In our local ongoing transit debate the SkyTrain lobby and those who are just anti-LRT pointed fingers at Ottawa’s new transit system’s teething problems as a failed LRT line. For two years, local politicos and the media happily reported even minor problem and mishap with Ottawa’s light rail line while at the same time ignoring issues with our SkyTrain light-metro.
As recently as last week many local politicians were sneering at the mention of light rail, which prompted the previous post.
But when Ottawa’s new LRT operated well during a major snowfall, where 48cm of snow was dumped (12 cm in just one hour!) on the city and road traffic was almost at a standstill, nary a mention has been made.
“………………… that’s the expectation that it will run reliably in all weather conditions, and it did yesterday.”
With damning news about our SkyTrain light metro soon to be aired, those who pointed fingers at Ottawa’s LRT had better take care of business at home!
Those who support SkyTrain light metro do not cherry pick good news.
‘Quite pleased’: Ottawa LRT weathers record snowstorm
As city roads were blanketed in snow that was falling so fast plows couldn’t keep up, Ottawa’s light rail transit line was chugging along.
OC Transpo did not report any significant issues on the Confederation Line LRT on Monday, despite the city receiving 48 cm of snow, including 12 cm in a single hour between 8 and 9 a.m.
Speaking on the CTV News at Noon on Tuesday, Troy Charter, the city of Ottawa’s director of transit operations, said OC Transpo was happy with the performance of the train.
“We’re quite pleased with the service we were able to provide yesterday,” he said. “That rapid snowfall and that rapid accumulation that affected the roads and all motorists alike, you know, the rail line ran smoothly and ran reliably throughout the day and throughout the entire event, so we’re very pleased with what happened yesterday.”
Trains on the Confederation Line sometimes struggled during the first winter it was in operation. In early 2020, there were several issues with the line that stopped trains or caused switch heaters to fail. Work during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, as ridership dropped, allowed teams from Rideau Transit Maintenance to address the problems.
Charter said the city was prepared for Monday’s monster storm.
“It starts with making sure you have extra resources,” he explained. “You’re pre-salting platforms, you’re clearing out as much of the existing snow on the guideway where the trains operate, you do all these things in advance of the snowstorm and then you’ve got to react and respond and be very proactive throughout the event and we did that.”
Charter said that although 2021 ended on a low note, Monday’s service is a positive sign heading into 2022.
“We ended last year talking about the derailments, but last winter the rail line did run very well through most weather events too,” he said. “I’m not surprised that it ran as well as it did, and that’s the expectation that it will run reliably in all weather conditions, and it did yesterday. A real positive sign for everyone.”
Transit service was free in December because of two derailments within six weeks of each other during the summer, including one that kept service on the LRT offline for nearly two full months. The derailments prompted city council to request an auditor general’s probe into the system, which was paused following the Ontario government’s decision to launch a public inquiry.
Charter admits that ridership on the LRT was low Monday, as most people remained home during the storm. He said it was too soon to estimate whether ridership would return to pre-pandemic levels this year. Ridership has been significantly below 2019 levels since March of 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Service on the bus system was stymied by the snow Monday, with reports of several stuck buses. Charter said things are now moving much more smoothly.
“Yesterday was a challenging day for all motorists, it was a challenging day for the buses but we’re faring much better today,” he said.
The big problem with light rail is that there are so many definitions that the public get confused.
In Metro Vancouver, unscrupulous politicians, planners, and academics deliberately confuse light rail and what is called a streetcar.
The article included is now seven years old or seven years and somewhat out of date, as what we call modern light rail transit is constantly evolving and reinventing itself.
In the 1980’s light rail vehicles (LRV’s) were large articulated cars operating on dedicated rights-of-ways, while surviving streetcar or tram lines mainly used non articulated cars, such as PCC cars operating on-street, in mixed traffic with little or no signal priority. In Europe many non-articulated trams hauled trailers. Indeed articulated trams were a rarity.
But, that was then.
Today, most on-street tram lines use articulated cars, some being larger than LRV’s. Budapest’s 56 metre long, CAF Urbos trams, nicknamed “Caterpillars” are 15 metres longer than the 41 metre long electric multiple units used on the Canada Line.
A Budapest “Caterpillar”.
Today the distinction between a modern tramway or streetcar line is blurred, with many of today’s tramways having the characteristics of both. The advent of TramTrain (a modern tram that can operate on main line railways), has further blurred the definition.
TramTrain in Germany. Is it a tram or LRT or a railway train? No, it is all three!
The lack of any one definition for LRT has lead many unscrupulous politicians, especially in North America to build hugely expensive light-metro and call them light rail. Seattle and Ottawa come to mind.
The integral part of light rail is that it operates on a dedicated right of way, with priority signalling at intersections or important junctions, thus giving the tram operating characteristics of that of light and heavy rail metros.
The lawned R-o-W gives the tramway a park like atmosphere, yet retaining an almost metro like operation.
A dedicated R-o-W can be as simple as dedicated lanes on a road or street or as complex as a lawned reservation. Once the tram operates on a grade separated R-o-W, either on a viaduct or subway it becomes a light metro.
A simple on-street reservation in Valencia.
In Europe the term LRT is not used and for good reason because only one style of vehicle is used, the tram or die strassbahn in Germany; le tram in France; el tramvia in Spain; il tram in Italy; tram in the Netherlands and so on.
The inherent flexibility of today’s tram enables it to operate as a streetcar, operating on-street; as light rail, on a dedicated right of way; as a metro on viaduct or in a subway; as a commuter train; and can even carry freight, operating on the mainline, all on one tram route.
No other transit mode in use today has such flexibility in operation, which is why the modern tram/LRT is the first choice of knowledgeable transit planners around the world.
A freight carrying tram that was in use in Dresden, Germany.
There is muchconfusion over what separates streetcars from light rail. That’s because there’s no single easy way to tell, and many systems are hybrids. To tell the difference, one has to simultaneously look at the tracks, train vehicles, and stations.
San Francisco’s Muni Metro runs both in a dedicated subway and on the street in mixed traffic.Is it a streetcar or light rail system? Photos by Matt Johnson and SFbay on Flickr.
It’s hard to tell the difference because streetcars and light rail are really the same technology, but with different operating characteristics that serve different types of trips.
For the rest of the story, please click the title.
Yes, Zwei told ya so, but got raspberries for my efforts.
The Cambie St. Canada line cut and cover set the precedent for businesses along the Broadway subway route – they don’t matter.
TransLink does not care.
The Mayor’s Council on Transit does not care.
The city of Vancouver does not care.
The Ministry of Transportation does not care which means the provincial NDP government and Premier Horgan does not care.
The lessons of the Canada line fiasco have been ignored and it is ……….
Damn the merchants, full speed ahead!
Addendum:The stated cost of the Broadway subway is $3.83 billion and not the $2.38 billion as quoted in the story. The cost is expected to rise past $3 billion.
Some Vancouver businesses frustrated as Broadway Subway project impedes access, parking
Some businesses on the Broadway thoroughfare in Vancouver say they’re frustrated as construction on a subway line extension impedes access to their doorstep for customers.
Portions of the busy corridor, its sidewalks and parking stalls have been blocked off for months to accommodate work on the Broadway Subway Project, a 5.7-kilometre extension of the Millennium Line.“It’s been brutal,” said Neil Wyles, executive director of the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Association.
“There is no stopping, there’s no parking … I’ve had businesses leave just because you can’t get to them.”
Construction began on the $2.38-billion project in May and the new line is not expected to open until 2025.
When finished, it will include 700 elevated metres from VCC-Clark Station to a tunnel portal near Great Northern Way, and five kilometres tunneled below the Broadway Corridor from Great Northern Way to Arbutus Street.
Six underground stations will connect communities to the region, including a connection to the Canada Line at Cambie Street.
The project, however, has impacted the bottom line for some businesses, who are now concerned they won’t survive to see the extension up and running.
“Unless their ultimate goal is to just drive us right off the street, I would hope they’re wanting to look for solutions that make it possible for us to be here by the time this project is done, because 2025 is a long way off,” said Catherine Ellsmere, co-owner of Odin Books, a mental health bookstore on Broadway.
Foot traffic to her shop has essentially stalled, she told Global News, and Ellsmere is placing her hope in online sales and pre-orders.
Stopping along portions of it, however, are forbidden until July 28, 2023, according to signs posted on some parts of the street.
“We’re a mental health bookstore, right? People come here because they have anxiety and if we make it so stressful and so anxiety-provoking to get here, it defeats the purpose,” she said.
The B.C. Ministry of Transportation said it was unable to respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Transportation Minister Rob Fleming has previously said “very extensive consultations” were conducted with businesses along Broadway in advance of the project, but the street will remain open throughout construction.
Earlier this week, the Storm Crow Alehouse on Broadway shut its doors for good, citing supply and labour shortages, and construction from the Broadway Subway Project as contributing factors.
“It’s really been a hindrance on business in the past few months,” said marketing officer Jessica Langer at the time. “We’ve noticed traffic is depleted. We’ve been talking with our restaurant neighbors and they’ve also stated they are struggling quite a bit as well.”
Portside Interiors, a furniture shop, opened on Broadway in 2021, and owner Gene Guindon said they knew about the challenges that would come with the project.
He’s hoping to gain access to Main Street rather than stay tucked behind construction fencing, however, and said his “fingers are crossed.”
“If you can’t stop, you can’t shop,” he told Global News.
Well it happened and 99 years ago a two mile subway was completed under the streets of Cincinnati, destined to never be used.
The Broadway subway is being built on a route with current ridership not being close to numbers needed to justify a subway. The estimated annual operating costs, based on Toronto Transit Commission’s calculations will be more than $40 million annually.
The subway is being built on a route that has a very high use of the $1 a day U-Pass, post secondary fare card.
The question that no one will answer is:
Where is the new ridership coming from?
This is TransLink’s dirty little secret because subways are rather poor in attracting ridership. Contrary to the nonsense peddled by UBC and SFU types, that density is a must on Broadway because all those new renters and leaseholders will have to take the subway……
NOT!
As the subway only goes East – West, there is not much scope for attracting ridership, then TransLink must force bus routes to feed the subway. TransLink will announce that major East-West bus routes will be rerouted to force people to take the subway, so claims of success can be made by politicians and subway boosters.
This is what happen when the Canada line opened, all south Fraser bus routes terminating in downtown Vancouver, by a secret agreement between the province, SNC Lavalin and TransLink, to transfer their customers at Bridge Port Station.
This is how TransLink engineers so called success, recycle bus customers onto the new rapid transit line and pretend they are new to transit.
The Broadway subway fix is in, but remember, subways are not the acme of transportation, rather an extremely expensive solution, only used when there is no other option.
Built but never used, the Chaleroi light-metro, still remains as stark reminder of politcal folly.
American history is rife with grandiose public works projects, some successful—like interstate highways—others less so, like that proposal to nuke a road through California’s mountains. Some wound up somewhere in purgatory; partially complete, with millions of dollars spent and many more required for completion. One such project is the subway in Cincinnati, Ohio; at more than two miles in length, it could be the longest unused subway system in the world. And more than a century since construction began, some hope remains that it may one day be put into service.
The Cincinnati subway’s roots can, according to the city’s official website, be traced back to March 1912, when officials appointed a board to set up a rapid transit network in the city. Its members hired a Chicago transit planner, who submitted a 16-mile city loop with an estimated cost of $12 million, later revised to $6 million (equivalent to $152 million today). Come 1916, an “overwhelming vote of almost six to one” approved the proposal, which was to run along a combination of subterranean, ground-level, and elevated tracks along the loop shown below.
Cincinnati Museum Center, 1914 Cincinnati subway proposal
Construction, though, wouldn’t begin until after World War I, by which point inflation had reduced the buying power of the $6 million allotted for the project. That cash could now only fund 11 of the network’s planned 16 miles of tracks. Further complicating matters, negotiations with municipalities across the metro area stalled the project for more than a year. Still, two miles of subway tunnels were complete by 1923, and in 1927, much of the aboveground infrastructure was too.
But the subway was still far from opening. Important connections were missing, no track had been laid, and worst of all, there wasn’t enough money left to address either problem. The transit board attributed inflation for its budget issues and estimated finishing the network would cost another $9 to $10 million (adjusted for inflation, about double the original cost). This was untenable to the newly elected Mayor Murray Seasongood, who in 1928 dissolved the transit board, and instead opened Central Parkway over top of the transit system’s right-of-way. Today, the road is a major thoroughfare through the city, but its surroundings are hardly what planners a century ago imagined the subway would’ve turned them into—local media criticizes the Parkway area as “drab.”
But 1928 wasn’t the end of the line for Cincinnati’s subway, which has over the 93 years since its cancellation been the subject of countless proposals from the public and private sectors alike. Some have pushed Cincinnati to follow through on some or all of its original transit plans, while others have recommended repurposing the network’s vestiges entirely.
A subway tunnel built but never used.
In 1936, the Cincinnati Engineers Club called for routing the city’s trolleys through the subway tunnels. The streetcars themselves, though, were too long to turn the tunnels’ corners. In 1939, City Manager C.O. Sherrill suggested extending the tunnels to the riverfront, to empty into a parking lot, but money was again an object.
After World War II, the ideas began cropping back up, starting with a local business’ attempt to connect the railroads to the businesses along the route. It got as far as securing a five-year lease on the subway tunnels only to find freight cars, like the streetcars before them, couldn’t fit. Later on, in the 1960s, plans emerged to convert the tunnels into a government fallout shelter, and in 1969, the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio asked if it could hold a 500-person candlelight communion in the catacombs. They couldn’t get the insurance for the event, though.
Since then, a winery has suggested turning the tunnels into a wine cellar, and locals have campaigned to make the tunnels an Atlanta-like nightlife destination, suggesting in 1974 that retail outlets and a nightclub could fill the empty space. In 1977, in the wake of the OPEC oil embargo, a multi-state transit committee advocated for putting the tunnels to their originally intended use. None of these proposals, obviously, went anywhere.
“We’ve had people approach us about using the tunnel for everything from grain malting, to a water bottling operation, to nightclubs—you name it,” said Cincinnati’s Department of Transportation Director Michael Moore to The Verge in 2016. The facilities apparently aren’t in good enough condition to support public use; the floors are reportedly uneven, and a water main installed in the 1950s has a constant leak.
Subways built for politcal prestige seldom are successful.
Ideas for how to use the subway have continued flowing in since the turn of the Millennium, too, and in 2008, even the city formally revisited the question of what to do with the tunnels. It determined it could refit the tunnels for a modern subway for $100.5 million, fill them in with dirt for $19 million, or for $2.6 million, just preserve them as-is. Just as before, when faced with spending millions to finish the subway on the precipice of an economic collapse, Cincinnati chose the cheapest solution. To this day, the Cincinnati subway is maintained as a derelict public space—though it needn’t remain such forever.
“I’d like to think we have a future for mass transit here in the city,” Moore said in a 2020 YouTube documentary on the subway. “We can run light rail vehicles in it, actually. You have to run them at lower speeds, but they are compatible to put light rail, or an electrified bus system, or something like that in. So, when the dollars, and the resources, and the culture comes around for that, they do present a great option for us to create some kind of rapid transit system, and to put those tubes back into their intended use.”
For now, though, Cincinnati’s subways will remain empty, and serve only as reminders of a bygone era; one where public transit was seen not as an inhibitor of free parking, but as the solution for efficiently moving the masses that it is.
I just shake my head at this government, they just do not have a clue about transit.
After listening to NDP Minister of Housing and Attorney General, David Eby about housing, I was absolutely gobsmacked how ignorant he is about transit. If Eby is ignorant about transit, one can assume that the entire NDP government is as well!
The provincial and federal governments are covering most of the cost of the almost $3 billion cost of the SkyTrain extension and construction is underway. But Vancouver has yet to approve the plan to add “thousands and thousands of units” of rental housing along the route.
At this rate, says Eby, “the subway is going to be done before the Broadway corridor plan is approved.”
SUBWAYS ARE NOT BUILT TO BENEFIT LAND SPECULATORS AND LAND DEVELOPERS, SUBWAYS ARE BUILT WHEN TRAFFIC FLOWS ON A TRANSIT ROUTE EXCEED 15,000 PERSONS PER HOUR PER DIRECTION ON A TRANSIT ROUTE.
Again, the peak hour traffic flows on Broadway are under 4,000 pphpd; the Broadway 99-B Line bus has only a maximum capacity of 2,000 pphpd!
I ask this question, tongue in cheek, but is closer to the reality than many would think.
How many people in $2,500 a month and up, condos along Broadway are going to take transit (subway) to work in the Tri-Cities (Port Moody, Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam)?
Not many. In fact, I predict the subway will force more people off transit than attract to transit. Not a car will be taken off the road.
The Broadway subway is being built for two reasons, with the first being politcal prestige and the second, Vision Vancouver’s (the NDP’s farm team in the city of Vancouver) gifting of a $3 billion subway to land land speculators and land developers for building high rise condos and towers for the overseas money laundering crowd to further launder illicit international drug money.
Remember, Premier Horgan’s chief advisor is a former Vision Vancouver Councillor and big, big subway booster.
Is a financial embarrassment of TransLink at hand?
Monday morning I dropped my wife off at a suburban bus stop to catch the express bus going to the Canada Line. The bus had no more than seven people on board. The reason she took the bus, is that we are a one car family and I needed the car for an important appointment. My wife used to commute by bus daily but after the Canada Line opened, her commute to town increased 15 to 20 minutes.
A new local job, just before the Covid emergency, meant she only needed to commute to Vancouver once a week. With Covid she drove instead and could get to her work in under 50 minutes, compared to the 90 minutes using transit. She only works one day a week in town and using the car is no great extra cost, when compared to the bus.
The 602 came and being the last stop before its dash to Richmond there was a total of ten customers the bus, with two others boarding with my wife.
I have noticed the same phenomenon with other suburban routes, with express buses having no more than ten customers on board trundling back and forth.
What has happened?
The main culprit is covid-19 and two years of mask only travel; remote education and working at home has taken their toll.
One comment from a former commuter who emailed me was more blunt:
Until I started taking the car again to work, as I did not realize how crappy the bus service was.
A blunt assessment of the bus service which our cancel culture mainstream media would not allow on air or publish.
Something else that happened last week that puzzled me, New Westminster Mayor, Jonathan Coté announced he would not run in this year’s civic elections. Mayor, Jonathan Coté also happens to be the Chair of the Mayor’s Council on Transit a prestigious position to hold, especially at election time and he is not running and no one seems to want the job.
Could it be that bad news is in the offing? News that could cut short a politcal career?
The “good news, bad news”, chair of TransLink has been doing pod casts, singing hosannas about himself desperately trying to be the Mr. Rogers of TransLink.
Again, I wonder if he is trying to isolate himself from bad news?
I think, as do many others, that TransLink is tilting on a financial precipice, caused by lack of revenue generated by a lack ridership; lack of a user friendly transit service and a lack of affordable planning. Presently, all TransLink can afford is a $2.85 billion, 5.8 km subway under Broadway. The 16 km Expo Line to Langley is more than a billion dollars short of funding and TransLink is desperately trying to reduce operating costs by rationalizing bus service in both the City of Vancouver and metro Vancouver.
Both last summers heat dome and November’s monsoon rainfall, causing massive damage to the highway and rail infrastructure and the floods in the upper Fraser Valley, means there will be little, if any financial relief in the next few years.
Shilling for higher taxes for TransLink in a civic election year is a big politcal no-no.
My problem is a simple one…I can’t pay it!” Harry Mage February 23, 1952
TransLink by skill of their media manipulation has kept the dire financial news from the public as Covid, vaccinations and the daily dose of goody two shoes news from the mainstream media has masked transit problems ……. for now.
The day of reckoning is coming, either increase taxes, as Trudeau is planning to do on the on paper value of houses or cut back on transit and transportation mega projects and build what is affordable and what is useful.
My prediction that the news of tax increases will come in December of this year, right after the civic elections as newly elected civic politicians will be safe for another four years.
TransLink is just too large, just too corrupt to fail.
The Covid-19 pandemic has made absolutely clear, we cannot go back to normal, as it has forever changed how people behave. Covid-19 is a prelude for great change in BC.
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Last summer’s heat dome and subsequent wild fires shows we cannot go back to normal.
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The recent atmospheric rivers resulting in massive floods and land slides, demonstrates we cannot go back to Normal
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Metro Vancouver’s regional transit system has been greatly affected by the pandemic as thousands of of people stay home, with many either working or studying from home. This has put a massive finical strain on TransLink, which now claims a deficit of at least $75 million a month.
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From the onset of “social distancing” TransLink seemed OK operating empty buses, without any hint of a “plan B” for operation during times of emergency. TransLink is now asking the provincial and federal governments for more money to keep empty buses operating and to keep huge executive salaries being paid.
TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit are still pretending to proceed with their pet $2.83 billion, 5.6 km Broadway subway and their $3.95 billion 16 km extensions to the Expo and Millennium Lines, despite clear evidence that both projects are nothing more than “gold-plated” prestige projects, designed to further the profits of land speculators and land developers who support many of the mayors at election time. Both projects will only improve transit on paper and nothing more.
The proposed Broadway subway is being built on a route without enough ridership to justify its construction and the flip flop from LRT to light-metro in Surrey, will be again be built on a route where the ridership will not justify construction costs. TransLink has not offered an estimate of the increased operating costs or increased annual subsidies for both projects.
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Questionable ridership projections are based on future condo tower development, based on foreign investment and this is not guaranteed! The already huge cost does not include the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro (erroneously called SkyTrain) cars, nor the inflationary cost increases for cement and specialty steel, needed for subway and viaduct construction.
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It is no secret that the often renamed and now called Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM), as used on the Expo and Millennium Lines is obsolete, as it has been obsolete since the late 1980’s, being more expensive to build, maintain and operate than its chief competitor, light rail.
Only seven such systems have been built in the past 40 years and only three are seriously used for urban transit, despite the system being rebranded six times!
Today, modern light-metro systems such as Ottawa and Seattle use light rail vehicles, because of their cost effectiveness and their ability to operate on lesser rights-of-ways, yet because MALM uses Linear Induction Motors, it is impossible to use LRV’s on the proprietary MALM system.
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MALM cannot be built cheaply, nor can it be operated and maintained cheaply. The taxpayer pays a first class cost for a second class system and this cannot continue, post Covid-19.
The recent sale of Bombardier to Alstom puts into question the future availability of MALM cars and spare parts! With Covid-19 and a major economic downturn, production of niche transit systems like the proprietary MALM light metro, maybe discontinued. Alstom has already shown that it has little use for proprietary transit systems by discontinuing production of the TVR guided bus used in several European cities, leaving operators scrambling for spare parts.
Vancouver is now the only customer for MALM, as the systems built in Korea and Malaysia have mired Bombardier and SNC Lavalin (the patent holders of the proprietary railway) in legal misadventure, due in part, to healthy “success fees” paid to lobbyists and politicians, to ensure MALM was to be built!
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The Broadway subway and the Expo Line extension to Langley extensions to the SkyTrain light-metro system are grossly overpriced for what they will do as light ridership on both extensions will greatly increase operating costs. Broadway, current peak hour transit customer flows are under 4,000 persons per hour per direction (pphpd). The North American standard for building a subway is a transit route with customer flows of at least 15,000 pphpd and operational subsidies increase dramatically with smaller customer flows.
Despite deliberate and misleading statements by TransLink and the City of Vancouver, Broadway is not the busiest transit corridor in Canada, as a representative of TransLink stated in a letter, Broadway was “our region’s most over crowded bus route“
TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit have never been honest with the long term costs of the project, which over a fifty year period, will have grave implications for the metro Vancouver and BC taxpayers.
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According to the Toronto Transit Commission, who have a long experience operating subways, the Broadway subway to Arbutus, alone, will add $40 million annually to TransLink’s operating costs.
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The fifty year costs for subways and grade separated transit are staggering, estimated more than $1 billion per km for the subway portion and just under $600 million per km for the elevated sections of the light metro system. Already the original Expo Line desperately needs a minimum $2 billion to rehab (full rehab about $3 billion) the system and increase capacity beyond Transport Canada’s Operating Certificate maximum of 15,000 pphpd.
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TransLink has ignored these costs, for fear of pointed questions about the massive future costs including tax increases.
The following is the 50 year costs of various transit modes, by Ontario’s MetroLinx.
Spending $7 billion for 16 km of light-metro pales, when one could instead invest $1,3 billion on both, the proposed Fraser Valley Rail project reinstating a 130km Vancouver to Chilliwack passenger service and $1.5 billion rehabbing the E&N, reinstating a Victoria to Courtney 183 km passenger service and still have $4 billion left over to invest in regional transit projects in Metro Vancouver.
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Going into three years of the Covid-19 emergency has created long term financial hardships for taxpayers, not just TransLink. Even though there are generous government support, each month of lock down generates more and more fiscal instability for the taxpayer as future tax increases to pay for the emergency are certain.
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The taxpayer will very soon, be in no mood, to fund Vancouver’s and Surrey’s $7 billion gold-plated, prestige transit projects, nor will the taxpayer and the transit user be willing to pay higher fares and other taxes for transit that about 85% of the population will not use.
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As Premier, you must step in and say “enough” as TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit have isolated themselves from public oversight and ignore public debate.
In 2015, 62% percent of the people voted against TransLink’s demands for money, yet they have done nothing but play the taxpayer and voter for fools by offering virtually the same plan with no real public input. TransLink’s public oversight is nothing but a charade; a smokescreen to carry on with their hugely expensive rapid transit agenda.
In the post Covid world TransLink must plan for affordable transit projects; build user friendly transit projects and refrain from doing the same expensive thing over and over again hoping for different results.
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2022 and beyond will be an age of higher taxes, to pay for today’s emergency funding and rebuilding the provinces road infrastructure from the results of atmospheric rivers; more people will work at home, thus fewer people will use public transit; social spacing will see different travel routines, again reducing the need for gold-plated transit options.
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Then the reality of unintended consequences of today’s reality will come into play and those could prove very expensive.
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TransLink needs to rethink its planning; the Mayor’s Council on Transit needs to rethink how transit is provided and funded; and the provincial government must rethink its rubber stamping Metro Vancouver’s questionable transit planning.
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The taxpayer and the transit customer deserve far better than the current sham planning, complete lack of oversight and failure to correct the current mess maybe felt at the polls in the next election three years hence.
After 23 years the taxpayer is still held hostage to expensive and myopic light-metro planning.
This news item explains the huge cost of metro Vancouver’s transit construction. Though the article thinks that $500 million per kilometer, for the Broadway subway is reasonable, it must remembered that the subway it is being built on a transit route that has only a fraction of the ridership deemed necessary for a subway.
Much cheaper transit options have been ignored!
Pre Covid, the Broadway 99-B Line bus had a maximum capacity of only 2,000 pphpd and the entire Broadway route saw maximum traffic flows under 4,000 pphpd, far less that the 15,000 pphpd deemed to be the North American minimum for building a subway.
The per kilometre cost of the Broadway subway may seem reasonable but building a subway on such a route is not.
The SkyTrain light-metro system history is checkered with political meddling.
The initial Expo Line from downtown Vancouver to New Westminster cost as much as the original Vancouver to Richmond, Lougheed Mall and Whalley plan.
The then BC Social Credit party entered into a political deal with the then Ontario Conservative government, to purchase an already obsolete proprietary light-metro system (renamed from ICTS to ALRT) from the Ontario Crown Corporation, the Urban Transit Development Corporation. It later transpired that the Social Credit government acquired the expertise of the Conservative government’s politcal “Blue Machine” to win the next provincial election in BC
The full cost of the 1978 LRT plan, $430 mil. to $550 mil. was much less than the 1982 $890 mil.Vancouver to New West Expo Line.
The SkyTrain Millennium Line was the result of the NDP government being seduced by SNC Lavalin and Bombardier, instead of the original and cheaper Vancouver/Lougheed Light Rail project, connecting LRT to the Tri-Cities. Bombardier acquired ALRT, when they purchased the UTDC at a fire sale price after Lavalin (which purchased the UTDC) went bankrupt trying to build a renamed ALM (formerly ALRT) system in Thailand.
The formerly called Evergreen line was the uncompleted portion of the Millennium Line, which cost far more than the originally planned LRT.
As soon as the Evergreen Line was completed, it was promptly renamed the Millennium Line!
The Canada Line was build hat the behest of the BC Liberal government, resulting with the only heavy-rail metro in the world, built as a light-metro and having less capacity than a simple streetcar line, costing a fraction to build!
The Expo Line extension to Langley is more of the same. The false claim by Surrey mayor Doug McCallum, that the Expo line could be extended to Langley at the same cost of LRT and the subsequent promise by premier Horgan to build the extension to Langley, has been mired with the fact that the 27 km phase 1 & 2, LRT (connecting to Langley), now costs much less than the now 16 km, Expo Line extension, which is currently underfunded by over $1 billion!
Sadly, the taxpayer is not paying for good transit, rather taxpayer is paying a a lot more for politically inspired transit projects.
Why Canada gets less for more when it comes to building transit
By Laura OsmanThe Canadian Press
Sun., Dec. 26, 2021
OTTAWA – In early September, Conservative candidate Jennifer McAndrew stood outside a suburban Ottawa transit hub in the battleground riding of Kanata-Carleton to make a major campaign promise.
“A Conservative government will support and prioritize Phase 3 of the LRT extension right here to Kanata and beyond,” a smiling McAndrew said in a video posted to her Facebook page on Sept. 2, just as the campaign was heating up.
Not a day later, her Liberal opponent, Jenna Sudds, posted her own video to make the very same promise.
While some transit advocates would be overjoyed to see cross-party commitments to build new light-rail infrastructure, it was a disappointment to Toronto transit researcher Stephen Wickens who spent more than a year warning governments against those kind of campaign promises.
The reason is that Canada pays a higher price to build light-rail transit compared to our international counterparts, driven chiefly by the depth of underground tunnels, the grandiosity of the stations and labour costs.
But several experts agree it has just as much to do with something else: politics.
“That’s the heart of it,” said Wickens, who authored an investigative study on the soaring cost of Toronto subway projects commissioned by the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario last year.
But in Canada, the costs seem to go off the rails.
By Levy’s calculations, Toronto’s Ontario Line should cost $735-million per kilometre. The Blue Line extension plan in Montreal? About $775-million per kilometre. Vancouver’s Broadway SkyTrain seems almost reasonable at nearly $500-million per kilometre.
Political meddling at all levels of government — by all parties — can cause a knock-on effect on the price tag of projects.
For example, the cheapest tunnelling method is also the most annoying for the neighbours, so local councillors will up the cost to avoid complaints from constituents.
Just over a decade ago, Vancouver opted for a cheaper tunnelling option when it built the 19-kilometre Canada Line by digging a trench at street level and covering the top. The cut-and-cover method, as it’s known, led to big savings, but also disruptions, controversy and even lawsuits.
“The memories apparently remain so unpleasant that city leaders have made clear the Broadway Line will be entirely tunnelled, even with project estimates running at about $500 million per kilometre, or about 4.5 times what was paid for the Canada Line,” Wickens wrote in his report.
Political promises can also lock governments into commitments that may not offer the best value. As a 2019 study by the Institute of Municipal Finance and Governance put it, the best projects based on the available evidence take a back seat to political considerations. Civil servants are forced then to give what researchers dub “decision-based evidence” to justify a political promise.
“Who is a lowly engineer to say ‘we don’t actually need that’ or ‘let’s cut this station,’ or ‘I know you’ve promised this interest group something so you need to break that promise because that’s going to cost us another half a billion dollars,’” said Levy in an interview with The Canadian Press.
It’s not just a Canadian phenomenon.
Levy and other researchers at the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University have found Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and United States overpay compared to peer counties like Spain, Italy and France.
Marco Chitti, a Montreal-based associate researcher on the project, said one domestic factor that may drive up costs is our federal political system that offers significant power to single parties trying to win votes from the public.
He said parliaments of other nations are afforded more power to water down proposals from the ruling party and get more bang for their buck.
Another problem is that Canadian cities and provinces often lack the in-house expertise to offer technical advice and oversee projects, Chitti said. He pointed to Italy where civil servants with technical expertise draw up detailed, costed plans before politicians make any commitments.
Chitti said the path to lowering costs on transit projects starts with admitting there is a problem that needs fixing.
“Most politicians in Canada are not aware that Canada has a huge problem, a huge, tremendous problem on cost,” Chitti said.
“I really hope that in a couple of years there will be much more discussion in Canada about the fact that we have ballooning costs, and that they are really out of control.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 26, 2021.
Alon Levy, a Berlin-based transit researcher and writer, calculated that globally, the median construction cost for an urban subway was less than $300 million per kilometre in 2019.
After three years, the news about rapid transit goes from bad to worse.
The Expo Line extension to Langley is now costing more than the revised cost of $3.95 billion and despite much false information that the line is fully funded, it is not. The claim that Prime minister Trudeau’s Liberal government will fully fund the Expo line Extension, is grossly overstated, as all what the P.M. will fund is 40% of the cost of the less than 16 km extension. This means that TransLink and the provincial government must ante up 60% of the costs.
With the recent massive flooding in the upper Fraser Valley, Merritt and Princeton, combined the biblical deluge that smashed three major highways in southern BC, which rebuilding is going to cost the province an estimated $5 billion (heard on the Radio) or more, I doubt that the province will ante any more money to this now contentious and over budget project.
The provincial government is not going to look kindly on TransLink, when they could have had a 27 km of LRT (phase 1 and 2), up and running by 2027 and a cheaper cost of 16km of SkyTrain that may never be built!
Now there is a new push for the 2030 Olympics, which means completing the Broadway subway to UBC will be a priority. The cost will be a minimum of $5 billion and add the much needed $3 billion mid life rehab for the Expo and Millennium Lines, means the government and TransLink must source $8 billion.
Added to this issue is that Alstom now owns the MALM system and may pull the plug at any time as Vancouver is now the sole customer for the proprietary railway. what this means is that the costs for the SkyTrain light metro system may escalate out of control and new civic and provincial politicians may pull the plug on all expansion.
The sad end is that the glowingly disgraced Mayor of Surrey, by cancelling LRT, may have screwed Surrey’s chances for any sort of rail transit for the foreseeable future and condemned the city to endemic congestion and gridlock.
Well its done, the idiots delight of new politicians in Surrey have voted to stop light rail.
Now they think they can build SkyTrain to Langley for the same cost as light rail.
Laughable.
The HATCH Report, planning to build SkyTrain to Langley put the cost at $2.95 billion, in 2017 dollars.
Well, in 2021, the cost to build the Expo Line extension to Langley has soared past $3.95 billion!
So Surrey’s new batch of Councillors are going to forgo a fully funded light rail line and instead will try to source $1.55 billion in new funding to build SkyTrain to Langley.
Mayor McCallum is on record saying that;” they can build SkyTrain at grade to reduce cost”.
SkyTrain at grade? You must be joking, the Movia Automatic Light Metro, as used on the Expo and Millennium lines is a LIM powered, automatic railway requiring a substantial guideway and if built at grade must be heavily protected by cement walls and chain link fencing to prevent egress.
Really, doesn’t the mayor realize that the guideway for the driverless light metro must be protected by a 10 foot, razor wire topped fence, as it is in Vancouver? Building SkyTrain at-grade is akin to building a Berlin Wall!
Surrey will be now mired in endless congestion and its associated costs.
As for Metro Vancouver, it is fast becoming L.A. North.
Rail transit will not be built in Surrey until 2035 or more; rail transit will never get to Langley.
Officially, the project has been delayed 2028, but with recent events, this delay may continue until the project is abandoned.
Portions of the busy corridor, its sidewalks and parking stalls have been blocked off for months to accommodate work on the Broadway Subway Project, a 5.7-kilometre extension of the Millennium Line.“It’s been brutal,” said Neil Wyles, executive director of the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Association.
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