CHILLIWACK (NEWS1130) ai??i?? Highway 1 is closed westbound at the Vedder Canal Bridge and closed eastbound at No. 1 Road after a serious crash.
ai???The collision involved about 13 vehicles, including a Greyhound bus. At this point, we know that there are numerous people who have significant injuries. We donai??i??t have any reports of fatalities,ai??? says RCMP Inspector Tim Shields.
What caused the crash isnai??i??t clear; Shields believes one collision on the bridge deck led to a chain reaction.
ai???We are warning commuters to avoid the area of Highway 1 in Chilliwack and take an alternative route,ai??? adds Shields.
Eastbound traffic is expected to re-open this morning, but westbound traffic is expected to remain blocked until this afternoon.
Donai??i??t learn from the failure of the subway on Cambie Street ai??i?? copy it for Broadway
Sad to see that the best UBC can do is to copy failed 1950’s planning philosophy for the 21st century for Vancouver.
In North America, subways are seen as the the great transit philosopher’s stone to solve all transportation problems – if you do not have a subway, your transit system is next to useless.
This subway philosophy held sway in Europe from the late 1940′, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s until the early 80’s, when fiscal reality hit with a vengeance.
As subways were built, local surface tram lines were abandoned and though ridership numbers were high on the subway; system wide ridership fell as many former transit customers found that instead of an almost doorstop to doorstop trip with the old tram, this convenience disappeared with the new subway. Taking the car was just easier.
Although a subway replaced the tram lines, an expensive shadow bus service had to be maintained because the subway stations were too far apart to attract customers. Many transit customers thought the switch from tram to bus was unacceptable and again, turned to the car for transit.
The new subways were expensive to operate and maintain, subway stations had to be policed by a small army of attendants. Many subway systems became “no-go” areas after dark as teen gangs outnumbered the security and preyed upon transit customers, something that just did not happen with the old street operating trams.
As the subways aged, they became very costly to maintain as the subway environment played havoc with the infrastructure.
The final straw was that local taxpayers refused to pay for more subways as they were taxed out.
Today in Germany, many cities which built subways are in fiscal difficulty, where cities which avoided subway construction do not.
The fiscal problems with subways helped fuel the light rail Renaissance in Europe, for today, for a subway to be built, a transit line needs to show peak hour traffic flows in excess of 20,000 pphpd, unless that is, there is undue political interference to build a subway. A subway is still seen as a tool for political prestige, especially around election time.
Sadly in North America, most so-called transit experts are not very expert at all, except being expert to jump on the subway gravy-train, when it suits their purposes.
Let us not forget, the Canada Line subway, which construction costs are now put at about $2.5 billion, is a heavy-rail metro, built as a light metro and with its very short 50 metre station platforms has less capacity than a on-street tram! Is this the type of subway that is really being planned for Broadway?
A Broadway subway will beggar Translink and the regional taxpayer and until planning graduates truly understand the science of public transit, the regional transit system will repeat all the expensive mistakes their European counterparts made a half a century ago.
Q&A with Lawrence Frank
Transit expert Lawrence Frank on the health costs of our sedentary lifestyle, and the resale benefits of tunnelling along the Broadway corridor.By John Burns published Apr 23, 2013
Lawrence Frank, UBC Professor of Health & PlanningAi??Let’s jump right into transit. I commute along Broadway every day. It’s packed! What’s to be done?
We’re in an absolutely horrible situation with transit on the Broadway Corridor. I’m a good example: I used to live near Main and Broadway, tried to use the B-Line-my partner and I both work at UBC-and we were waiting for three buses just to get on. I teach transit, it’s my life, and I gave up. So we moved closer. It was literally taking an hour and a half to get to UBC versus 20 minutes by car. When you have that kind of differential in travel time, you lose people.
How dramatic is the difference between a transit stop being next to my door and a stop being a block away?
Huge. It’s called distance decay. In the ’50s, transportation adapted Newtonian physics-effectively, the gravity formula-to explain our behaviour. The effect is exponential: we’re many times less likely to go to a place two blocks away than one block away.
And your argument is that reluctance to use transit puts a burden on our system, that there’s a financial incentive to augmenting transit?
The best way to build walking into people’s lifestyles is to provide shops and services near to where they live and efficient transit service to get them to work. Transportation investment impacts our health; we need to consider how much it costs us as a society for every chronic-disease onset. There are all kinds of adverse health impacts of sedentary lifestyles, like obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, that you can apply a dollar value to. So we need to put all this together-otherwise, there’s going to be no money for transportation. Or for any other ministry. The city manager, Penny Ballem, has a slide-“The Clanger,” she calls it-where you see healthcare costs going up in a straight line and education being held constant and the budgets of all the other ministries just tanking. Because once you provide heathcare and a basic education for your population, there’s nothing left.
This brings us back to Broadway. If we were to free up infrastructure costs by putting a dollar value on healthcare savings, how do we improve that corridor?
Each proposed stop along Broadway from Commercial to Arbutus generates as many trips as most other cities in the region. Without better transit, further densification on Broadway is problematic, so then the question is, Should we tunnel or should it be above-grade like a SkyTrain or a monorail that’s maybe cheaper but you end up in the long term with a less attractive city. We sold ourselves to the world based on being attractive and livable, so that’s not the best solution. For Broadway, you could have a seamless connection between UBC and downtown that would be light rail. So you take the heavy rail at Commercial and bring it all the way to Arbutus, and that stops but then there could be a light rail line that uses the Arbutus corridor to go north/south through Kerrisdale and another west to UBC, as a possible solution.
As a homeowner in that area,Ai??I want to say a monorail above-grade is not the right solution.
Sure. But the problem is people react emotionally and the debate falls apart. We need collective buy-in for a solution, and the technology will follow. Seattle got so hung up and so polarized that they couldn’t build anything for three decades. Are you a couple blocksAi??off Broadway?
Yeah.
It’s the best thingAi??that could happen to you.
So it’ll increase my property values?
It almost always does. Location, location, location.
http://www.vanmag.com/News_and_Features/QA_with_Lawrence_Frank
Professor warns of suburban sprawl, ai???horrificai??i?? congestion.
Zwei has been warning about this for several years, and now, now someone has noticed?
I’m sorry, but I just do not see any improvement in our regional transit chaos, until someone has the moral fortitude to put a wooden stake through the heart of SkyTrain.
For too long, TransLink has been recycling bus riders onto the SkyTrain mini-metro and claiming transit success, while the reality is that the percentage of the regions population that use transit has risen only by 3% in the past 20 years. Car use has remained static at 57% during the same period, this after an over $9 billion investment in our light-metro network.
It seems our mega investment in a mega expensive transit network has failed to attract the motorist from the car. Bad planning and management by TransLink’s senior managers and CEO is only part of the problem. There is a gross over emphasis on land-use and not enough emphasis in providing a consumer friendly transit system that the people want to use and here lies the problem. In the 21st century, transit is seen as a product by the consumer and if the product is poor, the consumer spends his/hers transit dollars on other modes of transportation. (Hint: Transit customers hate forced transfers) TransLink operates the transit system like the Monty Python “Dead parrot” sketch; “There’s your transit – now use it“. But for the transit consumer, the transit offered is 2nd rate, crowded and expensive. Taking the car is just the better option.
Until the UBC and SFU boys and girls come to recognize that urban transportation is a science in itself and not an add on course in planning or engineering programs, gridlock will remain endemic in the Metro Vancouver region.
UBC planning professor warns of suburban sprawl, ai???horrificai??i?? congestion
Investing in transit now will grow a healthy region, says Lawrence Frank
By MATTHEW ROBINSON, Vancouver sun
VANCOUVER — Spending money on transit now will save even more money and lives down the road, says a UBC professor who will be speaking Monday on a panel alongside TransLinkai??i??s CEO. Lawrence Frank is pushing a comprehensive vision for the regionai??i??s transit future as a provincial referendum on funding the stressed system rolls into view.
More money is needed, but it has to be spent strategically and viewed differently, the professor at UBCai??i??s schools of Population and Public Health and Community and Regional planning told The Sun on Sunday. ai???Iai??i??m concerned that in the absence of some significant changes in land use planning that weai??i??re at risk of having a fairly sprawling region with horrific congestion and no way to keep up with it,ai??? he said.
Frankai??i??s plan is all about investing in transit proactively as a way to grow a sustainable and healthy region. ai???Increased time spent in cars is associated with obesity that causes chronic disease,ai??? he said, adding that transit encourages people to walk more, which helps reduce obesity and leads to cash savings for the health care system.
But transit needs to be located near peopleai??i??s work and homes, something that is difficult in outlying areas. ai???We have an incentive to build further out,ai??? he said, explaining there are few neighbours that can block developments, thereai??i??s less NIMBYism, and infrastructure in the form of roads and sewers is readily provided by governments. Frank envisions doing that by levying fees on low density or remote development projects that are far from transit corridors. Part of Frankai??i??s plan is a report card of sorts that would tie transit funding to a cityai??i??s performance on development according to Metro Vancouverai??i??s Regional Growth Strategy.
That plan is in place to manage the additional million people who are expected to live in Metro within in the next 30 years, boosting daily transit trips from 6 million to 9 million. TransLink maintains it can only afford to maintain the system and not expand it. The mayorsai??i?? council on regional transportation has previously suggested a regional sales tax, along with a vehicle levy, carbon tax and road pricing as potential funding sources for transit. The province has rejected a vehicle levy and carbon tax, and said any other funding sources must go to a referendum ahead of B.C.ai??i??s municipal elections next year.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/planning+professor+warns+suburban+sprawl+horrific+congestion/9177868/story.html
Massive pileup closes Highway 1 in Chilliwack. We need a rail alternative!
One wonders if we had a TramTrain service from Chilliwack to Vancouver, would it reduce the chances ofAi?? major accidents, especially in icy weather?If a major closure of Hwy. 1 does happens, would not a Chilliwack to Vancouver TramTrain service offer a handy alternative for people wishing to travel to Vancouver or Surrey, or Langley, or Abbotsford?Is a TramTrain service just too simple and cost effective for politicians and bureaucrats to consider?
A major accident on the Vedder Canal Bridge has closed Hwy 1 West bound.
Massive pileup closes Highway 1 in Chilliwack
News1130 Staff November 15, 2013
ai???One of the consequences of making the wrong decision is that we build a subway where we donai??i??t need it and put an albatross around our neck.ai???
The self destructing Rob Ford, Mayor of Toronto and his all subway dream may soon fade from history, except the fiscal fallout from subway construction will last decades.
Ford’s real quest, of course, was to clear Toronto’s roads of streetcars and/or proposed light rail and even bike lanes to create more road space for cars. In the Ford nation, cars are king.
Like SkyTrain being elevated, subways are built underground with no interface with street traffic. Two immediate problems arise:
- Subways are very costly, both to build and maintain and a subway means that the operating authority can only afford short sections of subways, compared to surface operating light rail.
- Subways are very poor in attracting new ridership, as station spacing is generally much further apart, a subway becomes less convenient to use and what has proven to attract people to public transit is convenience.
If a subway must be built, the general rule of thumb in Europe for the traffic flows necessary to justify the cost of construction, is around 15,000 persons per hour per direction. In North America, where the light rail Renaissance has yet to find its way, subway construction has become one of political prestige, with many cities investing in very expensive subway lines, where much simpler, cheaper and just as efficient LRT would suffice.
This ‘subway mania’Ai?? proposed by Toronto’s Rob Ford, may garner votes in the next election, sadly financial reality of building subways instead of cheaper LRT will not be evident until 30 or 40 years hence.
Rob Fordai??i??s billion-dollar boast not worth a dime
The mayorai??i??s empty boasts reveal a man deeply out of touch with the city he leads
Are TransLink’s Broadway Ridership Claims Valid?
TransLink loves making high ridership claims for its pet bus and SkyTrain routes, but the trouble is, TransLink’s claims are just that, claims. We have seen this sort of nonsense on the Canada Line and now TransLink is claiming that the Evergreen Line or the unfinished portion of the Millennium Line, will carry “70,000 people a day“.
Eric Chris is a professional Engineer, who has applied science to verify TransLink’s ridership claims and has found the claims wanting.
If TransLink has been telling ‘porkies‘ about ridership numbers on Broadway, then one must assume Translink is telling ‘porkies‘ about ridership in general, especially of the Skytrain and Canada lines. Of course TransLink wants to inflate ridership on Broadway, because Translink wants to build a SkyTrain subway under Broadway instead of a surface operating LRT.
The following exert, from a recent letter written by Mr. Chris clearly demonstrates that TransLink’s Broadway ridership claims are like a conjurer’s trick at a sideshow.
Ai??
Many times TransLink has statedAi?? publicly and incorrectly that 100,000 people daily ride transit buses along the Broadway corridor.Ai?? In truth, TransLink has used the number of times that people board or alight buses along the Broadway corridor for the number of people taking buses along the Broadway corridor.Ai?? This is analogous to equating the number of times that a driver gets in or out of his or her vehicle for the number of drivers ai??i?? it is patently wrong.
It is highly improbable for 100,000 people daily to be traveling on transit buses along the Broadway corridor as the SkyTrain and subway lobby would have us believe.Ai?? Every year, UBC publishes data on the number of transit trips to and from UBC along the Broadway corridor.
In 2012, data from UBC indicate that about 15,785 people daily make 31,570 trips on the buses traveling to and from UBC along the Broadway corridor (1,490 + 4,280 + 25,800 /Ai?? = 31,570).Ai??Ai?? Daily, almost all people going to UBC on buses along the Broadway corridor travel once to UBC and then once home.Ai?? That is, people generally make two trips daily, and 15,785 people daily take buses on the round trip to and from UBC along the Broadway corridor (31,570 / 2 = 15,785):
Although other people use the transit buses along the Broadway corridor, UBC is the prime destination of transit users along the Broadway corridor and it is unlikely that another 84,215 people daily ride the buses along the Broadway corridor as TransLink asserts (100,000 ai??i?? 15,785 = 84,215).Ai?? In my calculations in 2011, as reported by TransLink, 14% of the population took transit on approximately 150 transit bus routes in all of Metro Vancouver (323,866 people in all of Metro Vancouver).Ai??
Data in my calculations are correct and the methodologies of my calculations presented are sound and correct, based on first principles.Ai?? Therefore, my calculations verified by numerous professional engineers are correct:
In contrast, without any calculations to support this claim, the SkyTrain land subway lobby’s are saying that almost one-third of all transit users in Metro Vancouver (100,000 people) travel on just four major transit bus routes along the Broadway corridor. This is next to impossible and there has no documentation to substantiated the basis for this claim that 100,000 people daily ride buses along the Broadway corridor.
Yippee, Vancouver Is Number One!
So?
What else is new?
The provincial and regional governments have spent over $9 billion on three mini-metro lines that have done nothing to alleviate congestion; it will be dAi??jAi?? vu with the Evergreen Line and TransLinks still wants more taxpayer’s money to do the same thing again, hoping that it will work this time.
It won’t and until politicians stop building mini-metro to appease developers and as a tool to win elections and as the transit system fails congestion in the region will increase.
Building more highways and bridges will not solve a thing but instead create more road space that will attract more cars, more cars just increases gridlock and the problem gets worse.
The solution is an affordable 300 km or more light rail network servicing the Fraser Valley, providing an affordable transit network that will provide a quality alternative to the car.
Until civic and provincial politicians get their collective heads out of the ground and admit that; “we have been doing it wrong for the past 33 years“, nothing will change, except longer commute times and a transit system that will be unaffordable for the average customer.
Vancouver’s politico’s have always wished that their city to be considered world class by having extremely expensive subways, now their wish has come partly true – they have world class gridlock.
Vancouver edges out Los Angeles for worst traffic congestion in North America: index
Breaking News – More SkyTrain Problems.
As SkyTrain ages, breakdowns become more numerous. It is the bane of most proprietary transit systems.
SkyTrain switch problem causes headache for ridersThe issue in the King George area has been fixedNews1130 Staff November 6, 2013SURREY (NEWS1130) ai??i?? A switch problem in the King George area created system-wide issues for people using the SkyTrain this evening.
ai???What a switch problem does, it controls the tracks, so it communicates the tracks of the train to the control system at the SkyTrain control room,ai??? Jiana Ling with TransLink explains.
Trains on the Expo and Millennium Lines were stopping for five minutes at each station.
Service was restored just after 7 p.m.
http://www.news1130.com/2013/11/06/skytrain-switch-problem-causes-headache-for-riders/
A comment with interesting info.
This morning too at 8:30 train with a door problem. Everyone had to get off at 29th Avenue. System all backed up right at peak time. Totally unacceptable system problems.
TransLink’s Compass Card Boondoggle Revisited
Well, here we go again, new numbers from TransLink clearly shows that the much touted Compass Card is $23 million over budget and Cubit Industries will be paid $12 million annually to operated the system – more money than was thought lost through fare evasion!
So, let’s look at more TransLink expenditures.
*TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis earns $400,000/yr and just got a $12,000 bonus.
*141 TransLink Executives make over six figures.
*TransLink spends $120,000/yr on gourmet coffee for itai??i??s Executives.
*The Compass Card system is $23million over-budget.
*TransLink will generate over $6million annually from riders paying double under the new Compass Card.
Yes, just what Zwei thought, the real problem with Translink is that it has become a trough for management to suck off the taxpayer’s teat and what do those 141 TransLink executives do to deserve being paid over 100,000 a year?
Transparency is another word not in TransLink’s lexicon.
Compass Card upgrade costing extra $23 million: TransLink
CTV British Columbia
Published Thursday, October 10, 2013 9:33PM PDT
Bombardier’s Porto Metro (well it is really LRT) Wins Prize.
Well, Bombardier can build light rail and award winning LRT at that, which is something that will be hard to admit in Vancouver.
The Porto Metro uses Bombardier’s (ABB) Euro and Flexity trams in a combination of subway and at-grade rights-of-ways and there is not even a hint of ALRT/ART automatic operation. There is no SkyTrain in Portugal or even Europe.
So Zwei asks the question; “Why can’t Translink plan regional transit with LRT?“
From Wikipedia: As of 2007, the total cost of Porto Metro mass transitpublic transport system stands on 3,500 million euros – over 1% of Portugal’s GDP. The first phase of the project alone, which was led by the mayors of several Grande Porto (Greater Porto) municipalities including Valentim Loureiro as a chairman of the state-owned company, was 140% more expensive than initially planned which means a slippage of over 1,500 million euros. The Porto Metro state-owned company has reported losses every year, reaching a record loss of 122 million euros in 2006.
An interesting comparison can be made. Vancouver’s 68.6 Skytrain system is said to cost $9 billion to date (Sauder School of Business, UBC); the 70 km Porto LRT/metro system, even with massive cost overruns, costs ai??i??3.5 billion or CAD $4.9 billion, almost one half the cost of Skytrain to build, for a system that is slightly longer. This something that BC’s Auditor General Department should have a look at, considering the nonsense they published this spring.
Affordable transit = light rail, a lesson that still remains unlearned in BC.
Press Release
Monday, November 4, 2013 – 11:15amNovember 4, 2013 /3BL Media/ – Metro do Porto is one of this yearai??i??s winners of the prestigious Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
The prize recognises the infrastructure projectai??i??s positive contribution to the world heritage city of Porto and the quality of life of its people by connecting previously segregated communities.
Together with consortium partners, rail technology leader Bombardier Transportation was responsible for the delivery of a full turnkey light rail system for Metro do Porto.
This included the manufacture of more than 100 BOMBARDIER FLEXITY light rail vehicles, project management, in-house design, installation and commissioning of aAi??BOMBARDIER CITYFLOAi??250 rail control solution.
The system, in operation since 2002, connects seven municipalities in the metropolitan area of Porto and interconnects with the city’s bus and railway networks.
It transports approximately 55 million passengers annually, a number that has grown steadily year on year.
The system has four lines, totalling 70 km (43 miles) with 63 overground and 14 underground stations.
It combines mixed traffic (road and rail) sections, separate full signalling sections with 7 km (4.3 miles) of tunnels and single line sections equipped with passing loops and block signalling.
72 FLEXITYAi??100 per cent low-floor trams and 30 FLEXITY light rail vehicles provide a total capacity of more than 20,000 passengers per hour per direction.
The future success of urban centres rests on re-defining the way people move within and between these expanding social and economic hubs.
In order to sustain economic growth while ensuring the health and quality of life of citizens, cities all over the world are looking for smarter and more environmentally friendly forms of mass transit compared to the historic dependence on individual car transportation.
Bombardier is at the forefront of developing cost-effective technologies that improve total vehicle performance to move more people and goods than ever before efficiently within and between urban centres.
The modes of seamless urban transportation developed by Bombardier include trams, metros and innovative electric mobility solutions for electric rail and road vehicles, while its state-of-the-art rail control solutions reduce the constraints of current networks.
About the Prize
The Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design is the foremost award recognizing achievement in this field.The award was established in 1986 on the occasion of Harvard Universityai??i??s 350th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Nominations for the prize are received from an extensive network of academics and urban design professionals.
The prize is awarded biennially to recognize exemplary urban design projects.
Projects must be more than one building or an open space built anywhere in the world within the last 10 years or so that makes a positive contribution to the public realm of a city and improves the quality of urban life in that context.
The project must also demonstrate a humane and worthwhile direction for the design of urban environments.
Minister Know Nothing
Ministers of Transportation in BC recently have been generally “know-nothings”, as they know very little about transit, public transit, and transportation in general. To keep their highly paid position, they do exactly what the premier tells them to do.
Premier Clark announced a new bridge to replace the Massey tunnel and Minister of Transportation, Todd Stone’s job is to see it done, without asking or answering any questions.
So can Minister Stone answer these questions.
- Will the new bridge be tolled and if so, by how much?
- It seems the Canada Line is now at capacity and is too expensive to extend South of the Fraser, then would it not be expedient to convert the Canada Line EMU’s to LRT and build with much cheaper LRT instead?
- With a 10 lane bridge comes a lot more traffic, but with the bridges from Lulu Island , going North at capacity most of the day, will a new bridge be built across the North Arm servicing Vancouver and/or Burnaby?
- It has been claimed that the Massey Tunnel has a mere 10 years left in its lifespan, is there an independent assessment from an independent engineer to back up the claim?
- On the radio the minister claimed that you can’t have rapid transit without a bridge, then is the new bridge designed to handle the Canada Line, SkyTrain and/or a mainline railway?
- On the subject of rapid transit, does the minister understand that modern light rail has more capacity than SkyTrain and a whole lot more capacity than the Canada Line?
- Will residents of South Delta be exempt from the tolls as most medical infrastructure, especially for cancer patients or the elderly, are centralized in Vancouver and tolling the new bridge will bring a finical hardship on those living on minimum wage or pensions who must visit medial centres on a regular basis; in some cases several times a week?
Of course, if the Minister of Transportation knows nothing, he doesn’t have to answer.
Stone dismisses concerns of Metro mayors about Massey tunnel replacement
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