Trouble at Translink – For whom the tax tolls!
Ai??Ai??Unhappy days indeedAi??Ai??with TransLink as the organization has not learned a golden rule; that if you build metro on routes that do not have the ridership to sustain them, costly subsidies must be paid. When costly subsidies are paid, there is less money available to be invested in the transit system.
Ai??Ai??Rail for the Valley and Zweisystem have taken a lot of flack with their stand on SkyTrain and metro planning, yet Mr. Crilly’s report certainly shows that we are on the right track, when it comes to our comments on SkyTrain.
The fact is no one really knows how much SkyTrain and RAV are costing the taxpayers, with their hidden subsidies, but it is apparent that it is indeed a great sum of money, as there is little left for the rest of the transit system and new taxes must be implemented.
Over and over the echoes of new taxes are being whispered, in the form of road pricing or highway & bridge tolling.
But wait, in the UK, the hot bed of road tolling and pricing, there is a massive political backlash against those who implemented the taxes. Manchester voters recently voted against road pricing on a massive scale sending electoral chills to Labour MP’s at WestminsterAi??Ai??and London’s congestion charges are now deemed as a failure as it hasn’t curbed congestion (the congestion charges are just passed on to the consumer)Ai??Ai??and are being scaled back. Spine-tingly stuff for those who want to force road tolling and road pricing on the METRO region in Greater Vancouver.
The BC liberals should worry that the taxpayers will revolt against sitting members and that Liberal MLA’s will suffer the same fate as what happened in Delta South, where an independent candidate defeated a ‘star’ Liberal candidate in what could have been said was the safest Liberal seat in the province. But the NDP should be wary also, as a lotAi??Ai??supporters still begrudge the party for the shameful flip-flop on from LRT to SkyTrain on the Millennium Line.
The question is, which METRO mayor will show that he/she is not afraid to bell the (TransLink) cat and their expensive, yet grossly out of date transit planning.
From the Vancouver Province
Transportation commissioner will likely approve fare increase of three to 3 1/2 per cent
TransLink should forget about a deluxe proposal to dramatically expand rapid transit all over Metro Vancouver A?ai??i??ai??? including the long-awaited northeast Evergreen Line.
But it might get permission to hike fares by as much as 3.5 per cent next year.
Those were among ThursdayA?ai??i??ai???s rulings by regional transportation commissioner Martin Crilly in his review of TransLinkA?ai??i??ai???s 10-year plan for its Metro Vancouver operations. The plan contains four service and funding options, each with a different set of offerings and costs.
Crilly ruled against the A?ai??i??Ai??CadillacA?ai??i??A? option for massive expansion A?ai??i??ai??? including Evergreen A?ai??i??ai??? because it calls for almost $500 million a year in revenue, $175 million of which TransLink has so far failed to find a source for, he said. TransLink also failed to provide enough detail for Crilly to determine if it could work, he said.
Coquitlam residents were angry that CrillyA?ai??i??ai???s position might see the line delayed.
A?ai??i??Ai??IA?ai??i??ai???m very disappointed that it could be postponed again,A?ai??i??A? said Gail Tabor, who has lived in the city for 20 years. A?ai??i??Ai??We would love to have the Evergreen Line. It would be a convenience for us.
A?ai??i??Ai??And buses out here are not that great. Occasionally, youA?ai??i??ai???ll get [a bus] in 15 minutes, but thatA?ai??i??ai???s rare. Most of them are a half-hour or even an hour in between, and thatA?ai??i??ai???s very inconvenient. A SkyTrain line would be a much better situation.”
Manou Salimi said he was A?ai??i??Ai??disappointedA?ai??i??A? by yet another broken promise by the B.C. Liberals.
A?ai??i??Ai??The government in the first place promised to build the Evergreen Line, and then now theyA?ai??i??ai???ve put a stop or a hold on it,A?ai??i??A? Salimi said. A?ai??i??Ai??People are expecting the plan to go ahead. A?ai??i??A?
Salimi said the Evergreen Line would have cut his commute time to work by 30 minutes.
A?ai??i??Ai??I think people should gather together from all the communities in different areas and go to City Hall to get some answers,A?ai??i??A? he said.
Carol Stewart agreed.
A?ai??i??Ai??TheyA?ai??i??ai???re a bunch of liars, theyA?ai??i??ai???ve been lying all along,A?ai??i??A? said Stewart, who was waiting Thursday at the Coquitlam Station bus loop. A?ai??i??Ai??They should never have built the other line to Richmond before they built this one. This line was promised first.A?ai??i??A?
Mayors from across Metro have until the end of October to choose one of four funding options contained in the plan.
Provincial Transportation Minister Shirley Bond has ordered the comptroller general to review TransLinkA?ai??i??ai???s financial position and report in by Sept. 30.
Crilly said he would likely approve TransLinkA?ai??i??ai???s proposed fare hike of between three and 3.5 per cent a year A?ai??i??ai??? instead of the two per cent permitted by law A?ai??i??ai??? in 2010, as the agency requested.
As for service options, Crilly said:
A?ai??i??A? TransLinkA?ai??i??ai???s cheapest version, which would require no new funding over the present budget but would require drastic cuts to service, was A?ai??i??Ai??clearly unpalatable.A?ai??i??A?
A?ai??i??A? A second option calling for $130 million in new funding would minimize cuts to service and A?ai??i??Ai??buy time for further planning and funding.A?ai??i??A?
A?ai??i??A? A third option to A?ai??i??Ai??maintain and upgrade,A?ai??i??A? in part through an vehicle levy of up to $165 a year, would strengthen existing services but not expand rapid transit.
Crilly wants the second and third options to be considered, and agreed with TransLinkA?ai??i??ai???s push to upgrade present service before working on the Evergreen Line.
His report said that rather than improve supply by building more transit, TransLink should improve its A?ai??i??Ai??demand managementA?ai??i??A? A?ai??i??ai??? in plain English, using tolls or a congestion tax to discourage drivers and make transit a cheaper, more attractive option.
CrillyA?ai??i??ai???s position on Evergreen came as no surprise to Port Moody Mayor Joe Trasolini, who has based denser development in his city on the promise the line would be built.
Trasolini said CrillyA?ai??i??ai???s report strengthens the demand by area mayors that Victoria and Ottawa help with TransLinkA?ai??i??ai???s annual operating costs A?ai??i??ai??? and not just pledge capital funds for mega-projects. Victoria has to invest in transit if it wants to talk a big, environmentally friendly game, he added.
A?ai??i??Ai??They want the results but they donA?ai??i??ai???t want to make any of the investments,A?ai??i??A? Trasolini said.
For her part, Bond noted that the provincial and federal governments have committed $827 million to build the Evergreen Line and that Victoria was A?ai??i??Ai??committedA?ai??i??A? to seeing it built.
Bond said sheA?ai??i??ai???s optimistic about ridership on the Evergreen Line A?ai??i??ai??? when itA?ai??i??ai???s eventually built A?ai??i??ai???in light of the above-expected ridership numbers on the new Canada Line.
Ai??Ai?? Copyright (c) The Province
HST sinks TransLink in $57-million hole; fare hike approvedElimination of parking tax could result in drastic service cuts to Metro Vancouver commuters
Fares Fair – TransLink’s Fares Compared
The following is aAi??Ai??comparison of TransLink’s fares, with other cities in Canada and the USA with LRT/metro and bus systems. Included are cash fares only (as advertised Sept. 4/09) as every city offers weekly, monthly, annual and Tourist passes, all withAi??Ai??varying discounts. Also please note: Ai??Ai??Toronto’s cash fare & 90 minute transfer covers an area roughly the size of Ai??Ai??TransLink’s 3-zones!
San Fransisco’s BART metro fares are calculated from journey distance and a fare card is needed to ride, but there are exceptions.
TransLink (Metro, bus, Seabus)
ZoneAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??AdultAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Concession
zone 1Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $2.50Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $1.75Ai??Ai?? (90 minute transfer)
zone 2Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $3.75Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??$2.50Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? “
zone 3Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??$5.00Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $3.50Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??”
CalgaryAi??Ai?? (LRT, bus)
AdultAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? Youth
$2.50Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $1.75Ai??Ai?? (90 minute transfer)
Toronto (Metro streetcar bus)
Transfer for continious trip only
AdultAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? Senior/StudentAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? Child
$2.75Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $1.85Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??$0.70
Portland (LRT, bus)
ZoneAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??AdultAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Honoured CitizenAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Child
In Canadian funds
All zoneAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $2.50Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $1.05Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??$1.65
2 zoneAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $2.18
1 zoneAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??$2.18
San Fransico (Metro, streetcar, bus, NOT cable car)
In Canadian funds
AdultAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? Discount
$2.20Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $0.85Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? (90 minute transfer)
Cable Car
$5.45
If you’re transferring from BART to Muni, you can obtain a transfer at an automated machine near the BART exit. This transfer is worth a 25-cent discount on the regular Muni fare.
BART
Fare calculated on distance travelled.Ai??Ai?? Minimum one station trip $3.00; Maximum fare SFO to Pittsburg Bay point $11.90
From the Light Rail Now Folks: Busting "BRT" Mythology – LA’s "Orange Line" Busway A?ai??i??ai??? "Just Like Rail, But Cheaper?"
It seems the media and local politiciansAi??Ai??keep referring to Bus Rapid Transit or BRT as a transportation solutionAi??Ai??for METRO Vancouver’s ‘lesser taxpayers’ in the Fraser Valley, yet very few politicians and media types clearly understand what BRT is, or even how successful it has been in past applications. BRT despite the hype and hoopla, has not had a successful career and its more expensive cousin ‘guided-bus’, has not provided the modalAi??Ai??break-throughAi??Ai??that was anticipated. Yet this is not reported in the media!
Ask the BRTAi??Ai??lobby in the Metro area theseAi??Ai??two questions:
- “If BRT is so successful, why has Ottawa, after spending hundred’s of millions of dollars on busways for BRT,Ai??Ai??instead has nowAi??Ai??invested inAi??Ai??Diesel LRTAi??Ai??(TramTrain) and now wanting to build with LRT instead?”
- Why, in Adelaide Australia, after building with expensive O-Bahn guided-bus, no more BRT being planned for and transit officials instead building more O-bahn, refurbished an 80 year old tramway and brought it up to light rail standards?
Busting “BRT” Mythology
Light Rail Now Project Team A?ai??i??ai??? October 2006
With this commentary, Light Rail Now continues a series we’re calling Busting “BRT” Mythology A?ai??i??ai??? a discussion intended to examine claims of so-called “Bus Rapid Transit” by its proponents and to evaluate and contrast these claims with actual experience. This article is the third installment in this series.
Promoters of so-called “Bus Rapid Transit” (“BRT”) have been promulgating a wide range of claims about this mode of bus deployment A?ai??i??ai??? mostly on the theme that it’s “rapid transit on rubber tires” and “just like rail transit, but cheaper”. Typically, “BRT” is promoted as a supposedly superior alternative to light rail transit (LRT).
The hype surrounding a proposed “BRT” system in San Bernardino is typical. A spokeswoman for San Bernardino County’s transit agency, Omnitrans, told the Press-Enterprise (30 January 2006) that “The idea is to use rubber-tired vehicles, but operate them much like a light-rail service.” Thus, “You can become more time competitive with the automobile without the additional cost of light rail.”
Los Angeles’s new “Orange Line” busway is perhaps the premier recent example of “BRT” A?ai??i??ai??? an approximately 14-mile route, almost entirely on an exclusive former railway alignment except for approximately a half-mile loop in mixed traffic on the western end (serving Warner Center). The line, installed at a cost of $330 million, currently serves 13 stations, linking the western part of the San Fernando Valley with the North Hollywood Red Line rail rapid transit (metro) station. (See map below.) in many respects, the route and infrastructure do resemble those of LRT, with well-defined stations with platforms (except in the mixed-traffic segment), ticket vending machines (TVMs), shelters, and other appurtenances and amenities. Thus, the “Orange Line” represents an excellent case study of how well the claims for “BRT” A?ai??i??ai??? especially that it’s “just like rail” A?ai??i??ai??? match the reality.
[Map: Transit Rider website]
So, how does the “Orange Line” actually measure up in comparison to LRT and other rail systems? in our article Rail Transit vs. “Bus Rapid Transit”: Comparative Success and Potential in Attracting Ridership, several aspects of the “Orange Line” busway are contrasted with those of LA’s new Gold Line LRT system serving the Pasadena area east of central LA. As the article notes,
because of electric propulsion, better level crossing protection, and other factors, the Gold Line LRT provides an 18% faster schedule speed than the Orange Line “BRT”.
Furthermore, based on the fact that the “Orange Line” operates in a more mature corridor with far greater density, and serves “at least 40% more major activity centers than does the Gold Line”, our analysis concludes that “the Orange Line busway’s ridership is approximately 24% lower than one would expect from a comparable LRT service in the same corridor.”
However, performance statistics and calculations can reveal only so much A?ai??i??ai??? and certainly, there are even more deficiencies in “BRT” operations than our previous analysis can address. As usual, “a photo is worth a thousand words” … so selected photos A?ai??i??ai??? most of them taken by Light Rail Now Project representatives during a recent visit to LA A?ai??i??ai??? may help to illustrate the “Orange Line” facility and pertinent issues associated with it.
The Light Rail Now Project team emphasize that our criticisms are directed at questioning the contention that “BRT” is “just like rail, but cheaper…” A?ai??i??ai??? a claim which we regard as unsupportable and misleading. On the whole, LA’s “Orange Line” is an excellent higher-quality transit facility, and a vast improvement over the usual types of bus operations that must continuously contend with private motor vehicle traffic. As we indicate in our article cited above,
Certainly, there is no question that the Orange Line “BRT” is a major transit improvement in the corridor it serves (and, given applicable legal restrictions constraining LACMTA, a busway was effectively the agency’s only option for implementing a high-quality, rapid public transport service in the available former railway alignment).
Massively inconvenienced by transit-system changes – Hell of a way to sell transit to a customer!
“It used to be something called public transit … then for reasons you’re too young to understand, they did away with the public.”
The following letter, printed in today’sAi??Ai??Vancouver SunAi??Ai??(Sept.2) clearly illustrates Translink’s failure to address the wants of transit customers. The politically inspired RAV/Canada Line needed a magic 100,000 passengers a day (about 300,000 fewer that what is really needed) to pretend it doesn’t need to be subsidized by TransLink, so TransLink in its infinite wisdom cascades as many passengers on to the RAV/Canada Line route as it possibly could to inflate ridership and it now seems it is just not transit customers South of the Massey Tunnel who are being inconvenienced, but West side transit customers as well. Will the author of the letter switch to the car instead of taking transit, time will tell, but he illustrates TransLink’s massive blunder:Ai??Ai??a failure to recognize that in the 21st century public transit is seen as a product and if the product doesn’t satisfyAi??Ai??the publicsAi??Ai??needs, they will go elsewhere: Elsewhere of courseAi??Ai??is the car.
TransLink desperately wants to be all things to all people, to tryAi??Ai??suit the political whims of the provincial government and to a lesser extent, regional governments and by doing so is pleasing very few people. The same sort of thing that happened in Europe in the 1960’s and 1970’s, until a new transit philosophy emerged, based on customer wants, not politicians needs.
Sadly, we keep trying to force people to take transit, but with service so inferior compared to the car, it is a hard struggle and abandoning bus routes and forcing transit customers to transfer onto RAVAi??Ai?? just makes the transit product seem like a a bad product to many people.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Massively inconvenienced by transit-system changes
Vancouver Sun September 2, 2009
I live at 41st and Dunbar in Vancouver and work in the Harmony Air building in Richmond. Starting next Monday, my commute on transit will balloon from 25 minutes to 50 minutes. (When I drive, it takes me about 10 minutes.)
By eliminating the 98 B-Line and the 491 bus, TransLink has made its service very inconvenient. At the moment, it takes 150 per cent longer to user transit than a car; as of Sept. 7, it will take 400 per cent longer.
How can they encourage people to use transit when the service is so poor?
THE LLANDUDNO GREAT ORME TRAMWAY – Wales almost forgotten cable car!
Another visit to the U.K. today, to the Great Orme TramwayAi??Ai??or cable car/funicular, whichAi??Ai??travels on-street for part of its journey and is located in Llandudno Wales
The GreatAi??Ai??Orme Tramway isAi??Ai??Great Britain’s only remaining cable operated street tramway and one of only three surviving in the world. Operation of the tramway differs from the famous and unique San Francisco system in that it is not a cable car but rather a street running funicular (similar to the Lisbon system), where the cars are permanently fixed to the cable and are stopped and started by stopping and starting the cable.
The tramway was built in 1902 to take passengers to the summit of the Great Orme and is in two sections. The lower section is built on or alongside the public road and has gradients as steep as 25%. The upper section is less steep with a maximum gradient of 10%.
The original power house, situated at the Halfway station between the lower and upper sections was equipped with winding gear powered by steam from coke-fired boilers. This was replaced in 1958 by electrically powered winding gear. In 2001, the entire Halfway station, its control room and its power plant were completely rebuilt and re-equipped.
The tramway uses four tramcars, which were new when the tramway was built in 1902. An overhead wire telegraph was formerly used for communication between the tram and the engineer-driver in charge of winding the drum, but this has now been replaced with a modern induction loop radio-control system.
The tramway has three main stations, the lower station, named after the hotel that formerly occupied the station site, the one in the centre aptly named ‘Halfway’ and the Great Orme Summit station. Passengers must change trams at the Halfway station.
http://www.greatormetramway.co.uk/
Ai??Ai??
A Great Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth from the SkyTrain lobby – The ignored SkyTrain Subsidy
In 1993, the GVRD (now Metro) and Transport 2021, publishedAi??Ai??the study, “The Cost of Transporting People in the BC Lower Mainland” and for the first time the annual SkyTrain subsidy was mentioned. In 1991, SkyTrain was subsidized to the tune of$157.6 million, more than half of the total subsidyAi??Ai??paid forAi??Ai??public transit in the Lower Mainland. BC Transit then, as TransLink does today,Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??ignores this vast sum of taxpayer’s dollars subsidizing the metro and make erroneous statements that SkyTrain pays its operating costs, etc.
The portion of the SkyTrain subsidy is thus:
Gas taxAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??-Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? Ai??Ai??$17.8 mil. out of $47.4 mil. collected
Hydro Levy Ai??Ai?? -Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $4.7 mil. out of $12.6 mil. collected
Commercial
Property Tax Ai??Ai??-Ai??Ai?? $9 mil. out of $24 mil. collected
Residential
Property Tax Ai??Ai??-Ai??Ai?? $5.2 mil. out of $14 mil collected
Provincial
Government Ai??Ai??-Ai??Ai?? $120.9 mil. out of $196.8 mil. paid
TotalAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??-Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai?? $157.6 out of $294.8 paid
With the opening of the Millennium Line, SkyTrain’s annual subsidy increased past $200 million and with the RAV/Canada Line metro, again this subsidy will once again increase.
What is interesting to note, just one years worth of SkyTrain’s annual subsidy could fund a basic Vancouver to Chilliwack InterurbanAi??Ai??demonstration service; two years worthAi??Ai??of SkyTrain’s annual subsidy could fund a hourly or better Vancouver to Chilliwack Interurban service!
From the Seattle Times, October 2002 – Vancouver’s SkyTrain: model for the monorail?
There has always been a close relationship between Vancouver’s and Seattle’s city planners and the now aborted monorail scheme seems to have been abetted by this relationship. Not mentioned of course is that despite about $8 billion now invested in our SlyTrain/RAV metro’s, TransLink’s mode share has stalled at about 11% for the almost the last decade and a half. Seattle now has a hybrid light rail/metro system, with costs rivaling SkyTrain’s and likeAi??Ai??METRO Vancouver,Ai??Ai??new highways and tunnels and bridges are actively being planned for. What is missing is any hint of real light rail planning, a mode that has proven to attract the motorist from the car. Most disconcerting is that regional transit planners in both Seattle and Vancouver, have failed to grasp any understanding of LRT and still pine away for grand metro schemes like the Evergreen Line or the five mile long subway to the University of Washington.
By Mike Lindblom
Seattle Times staff reporter
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20021013&slug=vancouver13m
VANCOUVER, B.C. A?ai??i??ai??? Commuters absolutely love this city’s railroad in the air.
They take an impressive 147,000 trips each weekday on the SkyTrain Expo Line, which opened for the 1986 World’s Fair and was later extended into the suburbs. A second route, the Millennium Line, was completed six weeks ago and attracts 40,000 daily boardings.
As popular as the system is, there is another group who may admire it even more A?ai??i??ai??? monorail activists who cite SkyTrain as a role model for Seattle.
“The good news is that elevated transportation generally works,” says Dick Falkenbury, the cab driver who founded the populist monorail movement in Seattle.
Like a monorail, the SkyTrain combines mountain views with the pleasure of looking down on gridlocked drivers. High-rises have grown up around the stations, boosting the clientele and reducing regional sprawl. TransLink, the local public transportation agency, says the original line now covers its own operating costs, a rarity in North America.
Yet the project had to be imposed on reluctant communities by the provincial and federal governments, and there is no consensus that the roughly $2 billion (U.S.) spent to build two lines was worth the sacrifice.
Critics call SkyTrain a boondoggle because it diverts riders from buses, and many believe surface light rail would have been cheaper than elevated tracks.
Vancouver had several advantages over Seattle in designing mass-transit projects, including a free downtown tunnel and abundant suburban rail corridors. Metro-area housing density is double that of greater Seattle, so bus stations are close to people. And no freeways reach downtown.
Despite SkyTrain, traffic congestion in metro Vancouver has worsened because of rapid population growth and increased suburb-to-suburb driving.
However, those who do use elevated rail say they save 20 to 30 minutes compared to sitting in a bus or car, and some have moved into housing around the stations.
Could a Seattle monorail move the masses like a SkyTrain? Only if the city braces for big changes.
For a closer look, let’s hop aboard SkyTrain.
Making connections
Granville Station, downtown
“Got a twonie?” asks City Councilor Gordon Price as he grabs a hat from his closet.
A $2 Canadian coin is good for a 90-minute trip on any form of transit in Vancouver. Add a “loonie,” the $1 coin with a loon on its face, and you reach the inner suburbs, while a trip across the Fraser River to outer Surrey requires $4, or $2.54 U.S.
There are links to commuter rail and passenger ferries at the waterfront and bus hubs throughout the route A?ai??i??ai??? operated by a single agency.
Seattle’s monorail route promises similar links, but four transit bureaucracies would have to cooperate or merge to avoid surcharges. The Elevated Transportation Co., which wrote the monorail plan, assumed bus riders would pay an additional $1 to hop the monorail, but that could repel users.
We walk from Price’s ninth-story condo to Granville Street, a grimy but efficient trolley corridor. We get off at a SkyTrain station, inside an old freight tunnel that SkyTrain received for free.
Coin-operated dispensers sell tickets on the honor system, without gates. Fare evasion is estimated at 6 percent, but TransLink says the high cost of electronic gating exceeds the money to be gained. Transit police perform random ticket inspections and issue $29 fines to violators. Monorail planners included gates in their cost studies but are also considering the Vancouver model.
Size matters
Broadway station
This crowded hub links SkyTrain with buses serving the west side and the University of British Columbia. There are 14,000 passengers a day for the original line and thousands arriving on a walkway from the new line.
To handle those crowds, plus a 262-foot train, requires a station the size of a city block, and it dominates the funky old neighborhood.
At 140 to 160 feet long, monorail stations would be smaller but would still be a tight squeeze in downtown Seattle. Platforms would be 22 to 27 feet wide, plus a couple feet on each side for the concrete monorail guideways; that’s wide enough to hover halfway over the streets. Columns would be leaner and farther apart than those of the existing Seattle Center Monorail.
Monorail opponent Jud Marquardt, a partner in LMN Architects, believes monorail beams would eclipse the building fronts on Second Avenue and its few open spaces, such as the Garden of Remembrance at Benaroya Hall. A monorail would also block views of the Space Needle from Second.
A partial solution involves running monorail tracks into new buildings, something Samis Land Co. has proposed for a new tower at Second and Pike. Steel columns could conceivably be used instead of bulkier concrete along Second.
Unlike the monorail, which would pass within spitting distance of apartment balconies, the Vancouver line runs over highway and freight-rail corridors, and its tunnel avoided conflicts over downtown aesthetics.
“We would never even consider elevated tracks downtown,” Price says.
How it works
Grandview Cut
Our driverless train zooms out of the city on banked tracks. Passengers can read without motion sickness, and braking is barely perceptible.
Trains can travel 55 miles an hour, while the monorail would peak at 50 mph.
At busier stops, riders often skip a train rather than squeeze into a crowded one because the next train arrives in four minutes or less. Rush-hour trains run two minutes apart or less, and the computer-controlled system is capable of a mere 72-second separation.
The makers of SkyTrain, Canada-based Bombardier, are likely bidders to build the proposed Seattle monorail, competing against Hitachi of Japan. The technology gives ETC officials confidence in their proposed four- to six-minute headways for the monorail and their ability to run successive trains for festivals and sports events.
Two recent evacuations on Seattle’s historic tourist Monorail have raised fears about being stuck 30 feet above the ground between stations. SkyTrain stalls 40 to 50 times per year, about once every 4,000 trips. When that happens, attendants and maintenance workers board the disabled train and drive it manually to the next station, where computers are reset.
In a monorail stall, the usual evacuation method is to pull another train alongside the disabled one and transfer the passengers. The Seattle Fire Department may also require escape catwalks along the 14-mile length.
Close to home A?ai??i??ai??? many homes
Metrotown station
The busiest station on the line isn’t downtown but in suburban Burnaby, with 16,000 average weekday boardings.
This vast hub illustrates how population density is wedded to ridership.
Metrotown resembles a less-elegant version of downtown Bellevue on a hill, with a huge retail mall, offices, parks, a basement-like bus station and 20-story high-rises. Shoppers and reverse commuters make SkyTrain a true two-way service, while in Seattle the trains might roll nearly empty to residential West Seattle and Crown Hill in the morning.
The ETC says its projection of 69,000 weekday riders by 2020 A?ai??i??ai??? half the Expo Line count A?ai??i??ai??? is based on existing regional and city growth plans. Those plans are very ambitious, foreseeing 43,000 new housing units in “urban villages” near the Green Line by 2014.
SkyTrain relies on similar growth of 44,000 housing units in Burnaby to support the new Millennium Line, where underused new stations are currently ringed by self-serve warehouses, car dealerships and mall parking lots.
Seattle City Council member Judy Nicastro, who chairs the land-use committee, likes the idea of transit-related housing growth, but she urges voters to think about what that would look like.
“I certainly see, if monorail passes, we will be discussing and making code changes to add a lot of height to neighborhoods that the monorail’s going to go in,” she said. “There are ways to do it where you still have open space and you don’t feel like you’re in a tunnel.”
Near downtown, the buildings might be up to 15 stories tall, she said, while a six- to eight-story height seems sensible for Ballard, mixed with four-story rooftops for variety.
“We have a duty, once you put in a $1 billion, $2 billion system, to make sure the ridership is there.”
Is it safe?
Granville to Metrotown at midnight
A man holds the station door open for tips, and another grizzled fellow begs departing passengers for their tickets and then resells them for a loonie or two.
The scene is gloomy but safe on a Monday night. Single women ride the train home from work. Police patrol some high-risk stations but are outnumbered by mop-slinging janitors.
Fear of crime has hindered ridership, SkyTrain’s own reports say.
Last year there were 100 robberies and 321 assaults reported on SkyTrain property, just over one crime per day. Of those incidents, 21 robberies involved weapons, and 49 assaults caused injuries.
Some citizens, and a security consultant’s study, have proposed that employees or police be on all trains to deter crime, assist in emergencies or to drive stalled trains. TransLink hasn’t gone that far, but it is providing better station lighting, silent alarms on trains and more employees on the platforms. Bicycle patrols have cut down on rampant car theft at park-and-ride lots.
The monorail plan A?ai??i??ai??? based on talks with SkyTrain operators A?ai??i??ai??? calls for three armed transit police roaming the line at all times, and six for special events. And there would be an average one customer-service attendant per one or two stations.
Crossing water
SkyBridge
Monorail opponents portray a half-mile Ship Canal monorail bridge as a budget-buster, but the SkyTrain bridge across the Fraser River was built in 1990 for an affordable $21 million.
The ETC’s cost plans allotted $45 million at the Ballard crossing, and an independent review lays 50-50 odds that another $10 million will be required to meet salmon-protection requirements.
Reaching the region
Scott Road
SkyBridge stretched the elevated line into the vast suburb of Surrey, equivalent to reaching Lynnwood by monorail. There are 3,000 parking spaces at Scott Road, making the line regional in a way the Green Line route is not.
“They’re different from us in that respect,” said ETC researcher Joel Horn. “We are not a regional system. We’re a citywide system.”
The ETC couldn’t afford garages or thousands of slots on its proposed $25 million parking budget. Monorail planners think they can stretch the money by leasing underused parking lots in Ballard and closer to downtown, while Nicastro recommends apartments above parking garages, as Redmond and Renton have at bus centers.
Henry Aronson of Citizens Against the Monorail has raised the question, “What regional traffic problem does the monorail solve?”
Proponents reply that it adds capacity through the hourglass-shaped downtown where there is no room for new roads. But the route effectively dead-ends on either side.
Though the monorail plan calls for four future voter-approved lines within Seattle, there seems to be greater enthusiasm among pro-monorail people to reach beyond the city. In informal chats, they mention dream destinations such as Aurora Village, Bothell, Boeing Field or Ballard-University-Redmond over an expanded Highway 520 bridge.
Such ambitions would take a new campaign, an additional public vote and more taxes.
Words of advice
Vancouver Councilman Price encourages Seattleites to build rapid transit “pronto,” before daily Everett-to-Olympia freeway backups make Interstate 5 unusable. At the same time, gives this advice about public expectations.
“The main thing about rail transit, and I would include monorail in this description, it’s mainly about land use. … We built SkyTrain and there isn’t any less congestion. You can’t overcome the brutal increase in (population) numbers and the limited amount of road space. What it gives you is an alternative form of transportation.”
From Tramways & Urban Transit – Denver receives first new FasTracks LRVs
Denver light rail system Ai??Ai??is one of America’s great success stories, so successful that the cityAi??Ai??has large expansion plans for their LRT system with over 195 miles of new lines to be built in the coming years.Ai??Ai??Denver’sAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??light rail system was the only public or privateAi??Ai??transitAi??Ai??operation that was runningAi??Ai??during the great blizzard and only ceased operationsAi??Ai??because no one could get to it to use it!
25Ai??Ai??AugustAi??Ai??2009 Denver receives first new FasTracks LRVs
Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) has taken delivery of the first of 55 Siemens LRVs for its new FasTracks fleet. The vehicle arrived last week via flatbed trailer from Siemens manufacturing facility in Sacramento, California.
Some of RTD’s original Siemens LRVs, put into service in 1994 with the opening of Denver’s first light rail line, have recently reached the one-million-mile mark.The new cars will accommodate service through the future openings of the West Corridor, I-225 Corridor, Southeast and Southwest extensions. The balance of the new fleet will arrive every few weeks over the next 18 months.
FasTracks is a voter-approved transit program to expand rail and bus service by building 122 miles of commuter and light rail, 18 miles of BRT, adding 21 000 new parking spaces, redeveloping Denver Union Station and redirecting bus service to better connect the eight-county District.
VA?Ai??hicule Automatique LA?Ai??ger or VAL – SkyTrain’s real competition!
SkyTrainAi??Ai??is not in a class of its own, despite first being marketed as ICTS or Intermediate Capacity Transit System, which was more a marketing nameAi??Ai??not a transitAi??Ai??mode. SkyTrainAi??Ai??is a light-metro andAi??Ai??though SkyTrainAi??Ai??initially competed against light rail,Ai??Ai??it was soon found that SkyTrain could only compete againstAi??Ai??other light-metros that were being marketed for the modal niche. Only in Vancouver is there a light rail/light metro debate as transit planners in most other cities fully understand the role of a light-metro and light rail.
SkyTrain’s main competitor was the French VAL rubber tired light-metro. Yet VAL’s success has been checked by light rail, despite a concerted drive by the French government to build with VAL instead of LRT. Civic politicians, ever with the taxpayer in mind, largely rejected light-metro and the VAL system, like SkyTrain is used as a light-metro, airport people mover or a niche light-metro built for political prestige.
VAL is an automatic rubber-tired people mover, based on an invention by Professor Robert Gabillard (UniversitA?Ai?? Lille Nord de France). It was designed in the early 1980s by French Matra, for the then new metro system in Lille.
The acronym was originally for Villeneuve d’Ascq A?Ai?? Lille (Villeneuve d’Ascq to Lille), the route of the first line to be projected (and inaugurated). It now officially stands for VA?Ai??hicule Automatique LA?Ai??ger (automatic light vehicle).
In contrast to some other driverless metro systems like the Docklands Light Railway or Vancouver’s SkyTrain, the VAL design uses platforms that are separated from theAi??Ai??guide-way by a glass partition, to prevent waiting passengers from straying or falling onto the guide-way. Platform screen doors, which are produced by Swiss glass door manufacturer Kaba Gilgen AG, embedded in these partitions open in synchrony with the train doors when a train stops at the platform
When VAL has been introduced to Taipei, the term medium capacity system is coined to differentiate VAL from heavy rail (metro). Thus this term is being applied mainly among Asian cities and railway planners though they are not using VAL’s technology. In Siemens official site, VAL is advertised “first fully automated light metro”, in which the term “light metro” can be traced back to Moscow Metro Butovskaya Light Metro Line.
The “Super Mongy”: the Lille – RoubaixAi??Ai??- Tourcoing tram
With civicAi??Ai??finances an ever increasing problem, especially with the city’s resources being diverted to the veryAi??Ai??expensive VAL system, inAi??Ai??1991 civic politicians funded a rebuilding of the Mongy,Ai??Ai??RoubaixAi??Ai??- Tourcoing tramway, with new track, overhead (including uprating the voltage from 600 to 750 V), tram-stops and rolling stock, as it was a much cheaper proposition than building a new VAL system.
The new tram stop platformsAi??Ai??were built to allow level accessAi??Ai??for the new low floor trams ordered from Breda in Italy and styled by the famous Pininfarina design house. The 2.40 m wide trams are “one-offs” and it was somewhat surprising that Lille went outside France for it’s cars especially as Alstom was promoting a “French Standard” car for the new tramway’s being built in the country at the time. Some commentators have suggested that the cars are noisy and have poor rides and this is because of corners cut with costs on both rolling stock and track work, but operating low-floor cars of this width on metre-gauge track was, inevitably, going to involve compromises and less than perfect results. Despite this, the new trams were in operation from 1994 and Lille, for whom transport operations were vested in the TRANSPOLE company (a subsidiary of Keolis) from May of that year, got itself a new “Super Mongy” in double-quick time.
The lessons of VAL and the Mongy were not forgotten by city fathers in other French cities, where over and over again the expensive VAL mini-metro was rejected even when the French government offered to pay for the full cost of the initial line, in favour of much cheaper, modern light rail.
The Lille metro was inaugurated on April 25, 1983. VAL systems were subsequently built in several other French cities, including:
- Paris Orlyval, 1991
- Toulouse Metro, 1993 (new tram line completed)
- Rennes Metro, 2002
- Paris CDGVAL, April 2007 (3 tram lines in operation)
Outside of France, VAL systems are also used in:
- Chicago O’Hare’s Airport Transit System (opened in 1993)
- Taipei’s Muzha Line (opened in 1996, larger variant using the MAGGALY technology from Lyon Metro line D)
- Turin’s Metrotorino (opened in 2006, just before the 2006 Winter Olympics) (updated tramline)
A VAL system is in project in Uijeongbu, South Korea.
The Chicago O’Hare and Taipei lines use the wider VAL 256 version of the system.
Jacksonville had a VAL line inaugurated in 1989, which was shut down in December 1996 and replaced by a monorail, the JTA Skyway. The rolling stock was sold to O’Hare International Airport.
A press Release from the Light Rail Transit Association – Rail for the Valley asks: What is more ‘Green’, a multi lane highway or the interurban?
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PRESS RELEASE FROM
TramForward – UK
Ai??Ai??2009
“But its provisions for improving urban transport are incomplete” said Geoff Lusher of “Although the document says much about new high speed rail routes, it does not make any mention of expanding suburban rail systems, including light rail, so that more commuters, shoppers and leisure travellers have the option of a high-quality public transport alternative to the car. To put it bluntly, we’re staggered. A word search of the entire document reveals not a single reference to “light rail” or “tram”. We believe that is simply not possible to write 117 pages on green transport strategy and yet not mention the one form of transport that has been shown to be most effective in getting people out of cars and so cutting their carbon footprints. Light rail is seen as a solution the world over to problems of traffic congestion and urban pollution, which is why the last decade has seen a huge investment in new light rail and modern tramway systems all around the world. In other European countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal and The Netherlands the renaissance of the tram has already made a significant contribution to a better quality of life for millions of citizens. Modern tramways have proven to be just as successful in British cities, in the relatively few places where they have been implemented, and it is clear that they have a place in many more.
Ai??Ai??
1. TramForward is the campaigning arm of the Light Rail Transit AssociationTramForward is the campaigning arm of the Light Rail Transit Association.Ai??Ai??
3. The LRTA acts through its network of local branches, which campaign for better transport in their localities.
4. Membership of the LRTA costs under 12p a day. To join, visit www.lrta.org or write to the Membership Secretary, LRTA, 38 Wolseley Road, Sale, Greater Manchester, M33 7AU. Members of the LRTA receive the monthly magazine Tramways & Urban Transit – written and read by experts in the field – and gain other benefits including discounts on videos and books, tours of transport systems and cut-price admission to selected transport sites.
5. Press enquiries – please contact:
Brian S. Lomas, Development Officer, Light Rail Transit Association
7 Crofton Avenue, Horfield, Bristol BS7 0BP
Telephone: 0117 951 7785
E-mail:
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