Late Friday Night’s Musings For Saturday Reading
Zwei, with a cup of tea in hand, has been reading the various transit blogs and answering emailsAi??Ai??from interested parties around the world, trying to get a read onAi??Ai??what direction public transit is going in the near and not so near future. Sadly, I see a trend in North America towards supporting building hugely expensive heavy-rail subway metro systems,
without any consideration for the cost of such a venture. This unrealistic view has tainted our transit planning on this side of the pond to such an extent, that tens of billions of dollars will be wasted on gold plated, over engineered transportation projects, when far cheaper and just as efficient transit solutions would have worked just as well.
The sillinessAi??Ai??I see from professionals supporting hugely expensive, to install and maintain, automatic train control signaling on new rapid transit (LRT is 
not rapid transit) lines, demonstrates a gross naivety on the subject of railway signaling. Has anyone who promotes or supports automatic train control (ATC) ever talked to a signaling engineer? I don’t thinks so by the endless cheer-leading for ATC.
Has anyone compared the operating costs of Vancouver’s SkyTrain with Calgary’s LRT? If they had, they would have found that just the SkyTrain Expo Line costs 60% more to operate (2006) than the Calgary’s C-Train LRT, yet the C-Train carried more customers!
Has anyone thumping the desk for ATC ever stopped and considered that transit systems which include ATC are seldom built and ATC is only used on the heaviest used metro lines where automatic (driverless) operation does save operating costs over older manually operated block signaling?
LRT’s Renaissance started in France in the mid 1980’s, when modern low-floor cars, operating on dedicated or Reserved Rights of Ways, were found to be cheaper to build and
operate than France’s home grown automatic VAL mini-metro. In the 1970’s France only had a handful of elderly tram or streetcar systems, but in 2010, the country boasts 16 operating tram/LRT systems; 9 more under construction; and 5 in later stages of planning!
In the mid 1980’s, metro or subway construction was bankrupting scores of transportation authorities in many countriesAi??Ai??and at one time, there was over 100 km of uncompleted or semi-abandoned subway tunnels throughout Europe! The Chaleroi in BelgiumAi??Ai??being aAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??good example. Though building subways on heavily used transit routes still continues and rightly so, European transit planners have reduced public transitAi??Ai??construction costsAi??Ai??by buildingAi??Ai??new LRT/tram systems. The Germans take top prize for cost efficient public transit with the very successful TramTrain concept.
TramTrain, where streetcars are so designed to track share with mainline railways, see total construction costs well under $10 million/km., a fraction the cost of subway or metro construction, where in some cases see construction costs exceed $500 million/km.!
Yet this is all lost by the many blogs and bloggist who support ATC and denounce LRT as some sort of 19th century folly. What is really sad, is that those supporting subways and ATC, seem completely removed from the real world of finance and financing expensive publicAi??Ai??transit schemes. The fairy tale land of subway planning always include new and higher taxes, yet proponents of subwaysAi??Ai??fail utterly to understand that there is precious little money to fund theirAi??Ai??ever costlier transit plans.
In the end, those supporting automatic metros and their kin, may seeAi??Ai??a line built, but with little chance of much needed expansion in the near or not so near future, while at the same time, much derided Portland keeps expanding its LRT network by about two lines every decade. In an age of peak oil, global warming, and massive urban congestion, it is completely foolish to keepAi??Ai??advocating ‘pie in the sky’ metro projects that in the end, may build one or two line at most (three lines in Vancouver),Ai??Ai?? financially exhausting the taxpayer and not providing a credible alternative to the car.
Those who spend hours condemning LRT with “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics“, fail to grasp historic lessons with light railAi??Ai??and have invented their own little world, where Tom
Swift style $250 million/km.Ai??Ai??or more, driverlessAi??Ai??elevated railways or subways, with all the whistles and bangs,Ai??Ai??are easy to come by and the taxpayer is only too happy to pay more tax to fund transit mega projects.
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Canada Day Fun! London Vintage Trams!
A vintage film of trams in London England.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xc2bsh_london-transport-trams_auto
Light Rail Fits In! Useful Links for LRT
A reader of this blog from the UK has sent Rail For The Valley some very useful links for those advocating for light rail.
Zweisystem send a a hearty thank you!
http://citytransport.info/Street.htm
http://citytransport.info/Zones.htm
http://www.citymayors.com/transport/trams-europe.html
http://www.etcproceedings.org/paper/trams-and-bikes-towards-good-practice-in-light-rail-planning
http://www.isocarp.net/Data/case_studies/1592.pdf
http://www.metrocouncil.org/media/CCLRTstreetscapeFeb09.pdf
http://www.vmwp.com/projects/leland-avenue-streetscape.php
http://www.pdc.us/ura/interstate/kenton.asp
http://lightrailjacksonville.webs.com/whylrti.htm
http://www.totallyriviera.com/nice/content/113
http://www.globalmasstransit.net/archive.php?id=1293
http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/planning/environmental-review/eirs/documents/Appendix_B.pdf
http://www.metro.net/news/simple_pr/metro-hold-streetscape-design-workshop-crenshawlax/
Canada Unveils $1.9bn Public Transit Programme
Edmonton's envisioned light rail network. Does TransLink have the the same vision?
Canada Unveils $1.9bn Public Transit Programme
25 June 2010
Railway technology.com
The Canadian State (Zwei commnets – We do note have states in Canada, we have provinces!) of Alberta has unveiled a C$2bn (US$1.9bn) public transport plan to boost public transit systems in cities and towns to cut down greenhouse gases in the province.
Under the green transit incentives programme (GreenTRIP), the government has earmarked C$800m (US$775m) for Edmonton, C$800m (US$775m) for Calgary and C$400m (US$387m) for other municipalities.
The multiyear programme is expected to make public transport systems more accessible in cities, towns and municipalities.
It also aims to reduce the number of vehicles on roads, consequently reducing the carbon footprint
Edmonton's envisioned light rail network. Does TransLink have the the same vision?
Canada Unveils $1.9bn Public Transit Programme
25 June 2010
Railway technology.com
The Canadian State (Zwei commnets – We do note have states in Canada, we have provinces!) of Alberta has unveiled a C$2bn (US$1.9bn) public transport plan to boost public transit systems in cities and towns to cut down greenhouse gases in the province.
Under the green transit incentives programme (GreenTRIP), the government has earmarked C$800m (US$775m) for Edmonton, C$800m (US$775m) for Calgary and C$400m (US$387m) for other municipalities.
The multiyear programme is expected to make public transport systems more accessible in cities, towns and municipalities.
It also aims to reduce the number of vehicles on roads, consequently reducing the carbon footprint
More Links for Transit oriented Development
Today, more links for TOD in low density areas. My thanks to David Cockle for sending them to Rail for the Valley!
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http://www.drcog.org/index.cfm?page=TODDensity
http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm45.htm
http://tinyurl.com/btacou
http://www.sacrt.com/realestate/TODpage.stm
Smart Growth. A look into Cities, Urban planning, and the Sustainable Movement.
A tram makes a city livable!
A reader of this blog has kindly given ‘Zwei’ some links about Smart Growth around the world and they are very much well worth having a look.
http://smarturbandesign.blogspot.com/2009/04/mall-of-america-and-minneapolis-light.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQQ/is_8_41/ai_81104210/
http://www.friends4expo.org/ltrail.htm
http://www.drcog.org/documents/LRT%20and%20TOD.pdf
http://www.thespec.com/article/717530
http://www.mindspring.com/~tbgray/lrtmaps.htm
Fuel cell tram trial – From the Railway Gazette
After a few false starts in the past decade with numerous railway operators, the Spanish FEVE Railway is experimenting with a fuel-cell powered train on a short non-electrified rail line. For those advocating alternative fuel for the Valley Interurban, it should fell worth noting that the maximum speed than can be achieved with a fuel cell powered train is a mere 25/kph.; hardly the speed needed for a 21st century version of the interurban.
Fuel cell tram trial
24 June 2010
SPAIN: Metre-gauge operator FEVE is planning to start trials with fuel cell traction between Ribadesella and Llovio on its non-electrified Santander – Oviedo route by the end of this year.
A hydrogen fuel cell is to be installed in a 1970s tramcar to power four traction motors, capable of operating at up to 25 km/h and making 15 return trips of 10 km every day.
The fuel cell is being developed by Cidaut, a research foundation specialising in transport and energy that draws on the academic expertise of the University of Valladolid. It weighs 80 kg, including a 10 kg fuel tank.
‘The best thing is that emissions are zero’, project leader Alberto Montes told <cite>El Mundo</cite>. FEVE’s Director of International & Institutional Relations JosA?Ai?? Antonio SebastiA?A?n said that the new technology could be used on future light rail networks.
As well as Cartgena – Los Nietos, where tenders have been called for four vehicles (RG 2.10 p16), FEVE plans to convert routes in Asturias, Galicia and Cantabria to tram-train operations.
Notes on – Broadway merchants want light rail not SkyTrain down business corridor – meeting
A few thoughts on Tuesdays meeting put on by BARSTA regarding transit issues on Broadway or what Zweisystem calls the ‘Broadway Follies’.
First though a comment on Vancouver’s pedestrians; my god does anyone in Vancouver, including pedestrians and cyclists obey the rules of the road? Driving in Vancouver reminded me of some sort of perverted pinball game were people blindly walk across the street against the prevailing road signals. No fewer than five intersections on Tuesday did pedestrians (including one matron with a pram) attempted to cross the street on a red light. This is pureAi??Ai??suicide, yet it seems to have become everyday practice in Vancouver.
It was nice to meet the feisty Susan Heyes, who took on TransLink over cut-and cover construction and won. Also it was good to meet Patrick Condon, Vancouver’s streetcar man, who explained to ‘Zwei’ how he did his study and ‘Zwei’ was impressed. Stephen Rees is always worth the price of admission, as he knows the transit game in the Metro area so well.
The panel did their shtick and the audience were very receptive about light rail/streetcar. There were a few die-hard SkyTrain supporters in the audience and the three most notable were:
- An older lady who wanted much higher density along Broadway, for what ends, she did not elaborate.
- A UBC student who wanted a ‘fast’ subway so he could commute from Coquitlam to UBC to save money by not renting closer to the university.
- A lady who claimed she lived on Cambie St., sang hosannas about the Canada Line and then stormed out of the meeting and drove away!
Donna Dobo and BARSTA have done their homework and with the panel on Tuesday night, are well advised on the issue. I will offer the followingAi??Ai??unsolicited comments:
- DO NOT get involved with the ‘free transit’ debate as it doesn’t work. It has been tried elsewhere and has failed miserably in attracting the motorist from the car.
- BRT or bus rapid transit costs more to operate and only slightly less costly to build than LRT. BRT systems seem to failed to attract the all important motorist from the car.
- Do not let city engineers get their way and take off parking on Broadway. All this means, for all their hype and hoopla, is that their transit planning concedes that they will not attract car drivers to transit.
- All new LRT lines being built also involve traffic calming, either passive or active, reducing auto capacity on Broadway is passive auto calming.
- The speed issue for transit is a non issue as all transit lines are as fast as they are designed to be. Because a surface LRT system will have stops every 500m to 600m versus a subway with stops everyAi??Ai??KM. or so, the commercial speed of LRT will be about 10 kph slower than metro.
- If a subway is built, electric trolley buses on Broadway will be replaces by smelly and health threatening diesel buses. Diesel particulate is a carcinogen.
- Unless the Broadway subway is built to regular heavy rail subway standards, the capacity of a SkyTrain subway and LRT would be about the same.
- City staff should really try to educate themselves on light rail, I continue to be absolutely appalled by city planners and engineers who are absolutely clueless on the subject, despite modern light rail being the most popular form of ‘rail‘ transit in the world.
Also sad to say is the the so-called intelligentsia at UBC still carry on with their puerile anti-LRT stance and still treat professors who champion cheaper and just efficient light rail as some latter day Luddites. It’s a sad statement on an institution which, it seems, has lost its way.
In conversation with the intrepid Susan Heyes, it seems through her research, the real cost of the RAV/Canada Line to date is about $2.8 billion – not including compensation or court cases. Also, it seems several people were quietly compensated by TransLink over RAV/Canada line construction, but somehow, their names have been blanked out on documents received from (not so) Freedom of Information!
An interesting night, a full house bodes well for BARSTA’s efforts in the future!
For the original news article:
Broadway merchants want light rail not SkyTrain down business corridor
Broadway merchants want light rail not SkyTrain down business corridorBy Tamara Baluja, The Province June 22, 2010A coalition of merchants and residents opposed to the building of a SkyTrain line along VancouverA?ai??i??ai???s Broadway corridor rolled ahead with a meeting Tuesday to discuss alternatives.
About 120 people packed the meeting held by the Business and Residents Association for Sustainable Transportation Alternatives (BARSTA) at the St. James Community Square in Kitsilano.
Donna Dobo, a business owner who attended, is concerned that she will be A?ai??i??Ai??squeezed out of businessA?ai??i??A? during construction.
Dobo has been operating a costume store called Just Imagine at the Broadway Avenue location for 22 years. A?ai??i??Ai??Business is good, but I donA?ai??i??ai???t know if I could survive three to four years of construction with no foot traffic,A?ai??i??A? Dobo said. A?ai??i??Ai??A tunnel construction with huge craters would completely destroy us.A?ai??i??A?
Broadway merchants, such as Dobo, are concerned that SkyTrain construction like the Canada Line on Cambie Street would be detrimental to business. She, along with a contingent of like-minded merchants, would rather opt for a street-level electric system with stops to encourage passengers to use BroadwayA?ai??i??ai???s shops.
Several Cambie Street owners are involved in a class-action lawsuit for damages, claiming the decision to use a cut-and-cover construction method instead of a bored tunnel resulted in problems that hurt businesses. Mel Lehan, a Kitsilano resident and co-founder of BARSTA, said he remains very concerned that a A?ai??i??Ai??transit system will be imposedA?ai??i??A? upon them without consultation. A?ai??i??Ai??I think [TransLink has] already decided to build a SkyTrain,A?ai??i??A? Lehan said.
But TransLinkA?ai??i??ai???s Ken Hardie dismissed the notion. A?ai??i??Ai??I honestly donA?ai??i??ai???t know where they got that idea that a SkyTrain is the front-runner,A?ai??i??A? Hardie said. A?ai??i??Ai??We are looking at a variety of options.A?ai??i??A?
Hardie said a complete list of options for the 12-kilometre extension between Commercial Drive and the University of B.C. will be given to city council within the next two weeks. A?ai??i??Ai??WeA?ai??i??ai???ve been doing consultations with the community in a very robust manner,A?ai??i??A? Hardie said.
Although a cost analysis will not be completed until the proposals are submitted to city council, Hardie said he hopes that the UBC and Surrey lines will be extended within the next 10 years.
Meanwhile, Jerry Dobrovolny, assistant city engineer of transportation, confirmed that council passed a motion in 2008 stating a preference for the bored-tunnel approach under Broadway or 10th avenues.
Despite the rising concern over the future of the Broadway corridor being raised, transportation economist and regional planner Stephen Rees assured the meetingA?ai??i??ai???s attendees that worrying is all for naught. A?ai??i??Ai??TransLink canA?ai??i??ai???t afford to build anything right now . . . They canA?ai??i??ai???t even afford to run more lines on the already overcrowded Ai??Ai??Canada Line,A?ai??i??A? said Rees, a former planner with the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority.
Citing the non-existent Evergreen Line and other proposed projects, Rees advocated TransLink look at creating a regional transportation system that includes outlying, rapidly growing cities like Surrey and Langley. A?ai??i??Ai??ItA?ai??i??ai???s very scientific. ItA?ai??i??ai???s very interesting but itA?ai??i??ai???s not real,A?ai??i??A? he said of TransLinkA?ai??i??ai???s proposals. A?ai??i??Ai??They canA?ai??i??ai???t afford to build anything here any time soon.A?ai??i??A?
An Interesting Post From Net Density – American Changes to Transit funding
I wish we could apply the same criteria to our ‘rail‘ transit planning.
- Economic development
- Mobility improvements
- Environmental benefits
- Operating efficiencies
- Cost effectiveness
- Land use
What, no mention of increasing population density? I wonder why?
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Could new FTA A?ai??i??Ai??livabilityA?ai??i??A? funding rules change Southwest LRT route?
Posted by Brendon on January 30, 2010
The big news this week is that the planned Central Corridor LRT line will get three new stations between Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and the reason seems to be the new FTA rules which relax the sole focus on cost-effectiveness from travel time savings to include broader goals of A?ai??i??Ai??livabilityA?ai??i??Ai??.Ai??Ai?? With the three new stations, the project would not have met a A?ai??i??Ai??mediumA?ai??i??A? rating for cost-effectiveness, and therefore would not likely not have been funded by the FTA under the old rules.
What implication might this have for the planned Southwest LRT line and its contested route?Ai??Ai?? ItA?ai??i??ai???s hard to say, but it certainly seems like the alternative routes should be re-assessed under the new formula before telling the feds that 3A is the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA).Ai??Ai?? More below the break.
Project planners say that ridership and travel time savings on 3A and 3C are very similar, and that the difference between the two is cost (capital, not operating cost).Ai??Ai?? This seems to be exactly the type of situation that the Obama administration and the FTA had in mind with this rule change:Ai??Ai?? projects for which a potentially less-desirable route or design was chosen, simply to meet CEI requirements.Ai??Ai?? Decision-makers for Southwest LRT are on the record as saying they were constrained by the CEI, and one would hope they would be happy to be able to re-evaluate the route choices using a broader measure of benefits.
According to the U.S. Secretary of TransportationA?ai??i??ai???s blog, Fast Lane, the new criteria that projects will be evaluated by include:
- Economic development
- Mobility improvements
- Environmental benefits
- Operating efficiencies
- Cost effectiveness
- Land use
(I would suggest that federal rule-makers consider accessibility improvements rather than just mobility, but perhaps this can be reflected in A?ai??i??Ai??land useA?ai??i??A?.)
The traditional cost-effectiveness for travel time measure remains in the mix, but is no longer the be-all, end-all.Ai??Ai?? Again, what these changes will actually mean is still to be determined as part of a rule-making process, but if they can have such a big impact on Central Corridor, a project that is now in the engineering phase, it certainly seems like Southwest project planners should be taking a careful look at which route will score best under the new rules.Ai??Ai?? Under at least one of the criteria, economic development, the 3A route is not looking nearly as promising lately, while the Uptown area remains a destination for business development, even during the worst recession since the Great Depression.
The LPA is not officially chosen until May of 2010, when the Met Council will amend its Transportation Policy Plan to include it.Ai??Ai?? Before that happens, two public meetings will be held and a comment period will be opened to receive public comments on the LPA.Ai??Ai?? According to the SW LRT website, the first meeting during which the comment period will be opened is February 24th.Ai??Ai?? Now is the time to make sure that planners are thinking about the new funding guidelines.
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