When Transport Minister Omar Alghabra appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on January 12, he said he wasn’t hiding from the multiple meltdowns of Canada’s airlines and VIA Rail over the Christmas holidays. But he was.
Alghabra and his government are hiding from an inevitable confrontation with more than a century of political and corporate blunders that are now cumulatively causing Canada’s transportation “chickens” to come home to roost. The storms that hit B.C. and eastern Canada at Christmas revealed we have a disjointed, ineffective and subsidy-soaked system that lacks resiliency and reliability.
Decades of indiscriminate public funding, self-destructive competition between the modes and little accountability are just a few of the reasons for a series of transportation failures affecting Canada economically, socially and environmentally.
It started at the dawn of the railway era in the mid-19th century. Promoters required public assistance to build costly railways in a far-flung, sparsely populated and physically punishing country. Pliant governments provided land grants, cash subsidies, loans and bond guarantees for these capital-intensive lines, often because they saw votes in railway building. Their quid pro quo for this public assistance included route changes to serve certain ridings and freight rate reductions to buy voter favour.
If politicians couldn’t get private railways to take on politically expedient railways, they created government corporations to do it, usually with dire financial, patronage and operational consequences. Two examples were the poorly located Intercolonial Railway from Quebec to Halifax and the recklessly optimistic National Transcontinental Railway from Moncton to Winnipeg on a route through traffic-thin northern Quebec and Ontario.
When all but the Canadian Pacific (CP) strands of this overbuilt web of rails collapsed between 1917 and 1923, Ottawa created Canadian National (CN) to fuse and fix the bankrupt railways and the government lines … and then encouraged further network growth.
As the 1933 Royal Commission on Transportation observed, CP responded “in the ways habitual to all competitive railways” by expanding, often with public assistance.
By the time this second overinflated railway scheme deflated in the depression of the 1930s, the automobile was well on its way to a position of mass popularity. Provincial politicians rushed to fund highways to ensure votes by breaking what they invariably described as the railway monopoly. Trucking went along on this taxpayer-funded ride, gobbling up more and more railway freight revenue as the highway system grew at public expense.
Soon after the subsidized highway steamroller was born, the feds began to generously fund airports and air services. Transport Minister C.D. Howe quashed a CP/CN plan to launch a jointly-owned airline coordinated with their trains, steamships and hotels. Instead, he compelled CN to help establish a government-owned airline, Trans-Canada Airlines (TCA), which competed with the struggling passenger trains of both railways.
To keep this predecessor of Air Canada financially aloft, Howe ordered much of the mail shifted from the trains to his loss-making airline at a high cost to the post office, starting with the high revenue first class mail, even on routes where TCA’s planes couldn’t get it to its destination any faster than the network of overnight trains then being operated by CP and CN. This infuriated the postmaster general, who had to explain the high costs and low revenues of this “all-up” first-class mail program when he was grilled by the unenlightened members of various parliamentary committees.
The political rush to fund aviation and highways not only drove transportation spending skyward before and after the Second World War, but it also made a mockery of the concept of reasonable cost recovery from public investment and destabilized the railways.
This toxic transportation brew has been repeated many times since. It continues today. Billions in non-recoverable funding went to so-called pandemic relief support for some portions – but not all – of the transportation system. This has been accompanied by announcements of public-private partnership mega projects, such as VIA’s high-frequency rail proposal for the Quebec-Windsor Corridor. This dream scheme has received nearly $1 billion in federal advances and commitments without even producing a plan. If built, it would require an amount the transport minister refuses to even estimate.
“One of these days, somebody will have to sit down and figure out what transportation we need, and what we can afford,” a member of the Board of Transport Commissioners told a reporter in 1961.
Sixty-two years later, that overdue decision still hasn’t been made. Instead, Transport Minister Alghabra offers platitudes and promises of dazzling future projects when corrective, non-partisan action is urgently required. The Christmas travel meltdowns and rising public anger prove that.
Will this long-standing national transportation dilemma ever be decisively resolved? Will our elected officials ever smarten up and perhaps take some rudimentary courses in transportation and public finance? Hiding from the truth and rearranging the deck chairs on Canada’s transportation equivalent of the R.M.S. Titanic yet another time isn’t the answer. It never was.
After $30 Billion is Spent on SkyTrain – Metro Vancouver 2nd Spot For Worst Traffic
It is the old story, spend $billions$ dollars spent on SkyTrain light metro and traffic gets worse.
Memo to Premier Eby and TransLink: ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.’”
Metro Vancouver takes 2nd spot for worst metro traffic in North America: TomTom
By Charlie Carey and Robyn Crawford
Feb 22, 2023
Metro Vancouver is making a name for itself on the world stage once again, this time, for not such illustrious reasons. The area has been named the second worst metro area for traffic in North America.
Vancouver has also taken the fourth spot in having the worst traffic in North America.
The TomTom Traffic Index, released Wednesday, shared its rankings for 2022, and lists locations on how long it takes to travel 10 km within city limits.
The index found Vancouverites average about 22 minutes and 30 seconds to travel the distance.
CityNews 1130 Morning Show Traffic Anchor Ryan Lidemark says he’s noticed traffic has gotten worse in Metro Vancouver since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I would say in the last 10, 11 months, traffic is back to their pre-COVID [levels] or even worse,” he said.
The index says the average driver in Vancouver spends almost 200 hours a year in rush-hour traffic. Drivers in Mexico City were found to have the worst driving times in North America, followed by New York and Toronto.
When compared to metro areas, Metro Vancouver ranked second in North America, just behind Mexico City, with Halifax in third.
Lidemark notes that the high housing and real estate costs mean many have to live farther out and commute into business centres.
“Many people have moved during the pandemic, and also with the cost of living the Lower Mainland people are going farther and farther,” he said. “Now you see people from deep in the valley, people commuting from Chilliwack, into Vancouver, people from Abbotsford. So, it definitely makes a difference, especially going towards the Port Mann Bridge.”
However, Lidemark thinks Highway 1 has always been bad for traffic.
“I would say in the last 10, 11 months, traffic is back to their pre-COVID [levels] or even worse,” he said.
The index says the average driver in Vancouver spends almost 200 hours a year in rush-hour traffic. Drivers in Mexico City were found to have the worst driving times in North America, followed by New York and Toronto.
When compared to metro areas, Metro Vancouver ranked second in North America, just behind Mexico City, with Halifax in third.
Lidemark notes that the high housing and real estate costs mean many have to live farther out and commute into business centres.
“Many people have moved during the pandemic, and also with the cost of living the Lower Mainland people are going farther and farther,” he said. “Now you see people from deep in the valley, people commuting from Chilliwack, into Vancouver, people from Abbotsford. So, it definitely makes a difference, especially going towards the Port Mann Bridge.”
However, Lidemark thinks Highway 1 has always been bad for traffic.
“It was designed just for people going out of town or going deep in the valley, it wasn’t designed for commuting like is done now,” he said. “They weren’t planning on that many people living out that way. And now, you have a flow, and they’re expanding the highway from 264th towards the Port Mann Bridge but that’s still going to be about another seven or eight years.”
“It was designed just for people going out of town or going deep in the valley, it wasn’t designed for commuting like is done now,” he said. “They weren’t planning on that many people living out that way. And now, you have a flow, and they’re expanding the highway from 264th towards the Port Mann Bridge but that’s still going to be about another seven or eight years.”
The Coward’s Way Out
Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results
The preceding quote, often misattributed to Einstein, conveys the huge financial issues facing TransLink.
The provincial government’s bailout of TransLink, to a tune of $479 million, is nothing more than per-election politics as a financially floundering TransLink, does make good politics at election time.
The real problem is that former customers are not coming back to transit as predicted and with two very questionable and very expensive transit projects being built, lack of customers may prove very embarrassing in the future.
The $11 billion Broadway subway, Expo line extension to Langley and rehab, will look quite silly if no one uses them.
Instead of facing TransLink’s real problems including a proliferation of electric cars (no gas tax), remote working, and of course a very user unfriendly transit system.
In my local, the transit service, except for the express buses to the ferry, are mainly used by students (cheap fares, including the U-Pass) and those who do not have access to a car. The elderly have all but stopped taking transit, simply because it has become so user unfriendly.
Demographic change has also changed the playing field as more and more business are leaving Vancouver to cheaper operations up the valley. Uber and other like ride-hailing services are also eating away at TransLink’s core business.
Yesterday’s destinations are growing thinner every year and except for post secondary institutions, such as UBC and SFU (which students have the universal $1 a day U-Pass, which also adds to TransLink’s financial woes), taking transit becomes more and more user unfriendly.
Instead of facing facts, the Premier and the Minister of Transportation, abetted by the Mayor’s Council on Transit are doubling down, with photo-op ready, politically prestigious transit projects and not designing a regional transit system that will naturally attract ridership for the future.
By doing the same thing over again, and expecting different results is a coward’s way out.
From News 1130
B.C. spending $479M to stabilize TransLink fares
Posted Mar 15, 2023
The B.C. government is stepping in to bail out TransLink from financial shortfalls that could have led to service reductions.
Premier David Eby announced the $479 million cash infusion on Wednesday, saying it will go toward things like infrastructure, avoiding service cuts, and keeping free transit for kids under 12 years old.
“Hundreds of thousands of people rely on TransLink’s service every day to get to work, travel to school, and access all parts of the region,” Eby said. “Failing to act now would lead to higher fares, fewer buses on the road, and reduced service across the board. We won’t let that happen.”
B.C. Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Rob Fleming says the province will continue working with the federal government for future funding partnerships to help the transit company.
“Given TransLink’s significant and immediate needs, the Province is taking action with this funding stabilization to address TransLink’s short-term operating funding needs, preventing layoffs and maintaining transit services that will create jobs and reduce traffic congestion and air pollution, which benefits residents and visitors to Metro Vancouver,” he said.
Last month, the Metro Vancouver Mayors’ Council called for a $250 million investment from the federal government, which would be matched by the province.
Brad West, chair of the council and mayor of Port Coquitlam, says he welcomes Wednesday’s funding announcement.
“Every day almost 400,000 Metro Vancouver residents use our transit system. These are regular people trying to get to work or school, or go to a hockey game or a park, all of whom expect governments to keep them moving with good, reliable transit,” he said.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, TransLink has received over $850 million in government assistance due to decreased ridership, going from about 450 million users in 2019, to 200 million in both 2020 and 2021.
Canada Line Deja Vu
Subways tend to cause ground subsidence and when two two cylindrical tunnel boring machines (TBMs), six metres wide and weighing around a million kilograms, gnaws away underground, subsidence will occur.
Memo to Rob Fleming, Minister of Transportation: It is not vibrations you should be worried about, it is subsidence as the tunnel boring machine chews through the earth below.
TransLink knows this.
The City of Vancouver knows this.
The provincial government, especially the Minister of Transportation knows this.
Yet, no compensation for business owners when the TBM causes issues to their building.
Pretending its not our fault just does not cut it.
Government just does not give a damn.
TransLink, the city of Vancouver and the provincial government, having learned nothing with the Canada Line fiasco, blunder ahead with the subway, with a “what me worry” attitude.
Premier Eby is spending billions of dollars on politcal friends and insiders, to buy himself an election, while ignoring the business folk on Broadway and flipping the bird at their woes.
The NDP, as always, never understood public transit, other than a politcal tool to garner votes at election time.
Vancouver businesses close as heritage building façade crumbles
Hub And Spoke Transit Planning – Is TransLink ‘s Planning Out of Date?
A subway here, an elevated guideway in the countryside there, begs the question: “Has TransLink badly erred with their transit planning.”
TransLink is completely hooked on the “hub and spoke” philosophy of transit, where buses bring passenger to light metro hubs, to be transported to another transport hub, and the either arrive or take another bus to their destination.
Hub and Spoke transit planning
Contrary to the myth that transit must be fast to garner ridership, the hub and spoke philosophy of transit is time consuming when one adds the walk/wait time to get a bus; then the time on the bus, then the time waiting for a train and the more time if one must again transfer onto another bus.
A local example.
Zwei used to commute daily by bus from South Delta to downtown Vancouver and the entire trip took between 45 to 60 minutes depending on the time of day and traffic. The express buses used to have standing room only and it was not uncommon to be left at the curbside because the bus was full.
Then came the Canada line and part of the P-3 contract was a nasty little clause that made all downtown Vancouver buses, forcibly transfer their customers onto the Canada Line, at Bridgeport Station to complete their journey to Vancouver. For added insult, where prior to the Canada Line, there was direct bus service to Richmond Centre from South Delta, with the Canada Line Richmond bound customers were forced to travel by the Canada Line, again forced to Transfer to the Canada Line then doubling back to Richmond Centre. By forcing customers to transfer onto the Canada Line, added 10 to 15 minutes to ones journey time going to downtown Vancouver and increasing journey times by as much as 30 to 45 minutes going to South Delta!
This put a lie from TransLink that customers would save about 10 minutes in travel time using the new route.
Ten years after the Canada Line opened South Delta Express buses are a quarter full and service has been cut back to a 1990’s level of service as customers have voted with their feet by avoiding transit. TransLink is unrepentant and refuses to address customer’s wants.
In 2019 Zwie was held up by 90 minutes at the stark Bridgeport Station on a very windy and cold Saturday afternoon, due to cancelled buses and unannounced changes made by management. No help was offered to the large contingent of marooned passengers: management did not give a damn.
I have never used a bus since and I am not alone.
I have been told privately by neighbours and long time acquaintances in South Delta of many similiar experiences, with management ignoring customers and in the end, TransLink loses both customers and any hint of public support.
No wonder TransLink is held in high odor by the taxpayer.
It is also important to note that South Delta now has a lot of electric cars, with a recent survey at the local shopping centre, every fourth parked car was electric.
Is the electric car taking ridership away from transit?
From my somewhat experienced eye, it seems to me that the locals have turned their back on transit and instead have gone electric.
This does not bode well for future transit investment.
TransLink wants $20 billion in coming years to both expand and operate the regional transit system, but with the majority of public, seeing TransLink in such a vile light, I doubt they will not get public sympathy and the politicians trying to sell TransLink to taxpayer may find themselves out of office with a populace fed up with TransLink’s insatiable lust for money, but providing a mediocre service outside the Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster nexus.
Thus the question remains: Is TransLink ‘s planning out of date?
Wise Words
Zwei belongs to several transit oriented groups.
The following is from the LRPPro group, which is made mainly of experts in the field of public transport and well worth a read.
The big question for me is: Is today’s transit tech be tomorrow’s transit tech? Those questions should be asked, lest we again invest in a proprietary technology and continue building and using it, when the rest of the world (and manufactures) have moved on?
PRT was the flavour of the month for transit nirvana in 1971!
I have a degree in this industry and ran both para-transit and mainline bus systems as well as owning a bus company at one time so think I have run into every or most every new gizmo that has come down the pike in the past 60yrs or so. and am pretty into the history of the industry.
Batteries are getting better all the time, from lead acid to nicad to lithium ion to lithium iron phosphate etc. and maybe the next one will be from what is now unobtainium. I have no doubt the tech will improve. but will human nature improve along with it.
To play devils advocate here for a bit.
. Electric rail systems will continually run into NIMBY and cost constraints especially as they become more complex. Some countries for legal or social reasons will always have an “operator” if only to watch the computer controls. Where fully autonomous has been used there has been a lot of push back, with the possible exceptions of airport shuttle vehicles.
. Trunk electric buses may become more and more BEB but ground level charging would have to overcome some basic laws of physics to be seriously practical, just look up the function of distance between charging plates and amount of loss of power. will we have that much power available to us to waste 90% to cover a 2cm air gap?? so far no one has found a way around the air-gap problem (except maybe N. Tesla and he took that to his grave unless we can rediscover it).
. AV shuttles of any type have run into a conflict with accessibility laws which in many cases require human intervention. and the mobility technology is getting so varied and complex that automatic systems are not reliable or damage equipment. and as someone who is heavily invested in that industry on a personal basis I see it getting more complex not less so.
Then there are a few “little” things like
. Unions
. Getting sufficient highly skilled workers to maintain this equipment and their salaries
. Parochial rules and laws from country to country and even city to city.
And some that I haven’t thought or overlook or that will surface as this issue progresses.
The number of new items that will come along such as the monorail or Maglev, or does anyone remember the all wonderful Aerobus system, and of course everyone thinks we will have flying cars in our driveways tomorrow (What about that pesky pilots license needed to use them off the ground, I have a pilots license and know how hard they are to get).
I am not saying there won’t be all of these things but even the diesel engine took years to become common in many parts of the world, in fact in many places it is still not the most common with gasoline engines powering many transit vehicles especially in third world countries where diesel fuel is very expensive or hard to obtain.
The future is coming but I doubt we will recognize it as anything we predicted. (Heck I probably won’t live long enough to see it, unless major medical breakthroughs) Battery tech will have a place in our future, the flashlight is over 100yrs old but except for the newer LED bulbs how much has it changed. The basic bus or rail vehicle has changed very little in it’s base dimensions in 200 yrs, I would say standard gauge but that depends on were you are since standard gauge is different.
Here is the USA on the North East Corridor rail route of Amtrak from Washington DC to Boston complex engines are required because 3 different electric systems are used depending on who built the original. and in Europe change of voltage is routine.
One of my concerns is proprietary battery tech, will a BYD battery work on a New Flyer or Protera or ? Will transit systems be “locked” into a single provider of proprietary technology (such as Vancouver?). I have seen it happen and it costs lots of money, ask TransLink in Vancouver Canada, and even in New York city why they need different subway car designs for the numbered vs lettered routes. Who will set the standard and will it work internationally.
Enough you get the point and this isn’t just BEB but applies to LRT and many things outside the transit industry; example:I have many battery operated tools, so why can’t the batteries in my Makita work in a Ryobi etc.
Metro Vancouver’s Metro Mania
The following article is eerily familiar with TransLink’s continued building of light metro, especially subway construction. In Australia the state of New south Wales is spending AUD $11 billion (CAD $10.1 billion to build 23 km of rail line that will not generate the ridership that would demand such an expenditure, while Metro Vancouver is spending $11 billion to build 21.7 km extensions to the Expo and Millennium lines, which again, will not have the ridership to justify the expenditure.
Some time before Bombardier’s rail division was sold to Alstom, Bombardier publicly stated on its website that, it did not recommend the ART/Innovia technology for peak period passenger levels bellow 8000 passengers/hour/direction.
Peak hour traffic flows on the almost $3 billion, 5.7 km subway is estimated under 5,000 pphpd! Ditto for the Surrey to Langley Expo Line extension!
Modern light rail, costing up to ten times less to build, can economically carry traffic loads between 2,000 to over 20,000 persons per hour per direction.
This quote from our friend Mr. Haveacow from 2015, is extremely relevant in 2023,
The real embarrassing thing is what happened with Bombardier’s website. I have been pointing out to anyone who had been willing to listen that, the INNOVIA Automatic Metro line section of Bombardier’s website was moved out of the rail vehicle section into transportation systems section. Well just before John retired a big s***storm about the website had occurred. Turns out that, both representatives from Kuala Lampur and Vancouver had both been wanting to ask why their rail vehicles were not in the rail vehicle section of the website. They were told that, even though they were both highly valued long time customers and Bombardier would always be willing to design a replacement vehicle for them. It was just more advantageous for them to have the INNOVIA product as a stand alone complete transportation system product because so few people had ordered the technology compared to Bombardier’s other rail vehicle lines. Very few would be looking for just replacement vehicles and they (Bombardier) assumed that your transit people would just call them directly because there are no other compatible technologies that you would be able to order, technically. The simple translation, you can’t call anyone else our propulsion technology only works with our vehicle designs although, there are others that use LIM propulsion it would be a very expensive option. John was not sure and seriously doubts that, there was a legal requirement that the current users must order from Bombardier unless, they Bombardier does not offer an equivalent product!
Today, SkyTrain or MALM, is Alstom’s problem and with a ‘foreign’ light metro system in their stud of light-metros and only one customer, time will run down quickly for the proprietary transit system, which means costs will rise sourcing scarce replacement parts for the almost orphaned mini-metro.
As SkyTrain light metro’s construction costs escalate upwards and needed refurbishment done piecemeal, Metro Vancouver’s version of “Metro Mania” is costing the taxpayer dearly and in a time of high inflation and taxes, poses the question:
“Will Metro Vancouver’s extremely expensive metro mania ever stop?”
Is subway construction worth the cost?
Metro mania’: Former top NSW rail exec says train mega-projects lack rationale
By Matt O’Sullivan
February 20, 2023
The man who masterminded the train timetable for the Sydney Olympics warns the city’s multibillion-dollar metro rail projects risk delivering limited benefits to commuters despite their staggering price tags.
In what he terms “metro mania”, former top NSW rail executive Dr Dick Day argues the state government is rushing to commit to massive rail projects in Sydney for which there is “little rationale”.
One of the twin tunnels on the Metro City and Southwest rail line.Credit:Brook Mitchell
He describes as a “gross misuse of public funds” the $11 billion to be spent on a 23-kilometre rail line from St Marys to Western Sydney Airport because it would “see quite limited use”. Infrastructure Australia also warned two years ago that the cost of the airport line would far outweigh the benefits.
Day, a former general manager of planning and timetable development at RailCorp, expects people will travel primarily by car to the new airport after it opens in late 2026, and that a network of express buses would initially provide the best form of public transport access.
In a paper for Sydney University, Day said Sydney’s “metro mania” was destined to be an “extremely expensive and poorly thought through experiment” which would be “found wanting as a cost-effective means of enhancing” the city’s public transport network.
“Sydney’s proposed metro projects represents very poor use of what were once considered scarce public funds,” he warned. “The willingness to commit public money to such poorly conceived projects raises disturbing questions about financial governance within NSW.”
The cost of constructing three new metro rail lines in Sydney, as well as the Metro Northwest which opened in 2019, is estimated at $63 billion.
Day argues it is reckless to keep committing vast sums of money to extra metro rail lines because of a “very real possibility” that peak-hour commuting by train never returns to pre-pandemic levels.
He warns Sydney is out of step with London, Melbourne and Brisbane, where new rail tunnels under the heart of those cities will accommodate existing train services at improved frequencies and offer relief for their networks. Sydney’s metro rail lines run driverless single-deck trains, and other types of passenger and freight trains cannot operate on them.
Day, who was responsible for mapping out and planning train services that contributed to Sydney’s successful 2000 Olympics, is also critical of plans for a $27 billion line from the CBD to Parramatta known as Metro West.
He warns that most passengers travelling towards central Sydney from the outer west by rail will have boarded double-decker trains at stations further west of Parramatta, and will not change there to catch services on Metro West, which would have only one main station in the CBD. In comparison, the existing western line serves three CBD stations.
Premier Dominic Perrottet, centre, with Metropolitan Roads Minister Natalie Ward and Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan last week.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
“There has been an unprecedented rush by the government to lock in the construction of these projects despite a very poor understanding of their costs and benefits. This has taken place at a time when commuting patterns have shifted considerably following COVID-19,” he wrote.
Premier Dominic Perrottet last week re-committed to planning for an expansion of metro rail in Sydney’s outer west, including between St Marys and Tallawong, near Rouse Hill, if his government is re-elected, four years after his predecessor Gladys Berejiklian outlined similar plans.
Regional Mayors Want A new Funding Model, Instead They Need A New Planning Model
It seems our regional mayors have been smoking some good weed because they want $20 billion for transit and playing the old gambit that transit is really a Social Service, a human right.
That sort of thinking has gotten us where we are today: a massively expensive transit system that does not attract new ridership, especially the motorist from the car.
There is a steady downward trend for transit mode share in Metro Vancouver
In most other cities around the world, there would be serious questions asked of TransLink, TransLink’s management and those who make the final decisions. Instead the mayors are going full throttle demanding $20 billion to continue doing the same thing over again, hoping different results.
With climate change and global warming posing an ever greater danger, investing $20 billion into a somewhat discredited regional transit system, tells me that the Mayor’s Council on Transit really do not have a clue about transit, transit finances or why our current public transit system is not popular.
I sent the following letter sent to Delta’s Mayor and Council concerning TransLink’s current spin on a rail service for the Fraser Valley, commenting on a news story in the local paper.
Mayor and Council members;In the Optimist’s digital edition, an article by Sandor Gyarmati, “Interurban Rail Not on The Horizon for Delta”, underlines TransLink’s excuse for not looking at operating as regional railway using the old interurban line is” that the interurban line does not advance regional objectives as well as other options……………”.*I do understand TransLink’s objections to reinstating a passenger service on the former BC Electric line and it has nothing to do about “regional objectives and other options”, rather it is their fear and embarrassment that 130 km $1.4 billion regional rail route, operating at a maximum of three trains per hour, will attract far more new customers to transit than the current $4.5 billion to $5 billion, 16 km Expo Line extension to Langley.*In 2009 through my efforts and contacts, the Rail for the Valley group engaged Leewood Projects (UK) to do an independent analysis on the viability reestablishing a passenger service from Vancouver to Chilliwack via the old BC Electric interurban line which is still in use today. Leewood projects were very thorough with the study and networked both with Canadian professional engineers and Transport Canada in producing a credible document.*In 2010, Rail for the Valley and Leewood released the “Leewood Study” which showed that such a rail service was viable and could be built with costs ranging from $500 million for a basic 90 km. Scott Road Station to Chilliwack Line to $1 billion for a fully electrified 130 km Vancouver to Chilliwack route. These costs also include the vehicles.*The Stadler Flirt DMU, used in Ottawa. 81 metres long, the vehicle Can be upgraded to hydrogen power by purchasing a hydrogen power pack, now being developed. The Sadler Flirt has a seating capacity of 224, versus 132 seats for a Movia Automatic Light Metro (SkyTrain) 4-car train. Seating capacity is extremely important for attracting transit customers, especially on longer distance trips. The Stadlertrains can operate in multiple units, doubling seating capacity.*Updated, to 2023 the cost would be $700 million to $1.4 billion respectively. The latest cost for the 16 km Expo line extension is $4.1 billion for the guideway and $500 million to $1 billion needed for the Operations and Maintenance Centre #5, which must be built and in operation by the time the extension opens. This cost does not include vehicles nor the now over $3 billion rehab needed to both the Expo and Millennium Lines before they can carry capacities over the current legal Limit (Transport Canada’s Operating certificate) of 15,000 persons per hour per direction. Already the signalling and automatic train control systems are being replaced with a contract let for $1.7 billion last fall. Tthe electrical supply must be both renewed and upgraded at a cost much higher than the resignalling cost and as of yet, no contracts have been let for this necessary work.*When one includes the Broadway subway and much needed rehab, the real cost to extend the Expo and Millennium lines a mere 21.7 km, is in the neighbourhood of $11 billion, not including vehicles!*You can see TransLink embarrassment and why they do not want anything to do with reactivating a passenger service on the former BC Electric Line as it would provide a far better service for many more people at a far cheaper cost to the taxpayer.*The BC Electric Line would serve not only Vancouver and new Westminster, but North Delta/Surrey, Central Surrey, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Huntington/Sumas (US Border Crossing), Yarrow/Vedder/Sardis (gateway to Cultus lake) and Chilliwack. The line almost gives front door service to KPU Cloverdale and the proposed major hospital in Cloverdale, KPU in Langley, Trinity Western University, Gloucester Estates Business park, Abbotsford International Airport, downtown Langley and Abbotsford and the burgeoning communities Yarrow/Sardis and Chilliwack. The tourist aspect of the line has been ignored by TransLink completely!*The journey time matrix from the Leewood Study from Scott Road to Chilliwack, with a trough journey time of 90.5 minutes.
It is easy to see, with the RftV/Leewood Study and plan, we would get 8 times more rail mileage for one third of the cost of a 16 km light-metro extension to Langley, which, according to TransLink, will carry fewer customers than the current Broadway B-Line bus!
*Rail for the Valley continues to be in contact with real transportation professionals who have expertise in all forms of rail transit and are advised accordingly. TransLink lacks real experts in rail transit and continues to plan for an obsolete proprietary light metro system that transit authorities around the world have rejected, ever hoping for different results.*The Leewood Study gives a firm template and technical information for the return of a modern interurban service from Vancouver to Chilliwack, serving over one million people by providing a modern and affordable regional rail service that is so desperately needed in the region.AddendumSkyTrain is the name of the regional Light Metro System and not the trains operating on them.*The Canada Line operates standard railway Electrical Multiple Units (EMU’s) manufactured by ROTEM (Hyundai) as a light metro, which internationally has not been copied.*The Expo and Millennium Lines operate the unconventional and proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro, now owned by Alstom when they purchased Bombardier’s rail division.*MALM has had three previous owners; Bombardier, Lavalin and the Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC)*MALM has also had five previous marketing names; Innovia Light Metro, Advanced Rapid Transit (ART), Advanced Light metro (ALM); Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT changed for the sale to Vancouver); Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS).*Only seven such systems have been sold since the late 1970’s and no new system has been built since 2005. Vancouver is the sole customer for MALM and Alstom has strongly indicated that they will cease production when the last paid for orders are complete. No other manufacturer produces a MALM compliant vehicle as the mode is deemed obsolete.
The big problem for regional transit is that population growth is happening all the way up the Fraser Valley to Hope and with a light metro only mentality, means the only reasonable way for people to travel is by car.
It is time to say no to TransLink; to say no to the mayor’s Council on transit and to say no to the NDP government and instead demand an affordable and user friendly transit system that just may provide such a service to attract the motorist from the car. From what I can see, current transit planning is making metro Vancouver more and more unlivable, forcing families to move where they can afford and it is affordable because there is little public transport and that is a damn shame.
TransLink Mayors’ Council pushes for renewed federal funding to keep up with growth
Tram-Train
Sheffield TramTrain networking onto City Tram R-o-W
Three Tram Trains an hour travel on the Supertram network from Sheffield Cathedral to Meadowhall South, before proceeding over a new section of track linking the tram line to the rail track, called the Tinsley Chord, and on to the national rail network to Parkgate Shopping Park via Rotherham Central station. Journey times are around 27 minutes from Cathedral to Rotherham Parkgate, and you can buy tickets from the conductor when you board the service.
A national Rail Strategy Is Needed Now
Global warming is real.
Climate change is real.
We need an affordable alternative to the car and airplane.
Rail is the only answer.
Sadly, in Canada government is anti-rail, except when it provides a good photo-op at election time.
The Canadian government’s view of a passenger railway
Railroaded: A National Train Wreck
The Mayor’s Council On Transit – Blah, Blah, Blah
It is quite apparent that the Mayor’s council on Transit is nothing more than a PR stunt and nothing more, as all major transit decisions are made in the Premier’s Office.
The mainstream media’s research for news stories is lacking, because it is the Metro Vancouver (not BC) Mayor’s Council on Transit.
TransLink loves giving percentages in their public news releases but they do not like giving whole numbers. A 20% increase of 100 is only 120.
The TV news report was more of the same, big ideas, including a $3 billion subway to UBC, Really?
A $225 million gondola to SFU, which nothing more than a politcal prestige project (PPP) for both the university and the City of Burnaby.
What did spark my interest is BRT here, there and everywhere, which will not be real BRT of course but a Broadway B-Line type of Express bus.
A Richmond Centre to MetroTown B-Line express bus is, I believe needed, but is should go right to BCIT. Again TransLink is hesitant to do what should be done and only does what makes good photo-ops.
Making most of the promised BRT routes feed into the SkyTrain light metro system will not attract much new ridership and again shows the Achilles Heel of light metro, just too expensive to extend.
Not mentioned is how all this is to be funded and here we enter the land of fairies and pixie dust, with the Mayor of Langley saying that Ottawa has set up a transit fund to fund transit expansion.
What was interesting was that there was no mention of the Expo Line extension to Langley.
The $4.5 billion to $5 billion, 16 km line was not mentioned at all, even by the Mayor of Langley bodes ill for the project.
All in all it was a lot of boasting, promising, and a 3 minute photo-op that in the end did not answer the one important question, funding. Funding, I believe funding will put TransLink between a rock and a hard place, especially with our current inflation and finical woes.
There is a steady downward trend for transit mode share in Metro Vancouver
B.C. Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation meets to discuss future projects and ridership
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