99 B-Line bus ai??i?? I never drive to UBC but couldnai??i??t in any case as my driveway was blocked off by the B-Line incident. When I returned, the line crew was splicing the trolleybus line. I didnai??i??t see any engineers inspecting the wires to determine what caused the trolleybus to pull down the wire. As soon as the wire was up, the crew left.
Trolleybus service resumed right away without any analysis or safety inspection: sure enough, every trolleybus snagged the wire and the trolleybus pole dislodged at the exact location where the trolleybus at about 5 pm tore down the wires! Today, trolleybus service is ai???downai??? and diesel bus service has replaced the trolleybuses on the No. 14 ai???trolleybus routeai???. For TransLink to put the trolleybuses back into service without the proper engineering analysis was pure stupidity. It shows a complete lack of competence on the part of the idiots running TransLink. It also reflects badly on the COV engineers who arenai??i??t insisting on a preventative maintenance program for trolleybus infrastructure to replace aged wires and to keep the public safe.
What is additionally vexing is that, there is little to no demand for transit today ai??i?? UBC is mostly shut down for exams. TransLink can suspend transit service for one block, to investigate. TransLink is not. There is a steady stream of ai???hub to hubai??? express transit (99 B-Line) and regular No. 14 bus service with no effort to do anything this weekend. Pollution from the soot blowing diesel bus service every minute is extreme and the noise is harrowing. This bothers no one at TransLink or the COV.
TransLink canai??i??t maintain its current transit system and is out seeking $7.5 billion to expand its lousy hub to hub transit which has no hope of alleviating road congestion. Weai??i??ll be back where we are now in 10 years after TransLink pisses away the money. TransLink wants to add 11 more B-Line routes, 80% more nighttime service (boy there sure is lots of road congestion for transit to overcome at 3 am and those virtually empty diesel buses after about 10 pm sure do reduce CO2 emissions) and another subway? Theyai??i??ll eat through the $7.5 billion in no time and add billions of dollars of future debt.
ai???What caused this?ai???
Express hub to hub transport (B-Line and s-train service) caused this. That is, all the money spent for the B-Line and s-train routes has meant that TransLink canai??i??t afford to maintain its transit network in good working order.
ai???Hub to hub transport train-wreck by talking fools at TransLinkai???
In Metro Vancouver as in all other cities in Canada, there is a serious rift in the expectation of commuters who demand convenient and safe ai???point to pointai??? transport (travel by car) and politicians trying to get drivers to adopt ai???hub to hubai??? transport, wrongly believing that it reduces the need for more roads, which the transit buses require to shuttle riders for hub to hub transit. Drivers are not flocking to use inconvenient and unsafe ai???hub to hubai??? transport (s-train and B-Line with distantly spaced stops and creep infested stops). To remedy this, TransLink has relied on handing out much discounted transit passes to students and has set up B-Line routes to get students to the s-train lines, having serious drawbacks for drivers who can afford to stay off the s-trains:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ttc-leprechaun-spurs-outrage-legal-220100049.html
https://translinkharassment.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/raceist-to-the-bottom-29f/
There are only about 50 s-train stations located in Metro Vancouver. TransLink made the fatal flaw or blunder in spending billions of dollars on ai???hub to hubai??? transport which is a total flop. Buffoons at TransLink are not willing to give up on the ai???hub to hubai??? train-wreck and are bribing newspapers with advertising revenue to keep reporters loyal to TransLink. Reporters are not educating the mostly clueless public which is being bamboozled with propaganda for them to accept more taxes for ai???hub to hubai??? transit which has no hope of ever relieving road congestion. It will do the opposite to worsen road congestion ai??i?? only a step back into the future with trams to ai???approach point to point transportai??? will attract drivers.
TransLink train-wreck, to be continuedai??i??
Let The fools Rush In, The Regional Maryors 0.5% Transit Sales Tax
After a considerable time of wailing and gnashing of teeth, the regional mayors have come up with a question for the upcoming TransLink referendum.
What the mayors did not do was to try to understand why TransLink is hemorrhaging money and will continue to do so even if the referendum passes. It’s all tax and spend, the political cowards way out!
The following question will be mailed out to voters and returned by mail to be tabulated.
ai???Do you support a one half percentage point (0.5%) increase to the Provincial Sales Tax in Metro Vancouver, dedicated to the Mayorai??i??s Transportation and Transit Plan, with independent audits and public reporting?ai???
The mayors council did not even question the need for economy or a change in direction, instead it was full steam ahead to the same thing again and hoping for different results.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
Zwei lives in south Delta and the following three bus services, the 609, the C-84, and the C-89 that combined, carry fewer than 30 people a day.
The 609 runs a hourly weekday service from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. and a slightly abridged service on weekends.
The C-84 runs a hourly weekday serviceAi?? from 9 a.m. to 9:40 pm and a slightly abridges service on weekends.
The C-89 runs a hourly serviceAi?? weekdays from 9 a.m. to 9:10 pm and a slightly abridged service on weekends.
Three bus services which combined carry fewer than 30 people a day. This example sums up part of TransLink’s problems, as it is operating a social service, not a bus service.
How many bus routes mirror the extremely poor ridership on the 609, C-84 and C-89 bus routes? Far too many I’ll wager.
The other problem that has been brought to my attention is that TransLink is planning transit on a 1980’s SkyTrain model, rather on a customer friendly transit model for the aging boomers. Older people like their transit on the pavement, ready to use and not in a hole in the ground accessible only by stairs, escalators and/or elevators. Older people do not like cavernous underground stations nor cold windswept elevated ones and older customers do not like forced transfers.
It has been noticeable in South Delta that older transit customers have all but disappeared as they hate the forced transfer onto the Canada line and the chaotic subway trip into Vancouver. Except for a very few rush hour services, most buses still have seats available after departing from SDRC stop, something unheard of before the Canada line opened.
The regional Mayors have badly blundered the referendum and I’m afraid their unwillingness to listen to the public or plan for the real future, will see the referendum fail.
Addendum:
Radio Polls. Though radio polls are highly inaccurate and can be manipulated; at 5 p.m., the CKNW poll shows only a 38% support for a yes vote and the CKWX (News 1130) poll shows an even more dismal 26% support.
Referendum Angst
It will all about the TransLink Referendum in the coming months and regional mayors who haven’t a clue about modern public transit will try to force another tax upon the beleaguered taxpayer to fund questionable transit projects, that will do little to alleviate congestion and gridlock in the lower mainland.
The following is a reminder why LRT is built.
There are many aspects (wth LRT) to efficiency both in operating costs, the use of street space.”
” TriMetai??i??s first batch of railcars are still in service after 22 years. This has interesting cost consequences. In 2008, a railcar cost about $4,000,000. A bus costs about $300,000. If the railcar can do the work of 4 buses, it would replace about $1,200,000 worth of buses. But after about 14 years, these buses would need to be replaced by four more. And with 14 years of inflation, these will cost almost twice as much, say $500,000 each, or $2,000,000 total. So the $4,000,000 railcar saved $3,000,000 worth of bus purchases over its life. Not to mention all the operating efficiencies.”
There are no such savings with SkyTrain and/or light metro, as they operate on independent routes, which require many more buses to feed the beast. The following comment about the referendum states the situation very well.
Mayors confirm hike to PST could be proposed in transit referendumMayors met on Friday ahead of a vote on the actual wording of the referendum questionThe problem with the referendum is that it is based on a false premise that a Broadway subway and three poorly designed LRT lines will solve our congestion problems, they won’t and will only exacerbate the situation. After $9 billion spent on SkyTrain and light metro, the mode share by auto in the region has remained at 57%
Transit is not reducing congestion in North America, it hasn’t and a multi-billion dollar subway will not reduce congestion.
The Europeans found this out in the 70’s and 80’s where congestion actually increased after a subway was built. This is why active traffic calming is part and parcel of every new LRT line built across the pond. Road-space is reduced by having tracks on-street, which causes the “push-pull effect” which the transit pushes motorists to transit for lack of road-space and the quality of tram service attracts or pulls new customers to transit.
We use the extremely dated “carrot and stick” approach where motorists are taxed onto transit, which is a failed transit philosophy because there is always too much ‘stick’ and not enough ‘carrot’.
Traffic calming can be as simple as taking up two traffic lanes for the tram or creating pedestrian malls which has a tram operating through it.
A BCIT to UBC tram service with stops every 500 to 600 metres, would replace all bus service on Broadway and reduce operating costs by half yet would have the potential to convey more passengers than a SkyTrain subway (those short 80 metre long Skytrain station platforms constrict capacity) at about one quarter the cost of a subway! And as a bonus, by its very nature of construction, reduce auto congestion.
In Surrey, LRT is being designed as a poor man’s SkyTrain, dooming it to failure.
The real question is; “do our planners and politicians have the maturity to build with modern LRT!”
“
NEW WESTMINSTER (NEWS1130) ai??i?? In less than a week, weai??i??ll learn more about the referendum question that will be put to Lower Mainland voters over the regionai??i??s transportation priorities.
The regionai??i??s mayors met on Friday, ahead of a vote on the actual wording of the referendum question.
In an emailed statement after the in-camera meeting, the mayors confirm that a hike in the carbon tax, an increase in the PST in the region, an annual vehicle registration fee or a combination off all three are being considered as sources of funding to get their proposed ten-year transportation plan off the ground.
Jordan Bateman with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which has been critical of TransLink spending, believes the mayors have already decided where the money should come from.
ai???The mayors are playing games. They are hiding what the final wording is. Chances are, theyai??i??ve already come to a consensus. The next six days is about how they are going to spin it to the public, to try to convince us to give TransLink more money.ai???
He doesnai??i??t think the people of Metro Vancouver will accept any of the funding options.
ai???The vehicle levy was rejected ten years ago. A sales tax increase is an ugly proposition. We just had a province-wide debate on sales taxes. An increase in the carbon tax just reinforces reliance on a failed policy.ai???
In order for the ten-year transit plan to be realized, the region needs to come up with $7.5 billion.
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